These two pictures were taken in the same place, of the same building, one year apart. The Bank of China fruit stand has been replaced by a pharmacy, the whole building tiled over, a facade added. I think the picture stands for itself, really.
Change is coming in my own life, as well. This will be my last semester teaching at SISU, and we are more than half way done. I love this place, but I will be moving to Beijing in early August. I have been hired, almost as some cosmically impossible joke, by Goldman Sachs to translate stock research. My other options--law school applications--did not pan out. As almost some sort of bizarre record, I was wait-listed at every single school, ranging from the near elite to the not-so-much crowd. I avoided being wait-listed at Detroit Mercy Law School by not applying.
Perhaps my failure to gain admittance is not all bad. The job in Beijing will put money in my pocket, rather than turning me upside down, shaking, and having me sign non-defautable student loans. Plus, it's unlikely I would have obtained a job at as well known a company if I graduated from law school anyway. Then there is the supposed "law-pocolypse" going on, and I certainly fit into the "good at school, didn't know what to do" mould. So this might be all for the best.
I will be in Beijing for up to two years, at which point GS will either transfer me to New York or cook my squid (fire me, in Chinese). Moving to NY sounds okay, sounds as good as anything realistic, I suppose.
The truth is, I really love my life here. But it's not sustainable. I've had a hard time finding a girlfriend because, well, I'd prefer a native English speaker. But of course, she should look nice in a qipao, too. My bank account hovers around the "everything is okay as long as nothing bad happens" line. I was sick a few weeks ago, and could not find a physician to see me if I had to. I was taken to the premier hospital in the city, which failed to take a personal history, and thereby made me sicker. I saw a doctor for less than 90 seconds. Retirement, something which young people now get to worry about, is impossible here.
Those are the bad things, but the good things are far more. The school is a permanent community that lives, plays, fights, and works together. Teachers are employed for life, and it provides the stability in relationships and life that I love. Everyone is tightly interwoven--house stacked on houses, lives stacked on lives. Children and elderly people are taken care of by a community. And community is what I love most of all. I love my students, working with them to build their confidence first, their English second. I enjoy joking and laughing with them, occasionally having one open up to me. I find myself slipping into the romance of an idea sometimes, projecting myself backwards into a simpler time, imaging SISU in my eye as a place without change, serving a simple mission, living and working as one.
It has been three rapid, slow, painful and joyous, years. Perhaps I will return here in the future. But I do not know.
Originally, I believed that many of my friends here would be gone next year. One friend moved abroad to be with her fiancee. Two others planned to go abroad, to work and study next year. One was rejected by a British University that interviews her twice as along as any other candidates. Another was hired to work in America, but whose visa has been rejected. Evidently, America wouldn't want talented Chinese women to visit without waiting two years in between. I see institutions, who have been erected to improve our lives, also ripping down the lives of individuals. It's confusing to watch, and it makes me feel slightly guilty to leave. I don't know how I escaped the wrath of institutions while others, just as skilled, have not.
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Meilian Consulting
http://meilian.intuitwebsites.com 
