Indigo Shideler (Final Reflections)

Program: CIEE Accelerated Chinese Language in Shanghai, Summer

Last weekend, I got stranded in Jiangxi.

This is my last week in China, so I chose to travel relatively close to Shanghai for the final weekend. Our classes end on Wednesday, I have exams this Thursday and Friday, and on that wonderful, ephemeral Sunday, I looked at my train tickets online to see that no trains were running from Jiangxi to Shanghai until Tuesday due to a typhoon. What do you do? What can be done?

The most fun (and only practicable) answer is to lie low in Jiangxi with your new Chinese friend and try to remember how to pre-apologize for missing class like you practiced last semester, as I did. Sure, I could’ve asked my friend, but I am not a cheater!

I made this friend here several weeks ago, and I asked her to come with me for my only solo-planned trip of the summer. For all that I love asking people to come to study sessions, to eat lunch with me, and the like, this is the first time I’ve actually asked a friend to travel a real distance with me for entirely impractical reasons. A friend that I only met last month, at that. And all this time that I was in Jiangxi with her, marveling at the beauty of the mountains in Shangrao, eating the saltiest peanut noodles I’ve ever had in my life, finding a new hotel when our train got cancelled, watching Chinese movies with no English captions (with her translating what she felt was important), horrifying her with Instagram reels, I was pretty overwhelmed by the strange nature of connection.

Where would I be if I hadn’t asked her to come with me? Waterlogged and taskless in Jiangxi, alone. And where will I be in three short days? Halfway across the globe, not alone, but not with her.

This is my final reflection: I’m already having a hard time letting go of Shanghai. The people, the place, who I am here. A foreigner, a strange American friend. I never hit denial, anger, or bargaining, but I feel like I reached depression before the loss even happened. Where will I get jianbing in Madison? Even if I come back, I will probably never walk up these same apartment steps again. When will I see my friend again? I didn’t go everywhere I wanted to go in China, will I get this kind of chance again? Has everything already passed me by? It hardly brushed my fingertips. It’s already gone.

I think what I’m saying is that there are so many opportunities in this world. Some you are born with, some must be achieved, like friendship or a visa, and some can only be thrust upon you, like a typhoon. I am in China. I must plan if I wish to travel. It is only sometimes that you get an extra two days with someone and bond personally, irreconcilably. And it is irreconcilable to me; a nearly impossible friendship, somehow still entirely doable. A connection inherently tenuous. It is as it is. And irreconcilable too are my last few days here, greetings interspersed and marred with goodbyes.

This is inherent to the return from abroad, which is something to note for anyone looking into it, but it is also true that my eight-week program is particularly short. Maybe I would recommend a semester program. Maybe I would recommend just moving! Maybe I will come back next summer! Maybe I will never leave!

I’ve learned so much. I’ve gained so much, in language knowledge, in navigation skills, in friends and connections, in pounds of luggage. Really, you do need the extra space in your suitcase. And you really should apply for things, whether they seem immediately viable or not. I was able to afford this study abroad with help from many scholarships, with support from advisors, and with a great internal motivation to learn. I think it’s important to make big decisions, big shifts in your world, in directions you know will be useful or interesting, and to commit to them as much as possible. That is my reflection.

I’m already back in Shanghai. Soon I will be back in America. But maybe sometime in the near future I won’t be missing China anymore. I don’t see a future where I’m not aiming to get back!