June 18 - Farewell China

This is the "Little Woods" on our Central Campus of SDU.  The old wood was rotting and dangerous.  They took about four weeks to finish it.  It looks great!

The last week has been such a busy time for us. We needed to sort through things, pack, clean, and prepare the apartment for the new BYU China teachers that will be coming in August.  With all of that going on, we also had lots of invitations to share a meal with friends that we may never see again, but always hope to see in the future. 

We had our usual lunch with Eva on June 12.  Eva invited us to go to the “noodle” restaurant that is on the west side of campus near McDonald’s, where we have eaten several times before.  We like the food there.  Jane came along with us.  We were having a nice lunch, when suddenly a big commotion interrupted us.  Two of the male cooks in the kitchen started fighting.  They were eventually pulled apart, and it didn’t seem like there was any damage to either person. We have only seen something like that once before in our experiences in China.  I know that they are still human, that there are still bullies in the world, and that sometimes tempers flare for different reasons.  But this incident marred our last meal.  David and I both lost our appetites after that.  I was so afraid, because in the kitchen, there are knives and fires.  It could have been worse than just the yelling and the beating, but it was a rather sad ending to our last lunch with Eva and Jane.

Zhang Xiaoli often came to pick us up and take us to the English Salon at Qilu Hopsital.  She had shirts made for David and I with this picture from his WeChat that he had posted.  I didn't put mine on though.

Sunday evening, we had dinner with Bob, his parents, Jay and Tresa Wilkins, and Eva.  Bob is doing really well in his schooling at Duke University in the US.  He has been accepted to a program at UCLA in the Bio-physics area, so he had to come back to China to get a new visa so that he could study there in August to November and then go back to Duke to work with the professor who sees the greatness in Bob.  He is such a great person!  It was nice to be with them again.

Bob's dad, Eva, Yi Bing, and Bob.

Tresa Wilkins, Eva, and Jay Wilkins.

We also had lunch with Daryl Reeves on Monday June 17.  He has become a good friend, and I know he will miss us.  Daryl is on the Autism spectrum, and it is hard for some people to understand and accept those with Autism. We had some fun and interesting visits with him.  Our door was always open to him, and he would just stop in when he felt like it.  Sometimes, he just wanted a listening ear and other times he wanted our opinion.  He always had some interesting stories to tell of his experiences and travels.  He was a great help to us several times, because of his connections at SDU.  We wish we had known about the restaurant that he took us to earlier.  It was close to campus, the food was great, and they had “yam balls.”  We love fresh yam balls!

The banners are raised above the main street of our campus to thank the professors and colleges of the university.

Monday evening, we had dinner with the Wilkins, Kaycee, and Aaron at Lydia’s restaurant.  We had gotten a lot of packing finished during the day, so we felt like we could spare the time to go enjoy a last meal with them in China.  We will surely miss Aaron!  What a strength he has been and a help to the BYU teachers!  He is coming to the US this summer because his brother is getting married in July.  He is also trying to get into a special program in the US for dentistry.  I hope he is successful.  We will be able to see to Kaycee in the US also.  She lives in Boise but comes to Salt Lake to visit with her mom frequently.  

We saw this truck loaded down with all the bicycles.  These are the rental bicycles that line the streets of Jinan and most cities of China.  You can rent one for one Yuan per hour.  Periodically they will load them up to take them for repairs or just move them to a different area of the city.

Tuesday morning turned out to be rather hectic.  I had to call AT&T to get our phone service turned back on, finish the last details, and also get the last of the packing in.  There is always more than you think there is.  We knew, especially with the ceramic plates, that we were given from the group at Qilu hospital, that we were going to have problems getting them all to fit in the bags, so we decided that we needed to send another box of stuff home.  David got that taken care of on Monday after we took care of all the Exit requirements that we had to do to check out of SDU. 

When we were at the office to get the papers to check out, we didn’t know what department we had to go to, to get one of the red stamps from.  One of the workers in the office started calling, and when she had to wait for a call back from one person, she started talking to us.  She expressed how sad the entire university was that we would not be back.  We are a legend here, she said, in many ways.  She told us that Eva would talk about things that we had done.  We gave Eva a copy of the book we had made of our first year here.  The woman told us that Eva would share some of the things from our adventures, and how impressed that many of them were with the things we did.  It was so nice of her to tell us.

After the taxi came, I was still trying to put some things away, especially the stuff in the kitchen.  I had to leave some things undone, and I feel bad about that, but I don’t know what else I could do.  I couldn’t wash the rest of the towels, and I had put some bread in the microwave when the maid was there to clean on Monday afternoon, that I had planned to get out, but each time I headed to the kitchen to do that, something distracted me.  

We hope that they will avoid putting other people in the apartment for the summer.  There was too much BYU stuff to put in boxes and hide away. Eva took the things that were more expensive to her apartment until the next couple comes.  It would be nice for them to extend that courtesy, to just leave that place empty for those two months, but it is business, and if they need the apartment, they will use it.  If we had been allowed to pay for the two months of rent, then they would have left it.

As we were leaving the apartment, I put my key on the table next to where David had put his key.  Then I tried to think if there was something else, but Eva was kind of pushing me to just go.  I walked out the door and started down two steps and remembered what I had forgotten and needed - my cane!  Eva quickly called over to the International Office that is in charge of the apartments and a woman came quickly with the extra key to open the door.  It did set us back about 10 minutes from our desired leave time, but I didn’t feel we needed to be in such a hurry that I couldn’t take a minute to really think about the last few things.  Anyway, I got my cane, and we hurried down the stairs, but not until I grabbed the key that had been mine and put it in my purse.  I will give it to the new couple when we meet them, and then they will have it.

We had to wait in line for almost an hour before they would open the doors to go check in at the international area of the airport.  The taxi driver had helped us get our bags put on two of the carts at the airport.  We knew it was going to be difficult to maneuver all the luggage we had, but it wasn’t too bad.  

Four large bags, two larger carry-ons and two smaller bags.  Waiting in line for the doors to the international flight are to open.

Jinan airport.

The flights were long, and they had wheelchairs and people there to help us get through the maze of leaving China and entering the US.  Working through the fog of jet lag is always hard.  We know it is a part of the travel back and forth over the ocean, probably the hardest part, but necessary to do what we did in China.

Jinan from the air.  Last look.

China will always be a happy memory in our lives.  We hope that we can travel back to visit, but a lot of that will depend on how David’s cancer goes.  We also hope that some of our friends will be able to find their way to visit us here in Utah.  I know it’s not easy to travel, and more expensive for most of them, but it is still a hope that we can host them in our beautiful country as we were hosted so gracefully and kindly in China.

In order to get our precious plates from the Qilu Hospital home, we had to find bubble wrap.  The smallest amount we could find was this!  50 cm by 50 meters!  It only cost us about 40 Yuan ($6).

Getting these plates home without breaking them was a big deal.  Little David and Porter were happy to have us home!

Farewell China, we hope to see you again!