Journey to the East

Today, my second semester at Aston officially came to a close. It passed, even more than the first, incredibly quickly. There is, I’m sure, some wholly appropriate metaphor I could use here, comparing my time here with the wind: the semester began in March as a frigid gust, and blew through the spring into the summer as a swiftly moving current of warm air. In any case, I’ve been here for a year now, and while in some cases that both seems like and is a very long time, I find myself often thinking that it seems precisely the opposite.

One of the interesting things about working for a school whose employees work, by and large, on six month contracts is that people come and go rather quickly. If you stay around for a year or so, you become one of the veteran staff members. I find myself going into the third term of working at Aston as one of the most experienced teachers in the city of Ji’nan. That’s an odd feeling for me. Suddenly, I’m one of the one who’s answering questions about where to go, what to do about lessons, who to call to ask certain questions and the like. A year’s worth of accumulated experience goes a long way, I’ve found, but it still doesn’t seem possible that I should be the one helping the new recruits find their footing in this city.

I’ll also have to be learning some new tricks myself. After a year out on the west end of Ji’nan, in an apartment complex on a street called DiKou Lu (堤口路), I’ll be moving tomorrow to a new neighborhood and a new apartment. The new place is on YingXiong Shan Lu (英雄山路) literally, “Hero Mountain Street,” so named because of it’s proximity to the aforementioned mountain.  It’s one I know well, as my friends Mackenzie and Joanna lived there up until this point. Now, I’ll live within close walking distance of a pretty attractive area of Ji’nan (the mountain is surrounded by a big park, the entrance of which is on my new street), as well as Ji’nan’s Culture Market (where one can buy lots of nice calligraphy, pottery, jewelry and antiques), the Provincial Sports Center (where all the local team’s home soccer matches are played), and a pretty good and diverse restaurant street with a large decorative archway. It will be a nice setting to live in, and I’m looking forward to setting up shop over there.

It’s not insignificant to me, and perhaps a little fitting, that my last night in this apartment comes one year to the day after I left the United States, and mere hours after completing my original year-long contract with Aston. My change in apartments, in a way, closes one chapter of my time here. The experiences, I think, bookend each other very nicely.  As my friend Chris put it: it is a break in continuity within greater continuity. I will remain in Ji’nan, but under different circumstances, which will allow for new and varied adventures and opportunities for exploration.

It also seems fitting that this should occur on the brink of Fall’s arrival, which is itself (even in East China) a season of great change. In Ji’nan, September’s imminent arrival marks the end of a brief “rainy season.” For much of August, the city was caught in a drizzle. Now (though the rain continues to fall every now and then), the city has dried somewhat, and the sweltering heat of summer has subsided. While it is by no means truly fall yet, you can feel a sense that soon, the long summer will be over. Slowly but surely, these signs are beginning to emerge: mooncakes have returned to display cases in grocery stores in anticipation of Mid-Autumn Festival, roasted sweet potato vendors are beginning to pop up again, fall clothing items are beginning to pop up in department stores, public schools have started their academic years, university students have returned to campus. Very soon, the season will have completely changed, and we’ll all be looking at another Ji’nan winter. From where I sit now it’s hard to imagine, but as I’ve learned in a year here change comes quickly. More to come soon.