Goodbyes are hard. I tend to make them brief and not to linger.
In the last week of June, I said farewell to many good people. I can’t list them all here, but I do have photos to remember some of them by.
I’ll miss Rachel for her spirit, her generosity, her insight into culture and psyche, and her family which she so generously shared with me in Xishuangbanna.
I’ll miss Xulu for being my tattoo angel and friend, for playing frisbee on the beach, and for all the help she gave me as I tried to navigate in an unfamiliar culture.
I’ll miss Sunny for being so much like her name: someone who is always cheerful, who puts a smile on my face every time I see her, and who’s a terrific TA as well.
My student Anne was the sweetest six year old imaginable. It was lovely coming into class and seeing her so obviously glad to see me.
Paul is a fearlessly verbal student, a young man who constantly brought new words and phrases to class to try out. At his suggestion, I took the whole class to see Godzilla before I left town. And as a parting gift, I gave him a book about the Marvel Comics universe, something he knows a great deal about already.
My colleagues at Shane English Yuxi held my goodbye banquet on my second-to-last day of teaching. It all happened so quickly — it seems like only a couple months ago I was attending my own welcome banquet. I will very much miss my teaching colleagues, who were my friends, mentors and teachers.
Paul, my boss, taught me how to teach and the connection between instruction and performance.
Matt taught me to love Swansea soccer.
JJ showed me that music is an international connector; some of my happiest evenings in Yuxi were spent listening to him sing and play guitar at a local music bar. Luciana taught me to understand her strange Yorkshire dialect (which apparently has a critical shortage of consonants) and how to make a comfortable home wherever you are.
David was a terrific friend who regularly reminded me that the world is full of the bizarre, the wonderful and the fascinating.
I didn’t get good banquet photos of Daniel and Silas, but the former renewed my own idealism while the latter taught me how important it is to have a quest.
24 hours after my farewell banquet ended, I was on a plane bound for Vietnam thinking of all the good people I’d left behind. I hope very much to see them again.
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