Well, two years has been very swift. The movers came, and packed up all our stuff, and we have packed our bags. Tonight is our very last night in our adopted hometown of Beijing. I am still in denial about the fact that tomorrow we will be leaving our house, and not ever coming back. It hardly feels real. It seems like we were just starting to put our roots down, and figure out this mess and now it's done. But I must say that I have enjoyed our two years here and we have lots of great memories and pictures to share for years to come.
I know China has been in the news a lot as the next new power, the great threat, or the next big market, and I must say after living here I would have to agree. Change is moving so fast that it's hard to keep up. Just looking outside our door at the small piece of Beijing that surrounds us you can see the change that has happened in the two years we've been here. When we arrived in China, there was a corner store in a little squat building surrounded by some other decrepit little shops and standard crappy housing on top. We went away on vacation one weekend and when we came back the store, the shops, the building even, were all gone, except a big pile of rubble. Now there is a nice new modern building that looks like it's on the verge of opening up any day now. Everything changes so amazingly fast here that you really can say that Beijing is different from day to day.
I remember being impressed upon arriving in Beijing by the press of humanity, as well as the seemingly unfettered chaos that abounds in the streets. Two years is just enough time so that the crowds start to feel less crowded, and you can see the patterns in the chaos. At the beginning, the traffic especially, seemed deadly every time I went anywhere, buses would pass within inches, cars would whiz by and I would think to myself, "I almost died!" Now I don't even blink. If a car, bus, bike, or person, passes me by with more than 2 inces to spare I don't even notice it. I am still resistant to the idea of the chaotic mass, instead of a line to check out at a grocery store, or buy subway tickets, but I can if the situation calls for it, elbow my way to the front of a crowded subway, or turn my body into an impassable object to prevent others from forming a chaotic mass in front of me.
Living the foreign service life, I did not experience "the real China," but for that I am glad. I would probably hate China, if I had to spend a workday traveling to four different government offices to pay my phone bill, or live in an unheated hutong (Chinese courtyard house) with neighbors who think that crowded and loud are good times. (Chinese people like to go on vacation when everyone else goes, and like to go to the destinations that everyone else goes to. During any given Chinese holiday you can go through a tourist site without walking if you merely stick out your elbows and pick up your feet) But I now have a feel for China that I never had before. I can't say that I "know" China or the Chinese, but I can relate a little better than before, and for the next two weeks, while my China knowledge is still current, I will be able to say I understand a little of what is going on.