I know I already made a post on the Henan College of Finance and Taxation but I did not talk about the attachment I formed with the students there. I was reluctant to talk about this for fear of condemnation by the people around me and who read my blog.

Actually it was the attachment to these students that made me very reluctant to leave China and Zhengzhou.

Great stories have been told of people who cannot make their mind up such as Hamlet (‘to be or not to be’) or Edward Norton in Fight Club. I similarly questioned myself and my own life philosophy in Zhengzhou before I was forced to leave.

In 2014 and 2013 I was only 20 and 21 years old so I was very immature and naive. I actually shouldn’t have gotten the work visa strictly because the rules stated you have to be at least 24 at the time (if I recall correctly). However my boss managed to talk the people at the Foreigners bureau around I guess (he told me he had a ‘relationship’ with one of the staff at the bureau). Most of the students were of a similar age to myself and female. Very difficult to say what caused them to like me. I only spent a year and a half in China so I still don’t really know the culture, and anyway there are still things about Scottish culture I don’t know.

I’ve already written about Popo but I have not written about some of my students. Very early on I put up a load of English names on the board and they all selected one. They seemed to find this hilarious. Making fun of each other’s name. I guess there is no harm referring to them here by their English names (as these are not their legal names and not what they were known by outside of their English class). Blair, Kelly, Clare, Toey, Roz (and more). All the various rules I introduced they tolerated such as logging their attendance, I even collected their mobile phones up one time (can’t remember why). All the various ideas I suggested they engaged with such as my debates on abortion etc. They tolerated my teaching inexperience, my shyness at times, my weirdness (autism). I guess there were strong characters, dominant and extroverted personalities but they tended to engage and work with me rather than rebel. That was despite obvious cultural differences. I guess when one is 21 you have little experience of this sort of group atmosphere. You think groups/relationships like this are special and a one off. I went in with a specific set of experiences and I made assumptions (from High School and University), as everyone does when one enters into new relationships with people. But instead of being met with resistance and mockery I met with seemingly endless kindness and affection. As I let go of my assumptions I started to question who I was and why I was there. Writing about this reminds me of the film Fight Club. It’s a strange feeling to grapple with open space where you expected resistance. I’m not sure if this is making any sense. There was no one person that I was specifically fond of, of course the class leaders who encouraged the others to welcome me deserve some special gratitude.

I was very upset when my work visa was finally cancelled by the Foreigner’s bureau (for violating the terms and conditions) and I had to return home to Scotland. It took me years to recover.

I wouldn’t say China is a beautiful country the way the Scottish landscape is, but definitely it has beauty in its culture and its people. I very much hope it will stay beautiful going forward. I hope the West’s and China’s differences will be resolved going forward.