再见北京 - See you, Beijing

There's truth to the idea that you don't fully appreciate something until you have to let go of it, and that's kind of how I felt that last Sunday: quite, quite sad. The dorms felt empty. Most of the students had already left, including my roommate who, before leaving for Shanghai, had bequeathed me a bag of shrimp chips and a bag of Beijing-Roast-Duck flavored Lay's. I brought the shrimp chips on the plane with me and still haven't eaten them. That said there really isn't any shortage of mementos from our time in Beijing, from our book-shaped diplomas to the thousands of pictures we took. But there was still that nauseating feeling of nostalgia, brought on by the friends who for two months left their hometowns in America, Japan, Korea, etc, to share in an experience speaking bad Chinese in a strange environment.

Giant pizza with friends

A couple nights before, all the students went out, and apparently a certain weather-named friend of mine got drunk for what may or may not have been the first time, and I wasn't there to see it. But before that, our class came together for a final Chinese Table and then a final karaoke session with the teachers. Our head teacher had given a speech at graduation riffing on every member of our class (while the teachers of larger classes were only able to give more general speeches). At first I was apprehensive about being in such a small class, but I'm glad it worked out that way.

The entirety of 3rd year heritage - plus teachers

That emergent and ephemeral world of the PIB language pledge that reduced everyone's language ability to that of a five-year-old, that was what made this summer for me.
In the beginning of PIB, the program head, Zhou Laoshi (万岁*) referred to the language pledge as "a game, but one that's very important to play." At any rate that game's over now. Everyone's speaking English. One friend remarked on how good it was to finally get to know people for real. I don't think there was anything fake about these past eight weeks. There was something about living in another language, far from being restricting, something especially genuine.

再见亲爱的普北班，I'll miss you.

-令鑫

*Ten Thousand years, meaning "long live" - a joke referencing the slogan: "Long live the People's Republic of China" printed alongside Mao's portrait at Tiananmen