I had a dream last night that I was back in China. And not just me, but all the students who went, along with the rest of my classmates who have been in the past couple of years. And we were trying to figure out if we wanted to go to Xi'an before we went to Beijing to fly home. I really wanted to go back to Xi'an since it was one of my very favorite places in China. I loved it there. Xi'an and Chen Lu hold some lovely memories as both being beautiful and starkly different from each other. Xi'an was modern and offered a lot of fun shopping and dining opportunities while Chen Lu looked very old and isolated. No cool muslim market or Starbucks there, but it showed me an entirely different way of life in a climate I had never seen but found to be tremendously beautiful. I think part of why I liked Chen Lu was because it reminds me of when I was a little kid living on a farm in no-where NC...we were not wealthy and life wasn't easy (and I didn't care for shopping nor did I have any concept of what Starbucks was), but life seemed so simple to me then. I knew what the days held and I enjoyed them. In fact those days provided some of the happiest memories I have. It seemed predictable, but not boring. I think Chen Lu somehow brought back a bit of that feeling for me. And I loved it.
Xi'an at night.
On the way to Chen Lu
At Chen Lu...
Ideally my dream will come true and someday I'll go back. And in addition to Jingdezhen I will certainly make Xi'an and Chen Lu a priority on my list of places to go. Who knows if or how that opportunity will ever present itself, but I'm taking Chinese language this fall just in case. :)
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