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Actually I think I'm a person that handles goodbyes quite well. At least I had to say goodbye to A LOT of people. Or: I still have a lot I need to say goodbye to. I went to two schools after all.
Well, this Friday I had a little time on my hands in the afternoon and I made a deal about coming over to drop off some Japanese textbooks. I really missed the people over there. The last time I went to that school, I felt really bad because I felt I was just wasting a lot of time, but I found out I actually really liked the people there, even if I wasn't able to talk with them a lot. It felt really good to meet them again.
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Here's 洋蔥 (Yángcōng) standing behind me. His name is pronounced yang tsong and literally means onion. Actually that isn't his real name, it's his nickname. He was probably the best in the class to speak English and I bet he was quite good in other subjects too, so he was probably the one student at Kainan I got to know the most. He's such a nice guy, I really wish I could hang around with him more, but life is just not really fair. If I ever write a novel like everyone says I should, I'm going to make a person inspired from him, no doubt about that. Actually I think he's the kind of person that could also be in a Japanese manga. Not as a main character though. Main characters are always either a little narcissistic or pessimistic or both, they have to be flawed in a way that's easy to comprehend, main characters, otherwise the story will be boring whether it's a cartoon or novel. But yeah... Onion: You are awesome. I missed you a lot and I will miss you even more.
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This guy, who doesn't have a worthy English nickname, also were one of the people I spent a lot of time trying to break through the language barrier with. He was not the best English speaker in the class, but I sat next to him for a long time and he was nice. He had a lot of friends in the class I think. Or at least, we kind of ended up in the same clique of friends.
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Here's some of the girls. It feels a little weird, actually, to see all these familiar faces again. It's such a long time ago, and I'm feeling kind of like "oh, so they really weren't just a figment of my imagination". Actually, it's like people over at this school were all a little different from the others that I've met so far. Even the students at Chihlee. Just a little: Maybe because they live and work in slightly different areas. Managed to run into the girl standing next to me while visiting the Lantern Festival, which happened after I stopped going to Kainan. Unfortunately my Chinese was still poor at that time, so I couldn't talk much with her.
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I should work harder on staying in touch with these guys. The guy hugging me is living somewhere in Banqiao and I would occasionally pass by him every once in a while when going to school or even while exploring the area around my second host family's house.
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Now others wanna hug me too. The guy on my left was also a guy I got to know a little more than the average. He seemed like a very mature student and had almost as easy with being in a good mood as Onion. I feel a little bad that I weren't able to say goodbye to another student there, a girl that didn't have an English name either. I clearly remember her Chinese name, 陳玉婷, simply meaning beautiful jade. I guess she weren't at school at that time.
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This girl is dubbed Koru amongst her friends. A Japanese name she chose herself I believe. She once brought me to Ximen once in another decade and showed me a little around. She's an interesting kind of character looking very close to movie stereotypes and yet probably being farther away from any kind of mainstream than me.
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And here's some slightly different-looking teachers. Rachel on my right, (the one with black hair,) is the English teacher and contact person for the class, and therefore also one to have talked a lot with her. On the left hand side is Evelyn, another English teacher who has also been one of my contact persons in the school.
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And here's Helen Parish, the American teacher at the school, whom I have been talking with on facebook recently. She probably have her share of responsibility for me being there that Friday to say goodbye to people. Also gave me a nice little gift. I didn't bring a thing. :/
Anyway: May you live long and prosper and I hope this school will see better times soon. Especially wish for a nice and intellectually rich future for the students.
I'll have to work a bit to keep better in touch with these people.