Mexico en la piel

Church bells. I miss the sound of church bells. We're hearing lots of fireworks here but no Mexican church bells. Instead we console ourselves with Spanish music. It is often playing in the background here. It’s in fact playing as I write this entry. Those of you who have been following our adventures will have noticed that Mexico was a bit easier for us.

One of the students asked me if coming to China has felt like coming home. I am sad to say no. China has been quite a different experience so far. Everything about it has been tinged with strangeness but also a touch of familiarity at the same time. Thanks to my parents and extended family, I have maintained a bit of my heritage but just enough to not get too freaked out by all the sights and sounds.

I feel like a foreigner here. While people don’t stare at me as much as they do at Don, I feel out of place all the same. To emphasize this point, I find myself using “they” more often than “we”. Is that not strange? Considering the way I look?

Wherever we go, we are Canadians first but having spent such an amazing time in Mexico we definitely feel an affinity there now. We left such good friends back in Querétaro. They have helped shape incredible memories and leaving them has left a big hole in our hearts. We miss their warmth on a daily basis. We miss greeting them in that Mexican way. We miss speaking Spanish or “blah blah blah” in my case. We miss hearing Spanish. We have used Spanish here to talk when we’ve wanted to discuss something in private but are surrounded by 50 people on a crowded bus. I’ve even used it in the classroom when the students have asked me to speak Chinese (my dialect of Cantonese). They reacted like it was another language so I broke into Spanish because it might as well have been that or any other foreign language. This were this close to applauding. Trained monkey, I am. Talk, I must. ... in my best Yoda voice... :)