chinese characters

I've started teaching the girls a unit on Ancient China, and I'm so excited to get to share a little bit of the country I spent so much time learning to love. 

I spent some time going through photos to be able to show them, and the memories came flooding back. I have never forgotten how fortunate I was to have the experience I did teaching English at Dandelion School in Beijing, but even so I was deeply reminded of how beautiful and meaningful - while difficult - that season of my life was. I miss the market across the street from the school,  I loved the food every day, I had the time of my life being immersed in Mandarin and also getting to dip my toe in Tibetan, and I had so many adventures on the subways, trains, planes, and buses all over China. 

But more than anything, the people were what shaped my time there. They are the characters of my story, and they mean so much to me. 

So today I figured out how to log back on to my Chinese social media app (WeChat) after five years off of it. I send several messages to friends from Dandelion School - former students and fellow teachers. All of them responded almost immediately, and I have been enjoying the most wonderful updates as they share where their lives have gone and I share mine. 

But what I really wanted when I logged on was to track down the older teacher who taught me to write Chinese characters, starting the first summer I visited China when I was seventeen. I have always treasured my memories with Teacher Wu, who spoke hardly a word of English (and not a whole lot even in Chinese), but who always made room for me during mealtimes to come with my little notebook and meticulously teach me to write the characters for words I'd heard during the day, stroke by stroke. 

I asked about him through a teacher friend, and found that he has retired and does not email. So I will have to write a note and ask them to pass it on to him. I will wait until later this week, because this week in our homeschooling, we will be learning about Chinese characters. I'll be teaching my kids to write and to paint the characters he taught me, stroke by stroke. I can't wait to send him a picture and let him see how his gentle kindness has made it way across the world. 

Thank you, Wu Laoshi. Thank you, teachers. Thank you, students. Thank you, China!