The customs man is friendly, but thorough.  Very thorough.

During my recent Homecoming just three months prior, I had flown into New York City with very little fanfare, passing through customs without even a sideways glance.  Either I had been flagged this time for some reason — likely just at random — or Miami is, for understandable reasons, far more meticulous in their search for contraband.  The items from my backpack and its attached day bag companion lay spread out before me as a customs agent rifles through them arbitrarily.  Polite, but stern, he skips the small blue bag filled with emergency accessories and medicine, though thumbs through two of the books for anything that might be hidden within their pages other than outlandish Tom Robbins metaphors.

Eventually satisfied, he leaves me to repack my bags.

I’m only in Miami for two hours before boarding a connecting flight to Washington, DC, where my mother should be picking me up from the airport.  It’s August 4th and I have just under a month to savor my homecoming before departing for a year or more to China to teach software development at Chongqing University in the heart of the Middle Kingdom (the literal translation of China’s name for itself — “Chongguo”).

After nearly a year in South America, I had a naturally growing curiosity about Asia, though felt little desire to burn through too much of my savings to explore it.  While in Argentina last year, I received this email from an old friend I hadn’t heard from in years:

Hi, my friends!

I hope you are all well and that some of you are interested in an adventure, or, might know someone who could be.

You are receiving this email because I thought that you, or someone you know, might be interested in the following opportunity.  It’s no joke, Chongqing University is a great (and large) school in the heart of China, and it’s looking for computer/IT teachers to teach students the subject in English.   My friend, Ramesh, sent me the following. His English ain’t so good, but he’s not native, so give him a break.  Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll find out more for you, or connect you directly.

“I need a help from you. In Chongqing University they are looking for Computer science Teachers. If u know anyone in US wants to teach computer courses / IT Courses in China pls send me their CV. I think u know the salary level here. I can get him (or her, but they might prefer a man) around 8000CNY per month, Round trip air fare from Chongqing China to USA per year, 2000 RMB Bonus for each semester.”

That’s more than the PC [Peace Corps] paid me! WAY more.  You’d be living like a king … probably with the ability to put quite a bit of it into savings, depending on where you chose to live, or if they put you up in one of their dorms (which they very well might).  It’d be a fun experience!  In face, if I was qualified I might even go for it.

Thanks!  Please let me know if you have any interest at all.

Having no idea what I would do — work, life, etc — upon returning to the United States permanently (and realizing that the US — especially now — is one of the worst places in the world to be in said predicament), the offer was imminently tantalizing.  I didn’t actually expect anything to come of it, but sent my resume in anyway and was shocked to get a response the same day stating that visa preparation was already in the works for me.  I would return to Washington, DC, in August to apply for the visa in person at the Chinese consulate there using paperwork the people in Chongqing will have by that point provided me with.  By September 4th, I would be arriving in China.

Stateside

Despite a change in presidencies and a handful of friends either unemployed, married off or both, the States don’t seem terribly different to me.  With less than a month in town, I decide to use my mother’s house as a home base, bouncing off from there to such other illustrious spots as New York, Scranton, Philadelphia and Kilmarnock, Virginia (to see my father and stepmother).  Driving my car down to my father’s, I leave it there for the last time, as I tasked him with selling the vehicle for me (which he has since done, quite successfully) — what’s the point in continued insurance costs and depreciation when I’m gone for at least another year.

It’s nice to be here and it’s funny realizing how much I miss my friends when I am around them.  I’ve met some great people in my travels, but most of those connections are fleeting at best.  I could count the people I plan on seeing again at some point in my life on the fingers of one hand (though obviously I treasure those few connections).

I visit Taco Bell.  A lot.  God, how I’ve missed it.  And no, South American food is nothing like Mexican.  (And yes, I realize there’s a very strong argument that Taco Bell is nothing like Mexican either, but we all have our vices…)

There’s little to say that’s travel-oriented, or even particularly interesting to people outside of my small group of friends and family (though I realize they’re the only ones that keep up with this blog, for the most part), so I’ll leave this entry short and pictureless.

Next stop: China