This morning Zheng Xiaoxue and I left Luguhu for Lijiang. Before leaving we were presented with a variety of gifts from the other teachers. "I'm not going to say anything more," said Luo Wei, giving me a painting, and then ran away.

"I can't bear to leave you all!" Xiaoxue wept, and I felt the tears come to my eyes as well.

"Don't be such a girl," said Hou laoshi roughly, then immediately stalked a few yards away and turned her back to us so we could not see her face. I shook hands with Luo Wei, Wang Cheng, and Zao Zao, and then Xiaoxue and I got in the car and started off on the bumpy road to Lijiang.

It was hard to leave Luguhu, it really was. "Life is made up of meetings and partings; that is the way of it," I said to myself in the car, trying not to cry. "That's awfully good - what is that from?" A brief rummage through the filing cabinets of my mind revealed that I was comforting myself with quotes from Kermit the Frog in the Muppet Christmas Carol. I'm okay with that, though.

Oh but there are so many stories for me to tell you - how the other girls and I went swimming in the lake, the temple at the top of the hill, and most of all my revenge on Wang Cheng - but I'm afraid I haven't time. Xiaoxue and I are going to stay two or three days in Lijiang - which is pretty, but dreadfully touristy and I am more glad
than ever that I got to see some real China when I was in Luguhu - then going to Dali for a day or two, then finally to Xiaoxue's home in Chengdu, and then back to hot and dirty Beijing. I will try to be in touch during this sojurn, but by no means on an every day basis.

When you have a nice thing, it is only natural that you should want it to continue. But instead of saying, "Why no more?" I am trying to say "Thank you for what I had." I would not trade my time in Luguhu for anything in the world. And though that story is over, there are more adventures yet to come.