From Xiashan to Changning: Only In China – The Great Pizza Chase

When it came time to leave Xiashan, it didn’t feel like just leaving a place. It felt like leaving a piece of myself behind. I hadn’t realized how much it had become home until that moment. It wasn’t just the people or the place. It was who I had become there. The laughter, the late-night hot pots, the impromptu concerts, and the everyday magic of life there had settled into the corners of my heart. “Only in China,” I thought, as we gathered one last time beneath strings of colored lights and a haze of nostalgia with voices rising in celebration and farewell. I didn’t know it then, but that night marked the beginning of my education in the art of leaving. Learning to say goodbye without truly letting go.

After I returned to Xiashan and had been there about a week, my agency told me they were sending me to a new school, but they weren’t sure which one. I could stay in Xiashan until the new school was ready for me. Of course, I was very sad about this because everyone knew how much I loved Xiashan and my school. I was fortunate to be able to meet and orient the new teachers, spend a couple of weeks with them, and share time at the school with my students and teacher friends.

I found out on a Monday that I would be leaving on Thursday for my new school, Xiangnan Experimental Middle School in Changning Hunan Provence. I was happy to know my students in Xiashan were left in the capable hands of Colleen. I had the best send-off anyone could ask for. Xiashan will always be home in China to me.

Although my time in Xiashan had come to an end, we had one last evening of celebration and song with friends from months past and the new arrivals just beginning to chase their own adventures across China. That final night is tucked among my most cherished memories. Amy and Alayna were there, along with the school staff who had become family. I felt the spirits of Adrian and Jessica in the laughter that filled the room, even as Colleen, Caleb, George, and Andreas, the new kids on the block, sang a farewell they had written for me, George strumming a ukulele like it was the soundtrack to our shared story.

The words went like this:

“Sad that you are leaving. Though you will have fun.

We will still be grieving. Wendy, we’ll miss you a lot.

We’ll miss your stories, your laughter, and your great hot pots.

You will have lots of fun. We wish that you could stay.

But clearly it can’t be done and when you go away,          you should remember us.

We’ll remember you.

And, when I (George) was sick on the bus, my mom said,

‘Hello George! Is Wendy there for you?’

And…I said…YES, she’s really here for me. She’s here for all of us.

And even though I’m (George) super grumpy with an IV on the wall,

She cured me with her rice cooker with which she fed us all.

Now she claims it took her just no time at all. 

But truly we can say, that we have lost a saint.

And Jessica and Adrian must really miss you too. 

Because we know how we will.

When you try to fill the big hole with concrete, that was really hard.

Now we must do the same.

I know that we can say, that we have made a friend.

One that we can count on, right up until the end.”

The song made me laugh and cry, a perfect echo of the months that had shaped me. It was the first of many goodbyes in years to come, each one teaching me that leaving never gets easier. You just carry the people and places with you, tucked between the folds of memory. “Missing my stories” really made me feel like Wendy from Peter Pan, forever telling tales to my lost boys, forever hovering between the worlds I had loved and the ones still waiting just beyond the horizon.

As for the IV on the wall, that part was no exaggeration. George had fallen quite ill, and a doctor made a house call, casually hooking an IV bag to the wall and showing us how to change it, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. Just another “only in China” moment added to my growing collection. And as for the “hole”, well, that one carried two meanings. There was, of course, the one left by my leaving, but also the very real hole or should I say missing chunk of concrete that happened one unforgettable night when Jessica, Adrian, and I, perhaps with a little liquid courage involved along with maybe nunchaku, decided to ???  I’m not sure what we were doing or maybe I don’t want to say.  I think we wanted to forget.  Lets just say we broke our window seat.  Our repair job? Let’s just say it was as successful as it sounds. Enough said.

It was an evening filled with joy, laughter, stories, and yes, tears. Little did I know at the time that Amy and Colleen would later resurface in unexpected corners of my journey, reminders that goodbyes in this life of constant motion aren’t always final, merely pauses between the next hello.

At dawn, I watched the sun rise over the tracks, its light spilling across rice fields and rooftops like a quiet promise. My driver arrived at six, and by 7:30 I was aboard the train, the rhythm of the rails carrying me farther from Xiashan and closer to whatever waited beyond the horizon. Ten hours later, I arrived in Hengyang, Hunan Province. I then continued on a seventy-minute drive to Changning, where the headmaster of my new school greeted me over dinner. By nightfall, I was unpacking in a large apartment I would now call home, sharing the space with my new roommate, Yulia from Moscow. My heart was equal parts heavy and hopeful. It still lingered in the warmth of Xiashan, yet was already leaning toward the next story unfolding before me.

I was reminded of a quote by Azar Nafisi: “You get a strange feeling when you leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love, but you’ll miss the person you are at this time and place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.” Leaving Xiashan had felt exactly like that, a small ache, not just for the people and moments I was leaving behind, but for the version of myself that had come alive there.

I woke up that first morning in Changning with that same strange feeling, that momentary disorientation when you forget where you are. It took me a second to realize I wasn’t in Xiashan or Kansas anymore. The room felt unfamiliar, and as nature called, I was reminded that I was now in the land of squatty potties. Hunan Province is famous for them, and our new flat was no exception. I shuffled toward the kitchen, still half-asleep and craving coffee, only to find there wasn’t a coffee maker in sight. Thankfully, our host from the school had promised to take us out that afternoon for orientation, so caffeine would have to wait.

Yulia, my new roommate from Moscow, and I hit it off right away. Two foreigners finding comfort in shared confusion. Fortunately for me, Yulia had studied for a short time in Suzhou and had a basic knowledge of Mandarin, a skill that would come in handy more times than I could count. We chatted over bottled water and biscuits until Rabbie, our school liaison, arrived to pick us up.

Our first stop was the police station to register as foreign residents, a standard ritual for anyone teaching in China. From there, it was off to the school itself.

I was instantly charmed by the palm trees swaying in the courtyard, a little tropical oasis tucked inside the gray bustle of the city. About 4,000 students attended the school, some living in dormitories on campus. I learned that I’d be teaching nineteen forty-five–minute classes a week to groups of thirteen-year-olds with an average of sixty students per class, with my largest group topping out at eighty-five. The sheer number of faces felt daunting, but the students’ energy and curiosity were contagious. After a warm welcome from the staff and students, we made one final stop at the bank to open our accounts.

By then, I had started collecting what I fondly called my “Only in China” moments. Those snapshots of daily life that would have seemed bizarre anywhere else but here had begun to feel oddly normal. After George’s IV had been hooked to our apartment wall back in Xiashan, I didn’t even blink when I saw a small girl at the bank, her tiny hand wrapped around an IV line attached to a makeshift pole, a thin branch her father carried like it was the most natural thing in the world. Another day, another dose of the extraordinary masquerading as ordinary.

Day one at school. I had been told I’d be teaching thirteen-year-olds, so imagine my surprise when my first five classes, three on Monday and two on Tuesday, were all sixteen and seventeen-year-olds. No biggie. We got along fine. Their English was limited, but their smiles and curiosity bridged the gap. They were thrilled to have a foreign teacher, and I was just as thrilled to be back in the classroom again.

By now, I’d been in Changning, Hunan Province just over a week and had survived my first week at Xiangnan Experimental Middle School. Our apartment was lovely, ten flights up, but still two flights less than in Xiashan. I had fully adjusted to the squatty potty life by then. Just think how strong my quads would be after five months of practice. Fridays, I quickly learned, were my endurance test. I had five classes in a row, the last of which were inevitably the rowdiest. The students’ excitement was equal parts exhausting and endearing. Teaching thirteen-year-olds, I realized, could be as chaotic and delightful as teaching first graders.

Hunan’s food was as fiery as its people…bold, flavorful, unforgettable. I missed my scooter, though, and briefly considered buying another one. Life here was good, but I still missed Xiashan and the rhythm of my days there, the faces I’d left behind. Yet, somehow, a new rhythm was beginning to form. I was discovering a new version of home in Changning…new students, new friends, and new reasons to love this unpredictable life.

It was easy to feel like a minor celebrity in a smaller city like this. Just walking down the street, saying nihao to strangers, brought bursts of delight and surprise. Their eyes would widen as if an alien had wandered into their neighborhood, and then smiles would spread, genuine and contagious. It’s in those moments I began to understand what it means to live within a culture rather than simply pass through it. I realized how fortunate I was to be not just a traveler, but a participant. Maybe I really was destined to be a nomad.

That weekend, I mentioned I might buy another scooter. They were as cheap as in Xiashan. But that idea didn’t last long. The day was warm and bright when Yulia and I decided to walk to the post office which was about 2.4 kilometers away. When we told Rabbie, our school contact, he waved his hands in alarm. “No, no, that’s so far! I’ll take you later.” We laughed and told him we wanted to walk, maybe grab lunch along the way. It took about forty-five minutes, strolling and window shopping. At one point, Yulia laughed, shaking her head. “He thinks that’s far! When I was at university in Moscow, I walked an hour and a half each way, every day, in every season, even in winter.”

Right then and there, I decided not to buy the scooter. Fifteen minutes walk to school and back wouldn’t kill me, and the weather was pleasant enough, except, of course, for the approaching rainy season. Besides, the school gave us a 200-yuan monthly taxi allowance for emergencies. Walking would do me good. And Yulia? She had earned my full respect. A woman willing to walk miles in snow for her education deserved every bit of it.

Life in Changning soon found its rhythm. Weekends were spent in the countryside with friends and friends of friends…climbing small mountains, having barbecues outside a monastery, visiting temples and pagodas, and simply enjoying the ease of unhurried days. I l was beginning to love life here…ordinary yet extraordinary. You knew the street cleaner was coming when you heard “It’s a Small World” echoing faintly in the distance. How fitting, I often thought. The more I traveled, the smaller and more connected my world became.

Then came the weekend Yulia and I decided to journey a bit further—to Changsha, the capital of our province. Another story. Another one of my “Only in China” tales.

First, a bit of context. I loved the food in Changning…spicy, delicious, and wonderfully inexpensive. But after a few weeks, even the best chili peppers lose their charm, and variety was… well, limited. Western ingredients were scarce, and sometimes all you wanted was something simple, something familiar, like cheese. And as anyone who’s spent time here quickly learns, there’s a reason my memoir is called No Cheese in China. So, Yulia and I decided to make a trip to Changsha for one reason and one reason only: food. Even if “Western food” only meant McDonald’s or Pizza Hut, we were determined. Rain or shine, we were going. If all we did was eat, so be it. Though if the weather cooperated, we hoped to fit in a little sightseeing too.

Changsha was about three hours away by bus. The first bus left at 7:50 a.m., the last bus back to Changning at 5:20 p.m.  Not a lot of wiggle room, but it was our plan, and we were sticking to it.

We caught the early bus and arrived just after eleven, greeted by a light drizzle. No problem, McDonald’s was conveniently inside the bus station. Two Big Macs and fries later (my first Big Mac in years, and oh, how good it tasted), we were fueled and ready to explore. The rain had stopped, so we hopped in a taxi to Yuelu Shan, a mountain park rich with history and scenic beauty.

By the time we arrived, it was around 12:30. We had roughly four hours before we needed to be back at the bus station. No problem, we thought. Plenty of time.

Wrong—with a capital W.

We had a wonderful afternoon wandering the park’s winding paths, snapping photos, and soaking in the view. Around four o’clock, stomachs rumbling, we decided to grab a taxi back to a Pizza Hut we’d passed earlier. We ordered a large cheese-stuffed-crust supreme to go and browsed the nearby mall while we waited. When we returned, the pizza still wasn’t ready. Finally, box in hand, we dashed out to the curb, hailed a taxi, and were promptly told we were on the wrong side of the street. So we ran. Down the sidewalk, through traffic, across the road, finally catching a cab around 4:50.

We pulled into the bus station, terrified to check the time, bolted down three flights of stairs and out the doors—no bus in sight. It was 5:22. The last bus had gone. Crap. Were we spending the night in Changsha?

Not yet.

A man standing beside another bus noticed our panic. Without hesitation, he ran over, glanced at our tickets, whipped out his phone, and started talking rapidly in Mandarin, motioning for us to follow him. We ran! Two foreigners clutching a pizza and our hopes. Up the stairs and out the doors while he stayed on the phone, barking instructions. He stopped suddenly, hung up, and said they were gone. He’d been trying to call the driver before the bus pulled out. Shit.

But he didn’t give up. “Come,” he said, and took off running again. We followed, half-laughing, half-panicked, chasing him through the station. He pointed toward the street and pointed to a car, yelling for us to get in. Before we could even buckle up, he was on the phone again, driving like a man on a mission. Ten minutes later, he veered onto the highway, weaving through traffic.

And then, like a scene from a movie, there it was: our bus, pulled over on the shoulder. He honked, pulled up behind it, and turned to us. “Go, hurry!”

We jumped out, ran to the bus, and climbed aboard, pizza still in hand. No one said a word. No one even looked surprised. The driver barely glanced up. We just found two seats near the back, sank down, and burst out laughing.

As the bus rumbled toward Changning, we dug into our pizza, cold, but perfect as the city lights of Changsha faded behind us. Another adventure. Another small miracle of kindness. Another day in China where the impossible somehow became ordinary.

Somewhere between laughter and exhaustion, I thought about how travel has a way of humbling and surprising you in equal measure. In a country where words often failed me, kindness never did. One stranger’s determination to help two bewildered foreigners chase down a runaway bus was yet another reminder that humanity speaks fluently in every language. We made it home that night—grateful, tired, and a little giddy. Two travelers with cold pizza on our laps and another “Only in China” story to tell.