Cool Breeze and Autumn Leaves

I think that fall has arrived in Suzhou - but I don’t want to speak too soon. The temperatures have cooled down this week to highs in the low 70s. (It feels cold, alright?!) Days are often breezy. Students have broken out jackets. However, beyond this, fall in China is...anticlimactic.

It doesn’t smell the same as back home. The leaves are not changing. There are no apples, pumpkins, or bonfires - or at least, no more than usual. There are no Halloween decorations, no leaves to rake, no back-to-school clothes. I miss these things! This week is Homecoming/Spirit Week at both my high school and college back in the States, and those both carry happy memories for me. There is no such celebration that I know of here at SuDa.

As much as I don’t look forward to autumn each year (because I know that it means that winter is coming, and I do not particularly care for winter’s cold, barren, dry months), I find myself really missing home during this time when the only reaction that I see to the change in weather here is people wearing more clothes.