For four and a half years I lived as far away from my home as I could. After a long road taken to college graduation, I set out to the far east to conquer it. I would take every challenge the Middle Kingdom could throw at me and laugh as I crushed it under my mindfoot. I came to learn. To learn the Chinese people and their customs. To study and ultimately master a culture so alien from my own was my goal.

            I traveled across this very large yet homogenous country and came to love it as my second home. Perhaps more importantly, this place came to love me. When I arrived in the late summer of 2006, little did the people of Wuhan know what would happen to them. Little did they know how this modest sage would change their lives. I arrived as a humble teacher and left as a celebrated institution.

            I was touched by the cries of disbelief when my students heard of my leaving. “But Teacher” they would say “How will we ever carry on without you?” And I always told them the same thing, “Don’t you see little Ricky, the magic was inside you all along” But before they could ask me what I meant, I was already gone.

            I cultivated an aura of mystery around myself. An irresistible force that drew the Chinese people to me. Some attribute my popularity to my resemblance to the Buddha. Others say its my animal magnetism. Still others say nobody in China actually likes me, and that Ive imagined this affection. Those people are jerks and they are wrong.

            For my final class, I was startled to discover almost all of my former students had gathered in my classroom to say goodbye. There were almost a thousand people crammed into that medium sized classroom. The overwhelming body odor couldn’t block the love felt in that room. They loved me and I agreed with them.

            There was one particularly articulate and sensitive student named XiaoDidi who came to me and touched my heart. He said to me “Of all the men I’ve known, you’re the first”. With a tear in my shirtsleeve I put my hand on his shoulder and said in Chinese what I later found out translated to “My submarine is infected, please dance with me”.

            So many people have asked, begged even, to know why I would leave this land that’s been so good to me. I can give no answer that satisfies them, leaving me with only the truth to tell. I grew tired of being the only bearded man in a thousand mile radius. Sure there were plenty of mustaches and the occasional woman with five o clock shadow, but it was lonely as the only hirstute man. I had nobody to talk to about my razor burn. There was nobody to understand the complexities of having food caught in ones beard. Nobody to tell me when my considerable sideburns needed a trim.

            So on the morning of my departure, I prepared to say goodbye. I bid farewell to the lady at the vegetable market. I parted with my personal tattoo artist. And hardest of all, I fought through the mob of thousands, perhaps millions, of local residents pleading with me to stay. The hardest goodbye of all is the one you have to say to eleven million people.

            But as I looked down on Wuhan through my little oval window at seat 29A, I saw what was the most touching thing Ive ever seen. The people of Wuhan had gathered in a field outside of the city, under my flight path. Holding hands, they spelled out “China love Dave” in huge fifty foot human letters.

            Dave love China too. Dave love China too.