Stepha-Ni-Hao

Chinglish 101

2008-08-05T02:06:00.000-07:00

Back in the USA!

2008-02-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

Arriving Aug. 4th (several hours earlier than I left Hong Kong) I must say that it is GREAT to be back home after 5 full months of travel! That's not to say I regret going to China, not at all. The experiences I had there and the things I learned will affect me and influence me for the rest of my life. It was like nothing I've ever done before and I think everything that happened--the hard things and the wonderful things--were all there for a reason and I'm thankful that I was able to experience them...

Last but not least, HONG KONG!

2008-02-15T13:23:00.000-08:00

After the craziness of luggage and traveling, my first impressions of Hong Kong were great from the start. From the clean and spacious airport to the luxurious shuttle bus into the city, I was nearly in tears of joy as we entered the lobby of the Golden Mile Holiday Inn hotel.

Now this ecstatic joy was likely a combination of things- I mean we were mere days from going home and after all the dirty/roughing it of China and travel, the Holiday Inn might as well have been a Ritz Carlton--it was seriously THAT nice (thank you to Jodee's dear, sweet, wonderful Mom for cashing in her points for us so we could stay there- I will be forever grateful!). Jode and I went up to our room only to discover 2 plush beds with high-thread-count sheets, actually white pillows, a pristine bathroom, our very own white bathrobes, TV (with English programming!), a mini-bar, and the familiarity of home that I can hardly describe. Let's just say I can only imagine how hysterical I would have been when I got home from China if I hadn't had the Hong Kong buffer-zone to bring me back to Westernization!

Beyond the hotel, highlights of our 3 days in this beautiful city would have to be: riding the Lovely Star Ferry around Victoria Bay to enjoy magnificent views of the city and gorgeous weather...

Riding the steepest tram in the world up to Victoria peak to watch the light show of the city and enjoy more fabulous views...

Great Thai food and fashionable clubbers in Lan Kwai Fong, wandering the CLEAN streets without seeing children peeing, seeing ques (!) and using free Internet kiosks in the subway, a bit of shopping (how could we resist- it's Hong Kong and they have such cool-looking money)...

Finding Jackie Chan's star on Hong Kong's Avenue of the Stars...
Accidentally winding up at the Goldfish market and seeing all the pet shops in a bustling neighborhood, Hard Rock Cafe/Sandwiches/TGIFridays- enjoying all the non-Chinese food options :), and finally a completely no hassle trip to the airport and through check-in with no extra luggage fees or anything!
I'd go back to Hong Kong in a heartbeat, such a beautiful and fun city!

Mao-erful Memories

2008-02-15T13:18:00.000-08:00

Returning to Beijing for the last 2 days of our Gecko tour, I feel sad for our group that the weather and feel of Beijing is the worst I've seen it in all the 10's of weekends I've been here over the past few months. The heat and pollution was nearly unbearable as we fought the crowds through a dismal Tian'amen square. As people in our group began to discuss and ask questions about living in China and Communism, I was surprised that many of my negative feelings and memories came flooding back.

Not to say that I don't like China or haven't been grateful for the experiences I've learned so much from by living here, but I don't think I will ever--or should ever--forget those things that I struggled with, was uncomfortable with, or shocked by from living here either. There is much to be said about the "natural rights" that those of us living in free democratic countries enjoy. Perhaps that is why when someone tries to tell us there is only ONE WAY or "One world, One dream" (hmmm, funny, that's China's Olympic slogan) we quite naturally resist and even rebel sometimes (think over-protective parent and a creative maturing youth). Growing up we all experience a degree of utilitarian control, which further illustrates that our freedom doesn't come without challenges, but it's so much better than the alternatives out there. Imagine if the government could and did make all its decisions without your consent or consideration. Don't like it? Well, there's not much you can actually do besides "move out" like your parents might threaten you during a no-winners teenage argument, and with the kind of salary and VISA laws most Chinese people have to work with, even traveling out of the country, let alone immigrating, are out of the question. With such a huge population, you're just lucky to have any job. I heard once that Masters graduates in China were lucky to find jobs in some cities, and found an article in TIME that talks a bit about that issue here. So, returning to Beijing definitely gave me some deeper things to think about than our light-hearted travels.

Our hotel was right by the Far East Hostel neighborhood (an easy walk south of Tian’amen square) and since I’d done just about everything I wanted to do in Beijing, this was another chance to take it easy and prepare for our final goodbyes before Jode and I headed off to Hong Kong and then home! As I said, we went back to the Forbidden City (or Palace Museum as the happy-everyday Chinese people want us to call it). The weather was nearly suffocating as were the crowds so we used our time in the air-conditioned internet café more wisely, figuring out some plans and luggage limits for our upcoming flight, then meeting up with our group for a Kung-Fu show. Totally for tourists, in English, and no doubt influenced by Western music preferences and theatre style, the Kung-Fu production was still impressive and exciting to watch. I mean, these guys could break metal beams with their heads- what isn’t great about that? While savoring of Chinese-cheesiness, the overall production was well worth the ticket and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening with our Gecko friends. After the show, we all opted to go to bed fairly early so we’d be able to get up and meet at 5:30am for our Gecko excursion and climb to the Great Wall at Simatai.

Up before the sun and ready for Simatai, we arrived after a long bus-ride and opted to take the nifty gondola up a portion of the mountain since even the morning heat was already stifling. The views were OK, though probably even more spectacular on a clear day, but we were so exhausted by the hot climb up we almost didn’t have a chance to notice anything but our footing until we reached the actual wall. Think I’m kidding about the heat? Drenched with sweat when we reached the wall, the first thing we saw was a Chinese man laid out on a stretcher. With no visible injuries and a woman trying to fan him and give him water, I think he had passed out from heatstroke! It was really HOT, but I am glad we were there because the wall wasn’t too crowded and was a really cool one to climb. Simatai had all the same sort of towers and layout as other sections of the wall, though quite steep, but one cool part that I hadn’t seen before were portions of the wall made for battle composed of tiny niches where soldiers could hide, then pop out to attack! (again, more pictures there). We also met some really nice people on our climb- a friendly British family and a hot guy who turned out to be from my old LA neighborhood in Brentwood of all places. Such a small world!
After the hot, steep, awesome hike down Simatai and back to BJ in the bus, we went directly to the Silk Market for more last-minute gifs and shopping, found a few things, rushed back in our chronically-late-state to the hotel to quickly change for our final Gecko group dinner. Cramming into a very small room around a very small table, we had roast duck and a spread of other yummy Chinese foods for our last dinner together with the group. I’m definitely happy we decided to go with this tour because the friends we met in our group were amazing and so much fun to travel with! It really did a lot for the overall fun of the experience I think, so it was sad to say goodbye but hopefully our Facebook connections will stay strong and paths will cross again someday…
Whew, we did so much in each day as I remember all this that it’s no wonder I felt so tired! After our goodbye dinner we kept pretty busy for the remainder of the time in Beijing. We ran into several friends randomly- one fellow teacher from Baoding, Chris and his girlfriend, and another friend from the Beijing YSA, who kindly informed us of the Church meeting time change for Sunday- lucky for us. So Sunday morning we had some time for breakfast with a few of the leftover Gecko friends at Sakura (Jodee and my original fave in this neighborhood), we did a bit of laundry until checkout at the hotel, then made our way across town to our kind friend MD’s apartment where our extra luggage had been stashed for the month of July. At church the BJ branch had already changed so much since our last visit, so we took picts and said our goodbyes to those we still knew, then jumped on the subway to rendezvous with our former teaching-pal Stephen of all people, over at the lovely Lotus hostel. Now I’ve already had several “small world” moments in this post, but this evening was filled with even more as we randomly ran into both Sarah and Josh as well as Tom at the Lotus- so fun to see them all again. Dinner with Stephen was great, though it was still too soon for him to be happy back in China, he filled us in on his amazing European escapades and we told him about Tibet and Southwest China fun over our favorite Chinese foods: dumplings, Gong Bao Gi Ding, and Sichuan Green Beans!

Dragging into MD’s with apologetically late Magnum ice cream bars, we chatted for a while as we repacked our huge suitcases and backpacks- fully worried about the impossible weight limit at this point but still seeing what we could manage. We got up the next morning, hauled our stuff down the stairs (which proved to be a difficult feat) then dragged everything down the street to hail a cab to the airport, making sure we had several hours before we were meant to catch our flight to the shimmering shores of Hong Kong!

So long Beijing, and thanks for all the fish!

Xi'an Revisited

2008-02-15T13:10:00.000-08:00

Returning to our May Holiday destination was nice in many ways because we didn't have to rush and see anything, we could do the little extras that we'd missed and really take it easy.
Highlights of the city this time around:

- Having fun staying at the YMCA (haha, we took some obnoxious pictures with the sign, but the hotel was pretty decent)- Riding our rental bikes around Xi'an's City Wall: Though the weather was a bit smoggy and gross, how often do you have the chance to bike on an ancient wall? It was fun and a perfect way to start the day/get our bodies going after the train ride!

- Laundry: Paying 100 Kuai (that's a lot for China) in order to have clean laundry. I had to BUY an Olympic T-shirt that afternoon because I had no clothes that were clean enough to wear-iiiick!

- Taking a tour to Emperor Han Jing's Tomb site: He was the 4th emperor of China and the tomb has a GREAT museum built around the artifacts. When you visit the museum, you can basically get into the actual tombs and see the mini terracotta statues, which kinda look like dolls and toy animals. It was nice to get up close and see these things in an completely calm and uncrowded environment that was really well laid-out, and even had a Star-Wars esque hologram movie that taught us about the tomb and culture during Han Jing's empire. It was all I could do to hold back my Princess Leah impression: Help me Obi Wan Kanobe, you're my only hope!" The video looked just like that 80's special effect which was pretty cool.

- The Big Goose Pagoda at Night: We went here after advice from Zhang on our last trip and information by our guide Zu to see the free light, fountain, and sound show! Even with the tons of tourists and locals out on this warm summer night, we had fun watching the fountains shoot high over our heads in beautiful plumes of water designs to the swell of the Chinese-to-Classical music selections and colorful lights.

- Revisiting/Shopping-in the Muslim Quarter: Gifts, gifts, and more gifts. Starting to worry about that whole baggage weight limit on the airplane back home...

- Dumpling Dinner: Our Gecko group decided to see if Xi'an really did have the best dumplings in China and I must say, I don't really think they do. Our group meal was good and extremely varied. From ducky-shaped dumplings to dumplings that looked like walnuts, we had many types to try and ended the meal with a Xi'an version of a hot-pot which produced quite a nasty soup. Glad we did it for the company and to know we tried them, but I must say that our places in Baoding have better dumplings than Xi'an
- Purchasing Harry Potter VII: I splurged big-time (again, this is in Chinese money- in reality I just paid the American price) when I saw JK Rowlings final book at the bookstore by our hotel, I just had to have it! Anyway, I needed something new to read and how could I resist not knowing how it all ends...more luggage weight though with the hard-back book- oops.

- Terracotta Warriors, Revisited: Honestly, I am very glad we went back to the warriors because it was MUCH less crowded than our May excursion and we had a tour guide that told us some interesting details about Qin Shi Huang and the history of the warriors. We went to several buildings we hadn't even seen the last trip and even watched the cheesy 360 Degree-screened movie about the Terracotta warriors. Can you believe that I took MORE pictures though? I'm starting to wonder if I'll need to join a Photo-Takers Anonymous group when I get home- I can't stop!

And that was Xi'an round 2- still a very full trip, complete with a re-visit to Starbucks and then back on our last over-night train up to Beijing: Last stop for the Gecko tour and the countdown to our journey home to the USA...

Crusing down the Yangtze River

2008-02-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

This was a portion of the trip I was really excited for and turned out to be just a bit of a let down. The famed beautiful natural landscape of the 3 Gorges majestic peaks carved out by the beautiful Yangtze river are little more than shadows of the grand-canyon-esque depth they supposedly used to have thanks to the worlds biggest (darn Chinese) dam. But what do I know about preserving irreplaceable natural beauties and or the demands of forcing hundreds of river-side dwellers to abandon their homes so my country can "progress"? I guess I just need more education in that area to truly appreciate the dirty, uneventful river we cruised down for a couple of days after our LONGEST day of traveling yet (overnight train from Yangshou PLUS 2 bus rides long enough for me to read nearly all of "A picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde- captivating book, BTW)

Anyhow, the coolest thing about that day, besides simply getting off the bus (finally!) was a huge Buddha that we saw built into a mountain in the city of "ghosts" we stopped in near Wuhan. And OK, yes, the Dam was big and no doubt a great engineering feat--probably really cool in and of itself--but it's location kinda sucked since the gorges used to be amazing. Anyhow, enough of my whining about that, I know. Dirty and tired from all the travel, we were happy to find our 1st-class accomodations on the boat nice enough to feel grateful that Gecko hadn't stashed us in coach. Food on the boat was decent and our Chinese fellow tourists were super-enthusiastic to be there (picture 40 and 50-year old men joking around and hitting each other like 12-year-olds). Besides being able to catch some much needed Zzzz's on the boat, highlights would have to be our super-star Karaoke in the cruise boat's entertainment/bar area (I was coerced into going first but the crowd loved it), several very drunken silly Gecko group members, card games on deck outside as we enjoyed what's left of the views, and did I mention sleeping? Oh yeah, I did.

Bu Tzo, Yangshou!

2008-02-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Today was an amazing day in the hot but beautiful Yangshou county. We rented cruiser bikes and cycled through the countryside looking at the Karsts (distinctive, hilly rock-formations of this area) and Dragon River (not Reefer as I accidentally
miss-heard :).

We climbed Moon Hill in the sweltering humidity but were rewarded with GREAT views (though annoyingly followed by hoards of persist ant vendor-ladies who wanted to sell us waters and cu-la/coke).

After a quick lunch at the bottom of Moon hill, Jodee and I opted for an extra adventure of spelunking through a huge and pretty awesome cave complete with bats (loved seeing those!), a squishy pool of mud which we proceeded to wrestle/play in, and beautiful stalagmite formations.

Though dirty, the cave adventure was great and worth it all for the picts and fun we had in it as well as the views of rice paddies, cute water buffalo, and butterfly-filled green foliage of Southern China that we saw on our way out. It was another truly amazing day!

We had the whole cave to ourselves too and even got to swim in an outdoor pool/lake at the cave entrance to rinse off afterwards and impress the super-nice locals by jumping off the high rock (silly, but glad I could provide some entertainment.)

Back in town at the hotel after showering, we met up with a couple of friends (Jenny and Diana) from the Gecko's group for some surprising but amazing vegetarian cuisine- stuffed tomatoes, tofu, almond crisps, etc. Really good stuff and amazing to find in China of all places. Following dinner Jode and I went with our friend Diana to a light and sound show among the Karsts to get a taste of local fine art. It had it's strange Chinese moments but was still interesting to watch and pretty creative. The show made me think of what China will do for the Olympics opening ceremonies since I bet it will be very similar...Anyhow, a very full and fun day--Yangshou is proving to be yet another great part of Southwest China!

Tiger Leaping Gorge(ous)

2008-02-15T13:03:00.000-08:00

After monsoon rain in Lijiang the night before we were scheduled to hike TLG (Tiger Leaping Gorge), we were more than a little worried about whether or not we'd be able to do the hike but as luck would have it we had perfectly GORGE-ous weather (I had to). As we drove through the green mountains and past the rushing brown river waters, I sat--by my own motion-sickness-induced request-- in the front of the bus and as a result enjoyed watching some interesting conversation between the she-man, no-nonsense bus owner and timid male driver as well as some lovely mountain views. Talk about a matriarchal society, this lady was seriously in-charge!

Anyhow, once we'd gone as far as the bus could take us, we got out and walked past the hoards of Chinese tourists and buses at the TLG stop (evidently most locals never actually hike up through the gorge; they take a bus, stop for pictures and go home- some even ride down to the bottom of the gorge in palanquins). But we Westerners were a little more hard-core and started our hike into the gorge armed with cameras, sunscreen, and water and more than ready to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

TLG was another point in the trip where I found myself saying--"WOW, I can't believe this is in China!" It was totally incredible and unlike any place I have ever seen. Green, deep-grooved mountains cascading down into a foaming river jutting through the gorge like a massive moving snake. As I took countless pictures on the trail, hoping to capture even a small taste of what it felt like to be surrounded by the mountainous landscape, we saw waterfalls, wild black pigs, mountain goats, and horses along the trail. On a scarier note, we also hiked over a huge landslide from a couple days earlier- eeek! Lucky for us, we had sunshine and dry weather for our first day of hiking in and though we were drenched in sweat and hot as Hades when we arrived at Tina's lodge for the night, the dry weather allowed us to have the option of an additional hike down to the gorge, which I of course joined in on. This second hike was one our guide Zu had warned us about as rather dangerous and challenging due to the steep incline down to the river and the cliff-side ladders on the way up. But you only live once and I certainly didn't want this to be a trip where I only go half-way.

At this trail head, a Naxi woman who's family had built the trail down greeted us and collected a small fee, then we coaxed our aching knees and trembling legs (from fatigue not fear) down to the rumbling, churning river banks at the bottom of the gorge. Just being next to a river like that--roaring with power in it's magnificent surroundings--was a rush on it's own but our next challenge, climbing out of the gorge via cable-ladders on the side of the mountain, doubled my adrenaline.

Now I've never been a fan of extreme heights- just ask friends who've been with me at amusement parks who screams the loudest--but again, it was a no regrets kinda trip so I decided to brave the few drops of rain that were threatening the sunlight and climb the accurately marked "dangerous ladder".
After climbing up 2 of these wood and wire/cable ladders, trying not to look down for the full effect of the "I'm hanging of the side of a mountain in CHINA, just above a frightening river at the bottom of a steep gorge!"

Loving Lijiang

2008-02-15T13:00:00.000-08:00

While Lijiang was quite the touristy destination (seeing as the whole town is a world-heritage site what would you expect, right?) it was definitely a beautiful city, complete with traditionally-dressed Naxi people, picturesque waterwheels, and shops galore. Though we didn't have tons of time to explore , I wanted to make the most of it so after dropping my stuff off at our nice and cute MCA hotel, which had a fabulous view of the city--especially at night-- I went with a bunch of peeps from our group for a quick lunch, tasting the local Naxi sweet flatbread, and then walking around the winding cobblestone streets (we knew it was a tourist area because it was SO clean!). Lijiang is famous for several things but my favorites included:
1) The beautiful wooden waterwheels at the center of the city that stand as an icon of the traditions and life of Lijiang matriarchal farming families.

2) Cobblestone streets; Lijiang is China's Europe-esqe city. The parallel bar streets along a canal in the main part of the city were charming, though I didn't spend very much time there and it was definitely fun to walk around seeing the locals all dressed up in traditional costume and dancing to try and get more customers into their place. Like Dali, on many of the doors to homes there were pictures of 2 generals, believed to guard and protect the families inside based on an old story about the emperor and how his nightmares ended once his general came and guarded his door each night.

3) By far my favorite sight in Lijiang was the Black Dragon Pool/Park. It was one of those places that is even more beautiful than the pictures from (my fav.) Eyewitness tour book.
Ironically less than 15 minutes after we paid our admission for the park our hot afternoon turned into a run-and-hide-from-the-MONSOON one. We thought it might just be a sprinkle so took shelter with our cameras under a covered bridge, but before we knew it huge raindrops were splashing down everywhere like someone was dumping actual buckets from the sky- it was crazy! Needless to say, we were more than a little bummed since we had barely begun to see the park, but we decided to try and take shelter and see if we could wait it out.
Running through the monsoon in little more than my flipflops and summer clothes, I made it up some stairs into a little shop where a man dressed in traditional Naxi garb was demonstrating some calligraphy painting of his ethnic minority's famous pictograph language and various traditional art was being sold.
That was pretty cool to look at but the scholar stopped hi demo after a bit and the rain didn't, so we sat and watched the storm, conjectured about the bunch of padlocks adorning the hand rail outside the shop (maybe couple's symbols of eternity?) and then chatted until we realized it was not going to let up and we were going to be late for our Tiger Leaping Gorge info briefing that evening. So Jodee, Helene, and I tried to shelter our cameras and valuables as we ran through the park and out to the street to hail a cab and get back to our hotel. Drenched and wading through puddles at some points, we made it back to our hotel just in time to change, grab our rain gear and head to the TLG briefing and then on to our scheduled evening entertainment for the evening, which was actually a Naxi music/dance performance.

The show was a little slow but the costumes were great, the music definitely unique, and a cute old Naxi man who was the star really knew how to work the audience. Still, it was an interesting show and I'm glad we saw it at least for the cultural aspect of it. After the performance, Jenny, Jode, Diana, and I grabbed a quick bite of dumplings (quick because they were so small--oh well!) and went back to the Black Dragon Pool in the evening since the rain had finally subsided and the lights were rumored to be quite lovely at night.
Using our same ticket to re-enter the park, we were romanced and dazzled by the beautiful lights reflecting on the water and the quiet night still sustaining a gentle sprinkle of rain in the dark. I wish my photos did it more justice because it was enchanting as we walked around the deserted park, over the arched bridges, and past back-lit vibrant bamboo chutes. So glad we went back!
So, once again, we packed in the sights in Lijiang and prepared ourselves for our 3-day hike starting the next day in Tiger-Leaping Gorge, praying for dry weather and a clear, landslide-free day of treking!

Dilly-Dallying in Delightful Dali

2008-02-15T12:41:00.000-08:00

Day 1: Arriving in Dali after a rather restless/hot night on the top bunk of the sleeper train, I was somewhat disappointed to see that it was raining in our new town. Our tour group had some time to quickly shower and drop off our stuff at the MCA hotel then we headed out, armed with umbrellas to explore the city. Still quite charming and picturesque in the rain, Dali's wild foliage, lovey-dove bohemian vibe reminds me a little of my own Bay Area birthplace: Berkeley, California. Very cool and low-key and a little Euro even. The city's cobblestone streets lined with funky wooden crafts, tie-dyed cloth, and ethnic minority (the Bai people) costume and specialities alll kept my camera quite busy on a walk through the city this afternoon.
Visiting a lovely little pagoda as well as an ancient tablet from Kublai Khan's reign, I enjoyed the few historical sites we went to as well as just wandering around the city. When a Monsoon-like downpour prevented our group from going too far, we all ducked into a cute Tibetan cafe and had fun talking with our Gecko group and getting to know everyone a bit better over a cup of hot chocolate and teas.
Always keen to try new and local dishes, Jodee and I had a lovely, all veggie lunch with Anita, Monica, Jenny, and Diana at a tiny restaurant. Our delicious variety of everything from stir-fried pumpkin flowers, eggplant, and sprouts to spinach, carrots with some rice was tasty and later we tried some interesting local brownies and flat sweet bread from the street. With the rain and post-travel exhaustion, we took it pretty easy on Day 1 in Dali, also because we wanted to preserve our energy for the next day's Bike Ride around Er Hai lake!

Day 2: Today was my favorite day in China! In the words of my dear friend Kim, it was AH-MAZING, truly. I awoke early and made sure to pack a well-charged camera in my rain jacket as Jode and I met up with our Gecko group and walked a few blocks through Dali to go pick up our bikes for the day, strap on our Gecko helmets, and set off for the lake!
Though overcast from yesterday's rain, the weather was cool and we lucked out in not having rain as we rode through the packed-dirt streets and into a maze of alley-ways down towards the ferry boat scheduled to take us across Er Hai (a reference to the ear-like shape of the large lake). At my first sight of the fisherman casting their rustic nets off their long canoe boats, I knew it was going to be a beautiful, camera-happy day! After a pit-stop at our biking guide's home, we made our way down to the dock to board our boat and cross Er Hai lake. The scenery was serene and charming from the boat, and when we arrived on the other side of the lake, we grabbed our bikes and helmets and headed for the steep dirt trail ahead. As my muscles woke up and I began to feel the wind on my face and flecks of fresh mud hitting my legs, I was elated, riding my bike past rice fields, a little calf, and the quiet bundles of fisherman working out on the lake or sitting in shanty shacks on the side of the trail. Everywhere I looked was like a snapshot from another time; rustic, simple, and full of natural beauty. As I sped through puddles and coasted down the trail I realized how much I love cycling too- with it's easy balance of exercise and fun- I really hope to get into when I get back to the States.
Anyhow, after a good ride on the trail, we gathered together with our gecko group and stopped in a little town on Er Hai and had some time to walk around before lunch. As a home to many of the Bai ethnic minority, the little fishing town we walked through was an isolated but incredible place to wander. The modernities they had and didn't have were surprising: Old women dressed in Bai clothing wearing Nike's on their feet and drinking coke next to the the woman with her son whom we took a picture of and when we asked for her email so we could send the photo, she didn't know what email was and had never heard of the Internet before! See what I mean- cool town to walk through. After we had a nice lunch and a trip to some rudimentary toilets (not as charming as the town- ick!) we took our bikes and boarded the boat again to head to our next biking destination. As our boat moved towards the landing, gliding through a forest of lily pads, it ran right over another boat! Luckily or sadly- however you want to look at it- their boat was smaller so we didn't have any problems: once again, never a dull moment right? Docking, we left the boat with our bikes and headed for the next trail. This trail was much less rustic as it was actually a road that took us all along the rice paddies and farmlands of Dali, giving us glimpses of farmers in their conical straw hats and colorful clothing, butterflies and livestock, and ultimately leading us to Dali's iconic 3 Pagodas. It was a hot but beautiful ride and I'm so happy we did it, even though my rear end is as sore as can be. Back in town after we returned our bikes, to ease our muscles a bit, we opted to get 30-min foot rubs which had their Chinese beating-oddness but were overall a good choice after a long an amazing day.
We ended our time in Dali that evening with a tasty group dinner at the MCA hotel where the cooks there made us BBQ chuwar and loads of other fun dishes- even the nasty local cheese rolls which i got tricked into trying! Ah well, a nice ending to a great day- I must say Dali has been fantastic!

The Stunning Stone Forest

2008-02-15T12:39:00.001-08:00

So glad we took the extra side trip here...
Waking up early in our beautifully Western beds at the Camilla hotel, 2 fellow members of our new Gecko tour group, Diana and Jenny, joined Jodee and me on our day-trip by (crazy driver) bus to the fabulous Stone Forest, which is just outside of Kunming. Though it's as touri$ty as ever, swarming with matching-hat groups snapping photos of the sights as well as me and Jodee (the token "celebrities"/white people) I was so glad we went to this "extra" sight, slightly off the beaten path in the lush, green Yunnan countryside.

Made up of huge limestone pillars/natural rock formations formed millions of years ago underwater and later raised to the surface by Earth's shifiting plates, the Stone forest was once inhabited by a Chinese ethnic minority tribe (who now dress up as tour guides and take people around the park in little golf carts). Like looking for cloud figures in the sky, some of the beautiful stones have been given names based on the different shapes they seem to portray, ie The Waiting Woman, A Mother and her Son, etc. and as we visited the park we had fun hiking through the different stones and trying to identify the different shapes. Really beautiful! We even climbed to some of the overview areas and took some picts at the top of the whole park.

A lovely visit and overall day. We spent the evening finding some new books to read on the train! and enjoying a good Chinese dinner with our friends in Kunming, then met up with our Geckos group at night to catch a sleeper train to Dali (horray for the top bunk!)

Keeping it real in Kunming

2008-02-15T12:35:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Kunming on Saturday evening (July 7th) after a delayed flight from Lhasa, only to burst the bubble of my Tibeten fantasy as I was once again surrounded by Reality: Crowds of pushing Chinese people at the airport and then discovering that my luggage had been left in Shang-gri-la after our 30 minute stop there. Not the best news, but I tried to stay calm and relaxed about it since I guess I should be used to this kind of thing by now. Jodee and I filled out all the forms and eventually were able to find our way to the Hump hostel to find a room for the night, grab a bite of food, and wait for our luggage to arrive.
Having a pretty chill evening--especially since we didn't have much to do--we wandered a bit around the shops in Kunming, fed a meatstick to a sad stray dog that we saw a man beating earlier (horrible- I am still in shock at the way that animals are treated sometimes in China-so much cruelty), then waited at the hostel until a man from the airport came around midnight and took us to a van where we happily found our luggage, collected it, and went to bed.
Definitely a calm day, but it was good to have a chance to rest up and get ready to meet up with our tour on Sunday to start our 22-days of hard-core travel.

Breath-taking Tibet!

2008-02-15T12:34:00.000-08:00

And I mean breath-taking both figuratively and literally. After an amazing 46-hour train ride from Beijing to Lhasa, I arrived around 8pm last night in one of the world's highest, and most famous cities: Lhasa. With massive mountains, bright blue sky and clouds like a painting of heaven, Tibet is a beautiful land with such interesting people and places to see. Though my legs felt a little like jelly yesterday and my shortness of breath, nausea, and insomnia let my body know it was not in Baoding anymore, I have been loving walking around the city and snapping pictures.
There is a pleasant feeling much different from China here. Granted, I always feel more peaceful in the mountains, but it's strange to be in a huge city in the mountains with all these people and still feel a degree of that. The people seem to smile more and though some live simple lives, there is an untouched beauty and reverence about some of them that I fear is quickly fading as China moves its culture into this once-sacred and secluded place. I struggle a bit with this access and power China has here, since without that change and modernization, I wouldn't get to be here to see and experience beautiful places like the Potala palace and Johkang temple, but at the same time you can see that something is fading and may be lost from a place like this if not properly cared for and preserved. I don't trust China with it based on their track record, but I'm thankful I'm here and hope for the best.

During my time here (a brief but wonderful 3 1/2 days) I have loved walking through the market streets and observing all the different kinds of people here. From tourists to pilgrims, Tibet attracts a special group. Highlights of my time here include going to the Sera Monastary and watching the Tibeten Monks debate in the courtyard, seeing a beautiful Mandala made by monks with colored sand (amazing!), watching the crowds at the musical fountains near the Potala at night, taking a bicycle pallanquin through the market streets (so touristy, but fun!), bartering for gifts with the vendors (so funny hearing them say things like: "cheapy, cheapy", "I love you", and "looky-looky")...
...listening to the monks pray at the Johkang temple and climbing to the roof for beautiful city views. I love Tibet! It was definitely hard to leave (not only because I liked it but our bus to the airport was also held up for almost an hour by the police. I've never seen so many police/officials--even in China--along a road like before, Tibet is definitely still being monitored tightly by the Chinese government.)
Let the travels continue...

Going to Lhasa: Inspired prose from the journey

2008-02-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

I am going to Lhasa...
Climbing higher and higher through the mountains as the train pulls us upwards,
The sky outside seems close to the green hills and peaks with grazing dzo yaks.
Crisp colors heightened by the fleece-like clouds and blue-grey sky
Decorate the horizon as I gaze out the window breathing long but shallow breaths.
A Tibeten cowboy stands on a nearby path, quickly lost from my view...but not my thoughts
His nomadic, colorful clothing sketched in my memory with wonder at his life and all he's seen.
I am going to Lhasa...

Heards of wooly sheep guided by shepherds in long dress with red scarves,
Make me feel as though I'm watching a storybook's ancient tale unfold
As the train continues to move on.
Reflections of the sky touching clear pools of water where animals bend to drink
Move past my window like enchanted glass.

Grazing on these views, as the animals do with their fresh grass,
I feel calm and hopeful for all that can inspire me on this journey
Now and ahead
I am going to Lhasa...

My Chinese Name(s)

2008-02-15T12:32:00.000-08:00

As mentioned, the month of June has been crazy and I am once again way behind in the blogging that should have been. Now on the road and paying for Internet (boo) my blogs will have to be more concise while not losing the key events, so let's talk about my Chinese name...actually names.

When I first arrived in China and began teaching my students, I asked them to choose English names for our classes. On that same note, most foreigners, especially teachers, who come to China get a Chinese name, usually with the help of friends or students. As the procrastinator I am, I waited until my last 3 weeks of teaching to ask some of my favorite students (Zero-the-Hero and her friends from class 4) to help me find a suitable (and easily written) Chinese name. This was just before our "whirlwind weekend" in BJ and the name we decided on was Wang Ling.
I chose Wang because of the easy character and the fact that it means "king/queen/royalty" just like my name Stephanie in Greek means "crown" and we chose the name Ling because it means "cool, clear water that sings" and just seems appropriate for those that know me :)

Not to over-do it, this past week as we met with our friend Jasmine's family to say goodbye, they gave both Jodee and I Chinese names to represent our adoption into their Chinese family :) These names were just like Jasmine's Chinese name Zhang Ming Zhu, but my name they gave me was Zhang Ming Hui- which means bright, clever, Sunshine. Meanwhile Jodee was Zhang Ming Yue which means beautiful bright moon.

Sweet gestures from all who helped me to get my Chinese names- better late and plentiful, than never :)

Tall girl in the front row...

2008-02-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

Tuesday at 10 am, Jodee and I went to meet up with No. 17's Junior 3 faculty for a photo session outside. Being the token laowai (foreigner), we were pulled into many pictures, including one with our liaison, Ms. Gao who we've had quite the bipolar relationship with during our time at the school. She was quite friendly with us this day though, going so far as to hold my hand--weird--during our picture. We also took picts with the headmaster- who's never spoken a word to us, accidentally mistook a teacher for one we knew and pulled her into a picture (we thought it was Ms. Joh but it wasn't Jodee found out when she saw the real Ms. Joh later that day! Ooops), and as mentioned in the headline, for the first time in my life I was on the front row of every picture taken! :) Love it!

Summer Solstice Sum-up

2008-02-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, think of this as a place holder. June has been one crazy month and I've written these things down in my journal but can't get them all up on my blog. Maybe you'll like the abbreviated version better anyways :)
Mon- Classes, and watched the WORST MOVIE EVER: Premonition, with Sandra Bullock- save yourself the pain of watching this one please.
Tues- Mexican night at Dave and Lis: they made real tortillas, we had chips, nacho cheese and salsa thanks to Dave's Mom being in town. Also played some funny card games with silly rules- never a dull moment with the gang!
Wed- Mmmmm, yummy Italian lasagna with friends at Sandy's
Thurs- Long day of classes and travel planning, had to crash in the evening and just chill
Fri- Woke up with my lip swelled up like a balloon- found a nasty spider in my bed that was probably the biter, luckily the swelling went down on it's own so I could avoid the Chinese doctors and enjoy a lunch/DVD run with Bob, Kim and Tami.
Sat- Packing, planning, picture swapping, and finally chilling with Tyler and the girls eating junk and enjoying some quality time together our last weekend in Baoding.
Sun- Running errands, packing, and preparing for our last week of goodbyes, etc. in Baoding

Whirlwind Weekend!

2008-02-15T12:23:00.000-08:00

Is my "head on duty?"
There is a phenomenon in life that never ceases to astound me, especially as I get older: Time. I can remember my first few days and weeks here in China and how each day seemed like an eternity, so slow and deliberate. Now, as I near the end of teaching I can hardly believe how much is going on and how fast the time is flying. As a result, I'll try to make this entry a bit more concise...
It's been a few years now since I began considering Thursdays as "part of the weekend" so let's start there:
Thursday- A night that "Ruled"...We met up with the crew for Bishi's final hoo-rah before heading back to the UK for the summer (can you believe he keeps coming back to Baoding- going on 5 years now!) After an excellent chwar dinner (which I had to order due to an unlucky game of cards and rule- grrr)an underwear-on-the-head-clad Bishi (another rule, he actually sewed the undies onto his hat!) naturally beautiful (no make-up) Kim, Tyler, Jodee, Tami and I somehow guided a cab to our good ol' KTV joint. Eventually Dave and Lis joined us for some amazing ballades and we ended up closing the place with a final belting of "We are the Champions"! Classic. We crashed around 3am and had to stay with friends since we still get locked out of our school after 10:30pm!
Friday- Full, full, Full....Totally exhausted, in the AM we had to RUN home at 6:30am, pack for BJ, catch the AM train to BJ, check into the hostel, grab a quick bite, jump on public transport to up with a friend for an insiders tour of BeiDa (Beijing University- so cool, imagine going to college in classrooms where Emperors once sat!), meet up with some more friends for a bday dinner and more KTV (yikes, I'm hoarse already!), and finally make our way back to the hostel to sleep a few hours before Saturday.
Saturday- Summer Pal'in it Up... It was as if our legs started running as soon as we got up on Saturday, another packed day. We tried to coordinate more schedules and make plans for the evening, guiltily grabbed McDonald's and ran through the subway station like stereotypical Americans (yuck), and finally met up with a friend to go and see the beautiful Summer Palace.
Perhaps my favorite sight in Beijing thus far, the Palace was huge and magnificently built in with giant boulders and a lush green forest overlooking the center of Beijing. Add the freshly restored detailing and architecture of the temples, palace buildings, and a HUGE lake with boats paddling around it, and you can imagine how photo-happy I was. Jodee and I even dressed up in Chinese garb to get some more amazing/fun shots. It was great!
After a full day hiking around the Palace, we bid one friend farewell only to rush off to meet up with another friend in the silk market for some quick backpack shopping for our upcoming travel(thank goodness for our Mandarin-speaking friend and excellent negotiator who helped us get a good price- $50 bucks for a decent quality hikers pack- not bad!) Still rushing and running chronically late, we then met up with another friend for dinner at an amazing (but rather pricey) steak place by the silk market. Yum Yum! We tried to polish of the night with a movie, but it wasn't meant to be (probably for the best) so we headed back to the hostel, opted out of clubbing with some other friends, and attempted to get some much-needed sleep!
Sunday- A day of [Un]Rest...
After we had rushed out of the silk market, later on Sat. night Jodee realized she had left something there, so our task before church was to retrieve a lost bag and not be late. We were able to achieve the former but the latter was wishful thinking, especially since we chose a somewhat crazy cab to get us there, but we eventually made it and enjoyed the meetings and a chance to catch our breath. After church, we hurried to meet some friends at Lush (a laowai oasis near BeiDa- almost reminds me of the Leaky Cauldron pub described in Harry Potter; it's like you're transfered to the Western world when you step inside) Sadly, we missed our friends (wish I had a cellphone sometimes) but we ordered some really great sandwiches, then hurried to do some camera shopping before our 6:30pm train. Research in hand as I entered the electronics market, I was able to examine, negotiate, and buy a decent camera (Canon IXUS 70) with an English manual (Jodee actually got the same one too- twinners) and after we paid, we rushed out to get a cab to try and catch our train.

Running like sweat-machines through the crowded train station, we were sadly defeated on our last task, missing our train by a mere 7 minutes, but we persevered and upgraded to the faster (and regrettably more expensive) train back to Baoding, making it back just in time to cram onto the last bus of the night back to No. 17
See why I'm tired? It was quite a busy weekend but a good one for sure.

Just Ducky: My latest "crazy" food

2008-02-15T12:21:00.000-08:00

Yet another adventure started tonight when we--4 non-Chinese-speaking girls--decided to grab dinner at a random place near Baoding's train station. I was feeling quite hungry as Jodee and I had not had lunch today and since everyone else was too, we decided to try one of the first decent-looking places we saw.

From the outside everything looked OK- the place was full of people and had a smiling little duck-face logo on the sign, but when we got inside we found that the all-Chinese menu had no pictures on it (never a good sign for us since we've lost Stephen). However, being the adventurous and very hungry girls we were, we decided we'd stay (everyone else seemed to be really liking the food) and get by with our pantomime and phrasebooks. I realize now that perhaps our hunger blinded us from taking a closer look at the food on tables nearby, or maybe we were naive when the semi-English-speaking waiter mentioned duck head and we tried to correct him with, "Oh you mean the whole duck, including the head, right?" (note to self- NEVER try to second-guess the waiter when he says they're serving duck head, he's probably serious!) But, whatever the reason, the next thing we knew a huge, steaming bowl of duck heads was placed on our table for dinner! Yup, not exactly a dream come true, but when you're hungry you've gotta eat so we decided to give it a try. Though the seasonings were good, the hardest thing was actually finding any meat on the head. Poor Tami accidentally ate an eye (guess she didn't see that coming)and I actually ate some duck tongue and brains- yikes, what was I thinking?! All I can say is, we got some great photos and after splitting the bill (harhar) we decided that we'd definitely count that dinner as an experiential one.

China's Forbidden...Teachers Lounge?

2008-02-15T12:20:00.001-08:00

While it may not be as famous as the Forbidden City in Beijing, Baoding Foreign Languages School has a place that up until Tuesday, was as mysterious and off-limits as the Emperor's palace of old. Legend (according to the foreign experts) has it that behind this locked golden-wood door on the 3rd floor lies a plush, cut-above-the-rest room where only Communist party members can be rewarded and relax after classes. On Tuesday, Jodee and I did the unthinkable and boldly went where no foreign teacher had gone before--the Room--thanks to a teacher with a key who needed a favor from us (so appropriate and representative of how things work in this system, right?) Anyhow, we got into the room and WISHED we had grabbed our cameras on the way to class that morning. Looking around the room, we settled into our comfy leather chairs around a lacquered conference table in the center of the room. Surrounding us were red banners and several Chinese & Communist flags, and while the room wasn't breath-taking or anything, it was definitely pretty posh and extremely nice compared to any of the rooms we'd seen thus far at our school. Kind of eerie to be in a place where we had probably been "discussed" before though. We spent a couple hours in the room to complete our actual task at hand--recording our perfectly-accented American voices for the student's listening portion of an exam--then left as quickly as we had come, with the door locking behind us. What an event! Strange the things that becoming exciting to me here :)

Sleeping on the Great Wall of China

2008-02-15T12:18:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to report yet another excellent and memorable weekend in Beijing which included a little bit of shopping and a whole lot of Great Wall fun! Arriving Friday and bartering tireless all day at the Silk Market for much needed souvenirs/gifts, the real fun began when we met up with the Beijing YSA's at night for the 6:30pm bus to hike and sleep on the Huang Hua Cheng section of the Great Wall of China!

Loading up our packs with food/gear/sleeping bags, we clicked on our flashlights and hiked our way up through the misty night air, foliage, and steep (often slippery) stones of China's great dragon. Feeling like Genghis Khan after a steep and sweaty climb up in the dark, we cooled off in a watchtower/shelter on the Wall, started a fire, and heated up roast duck and marshmallows that we'd hauled up with us along with the other piles of food.

Quite the party, there were 42 of us total on the once-deserted section of the wall. That night we talked, played, leisurely explored a bit of the serene Wall which was covered in mist (pretty amazing), listened to the crazy boy who'd hauled his guitar all the way up there with us, watched the fire die, then grabbed our sleeping bags and hiked a little further up the wall to make camp and get some sleep.

We snuggled right into the cubbies of the watchtower and slept soundly on the 2,000 year-old (though likely restored since then) structure. The next morning we awoke to a quiet, cool morning on the Wall, shrouded in fog, which only added to the calmness and seclusion of this ancient place in the hills. It was amazing and surreal to be there and feel alone on the wall--a much different experience than we had on our Badaling excursion.

After a typical Jodee-Steph photo session extravaganza with everything we could possibly snap picts of on the wall, we joined the group, discovering we had missed breakfast and the group photo due to our own camera addictions--sad, but we got over it soon enough when we joined a small group of Chinese tourists who were playing a terrific game with others from our group. Complete with a cheer-like song, dance moves, and a competitive element, the game was similar to our Ro-Sham-Bo (obviously a great help since the physical gestures were all I could understand and not the Chinese). I wish I knew the name and hope to find it out someday but I do know how to play. It goes like this: the 2 opponents who play the game face each other, then begin the dance/chant together telling a story about someone going on a journey through the woods and then coming across another person. Here's where the game gets exciting--Each player has 3 choices of what person/character they can be: 1) The Hero/Warrior, 2) The Beautiful Girl, or 3) The Pervert. Hero beats Pervert, Pervert beats Girl, Girl beats Hero and you keep playing, just like Ro-Sham-Bo until one conquers the other. Then another opponent jumps in and the whole thing starts again. It was amazingly fun (though at first a bit intimidating) jumping in and playing this game with our huge group of new friends that had gathered all around. Everyone was laughing, cheering, taking pictures, and having a great time not to mention the fact that we were still on the Great Wall for all of this!

As it was still pretty foggy and we were running on limited sleep, a group of us decided to for-go more hiking on the wall, and began our descent, this time with a bit more light showing us the trail we had stumbled up the previous evening. And it was no wonder we stumbled a little- the section of wall we were now climbing back down was incredibly steep and slippery. So much so, that with all our gear and the slippery grade, we had to crab-walk/slide down portions of the wall to avoid any disasters. It was definitely an exciting addition to our adventure, which didn’t even end there. In fact, it was only starting to get exciting as we got to the bottom of the trail and saw an old Chinese woman waiting for us at the bottom with a tree branch yelling and trying to block our path. Evidently, although we had paid handsomely to go up to the wall, this crazy woman was trying to capitalize on our passage back down the wall, but as I didn’t speak Chinese and those in our group who could pretended not to, we had to try and get by her—not without a little difficulty, I might add. She grabbed the first girl in our group by the arm and tried to detain her, but as she pulled loose, Jodee decided to scream and wave her arms as she hurried by. I just sort of ran by her, successfully avoiding the branch, and the rest of our group followed suit. Never a dull moment

When we finally got to the end of the trail, we attempted to clean off the dirt, gave the gatekeeper some of our left-over food, and cuddled with the cute little puppies they had outside their home. Then, we piled into a few vans and a bus and headed back to Beijing where we promptly showered and passed out for a 4-hour nap at our friend Angie’s place. Whew! It was a fantastic (but tiring) trip.

That evening, we went out with some cute guys and girls to enjoy delicious Korean BBQ (an easy favorite of mine I’ve discovered while here in China). And Sunday we had our church meeting, followed by—one of my favorite near-traditions we enjoy it so often—a fabulous lunch at the hospitable Lewis family’s beautiful home. Although happy, this Sunday was a bit more nostalgic than usual as we said goodbye to a family that has been so kind and giving to me personally as well as all the YSA’s here, the Belnaps. They are moving to Switzerland next week and it was their last meeting in the Branch, along with several other good families who are moving away from China. It made me realize how short our time with some people is, but how important and meaningful it can be.

Another experience akin to that sentiment was a brief meeting Jodee and I had with a woman named Sister Wang. This woman was a Chinese local member whom we’d never met but had served a mission with one of Jodee’s good friends and who Jodee had a package for. After weeks of unsuccessful communication attempts, we met up with Sis. Wang at the church and gave her the package, sharing a moment of true gratitude and meaning as she received this gift and thanked us for meeting up with her. I hardly realized what happened but before we knew it, we were all teary-eye because we felt such a strong spirit of love and happiness from this woman we hardly knew; you could just tell how important and special this meeting and package was to her and it was great to be a part of that experience.

So, in short, Beijing weekend number-I-don’t-know-what-anymore, was wonderful and I can’t wait to go back.

The Unforgettable Streets of China

2008-02-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Crazy things I have observed on the streets of China...
* Baby chicks in plastic bags
* Random blocks of buildings that have been completely knocked down and lie in rubble (like a bomb-zone)
* A little boy with squeaking shoes (like a rubber ducky) running around with his mom.
* Water calligraphy (pretty cool actually)
* A woman riding a bike in Beijing with her head and face wrapped completely in a scarf (ala The Headless Horseman)
* A family of 4 on a tiny mo-ped, zipping along down a busy street (helmets? what do you think?)
* Men sleeping on a pile of fertilizer in the back of a semi going 60 MPH
* A woman holding an IV for herself (!) while riding on the back of a motorcycle
* A man fully dressed in matching pajamas walking casually on the street one evening.
* (Daily) Children with split pants openly defecating on the street, sometimes assisted by their parents (eww)
* Old women dancing/exercising with bright neon fans and random flower baskets on the sidewalk in front of stores
* A man holding his son or daughter up to a trashcan to pee while only 10 feet or less away from an actual bathroom
* (Daily) Cringe-worthy loogie hocking/spitting by men and women alike
* Trucks with giant drums in the back, parading around town to advertise various sales or stores
* A dog being torched in front of a restaurant in Beijing, with his paws in a pile out front the next day (HORRIBLE!)
* Impromptu fashion shows on Saturday afternoons in front of shops
* Squatting men and women everywhere- from the bus stop to the train station, the squat is hot here in China.
With many more unusual things I need to remember or I'm sure will soon see...

From AHHHH to AAAAAH

2008-02-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

Tuesday didn't start off as an amazingly good day, even for China. I had a 7:30am class to start the day, with 5 more to follow, two of which were new classes. Mid-lesson, to my surprise, there was a knock on my classroom door and I found out from our usually negligent liaison that my apartment with it's continuing sewage problem was going to be fixed (really!) and I would need to vacate immediately following my class (really?). She also informed me, somewhat vaguely, that I would possibly be moving permanently to Stephen's old dorm next door. Mind you, I've been interrupted mid-sentence during class with this news and have 2 more classes in a row after it, so I was a bit flustered if not surprised by what I was hearing, but of course had to comply because 1) I don't like living in a sewage-infested apartment, and 2) I don't really have much of a choice.

So during my 10-minute break, I run back to the dorms, quickly attempt to move my valuables to Jodee's apartment (it was still fairly early so she had just awoken to this chaos of our liaison knocking on her door and workers lining up outside my place) I try to get as much info as I can in the few minutes we have, don't learn much but I'm already late for my class, which I've never taught before, so I rush back to the school, up the 5 flights of stairs and try to quickly find the correct classroom for my new students. Surprised to see me and not their previous teacher, Stephen, who left the school very suddenly for personal reasons, I attempt to establish some order, introduce myself, lay down some rules, and explain what's going on. The lesson is a bit of a bust since the students were already riled up and rowdy when I got there, but I get through the class and move on to the next one and am running back and forth between dorm rooms and classes for the rest of the day, moving pieces of my things next door to Stephen's old abode like a crazy person.

Meanwhile, two huge holes have already been jack-hammered through my old bathroom floor, so I try and stealthily fandangle my way around the piles of muck to get my belongings out of the bathroom and other rooms while be goggled at by the 5 worker guys because I'm a laowai (foreigner). Never a dull moment, right?

Anyhow, by a stroke of good luck amidst the bad, some girlfriends and I had already been planning on meeting up to get a Chinese massage together and it just so happens that Tuesday night was our night. We got to the massage place after a little treat at "Honeypoo" and felt the excitement/joy of pampering ourselves for only 69 kuai! Since this was my first professional massage, I'll admit it was a little strange, but overall pretty good.

All 5 of us were put in a plush room and given fruit, tea and water, and some PJ-type clothes to put on, then we got to soak our feet and our masseuses came in and began the hour massage. As you may already know, language and cultural barriers can make practically any activity funny and this was no exception. My masseuse just happened to be the most giggly one (a bit awkward when you're being massaged by someone who is laughing at you). So, when one of the male masseuses asked "What are you from?" we all just lost it- partially because of the question, partially because we had been holding the laughter in for some time (like the time during the massage when they all started flapping our ears and hitting us in the head!) Some things were definitely a bit strange, but overall the massage felt great and we were all not only entertained by the night, but felt really relaxed and blissful by the end of the massage. Hope to go back again soon, it was a nice treat and good ending to a day with a rough start!

Baoding's Little Italy

2008-02-15T12:14:00.002-08:00

While it may only be one small Italian restaurant in China, to those who've been here more than 3 months this place is amazing and worth a post. We got the gang together Thursday night for dinner at "Sandy's" a restaurant that has been open in our town a mere week and was so squeaky clean and Italian-ized inside that we literally thought we'd been transported to a different country. An Italian man and his Chinese wife are the owners of the place and seemed quite happy to have us there as some of their first customers--The food was amazing and service was excellent--definitely a fun treat for all of us to start our weekend right!

Fare-thee-well ol' friend

2008-02-15T12:14:00.001-08:00

This weekend in Beijing was one twinged with the sadness as we helped our fellow teacher Stephen say a sudden "Farewell!" to China. Although we have only been friends for a few months sometimes it seems like a lifetime with all the dinners, fun and scary memories, uphill battles, jokes, and co-miserating of China that we've gone through together. We became a sort of family: the Laowai of Shiqizhang, and it was hard to say goodbye.

I'll truly miss our golden-boy and favorite local celebrity who's been such a friend and help to us from our very first dinner of "lamian" together in the frigid, bleak winter when Jodee and I were wide-eyed and shell-shocked having just arrived in Baoding. We've come a long way since then and had quite the adventures together and I know our paths will cross again back in America (or little America, as we so fondly call Canada, Stephen's motherland).

And so, to Canada's future Prime Minister, our dear friend, and "handsome teacher", Stephen, I wish you well and hope the best things happen for you. May you always be able to sweet talk your way to any and may meat-floss cover you, way all over!

Happy (Crappy) Birthday

2008-02-15T12:13:00.001-08:00

This post is late in coming but I wanted to say a little about celebrating my birthday here in Baoding last Friday. My friends and I have a saying here that what we see and do in China is life, with Chinese characteristics and though I don't know that I'll ever truly be able to explain that to anyone who hasn't lived in China before, just know that I definitely celebrated a birthday with Chinese characteristics. With that said, while I hadn't been looking forward to it, my birthday and weekend featured both YIN and the YANG elements that only China could bring.

After the May holiday week and busy-ness of coming back to school I was the sickest I have ever been here in China. Literally 2 days before my birthday (which was not ideal considering I had 10 classes to teach), I came down with a head-cold from hell. Thankfully, with a little help from western medication I brought (thanks mom) and my friends I was able to not only get through all my classes but have a pretty decent weekend and birthday. On Thursday, several students really surprised me by remembering my birthday (from our very first lesson together) and bringing me gifts. You might remember "Zero the hero" from my past posts, she's one of my best (and I'll admit favorite) students and she surprised me as I was about to pass out on a break between classes on Thursday by bringing me a gift and card. It was so sweet and I was truly touched by the Russian-looking "Tao Wa" doll she gave me. Another student gave me some Happy Birthday Candles (later used on my cake), our friend Jasmine and her family gave me a sweet-looking harmonica, and many students wished me a happy birthday. YIN for sickness, YANG for sweet lil' students.

So, not too bad and by this time you may wonder about the headline of this post- crappy? Why would I ever say such a thing? Well I'm not just complaining or being pessimistic, when I say crappy, I actually mean that when I came home from class Thursday night that I found my bathroom floor flooded with waste/crap water from the hundreds of boys who live upstairs and our dorm's leaky pipes. Nope, I'm not lying, it was quite disgusting and we don't joke about things like that in China. So, feeling even more sick from the smell, Thursday night I decided to stay over at a friend's house and ended up having a great time over there making pizza and eating Italian food which was such a treat! I also received 4 birthday packages from family members with some candy and gifts from home- including Ranch dressing which we used for our pizza. So you see, despite the sewage and lack of effort by my school to fix the problem, I still managed to have a good Thursday night and woke up on my birthday Friday to the smell of pancakes, not sewage, and had a fun morning in the Western Haven that is Dave and Lis's apartment. YIN for poo, YANG for pizza and fun.

Having a fairly productive bday afternoon around Baoding, I went with Jodee and Stephen to pick up our paycheck for the month (not too shabby, I do enjoy getting paid.) Then we went home to get cleaned up and ready to go out for dinner. Thankfully someone had mopped up the dirty floors in my bathroom so I could shower, etc. but before I'd left for the evening the floors had flooded again, so I packed an overnight bag so I wouldn't have to come back, called the school to let them know that they hadn't fixed the problem yet, and once again made my escape. YIN for the crap, YANG for the escape!

Dinner was the best part of my day. We met up at one of my favorite Chinese (what else?) restaurants in town and had some good food and even better company. We enjoyed a funky Chinese cake which we cut with a huge butcher's knife from the restaurant and ate with chopsticks, and I received some amazing gifts- including a Mao Zedong poster, giant red friendship knot, pirated DVD's, earings (!), and priceless photo opps. We had a really fun time and I felt lucky to have so many great friends who I've met here in Baoding of all places. YANG for good friends!

Since I never get very sick in America, sometimes I have difficulty accepting the facts and taking a rest--especially on my birthday. So, while I probably should have called it a night after dinner, we had already planned to hit up the ol' Rolling Stone dance club in Baoding and I thought I had the energy. I didn't...especially when we arrived and the bouncers were trying to make us pay to get in (we'd never paid before and weren't about to start- c'mon, we're foreigners, we pay our price with the stares we get). After a little whining, they finally let us in for free and we went upstairs to the smaller dance floor to bust a move and have some fun. You can imagine my surprise when we walked into the room and instead of dancing, found a Chinese stripper in the middle of the dance floor busting her moves! It was raunchy-- definitely nothing I had expected or seen at this club before--and it was the final message to me that I needed to call it a night.
So, YIN for the club, but YANG for the overall day and birthday in China. I'm another year older.

Finding the Genuine in China

2008-02-15T12:12:00.001-08:00

With all its challenges, as I think about the 2 months I've spent in China thus far I can't help but contemplate the incredible depth of thought-provoking experiences I have had in such a short time. It's all here: the good, the bad, and the ugly (a cliché that fits China, though you might note that 2 of the 3 words are not the most positive adjectives.) One thing I can definitely say is that China makes you think about many things in life.

Recently, I've been very fortunate to spend time with some of the kindest, most genuine people I have met thus far in China in my various travels during a week-long May Holiday break. Our holiday started with an invitation from a favorite Junior 3 students, Jasmine, whom we usually eat lunch with on Mondays and that Jodee teaches in class. She’s a very sweet and studious 15-year-old who first approached us to welcome us to the school and to speak with us in English. We’ve had many fun conversations with Jasmine and she has always been very thoughtful and giving, so when she invited us to come to her home during the holiday on Tuesday and meet her family, we gladly accepted. In the early afternoon Jasmine and her dad came to the school to pick us up in their snoopy seat-covered mini-van and after a warm greeting and introduction to her Chinese-only-speaking dad, Jasmine (her Chinese name is ZhangMingzhu) wisked us off to her home only to be greeted outside by more of her smiling family members. Her mom, aunt and uncle, several cousins, and a couple of friends were all so friendly and welcoming to us as we came into their humble home and tried our best to communicate with each other. Sharing pictures of our homes, family, and friends, both Jodee and I were truly awed by the kindness and warmth we felt from Jasmine’s family and we had an amazing time visiting with them.

The day only got better when we all sat down together for a homemade lunch compliments of Jasmine’s mom and dad’s cooking skills. The food was delicious and plentiful and my biggest challenge was trying to eat all the various noodles, dumplings, and meat the family kept serving to me—it was all so good!

At the end of dinner, as we sat and could eat no more, the family grabbed some instruments, including the harmonica and a type of Chinese oval-shaped flute and both the uncle and father of Jasmine played some traditional songs for us. Then Jasmine whipped out her drumsticks and played a mean Jazz drum for us- it was awesome and you can bet I was loving the musical nature of this family. It only got better when they pulled out the Karaoke mic and dvds and everyone started singing and dancing to Titanic’s My Heart Will Go On a little later. Oh-so-cheesy-Chinese but a lot of fun too!

After the musical fun, the family invited us to go and see some of Baoding’s tourist attractions (which are few and far between) so we went with them to the Governor’s Palace (OK but nothing to write home about) and the Lotus Garden park (beautiful place though the lotus were not yet blooming). At these sights we were also able to meet up with Jasmine’s older sister, bro-in-law and nephew which was a lot of fun as well. The weather was nice and it was just such a fun and relaxing day that we were able to spend with some very kind people. As if the day wasn’t already enough, the family also insisted that we come back home with them for dinner and presented both of us with traditional stone necklaces on red string, and a hand-crafted sculpture picture display that Jasmine’s father had made especially for us. It was just such a great experience and day with these wonderful people and reminded me that you can find goodness everywhere.

May Holiday in Xi'an

2008-02-14T21:05:00.000-08:00

I began my May holiday journey to Xi'an with Jodee and Tyler on the evening of May 2nd,taking an 11 1/2 hour overnight hard-sleeper train (thanks to the help in
getting tickets from a Chinese friend with connections). The trip began with a sprint to the train since no one at station had mentioned that our train would be leaving from a platform upstairs, not downstairs as we were used to, so that was a bit stressful but thankfully we made it. This being my first sleeper train in China, I found it pretty similar to the Euro-rail though much less private and slightly more cramped, not too bad though. Our neighbors and people we met on the train were pretty nice too. I had an interesting conversation with a Chinese woman who was contemplating a move with her husband to Ohio and was curious about the US, and we had a 10-year-old Chinese girl sitting next to us named Mary who spoke pretty great English and really liked us (she kept calling me and Jodee "sister" since that is often what people do in China when they have a very good friend; it was sweet). Anyways we had a pretty easy/friendly train ride. A few other "foreigners" were on the train and one even gave me a random thumbs-up as he walked by just, I assume, for being white, he didn't even say anything to me—bizarre.

So, we arrived in Xi’an around 6am on May 3rd. Since the ride had been fairly easy, it was only fair to have a reminder that we were still in China by running into some challenges as soon as we arrived at the train station. Our hostel had said they would pick us up and help us find them with a sign reading “JODE” (don’t ask me why everyone has so much trouble with Jodee’s name—Judee, juh-dey, joode—but they really do). No such sign or person was anywhere to be found so we called the hostel and found out they had misunderstood Jodee’s phone call and thought we would be arriving the previous day. The hostel was cool enough to say they’d reimburse us for the cab when we arrived, but it was still a hassle because that meant we would have to fight to get our return train ticket on our own.

Now here I should note for those of you who haven’t lived/worked in China that May Holiday is one of about 3 distinct vacation times that the Chinese people have off
(and they don’t do weekends here—most Chinese work/go to school on both Saturday and Sunday: breaks are rare). So, you might try to imagine the crowds of people traveling while they can in total chaos at the train stations. Add the pushy crowd-factor to the cryptic and archaic Chinese train ticketing system that only allows someone to purchase tickets with cash, in-person (no Internet or functional phone service available) at maximum a week in advance of the day of travel (!) and you can understand why 3 non-Mandarin-speaking laowai (foreigners) like us might have been a wee bit stressed at this point. However, determined to work things out, we whipped out our phrase book, gathered our luggage and pushed forward to the ticket lines/blobs (Chinese people don’t quite get or choose to follow the concept of queuing). When we finally made it to the front of our second line, our worst fears were confirmed: not only were the tickets for every day except Sunday sold-out, but Sunday’s trains had standing-only tickets left, no sleepers or seats back for the 11+ hour overnight journey! We were at a loss at what to do because if we didn’t buy the tickets then we might not be able to get back at all, so we decided to buy into our worst case scenario and hope that the hostel might help us work out something better once we spoke with them.

Still only about 8am at this time, we arrived at the hostel eager to check-in and enjoy Xi’an despite our difficult morning, but sadly the challenges were not over. When we arrived at the hostel the staff informed us that because they had mixed up when we were arriving and had expected us earlier, they had given away our reservations and no longer had any space for us in the hostel. “Oh China, when will you stop sucking?!” I asked, and shortly thereafter it did. The hostel staff found us a place at their nearby sister hotel which was decent and even a bit of a cultural experience in itself since we were the only laowai there and this was the kind of place where most Chinese travelers stay (not a hostel). Also, we were still able to chill and have easy access to the people, tours, amenities at the hostel with a short walk, so it was A-OK.

So, a very long intro to a rather quick trip, but we did a lot in our 4 days in Xi’an. Here’s the abridged run-down
Day 1 (Thursday): after arrival and hotel check-in, we took a wandering walk through Military park right by the hostel. Highlights of the park were the big beautiful trees and real (non-plastic) flowers we saw as well as little baby chicks and ducklings (some of which were dyed neon pink, green, and purple- so strange). Once through the park, we tried to find the bus we needed to get downtown and were pleasantly surprised when we asked a woman in a restaurant for help/directions that not only did she come with us and help us find and buy a map of Xi’an, she also made sure we got to the right bus stop and understood where to go. It was very, very nice of her and quite helpful to us. So, once on the crazy bus—I say crazy because one thing I discovered about Xi’an is that the bus drivers are a little crazy with the driving, it’s like they think they’re in a mini-cooper not a huge bus! I saw 3 near-deaths in our short ride to the Shaanxi Museum. As far as museums go, Shaanxi was OK but quite over-crowded with the May Holiday people. I like to walk through and savor a museum peacefully but that wasn’t possible this time around. The museum did have some cool artifacts and art from the different dynasties though as this province and Xi’an city specifically is one of China’s oldest cities, the capital of the first emperor Qin Shi Huang’s dynasty. Tired after our travels and the busy museum, we freshened up at the hotel with some showers and rest, then treated ourselves to a little taste of home: Starbucks and Pizza Hut for dinner (vanilla bean never tasted so good!)

Day 2 (Friday): Trip to the Terracotta Warriors!

We signed up for a tour through the nearby hostel and met our group- the 3 of us, a French guy named Patrick, and a cool Chinese chick named Julie with her Korean Boyfriend.

Starting a bit roughly with our angry van driver and timid sweet Chinese guide, we ended up waiting by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere for about 45 min due to some van/carpooling issues, then fled the police from the side of the road and sat in the van for another 45 minutes in the middle of a little run-down neighborhood, watching a herd of goats cross the highway. Very bizarre . When our driver finally did figure out what to do with all of us, we headed to a tourist shop first- which was cool because they showed us how the terracotta warriors were made and some other local crafts (like donkey-skin art hangings) but also a little chinsy since we didn't sign up to shop but wanted to see the warriors.

Anyways, we left soon after and went to the next bizarrely stupid stop on our tour- a diorama of Chin Shi Huang's unopened tomb. Due to Indiana-jones-esque booby traps and archaeological disturbance fear, they've never opened the tomb- which is likely pretty cool considering the surrounding spectacle of warriors and such. But as cool as the real one might be this "museum/display" was equally as lame if not more so. We all had to just make fun of it to really enjoy the experience/Chinese-ness of it all. FINALLY, after all of the preamble, we arrived at the Terracotta Warriors during the heat of mid-day and hoards of tourists out for the May holiday.

We were given about an hour and a half to see the excavation sites and while I would have enjoyed learning more about the place, as I entered the mosh-pit of scrambling, sweaty tourists, I knew the time limit was probably a good thing because all I wanted to do was get in, get my pictures, and get out of there, which is pretty much what we did. Sort of anti-climactic really, but it's one of those things you HAVE to do when you visit China and Xi'an specifically so check it off the BTDT list! As if the day wasn't full enough, we made one last tourist stop at Hua Ching pools, a natural hot springs of sorts and favorite of the Emporers and their plentiful concubines. Nestled in some lush countryside just below the mountains, while touristy, this last stop was interesting and we had fun with it- posing near the fountains, watching a free dance show, and snapping photos of all the little girls dressed up like traditional concubines (sorta like Disneyland princesses only creepy). Anyhow it was hot and we were all completely exhausted and slept in the van on the way back (probably a good thing since watching our driver on the road was more scary than any nightmare!).

After a shower and little rest, we went back to the hostel and met up with our new friend Patrick and ended up going out on the town. Since he's a partier by profession (seriously, a part of his wine merchant job is to go to clubs and fancy hotels in Beijing and meet people) we should have known what we were getting into, but I had no idea Xi'an had such a nightlife! We went to a fun little bar street on Dong Dajie, met up with one of Patrick's friends Paul (pronounce Pole) and wound up at a Chiva's sponsored Chinese Club called 1+1.

It was actually pretty posh, though weird, with little bouncers dressed in Bobbie-esqe uniforms. Highlights would have to be: a) seeing a wannabe-black Chinese rapper dressed from head to toe in white, complete with gold chains (and yes, he was serious!) AND b) being stopped mid-dance on the mini-dance floor so we could watch the skanky dancers- what? so lame. It was a fun night though and we didn't end up leaving until almost 2am, which turned out to be a problem since our lame hotel wouldn't let us have our own key and we ended up being locked out when our taxi dropped us off. Two old Chinese men were nice enough to help us out by yelling at the women who were sleeping inside to come out and let us in, but boy were they pyst at us! Awkward, but what do they want when they refuse to give tourists keys to their hotel rooms?

Day 3 (Saturday): Slept in (finally!) then made our way over to the Muslim quarter, which was quite a feast for the eyes.

Vendors everywhere, bright colors, foods, smells and people bustling about. We even ran into a little girl and family we'd met on the train from Baoding- exciting!

After wandering a while, we stopped to try the yummy local Islamic specialty- fenrerou (fried lamb in a wheaty -bread soup) then made our way to the Great Mosque (one of the largest in China) and ended up wandering off on our own to take artsy photos and enjoy the uniquely peaceful and spiritual atmosphere, so rare for a tourist attraction. Stalwart Muslims were gathering and walking all around the mosque with their white skull-caps, making their way to the prayer hall as service was about to start.

Listening to the chanting of the prayers in the serene environment only heightened my senses and I found myself feeling surprisingly emotional as I pondered recent experiences of China and news that a fellow teacher and husband of a friend was quite possibly dying of a rare type of cancer. As we left the peace of the mosque to the noisy streets of bargaining and vendors, I decided to go back to the hotel, taking a walk and much-needed break. That evening was pretty chill- we walked over to the hostel, met up with our pal Patrick and just hung out talking.

Day 4 (Sunday): Our last day in Xi'an was chock full of goodies, starting with a trip
to the Little Goose Pagoda and park. The Pagoda itself wasn't much to see or climb but it was our first pagoda ever so we were pretty excited and made the most of every photo opp. as always. Lovely weather-including blue sky and sunshine (a treat in China) made the scenery and views from the top excellent and put us all in a rather giddy mood as we danced on a pole and climbed in the tiny windows like the crazy Americans we are :) (don't worry, we did no more damage than the chainsaw and junkage left lying around the pagoda- so much for protecting the cultural relic) Anyhow, after our climb, Jodee had the marvelous idea of looking for a Magnum bar (if you've ever eaten this European treat you'll know what I mean by marvelous) and we found some right in the park by the pagoda. As we sat at a picnic table in the shade, a happy Chinese man eating cucumbers and tomatoes smiled at us and offered us a tomato , speaking in English as he did so. It was really nice but having our hands full of ice cream we declined but he insisted so finally Jodee took the veggie (or fruit, depending on what you consider a tomato).

Anyways, this man, Zhang (pronounce John) was really friendly and we began talking with him only to learn that he not only loved speaking English but was also an artist/wood sculptor. I hate to say that when I heard him say this my suspicions that he was trying to sell something prickled up a bit, but we continued talking with him and starting walking around the park with him. Not only did he tell us all about the things that we passed, but he pulled out a map to tell us about his favorite Xi'an sights and suggestions of where to go. So helpful and nice! Then, he told us that we were almost to his wood-shop, which was in the park and run by him and his 3 brothers. We stepped inside and saw all these beautifully crafted wooden sculptures- some of them made from huge pieces of driftwood, but all very well done and unique. Zhang told us that he made most of them and showed us his tools, how he made them, and then told us that we could take one! We felt like we had to refuse- this things were nice and we were quite willing to pay for the souvenir Confucius sculptures, but he insisted, even when we got money out and put it in his hand-- he wanted to give them as a gift and memory of him and his shop and he signed each of them and wished us well. Such an awesome experience to experience that kind of hospitality from someone who didn't want anything from you but a smile.

Lifted by this positive experience, we decide that Xi'an really was a great place and for our last stop before the train, we wanted to visit the heart-of-the city's Bell tower.

Arriving just in time for the last bell-playing musical and dance performance, we enjoyed some more great culture and views of the city before heading off to cue up at the train station and try to fix our no-seat 11-hour ride back to Baoding.

While we left Xi'an on a happy note, the reality that we were still in real-world China during the 2nd-busiest travel week of the year meant that we had no other option short of a very expensive plane ride, to get back to Baoding in time to teach on Monday. So we bought some 10 kuai squatter stools, randomly met up with some friends from our Terracotta warrior tour, and camped out together at the front of the line to get on the train in hopes of somehow getting an un-occupied seat or place in the dining car. Bolting through the ticket gates like rabid racehorses, it was total chaos trying to find the dining car and once we did it was closed off :( Option 2's hope of finding an empty seat was also crushed as we found seats but were then kicked out of them, only to find the last open (read: worst) available spaces on the floor.

Though undeniably the most uncomfortable ride of my life- crouched on the butt-numbing little stools trying to sleep through the traffic of bathroom-frenzied passengers, smokers, and worst of all huge refreshment carts rolling by practically knocking us over at 4 am-- a lot must be said in praise of our compassionate seat-bearing student neighbors who kindly let us take turns sharing their seat when they weren't using it and providing some fun, though broken, conversation for a bit of the trip. Thanks guys- I'll never forget you :) About 2 hours from Baoding, enough people had finally exited the train that a few actual seats were free- though still not quite enough for our whole group, so again, we took turns and tried to get a little sleep when we could. In total, it'd be generous to say I had 1 1/2 hours of sleep during the 11-hour ride, and I'm glad no one I knew besides poor Jode and Tyler, were there to see me when I got off that train in Baoding- eyes bloodshot, butt numb, and back perpetually hunched over from the pain of sitting awkwardly all night- Not so hot, but the point is, we made it! Yes we did, and I wouldn't have such a wonderful story to guilt-trip my kids and grandkids with if we'd had better luck.

Bu Tzuo, not bad at all, overall it was a great May Holiday! (Whew, glad I finally finished this entry...)

Only in China

2008-02-14T21:01:00.000-08:00

(This is hands down my favorite sign in China- so much Meat Floss- all over!)

Here are some quotes, picts, and moments that could only be from China...

"Welcome to China, check your logic at customs."
"That's an example of _____, with Chinese characteristics"-Stephen

"China really puts the F-U in funny"- Tyler

"Duiduiduiduidui"- All the people in China :) (it means "correct or yes")

"China offends all 5--possibly 6--of the senses."- Dave

“Ironic the connection between jade and jaded; both the substance and the sentiment are so common in China.”-Me

“Here in China they walk like they drive.”- Jodee (maybe this is one you have to be here to really understand)

"Meiyo Problemo"- Me, mixing Chinese (meiyo=no, none) with Spanish

Moment on the train to Xi'an this weekend:
So I'm sitting in my seat and a few passengers start to walk by, they happen to also be white foreigners and while I don't know them and they don't say anything, they give me a thumbs up and a smile as they walk by. It's the first thumbs up I've had for being white, but perhaps not the last- so weird.

On the street:
As a foreigner in China, I am often blatantly stared at by adults and children alike. However, I had a new experience this week in Xi'an as I was walking down the street with my friend and a young girl, probably about 12 years old looks at us, stops, and stares. Now this part is very normal. What isn’t normal is that this girl, after staring, looks again and this time actually drops her jaw and just gapes at us. It was like something out of a cartoon-- so bizarre, but that’s China.

More of my favorite Chinglish signs (with more to come I'm sure):

What the--yeah, this sign is right by the Baoding train station and still makes me gag when I see it...

Heeheee, China's not a place you find much Mexican food (or its after-effects)

Wouldn't want to over-exert yourself by doing it well...

Ode to last weekend

2008-02-14T20:59:00.000-08:00

This entry is one of those "better-late-than-never's" about the amazing and not-yet-documented fun of last weekend...

Friday's evening out in Baoding with about 12 of our friends is the first thing worth remembering and once it got going, was probably one of the best nights I've had here in China. Never a great event planner but full of good ideas, I had invited our group to a delicious but very small XinJiang (Arabic-style) restaurant that Stephen took us to once. Unfortunately, when we arrived (as chronically late as I am) the place was packed and there were no tables. A little panicked but persistent, we waited while those dear friends of ours who could speak Chinese, tried to get us a table and we were eventually able to cram into the place cozily but happily. Ordering 2 types of "chwar" including tendons (eek) and lamb on a stick (a bit fatty but good), we began a noisy dinner with "nang" (a type of flat bread), flat noodles, and both chicken and beef dishes of the casserole-like specialty of potatoes and meat in a spicy reddish sauce.

Great food and fun company but to top it all off, right around the time we were finishing up our meal, a big group of guys at the table next to us whipped out their guitar and started playing and singing traditional songs. University students studying at HeDa, these guys were a part of the XinJiang ethnic minority group in China and it was awesome to hear them harmonizing and clapping along to their guitar-strumming friend. Like the tourists we are, everyone was taking pictures and listening to them when my friend Stephen leaned over to me and said he was going to go ask them if we could sing a song with them. Well if you know me at all you'll know that I was STOKED at this prospect--even with my hoarse voice--and I jumped right up with our group and sang "Hotel California" and "Let it Be" with everyone. The fun didn't stop with the singing though. Before we knew it, both our tables were standing up stomping our feet, clapping, and dancing around in this little restaurant together having a blast. Every table in the place was smiling and snapping photos of everyone else. I think the owner even came out with his camera phone to take in the cultural exchange. It was awesome: a moment that reminds me why I love to travel and definitely a night I'll remember.

While it was hard to tear ourselves away from the XinJiang fun, we bid our new-found friends "zaijian" and made our way to the next crazy event of the night--KTV (that is what they call Karaoke here in China- wouldn’t want any Japanese words ya know). Anyhow, KTV was a riot. Drunk people are funny but sober-people-you’d-die-if-you-saw-drunk-because-they’d-be-crazy are even more funny, and we had both in our group as we belted out classics like “Killing me Softly”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and more. A couple of our friends were above and beyond impressive singing some Chinese pop (hilarious), but then again, they actually speak Mandarin which is not quite a label I can claim at this point (though I did write Chinese characters all by myself on some recent postcards-wahoo!)

So, an incredibly fun night out in Baoding followed the next day by a glorious and almost entirely “Western” Saturday and Sunday in Beijing. Jodee and I took the train in the AM and went to a Pompeii exhibit at the Millennial Beijing Art Museum, which is shaped like a sundial, and enjoyed a great exhibit and then sunshine and nice views from atop the sundial/museum roof. Then, chronically late as ever, we found ourselves running through the Beijing subway so we wouldn’t be late to meet our friends as people pointed and gawked at us unabashedly. Oh China… but successful in our efforts, we arrived sweaty and flushed to meet our friends and the bus that awaited us and shuttled the group off to the plush ex-Pat home where we were to spend the evening (I heart the Belnaps). After a fabulous homemade lasagna, salad n ranch, fresh-rolls, and veggies (heavenly!) meal, and a cheerleader-like poster art session, we piled into some vans and headed over to the ISB school (a posh private school for international students with tuition along the lines of a college education) to watch a play, “Once Upon a Mattress.” A musical comedy that I’d actually acted in during high school (Lady Larken), the play was fun to watch and even more impressive thanks to the professional-grade theater, costumes, and set—amazing (this school even had an on-campus ATM). Good times. After the play we went back to the Belnaps and played to our hearts content—foosball, ping-pong, pool, board games—you name it, these people had it, and I fell asleep soundly in a bunk bed at the best sleepover I’ve been to in a while.

The next day we rode to church together and after a nice meeting, were invited to hang out at another ex-Pat apartment in Beijing where we ordered Papa John’s Pizza (I kid you not- just like in the States, the pizza was good) and relaxed. I won’t say it’s ever easy to leave Beijing, but getting on the train back to Baoding was even harder after such a great weekend in the city. See why I had to write- it was good one that I want to remember.

Pondering Quotes...

2008-02-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

" A people is a mirror in which each traveler contemplates his own image."- Andre Maurois

"All cross-cultural exploration begins with the experience of being lost."-Edward Hall

Both of these quotes were from a book I picked up when I was a guest at a friend's house in Beijing. I wish I could have borrowed the book since it seemed to have some very interesting observations about the psyche, culture, and logic of the Chinese people from a Western perspective. The book is called Beyond the Chinese Face by Michael Harris Bond. Though I can't recommend more than the first 3 pages I read, I really hope to look into this book further when I next have the opportunity to. The quotes above were both struck a chord that really resonates with the experiences- good and bad- that I am having here in China. Hope to write a bit more on that later but I wanted to share the quotes today.

Dancing to "Heal the World"

2008-02-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

One of benefits to being a foreigner here in Baoding is that sometimes the color of your skin can get you into places or events for free- take our club experience for example: Free. The same applied to a local dance class we attended last night, which is really nice for us frugal teachers saving our pennies for travel. Although I haven't taken ballet since I was a 5-year-old, I really enjoyed the exercise, atmosphere, and experience dancing with the group. As with many arts, the language barrier is lessened through dance and it was nice to simply try following the movement and music throughout 1 1/2 hour class.

Some of the exercises were typical ballet and stretching exercises but my favorite thing in the class were the Chinese dances. Just listening to the different music and watching the expressive movement of the dancers gave me a little more insight into Chinese art and beauty. As I tried to [badly] mimic the dances, while I couldn't do them very well, I loved seeing the teacher and other classmates' precise wrist movements and body postures. Much like the Chinese language, the movement is not what I'm naturally used to in dance, but I find it intriguing and quite beautiful in its own ways. I can only imagine how cool it would be to see an authentic dance show or opera here when everyone is in full costume and hope I can do that soon.

Random Western influences and culture are other interesting aspects of the class and China overall. From interludes of "Jingle Bells" in April and remixes of Michael Jackson belting out the 90's classic "Heal the World" to traditional Chinese songs combining Eastern instruments and sounds with electronic baselines ("Wo Jur Dao"), the soundtrack alone is a commentary on China's hodgepodge of cultural influences and history. As a final cherry on top of interesting observations, the Chinese dance teacher happens to have been a dancer on Broadway at one time and is now back in small-town Baoding, China teaching at his own studio with posters of his past performances decorating the walls. Small world. Fun class. Dancing in Baoding.

I'm officially a "real man," go figure...

2008-02-14T20:34:00.000-08:00

According to Mao, you're not a real man until you climb the Great Wall of China. Jumping on the bandwagon of machismo and estrogen-envy, this weekend I joined thousands of newly "real" men (and women) in climbing the Great Wall at Badaling and I have to admit, it was pretty awesome. More on this adventure soon...think of this post as a trailer for the real show.

Thaaaat's China!

2008-02-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

This entry is a little late in coming, but I felt that I must give some details about this past weekend and all its fun. To start, most of the fun I have in China seems to always be with other foreigners, but on Saturday it was all about mixing with the Chinese locals. Having been invited for dinner with a friendly Chinese lady and her twin 11-year-olds, whom we met through our little “lone member” church group, around 6pm Jodee and I hopped on a bus we’d never taken before with some vague directions and about 3 Chinese words between the both of us. Our friends had told us the restaurant name and that their daughter would wait for us at the stop we needed to get off at, but that is about all. In other words, there was plenty of room for error on this little journey. As we rode the bus, it seemed like it might be good to ask someone if they knew the stop for our restaurant so I tapped the guy next to me and attempted to pronounce the Chinese name of the place. Total blank; the name didn’t sound familiar to him at all. I could see the sincerity in his eyes as he asked me to repeat the name—he really wanted to help us—so I tried to say the name again with hopefully-better pronunciation since I could give him no other words in Chinese to describe where I was trying to go (not that I really knew much more than the name, quite honestly). He still didn’t understand and by this time several others had joined in the communication game, packed around us on the busy bus listening to me repeat—incorrectly—the name of our desired destination. This was a group effort. Our new Chinese friends asked to see what I had written on my paper which still didn’t really help (sadly my note had been taken over the phone, so I’ve no doubt the Pinyin was incorrect too) and as we rode along and people would get off, they’d wave and say what I think is the Chinese equivalent of “good luck, hope you find it.” I can only imagine what we looked like, two white-as-snow-can’t-speak-Chinese-girls on a crowded bus full of people who’d probably never seen a foreigner before and were all trying their darnest to figure out what we crazy girls were trying to do! Using all our communication resources, one girl actually offered to call her English-speaking friend on the cell phone and had us try and explain our situation to her but just as we were doing this, to our great relief we saw our friends out of the bus window and quickly thanked thanked thanked all our helpers as we jumped off the bus. Wow- what a crazy ride, but despite our difficulties in communication, it was really nice to feel that people wanted to help us here in China. A good memory and feeling that I want to remember.
Dinner with our friends was another happy story: we had a delicious, traditional, Peking duck (roast duck) dinner with an array of other tasty dishes and I practiced some Chinese and English with Shenny, the sweet little Chinese twin girl whose mother had invited us. I felt so grateful for their kindness and hospitality, and it was so nice to just sit down with a family and some other friends to enjoy good food and conversation together.

After filling ourselves to the brim with the amazing dinner and thanking our friends, we headed back to Dave and Lis’s place for more weekend fun. And when I say fun, I mean the kind of fun you can only have in China with a group of crazy (even inebriated) foreign friends at Baoding’s hottest local dance club—the Rolling Stone. Oh yeah, we went clubbing this weekend! Using our foreign VIP status to get in free and moving towards the surprisingly large and packed dance floor, I almost felt like I was back in LA…um…almost, except I was in China, surrounded by Chinese people who continued to stare and point at our group shamelessly. As a good friend of mine likes to say, “Thaaaaat’s China,” and it was, but we had a blast all the same. I won’t go into too many details, but let’s just say as the unofficial photographer of the evening I have more than a few blackmail pictures of friends involving a certain pole at the club. Good times for all, it was fun to just dance with a few brave locals and not care if we took over the dance floor. Definitely a memorable weekend- I feel so lucky to have met some truly awesome friends here.

Eating more than just Chinese food...

2008-02-14T20:31:00.000-08:00

At dinner last night as I poured myself some "kai shui" (boiled water- my drink of choice in China, wahoo) an interesting thought came to mind. Carefully pointing the spout away from the table, I commented to my friend that while I had read and been told by multiple people that the spout of the teapot should never point at anyone sitting at the table due to the superstition that if it points at you it means you haven an impending death, some Chinese people I had dined with had done this on occasion and thought nothing of it. This made me question- does it really matter? Do Chinese people really care or is it an old superstition? What's the deal? So I said, "I guess the Chinese don't care about that anymore," and as I joke I decided to point the teapot at my friend across the table. But no sooner had we laughed at this gesture than our waitress came over, picked up the teapot and pointed it away from him, telling us in Chinese something along the lines of- "Ooooh, no, you must not do that!" I guess that solved the puzzle for us, I had to eat my words, and we had a good laugh :)

There are Pro's and there are Commis...

2008-02-14T20:27:00.003-08:00

Last week was an eventful and rather stifling week at our school as we felt a heavy dose of what it truly is to live in a Communist country. The noose began to tighten on our freedoms Wednesday when our local Foreign Affairs Officer made their rounds over to our school for a “friendly, getting-to-know-you” interview with the foreign teachers. The interview started off simply enough: Why did you decide to come to China? How did you get in contact with this school? etc. but then moved quickly into other topics like, do you feel safe here?

As I have written of before, there have been a few incidents where I did not feel safe here in China. You may recall a particular blog entry I wrote about a cab ride where the driver got us lost, tried to rip us off, and even pushed Jodee all while our school guard watched. While this incident was rather scary, little did we know that it was about to become even more so. I will explain. After the cab ride, we chose NOT to talk with the school about it, however, it became evident that they were well aware of what had happened before this interview. Not only were they already aware of what had happened but they knew the specific details, down to the cab fare, time of night, and PEOPLE we were visiting before we returned to the school! Though this was several weeks ago they never said anything to us about it, and certainly did not try to help us to feel more safe or repair the situation in any way. Instead, when we talked to them about it, we soon saw that their solution would have more and more to do with controlling us instead--our curfew (ahem, I am an adult but yes, I have a curfew again) is now 10pm every night, the gate we use to exit the school and have been using for the past month, is now off limits for us to use and we have to “sign out” each time we exit or re-enter the school (no friendly information given about this one either, we just had guards yelling at us, locking us in the school and running to the other gate to detain us one day- it literally took us 20 minutes to leave the school and remember, we did absolutely nothing wrong according to the information we had been given and our usual habits). Our once day-off-to-travel and re-coop-Fridays that we have never had to work on before were suddenly put into question and made into mandatory “workdays” where they want us to be at the school even though we have no classes (yeah right, we expressed our intense opposition and refusal to comply with this one- the commis are out of control!)

Anyways, I could go into more details, but I won’t--rehashing this makes me mad enough as it is. Never really what most would consider a rebel, this controlling oppression has brought out a surprisingly rebellious side of me. To spite the rules yesterday, I hopped the fence right in front of the guard and made it out- hahah! It’s an American Revolution and even the Chinese know how that usually ends….

So, Foreigners: 1 Commis: 0, and yes, I am keeping score.

In China but not of China...

2008-02-14T20:27:00.001-08:00

As I jumped on another train this weekend for Beijing for a quick visit to the Forbidden City with a group of friends, I actually felt like myself for the first time since I’ve been here. That may sound a bit strange to some, but if you’ve lived in China or perhaps anywhere abroad, it is sometimes hard to feel completely like yourself. Saturday marked my 1-month-in-China anniversary and as I’ve thought about this month, I know that I have grown in many ways. I think it is during those somewhat uncomfortable times of not feeling like yourself that a hyper-growth seems to happen. Your mind is constantly full of thoughts, feelings are keenly felt at the surface, and it is difficult or sometimes impossible to consciously relax yourself because of the environment that you are in. Clinging to icons of familiarity, like McDonalds logos, Coke bottles, other foreigners….

Anyhow, this weekend in Beijing was beautiful. The sky was blue, weather warm, and we saw the Forbidden City/Palace Museum while enjoying the good company of some fellow Westerner adventurers who we met and are also teachers in China. Post-touristy fun, we hit up a fabulous Sushi joint and OD’d on wasabi and good rolls, then made our way to Houhai lake area of Beijing to find some night clubs. The area was beautiful with lights on the water on a fairly warm night and it felt so nice to go into a clean, classy club and just laugh and chat with our friends. As I thought about the day, it really was hard to believe that all day I had been in China- so many different and good times! Sunday only got better as Jodee and I found our way to church and were then invited by some lovely people over to their Chinese-equivalent-of-a-mansion, Westernized home for a lasagna dinner with ranch-dressed salad, fresh fruits, and homemade cheesecake! It was amazing food, company, and comfort and to top it all off, when we left we didn’t even have to figure out the maze of public transportation to the train station, they lent us their driver who was awesome and took us directly to our train! Aaaahh, it was wonderful- a great way to celebrate the 1-month anniversary of my arrival in China.

Zero the Hero..

2008-02-14T18:36:00.000-08:00

As a teacher in China, I've already had some amazingly wonderful and some amazingly terrible experiences with the near 1000 students that I teach or just see on a daily basis. To focus on the best and most rewarding parts of teaching, I'd like to tell you about a few things that happened to me this week.

First, on Tuesday this week at lunchtime, one of Jodee's students who is an absolute sweetheart, met us in the cafeteria (or canteen as they call it) for lunch. After helping us order and find seats, we had a nice chat to practice her already-decent English. Her English name is Jasmine and since our first day at the school she has been eager and anxious to help us and talk with us. On this particular day, she asked us if she might take some pictures of and with us after lunch (not a totally uncommon request from students), and since we actually know her, we absolutely consented. After she took nearly a whole role of film with us all around the school grounds she said, smiling, that she had a gift that she would like to give each of us. Then out she took 2 beautifully framed traditional Chinese paintings which she told us her uncle had painted himself! We were quite surprised and offered several times to pay her for the art (no doubt her uncle's livelihood) but she refused, saying that it was her honor to give us these gifts and she was so happy that she and her family could give us something from China. It was definitely above and beyond kindness from her family and I was truly touched and humbled in many ways by this girl's willingness to share and give a gift to 2 teachers she was just barely getting to know. It really made me feel special and good, like what I am doing here might actually be something good if it can help people like Jasmine and other students who want to learn.

Other sweet student moments this week:
-Since I have huge classes and high school students tend to like to talk, I often find myself straining my voice and going hoarse by the end of the day. Yesterday, after a particularly horrible class where I was literally near tears with frustration from my worst/rudest/loudest class, a boy in my last class of the day came up to me and said he had brought me some medicine for my throat since it hurt. He handed me a little packet of Chinese cough drops and said he hoped they would help me feel better. How sweet is that? I can definitely say that the last class of the day was quite a relief after a difficult day of teaching.
-Today I had my students act out a skit for our lesson on Theater. To reward participation, I gave candies to my students who acted in the play. To my surprise, one of the boys whom I'd given candy to, came up to me after class not only to say "thank you" but to give me one of his favorite cookies since I had given him a sweet. On this busy, 6-class day, it was really a breath a fresh air and a boost to help me get through the day.
-And lastly, as the namesake of my blog, a student in my class named Zero was another light-in-the dark as I sat waiting in the freezing teachers area for my next lesson. She's simply a student that likes to talk and is eager to learn. Several times, she has come in to talk and tell me some of her favorite places to visit in Beijing that I might enjoy while I'm here. It nice in many ways to just talk with someone at the school who doesn't just want to get something from you, but also wants to give.

One thing I have discovered more-so in China than in places I have been before, is how important it is to always spotlight the positive and try to keep focused on those things, however small, that can make a place beautiful. No matter where you go in the world, it's easy to find differences and see things that are dirty, ugly, or less-than-perfect and in China it feels beyond easy to justify complaining. But at the end of the day, or week, or trip while I won't ignore the lessons to be learned from all the things I see, I hope that I can remember the good, beautiful, and positive things and experiences that I've already started to have here. After all, I did sign up for this...

Beijing, Beijing, Bei-joh!

2008-02-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

Whew, still recovering a bit from a wide range of emotions and sights I saw in Beijing this weekend. We'll start with the bombastic Tian'amen square experience. As the largest square in the world, constructed under the direction of China's #1 influence of this century, Chairman Mao, walking around "the people's square" was its own commentary on China today. Without a bench in sight, I doubt many people can truly be comfortable or encouraged to linger in their massive and expansive Communist space.
Arrayed with proud soldiers marching perfectly in step in their green uniforms, the square was graced by Mao’s giant (and rather creepy) portrait smiling down from the “Gate of Heavenly Peace.” It was truly a sight to behold and definitely full of tourists whom--as we quickly discovered--were not just interested in taking pictures of their country’s square, but also the foreigners/non-Asians that were visiting. You’d think we’d be used to the unwanted attention and stares from our experiences in Baoding but far beyond the staring, many people were groping for their cameras and taking multiple pictures of my blonde-haired friend Jodee and I as we walked by. Most people didn’t bother to ask, they just got their camera out and started snapping away and I gained a new level of sympathy for celebrities who are bombarded by paparazzi because it felt a little like that, only much less glamorous. So Tian’amen was interesting. I was disappointed to find that Mao’s Mausoleum with his preserved carcass on display (creepy & weird but who could pass that up!?) was closed for renovations and most likely won't open until after we’ve left China this summer. Oh well, I did purchase a little piece of Mao propaganda anyhow; a watch with Mao waving his arm at me (lot's of bargaining for that junky joke but I think considering the circumstance and location, I didn't get incredibly ripped off-Nice!)

Perhaps the best sight we were able to visit this weekend in Beijing, beyond the good-looking American men we met at church (wink, wink) was the TEMPLE OF HEAVEN!!! After a long walk from Tian’amen square, we entered the beautiful park grounds of China’s Imperial worship center, the Temple of Heaven. When I saw the beautiful colors and detailed tiling of the buildings (which use no cement, nails, or steel rods in any of the building structures!) I thought, “this is what China’s supposed to look like; it’s beautiful.” From breathtaking geometry, colors, and design with dragon, cloud, and phoenix carvings to the serene quiet and calm of the elevated buildings surrounded by a lush green park, the Temple of Heaven is one of my favorite sights thus far in China. It felt like another world and you can bet I was having a hay-day with my camera trying to take it all in. Anyhow, it was a great contrast from the rather abrasive and dare-I-say artless Tian’amen square.

Other highlights of Beijing,
-Finding our way around a good portion of the massive city by bus, subway, and on foot
-Pizza (twice!) and an all-American breakfast of French toast, eggs, and bacon- yum! Why do I miss Western food so much? It’s not that I don’t like Chinese food, I just needed a weekend break…
-Meeting some cool travelers at the hostel- 2 British girls that have been traveling around the world for 12 months, and 2 Canadians with a knack for adventure and bike accidents. Good times! We may go back this weekend too!

Sign here please...

2008-02-14T17:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a busy and very official day. I opened a Chinese Bank account with my first month's paycheck, signed my official 4-month teaching contract with the school, and also purchased train tickets to Beijing. Thankfully we had some translators and friends to help with all of these situations but in more ways than one, I feel not only a desire to learn Chinese but the true necessity in speaking and understanding the language if I'm going to survive here. As I've mentioned before, sometimes it feels as though there is a block in my brain that will not remember the Mandarin sounds and words that I practice over and over again. In many ways it is discouraging but I have to remind myself that learning English is no picnic either and that my students work hard for many hours each day to learn the little bit of English they know. Anyhow, it was a challenging and full day, made even more-so by the high pollution level contributing to my lethargy, but it had its good moments too.
Highlights included:
-seeing an abacus at the bank (people really know how to and do use them here, along with calculators)
-feeling very rich when I got paid in cash (though I realize that the wad of Chinese bills I received were RMB and in American dollars was actually quite a modest sum)
-a delicious dinner with our friends Dave & Liz at their neighborhood "Ma and Pa" restaurant (the sweetest Chinese couple owns the place and the food was fresh and good--mmm garlic chutes!)
-And finally, our first successful, non-traumatic, evening cab ride in Baoding when we returned to our school***
***I never wrote about this before but I'll offer my explanation now. The last time we tried to take a cab from the other side of town in Baoding the cab driver got lost and took us the wrong place at 11pm at night when no one was around and we couldn't even say our school's name in Chinese. All we had was a piece of paper that had been written for us in Chinese and we realized he could not read. After communicating that we were lost and now we just wanted the cabbie to take us back to the train station so we could find another cab, he refused and kept following us until finally we found several Chinese people who understood where we needed to go and they told him how to get there. Even then we did not want to get back in the car with our creepy cab driver but the road was empty and we were without at map or phone so we had very few options. Thankfully we did finally make it back to our school but the cab driver then began to demand more money than we owed him and our school gate was locked and the guard was refusing to let us in. Don't ask me why they thought that 2 white, foreign girls would be trying to get in the school at 11pm at night in this little town if they weren't teachers, but that's China. We even told them who we were in Chinese but they did not quite understand us. Once again, we were lucky that they finally did believe us and let us in so we could get away from the now-aggressive cab driver who wanted more money. This was truly the most scary experience that I have had while in China and not one I would ever like to repeat. A nightmare come true really, and I guess you can see why I feel the necessity of learning this difficult language. Thankfully, last night's cab was fine but I won't say my heart wasn't pounding when we first got in again and had to tell him where to go...
And so, the adventures continue.
One mind, one path, one China.

"Laugh to not Cry"

2008-02-14T17:40:00.000-08:00

(A poem I wrote, inspired by today's adventures in China)
Woke up this morning with no heat on,
Freezing cold, the electricity's gone,
Water in pipes refused to come out,
Got on the wrong bus and had to re-route,
Squeezed on the next bus 'cause we were quite late
Swung out with the doors- gee it was great,
Jumped off the bus and crossed a wild street
A cab parked mid-intersection as a turning bus beeped
Finally shuffled onto Bus 16
Forty-five minutes late, we wanted to scream
Changed skirts in the street, we didn’t have time
Just ask that old man who thought we were fine
Sang “Praise to the Lord” when we finally arrived
It was calm for a while, we thought we’d survived.
But lo and behold, just as we’d reclined
A productive thought came into my mind
“Our clothes are quite dirty, let’s wash them tonight”
Our machine had been fixed, all was sunny and bright,
But once we had put all our things in with soap
We found a new problem which we’d need cope:
Broken and busted the washer was shot
But our clothes were now soaked, so we grabbed a big pot
From the icy cold scrubbing our hands were quite raw,
Dirty socks strewn about we were glad no one saw.
Shaking my head, I let out a big sigh
And said loud and clear: We laugh to not cry.

Violated!

2008-02-14T17:25:00.000-08:00

Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of Chinese Medicine? Well, I’m here to put an end to the harmonious stereotypes you may have heard because today I had to get a physical here in China and believe me, it was anything but ZEN-like.

The day started with a 7:30 AM rendezvous at the school gate where Jodee and I meet up with our school liaison, fasting from the night previous so we’ll be ready for our exam. Our liaison, Ms. Gao, speaks OK English in general but it turned out that she wasn’t able to come with us and instead had us go with 2 Chinese men: the driver (who we’d met before on our crazy expedition from Beijing- scary driving and ironic that we nearly died on the way to our health check) and another school administrator whom we didn’t know and had very limited English (though I’ll admit it’s better than my Chinese at this point).

They were nice enough and it’s a good thing because we had a lengthy 2-hour long car ride with them just to get to the clinic in the Hebei province capital, Shijiazhuang. After an impromptu photo-shoot to produce the pictures needed for the medical exam (ummm, ok) we proceeded to our Chinese physical exam in order to be "qualified" to teach at our Chinese school (note- I already completed a full physical exam in America with my doctor but evidently our medical practices are not good enough for my school). Anyhow, if I thought going to the doctor, giving blood, etc. freaked me out in the US, imagine my nerves here in China where I don't understand what is being said by the doctors or on the forms, and everything is just open and public pretty much for all to see in the clinic.
I won’t go into too many details but the “low-lights” (highlights would be the wrong word to use) were as follows: an EKG machine with Princess-Bride-esque suction cups, an awkward chest X-RAY where metal watches/jewelery/belts were OK to wear, but my t-shirt wasn't, and last but not least my very first Ultrasound. Nope, I'm not preggers or anything although Jodee, who was an audience member of my exam says, quote: there is a “greasy bouncy ball” underneath my ribs that the doctors made some notes on. Yes, I’m serious and probably scarred for life but still alive at the moment here in China. I’ll keep you posted on that bouncy ball alright?

Teacher, Teacher, I declare!

2008-02-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

Thursday marked yet another first for life in China: I began teaching English at my Chinese Communist High School. While it was interesting to see the many differences in the Chinese schooling system and students, I must say that despite their differences, the 400+ students I taught in my firsts classes are still high schoolers and have a few things in common with American kids, at least upon my initial observations. They get bored easily, they love their hobbies—especially sports, music, and computer games— they’re curious about boys and girls and crave attention—sounds sorta familiar right? So now, six classes later, though a little hoarse, I know a few things about my students- they love the LA Lakers and Kobe Bryant, they like Jay-Z and American Rock music, they haven’t been exposed to many different cultures and are anxious to learn, and most of them only have 3 people in their families. More learnings to follow in the days to come but I feel that the first day of teaching went pretty well overall.

Mode of transportation or dinner? You decide...

2008-02-14T17:21:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things that I have observed in China is the loading/towing capacity of non-car transportation. People ride their bikes and mopeds everywhere, rain or snow, big load or small load, 1 person or often a whole family piled up on 2 and 3-wheeled creations. I don't even know how some of those little guys pedal with so much junk on their bikes.
In my small city of Baoding, I like to look for the donkey carts trotting along on the streets with all the crazy car, bus, bike, and moped traffic- it is a sight to see, though sadly the donkeys never look too happy. Because donkeys are slower and messier than other traffic, sometimes we'll see signs saying "no donkey carts" on this road but those rules are losely obeyed and I'm waiting for the day when I have my camera ready and can catch a donkey cart rolling right on by the "no donkey cart" sign...
Don't want to see the donkeys on the street huh? Well then step right up to you local restaurant and grab yourself a donkey burger! That's right. Donkey is officially the newest addition to strange foods I have eaten, and let me say--it doesn't taste like chicken. I don't know if they eat donkey all over China but it is a common and popular food to get here in Baoding and I didn't want to miss out on the true China experience. Don't know that I'll be going back anytime soon but never say never. As our good friend Steven often says, "It's China!"

Longest Week of My Life!

2008-02-14T17:08:00.000-08:00

I have officially been in China for a week and yet I feel as though it has been closer to a year. That's not to say that I understand a whole lot of what I've seen and been experiencing here, but it definitely gives a person a lot to think about. There's a saying that I've already heard twice among the "foreigners" here and it goes like this:

Come to China for a week and you feel like you could write a novel,
Come for a month and you could write an article,
Come for a year , you could write a paragraph,
If you're here for 5 years, you can't write a thing because you know you don't know anything.

Thank goodness I've been able to have some good discussions with my fellow adventurer Jodee and several other foreigners in town over some of the delicious Chinese meals we've been tasting- including fresh bing (flat, tortilla-like bread), Chuwar (seasoned roasted meat/fat on a stick), a northern Chinese casserole dish with chicken--including a chicken foot and HEAD, and some of the best sweet n sour pork I've ever had, all with the only non-tea drink you can get: boiled water (bai kai shui).

So while my mind is full, my stomach is not suffering either, especially during these final days of the Lunar New Year celebration. Talk about fireworks! Little old men were on the streets and in neighborhoods everywhere today setting of long rolls of firecrackers and launching booming fireworks in celebration. The funniest thing about it was they set them off but hardly look to watch them go off, they just seem to listen to the sound go off and then shuffle over to light another one. We also saw a gathering of people in the street with a band playing high-pitched, traditional Chinese instruments and surrounding a banquet-like ceremonial table, complete with a flopping, still-live fish and huge pig head.
Our neighbor and fellow foreign teacher Stephen was also nice enough to share the traditional Lantern festival treat that Chinese people eat today called Yuanxiao. They are basically these sticky, glutinous rice balls filled with a gray-ish sesame paste. Also, did I mention that we woke up to find a blanket of fresh white snow on the ground outside today? Pretty cold for March but I guess it adds variety...Oh China, what will you come up with next?

The Comfort of Coca Cola

2008-02-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

Whenever I visit another country, I love to see the advertising and how some things are the same everywhere. China is by far the MOST foreign and different-from-America country that I have ever traveled to, let alone lived in. I think that is why I have found myself gravitating to the few things and people that are familiar to what I know from home (and I've only been here a week). It's funny because at home, I rarely go to McDonalds and just drink a Coke now and then, but here in China there is something truly comforting about drinking a Coca Cola in the same basic can or bottle, and knowing it has the same flavor as we have in the US. The fact that I am able to go to a McDonalds almost anywhere in the world and though the menu may vary slightly, it will have the same basic layout and will always have a western-style toilet, honestly helps me to cope with the inevitable culture shock that most experience when traveling in a place like China.

In some ways, as I've seen a small part of our American culture that is alive and well in different countries--for better or worse--it seems that the US is in many ways like the Roman Empire of earlier years; Our businesses, economy, and parts of our culture, especially BRANDS permeate every barrier. Nike is just as popular and prestigious in my small town of Baoding, China as it is in the US, maybe even more so--that blows my mind! Many of these people can barely afford to send their children to school and live in a clean home, yet they will make the sacrifices (or underhand deals) in order to get the flashy cellphone or branded track jacket here.

As I've observed the Chinese lifestyle and way of thinking which seems so vastly different from my own, I still see brands, fashion, and items of prestige on the clothing and in the homes of most of the people. That is some amazing power that brands have and yet I don't know if I feel that it is entirely a good thing. If nothing else, it further proves the necessity for brands to give something back and have a degree of social responsibility in the world. Yet the goal of most businesses is to make a profit and sell more. I can see why many compare brands to a new form of the world's religion because in many ways brands seem to be the bibles of consumerism. Anyhow, lots to think about and I'm sure I will discover more and more as the weeks go on...

I made it to Shanghai!

2008-02-14T17:01:00.000-08:00

In case you were worried, I made it to China! I was actually a little nervous a few times on our turbulent 13 1/2 hour flight over, but we landed safe and sound at the Podong airport in Shanghai around 6pm on Saturday 2/24.

Squished in the middle seat at the back of the plane I still managed to get a little sleep which was great, but the flight was still rather long. Not bad though considering in a different era, the journey we took burning 1 gallon of gas per minute used to take months to do! We are lucky. On the unlucky side of things though, my poor friend Jodee's suitcase never showed up at the airport yesterday. We're fortunate that she put all her clothes in one of my bags but are still praying that all her other stuff comes before we leave on Tuesday morning for our school in Baoding.

Overall though, Shanghai is a lively, exciting city and I am really enjoying being here, especially with all the other teachers in the program (there are about 20 of us). My lack of Mandarin skills are not ideal but we've been able to get around surprisingly well considering. I've been taking pictures galore (will try to post some soon) as we've walked around and seen all the red lanterns and pig/boar decorations celebrating the Chinese New Year. We even had a bunch of fireworks being set off on the street in front of our hotel this morning- lots of them too!

Top highlights so far:
1) Seeing Chinese Characters everywhere- especially on Advertisements, Coca Cola's my fave
2) Eating today's lunch, my first food in China: pot-stickers, noodles, and fried leek pockets
3) Finding Church after a quick ride in the clean/fairly new subway system then taking our first crazy ride in a Chinese cab--yikes!
4) Little kid on the street saying "hello" to us in cute English
5) Walking through a market looking at all the fish, ducks, chickens and other interesting foods....

SO much more to come but I'm loving the first day a lot!

Take-off 2/23...

2008-02-14T16:58:00.000-08:00

Though a little delirious at this point after packing and re-packing, and weighing my necessary items for the next 5 months, I've managed to get my luggage down to one large suitcase, a backpack carry-on, and a large purse carry-on. Not too shabby if you ask me, but then again this is me speaking deliriously at 2am. My big suitcase is 60 lbs, which is manageable for me to carry/handle in the airport, though still 10 lbs over the limit per/bag, but I can't think of anything else, other than liquid, to take out--I mean, i really need my anvil in China, don't those airline people know that--I would never pack anything un-necessary.
Yikes.
I leave for the airport around 9am and my flight takes off from SFO at 12:30pm. It's a direct flight all the way to Shanghai, where we'll land around 5pm on Sat. Feb 24th. FYI, the time in Beijing, China is 16 hours ahead of the US. So, as I'm writing this at 2am PST, it's 6pm CHINA TIME- Bon Zai!

Talk to you again when I'm in China...

ps- Thanks for the cake and late-night help Stemkins :)

This quote pretty much sums it up...

2008-02-14T16:56:00.000-08:00

As I was looking through old pictures and quotes I
thought I'd find useful for teaching in China, I came across a
quotation that I love because when I read it I can't help but feel
passionate about my life. It pretty much sums up my argument/explanation for picking up and moving to China...

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish it's meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." Henry David Thoreau from Waldon

What the--China?

2008-02-14T16:54:00.000-08:00

So, I had another "first" tonight as I went to a speed-dating activity (don't ask). Let me just tell you, there is nothing that crosses you off a list faster than telling a guy, "Hi, I just quit my job and I'm moving to China." Soooo, a common question after the initial "huh, are you for real" is how? Thus, I thought I'd post a little about the organization I am going with so y'all can check it out yourselves. The organization is China Horizons and they work with a placement agency in China that finds English-speaking teachers to teach primary to college-age students and everything in-between. So far so good with our coordinator, Jacob- but wow, there is a lot of preparation: visa, check-ups/shots, flights, $$, packing, etc. I've heard nothing but great things though about the experiences with this program overall. Fingers crossed, mine will be just as positive.

See: http://www.chinahorizons.org/aboutus.html

Nee-HAOW-mah & a thank you that sizzles

2008-02-14T16:48:00.000-08:00

[RATHER OBVIOUS] NEWS FLASH OF THE DAY: Learning Chinese--Mandarin specifically, although I'd be willing to wager that Cantonese is no picnic either--is hard.

While I admit that I'm no linguist, I did think that having taken both Spanish and Italian classes in the past might help my chances in learning a few key Mandarin phrases for when I get off the plane in Shanghai. But my reality is that saying one word correctly (let alone putting a sentence together) is proving to be quite difficult. As juvenile as it sounds, I'm discovering my most successful efforts come when I can relate a Mandarin word to something familiar in English. Like the word for "thank you" is xie'xie and to make the "xi" sound, I think of something sizzling.

Crazy right? But at least it works. Honestly, it feels like my mouth was not made to create the sounds necessary to speak Chinese. I have been studying a little online this week thanks to the BBC's helpful site: www.bbc.co.uk/languages, and I even went one step further this week and purchased a Mandarin workbook and 4 week basic course to try and ease my ear into hearing and mouth into speaking the language that is now so foreign to me.

Pair this info with the fact that all the tools and sources I have been studying use Pinyan, a system that uses a Roman Alphabet to represent the actual Chinese language, but the actual words in China will all be written in characters. While extremely humbled, I am maintaining a positive attitude that as long as I can tell the male and female restroom characters, I will be able to survive at least the first day. Fingers crossed...

China on the Horizon

2008-02-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

Like a student once more, I have been giving myself a crash course in the various aspects of Chinese culture and lifestyle. From PBS documentary specials on Women in China today to pop-culture icons like the fabulous Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This week I also had an after-work library study session where I had an amazing time just looking through a ton of history books, films, novels, and travel guides and learning about this amazing country and people with such a rich, diverse, and tumultuous history. I love learning and it makes me look forward to living in China even more.
What a different place this will be and yet I'm sure I will find things in common with the people I will be privileged to meet. I'm going as a teacher, yet I know I will likely be the one learning the most over the 5 months I live in China. As I ponder the coming adventure, I am reminded daily how unique each person's path is and how timing is everything. I wonder at the individuals I will meet along the way and hope I will have the trust and strength to open myself to the experiences and adventures ahead.

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."- Confucius