tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52272107200251725632024-03-05T23:59:14.057+08:00A Year in Shenzhen10 months of adventure (and misadventure) in China.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-77834645540729877892009-05-05T17:54:00.004+08:002009-05-05T18:06:04.541+08:00Aspiring advertisers<div style="text-align: left;">I'm teaching a television lesson to some of my classes this week (basically if their computer works they get the tv lesson, if not we do something else). We talk about different kinds of shows (sit-com, drama, game show, etc) as well as tv ads - side note: making them say 'reality tv' is hilarious. After we watch that funny Pepsi ad where Jimmy Fallon dances down the street I explain that ads are also in magazines and newspapers and have them draw one. So far this exercise was pretty much useless because the kids didn't want to do it, but since I need that time to draw up the game on the board, I considered it time well wasted. Until today. Here are a few of the funniest ones from my 7th grade class this morning:</div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKXp3Fn7Nj0n1nkf1KqVxdqdfjujzCJg8CD6_6eYoifKPIvgSVRJBkV2hHNKWnXL3iM-m4uPSCs_FBox2_hFgKQFOyxSKPSj_xfi634c2IlxISKkrFIgKAz_CEhVEYiQGXQPSDoMy8n6c/s1600-h/IMG_0746.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKXp3Fn7Nj0n1nkf1KqVxdqdfjujzCJg8CD6_6eYoifKPIvgSVRJBkV2hHNKWnXL3iM-m4uPSCs_FBox2_hFgKQFOyxSKPSj_xfi634c2IlxISKkrFIgKAz_CEhVEYiQGXQPSDoMy8n6c/s320/IMG_0746.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332277956826689282" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvuK24z7CvMs08i5PfhrQpZyhSfsXHi7Edmc9gAiPOoreemx7W5pDG016pbazx3yBeD9hcaFusTJxipouCH8LcJ2yNPkmeLA1RFh6cOXPCaSied8x3ruuZidrc6QC9wpvgGi86x4FN2Wo/s1600-h/IMG_0750.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvuK24z7CvMs08i5PfhrQpZyhSfsXHi7Edmc9gAiPOoreemx7W5pDG016pbazx3yBeD9hcaFusTJxipouCH8LcJ2yNPkmeLA1RFh6cOXPCaSied8x3ruuZidrc6QC9wpvgGi86x4FN2Wo/s320/IMG_0750.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332277950231892946" /></a><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Chinese on the bottle means "Coca-Cola"</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdbOlEakQuTL5bIclcYkgHN2Qisc4LbsNI4Uf6IxDKhCmVd3u0GTsqmGZuTYR3rpUG0cyDtsaKhzGNj8_mBnT6mtWLwnZxVD0awbCvriK_O7aSvLcseuP5fGeT_P-igQ9b28L-nBlyM_E/s1600-h/IMG_0745.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdbOlEakQuTL5bIclcYkgHN2Qisc4LbsNI4Uf6IxDKhCmVd3u0GTsqmGZuTYR3rpUG0cyDtsaKhzGNj8_mBnT6mtWLwnZxVD0awbCvriK_O7aSvLcseuP5fGeT_P-igQ9b28L-nBlyM_E/s320/IMG_0745.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332277944682532578" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggBCvhmhFYEXqLHGsNHt3Zw6RHtrFNws-CQ2WvP7PftvmYjohPtAIq-DpkyVZzd5-MbzJKbUXByE5DeGPIU_25X5aB-DJ4KtJDeDv2knb3EVOHzXb6tRruC2kds8SmwqmH8WnJRRggJ8/s1600-h/IMG_0749.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiggBCvhmhFYEXqLHGsNHt3Zw6RHtrFNws-CQ2WvP7PftvmYjohPtAIq-DpkyVZzd5-MbzJKbUXByE5DeGPIU_25X5aB-DJ4KtJDeDv2knb3EVOHzXb6tRruC2kds8SmwqmH8WnJRRggJ8/s320/IMG_0749.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332277940312550386" /></a><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I was told this was a pizza ad...</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3JnISK4ZVjhyyw59R4oRD9Z4n46rd1blucp8SCUycbgchpLvP9zOc6IoJ-xTct1RPRSPxxAvVs8caJi_dXzObL1BrqM3QmVlXR6qa91rNJ9fDOmMVwON_VltODoEV336KONyZivi8ZSw/s1600-h/IMG_0744.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3JnISK4ZVjhyyw59R4oRD9Z4n46rd1blucp8SCUycbgchpLvP9zOc6IoJ-xTct1RPRSPxxAvVs8caJi_dXzObL1BrqM3QmVlXR6qa91rNJ9fDOmMVwON_VltODoEV336KONyZivi8ZSw/s320/IMG_0744.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332277935489766354" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTEFTaiqqfF0tMW3KxYERt-H3oAB2YP-IoYCpMt6wZxbMGtGj_t7z9r6Uh5yRCyfoNDtpPa-1uPqkMoA84cLWIPADmBiin1xY1utERV8FHi9qVrgVi8CGoVIVozgtibKYf4PVwahqNmRE/s320/IMG_0747.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332278113177270754" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This kid took my explanation of 'it makes you want to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">buy</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> things' very seriously</span></span></div></div></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-38326829789440817282009-04-08T15:09:00.003+08:002009-04-08T16:03:49.142+08:00Chinese Health Care, part 3Two nights ago as I was going to bed I started to feel the onset of a couple of cold sores in the corners of my mouth. Now, because this is China, pharmacies are...well...different. Of course they sell band-aides and vitamins and pills, but because of their pesky habit of writing things in Chinese, it is a very difficult to sort that stuff out. They also sell things like giant dried mushroom caps, worms, butterflies, cocoon-looking things, and a menagerie of plant-ish substances. I'm am way to scared of this type of store to even attempt to find Abreva, so instead I decided to tell myself that they were <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">not</span> cold sores and that everything would be fine in the morning.<div>Everything was not fine in the morning. Those tingling spots had grown into full-fledged cold sores because, as it turns out, telling yourself that you don't have them does not make them disappear. Because my last bout of cold sores was so incredibly bad I decided to attack them with any home remedy I could concoct in my dorm room. After a short Google session I decided to alternate rubbing on some toothpaste and pressing warm tea bags on them. Everyone on the message boards seemed to think these had at least limited effectiveness, and I was willing to do anything for even a small relief from these bad boys.<br /></div><div>Before I go any further, I should explain why exactly I was so terrified of these cold sores. Now, most of us have probably had one of these at some point and they are no fun. They hurt, they itch, they are pretty contagious, and you can spread them around your own body if you aren't careful. I'm usually prone to getting a nose-full of them at a time, but only once a year or so...until China. Last month I got a raging case of these things that completely covered my mouth and trickled down my chin. Curiously I also had some allergy-like itchy bumps around my eyes, which were also extremely watery. I chalked it up to either some new strain I must have encountered or to being in such a different environment than back home, and simply hoped they wouldn't come back.<br /></div><div>Now, these home remedies seemed to do absolutely nothing for the problem, and if anything they were making it worse because those little spots on the corners of my mouth had spread around my mouth and were starting to travel down my chin again. Even worse, they itchy eye spots showed up mid-afternoon. By the evening I was pretty miserable but I convinced myself that the toothpaste had dried out my mouth area and everything would feel better in the morning.<br /></div><div>Nothing felt better in the morning. When I woke up I was absolutely miserable. I sat in bed for a few minutes before going to the bathroom because I was too scared to face the mirror. Eventually I got up and, at the sight of my own face, I burst into tears. My eyes were puffy and surrounded by red blotches, my lips looked like I had over-done some botox injections and, upon closer inspection, were covered in tiny oozing blisters. I was hideous, everything hurt, everything itched, and because of how contagious cold sores are, I was terrified of touching any part of my body. I decided that I simply could not teach class like this and I had to go to the doctor.</div><div>I found Maggie (my contact teacher), who took one look at me and said, "Oh, how horrible" as another teacher told me to "drink more water, get more rest." I explained the situation and got someone to take my class while she got the school's driver and we went to the hospital.</div><div>Chinese hospitals function differently than American ones, there are lots of lines you have to stand in to get anything done. Also, they are confusing. Thank God for Maggie's help because even she had trouble figuring out which line to stand in and in what order, and she's Chinese! After waiting around for quite a while I got to see the doctor. Now, another quaint little thing about Chinese doctors is that it is never just you and the doctor, it's always you, the doctor, and a nurse or two at a desk that is right next to another doctor, another nurse or two, and whatever patient they are seeing at the time. When the patient is a big, ugly, swollen, white person, all 10+ people in the room are listening intently to what is wrong with you and often taking part in the discussion. Maggie explained what had happened to me to the doctor, who proceeded to take one look at me and asked me when was the last time I ate a mango. What I thought was: "F*ing quack China doctor", but what I said was, "Monday". She then told me I have a mango allergy and I should take these pills, use this cream, and don't drink alcohol or eat anything spicy until I feel better, also don't eat seafood or any meat except pork, especially not beef or lamb.</div><div>Stunned, I took the prescription and we headed down to the pharmacy. More lines and 25RMB (~US$3.75) later I had two kinds of pills and some cream and we were headed back to the school in a Fu'an school bus we happened to see and flag down. The women we joined inside chattily discussed all my symptoms and the doctor's verdict and I was told that I also had to avoid pineapples because mangoes and pineapples have too much 'fire' in them (this is from the Chinese idea of balancing the foods you eat - some food are warming and some are cooling and you have to balance them...it is also why they hate coffee, too much 'fire'). I politely thanked everyone for their help and headed upstairs to my room. I quickly fired up Google and it turns out that mango allergies are pretty much exactly like what I have and are a result of some link to poison ivy (among other things).</div><div>So, it turns out that I'm allergic to either mango skin, or seeds, or both and maybe that doctor wasn't a quack. Live and learn, I guess.</div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZXUVmu6MIHmV6vFqf7F0JrcC9eV2DeTFMC20mDD_jXmmNh0CqLTqNhn-Gi8iPVZqx-VRPEMjpO0ccKHFvUBkSXmKlXNKHmOCPLF49i7Jjy-rcdQT2L_CByFULmcoVCphcN_gArxOC-5A/s320/Video+call+snapshot+55.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322225885926235922" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My toothpaste 'mask'</span></span></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-81867554837048227282009-04-07T15:43:00.003+08:002009-04-07T15:45:20.532+08:00***scroll down***I just posted stories and pics from the Philippines - sorry it took so long!<div><br /></div><div>There are two parts: Part 1 is under the story about the motorcycle wreck and Part 2 is under the "Language of Love" post.</div><div><br /></div><div>Enjoy!</div><div>~Amelia~</div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-22649347577437697312009-02-17T10:50:00.004+08:002009-03-12T10:13:33.361+08:00The Language of LoveIn honor of Valentines Day I did a lesson on the "Language of Love". I start out talking about boyfriends and girlfriends and how they go on "dates", then if they really like each other they get married and become "husband and wife". We talk about things people do on dates, what people say to each other ("I love you", "I love you too!"), and how people hug, kiss, hold hands, and dance. After we talk for a while the kids play "Two truths and a lie" (say 2 true things and 1 lie and have your friends guess the lie) then make heart-shaped Valentines. If there is time left over we play hangman. Considering I teach junior high, I was fully aware that there would be maturity issues, but some of the stuff these kids did and said made me laugh out loud:<br />~ After giving two examples of where people go on dates (movies, restaurant) I asked the kids to give me some more examples. My jaw dropped when, in unison, the whole class yelled "hotel!"<br />~ One male student made me a Valentine that said (in English), "Will you marry my father?"<br />~ "Yellow" is a funny word for these kids because it is associated with pornography. So when one boy went to the board for a turn at hangmang they were sure that that was his word. Imagine everyones surprise (and amusement) when, instead of "yellow", his word was "swallow"...and yes, I'm quite certain they meant that in a sexual way...<br />~ In Chinese <em>feiji</em> means "airplane" and <em>da1</em> is something like "to do". Combined, the literally translation is "to do the airplane", but it actually means "masturbate". In one class I ran out of "love" words for hangman so I started pulling random words out of the air. I take full responsibility for everything that happened after I stupidly used "airplane" in an 8th grade class...~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-75793780474633196882009-02-17T10:49:00.005+08:002009-04-07T15:42:44.041+08:00The Philippines Part 2: Just the Two of UsI would say that most vacations are composed of varying percentages of relaxing and sight-seeing. After Walter's parents left the majority of our sight-seeing was over and a lot of butt-sitting commenced. We spent the night in 7 different resorts/hotels/hostels on 3 islands over the course of 2 weeks. Some places were tiny rooms in the middle of a big town, some were right on the ocean, and the rest were somewhere in between. We spent our days swimming, reading, and watching American television (a real treat considering there are only two English-language channels in Shenzhen and they only actually air American and/or Hong Kong programming for about 6 hours per day). Aside from the motorcycle issue (discussed in a previous post) and a possible UFO sighting all was relatively normal and peaceful. Until the last day, of course.<div><br /></div><div>The very last day in Manila (the last city we flew out of) we decided to take one last sight-seeing tour around a couple of parks and the old city. We hopped on a metro train line of some sort and found our way to the heart of the historical section. We wandered into the old city through the gigantic zig-zagged fortress walls and wandered around an antique/craft shop for about an hour. After that we got out of that city because we were tired of being harassed by men on horse-drawn carriages who wanted to give us tours...at a steep price I'm sure. We headed to this park that was named after the Philippines' national hero, Jose Rizal. The park now encompasses both where he was executed and a monument under which he was eventually buried. While walking through this park I really had to pee and the most convenient way to do this was to pay 5 pisos ($.10) to get into the "Chinese park" where there were bathrooms. This seemed oddly ironic since it really did look like a Chinese park, but the novelty was completely lost on us. I should point out that the reason we knew that this was the most convenient way to find a bathroom was because some Philippino guy overheard me tell Walter that I really really had to go and directed us there. We sat in the park for 20 minutes or so before moving on. Imagine our surprise when we exited the gates and that guy was waiting for us! He introduced himself as Paul and proceeded to adopt us so he could take us on a tour all around the park. He was great; his stories were funny, he really knew the history of the park and the politics surrounding Dr. Rizal, and he loved to talk about all the American and Australian friends he had met this way. We followed Paul around for nearly an hour before we had to go. He never exactly mentioned paying him but we were pretty sure that's what we were supposed to do, so we over-payed him (and under-guessed his age by 20 years...he may have appreciated that more than the cash) and headed off to the airport.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, because we knew we were heading home we had let our money dwindle down to next to nothing so we wouldn't have to exchange much (mostly because their money is practically worthless, it's nearly 50 pisos to US$1). We got to the airport with plenty of time and stood in the ticket line FOREVER. But, eventually got through and headed to customs. There was a counter between us and customs that required us to pay an airport usage fee which, of course, we didn't have enough cash for. Walter left me with the stuff while he went to exchange money, came back to get his passport (which is required to exchange money), exchange all the Hong Kong and Chinese money he had, and find an ATM after that still wasn't quite enough. Finally he got back and we payed and headed on to customs. I went first and the lady looked through my passport and all was well until she noticed that we had overstayed our visa by 2 days. Shit. Well, rather than being helpful and telling me the next step or handcuffing me or whatever, she just looked at me and asked in this 'how could you?' voice, "Why did you overstay your visa?" "Uh, it was a mistake?"</div><div>This was the first I had heard about this, but apparently we were given conflicting reports on how long a tourist visa was good in the Philippines and chose to believe the wrong one when purchasing airline tickets. 5 bajillion forms, a couple ATM trips, and a few thousand pisos later we were through customs and through security and really, really ready to get out of that country.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our flight was delayed (of course) but we got back to Hong Kong and then Shenzhen in one piece. It was a weird feeling to "come home" to China. You see, in the Philippines a lot of people <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">can</span> speak English but they don't use it with each other. The result is similar to any foreign country, you just get used to a constant buzz of words you don't understand. However, it was oddly comforting to be back in China with the familiar buzz of mostly Mandarin with a small sprinkling of Cantonese and there's at least a shot in hell that I can understand some of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>I really did like the Philippines, but I would recommend to anyone who wants to visit there: always have cash and bring all the patience you've got!</div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6g-cZZp45hMvPTb7bw2H3wfsVIANxtzCaWgiasexXiH51BM1CWUTAfblWlUF3N-Usx342goh6NwoYjfumOTVgOX5mltqVG5aVTKq7UB09R8-kTVRak7x4trAQIQAWjEDRo0hlYW6j1w/s320/IMG_0658.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321851040976749202" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The view from our room door</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK6rIHhqQ5R2R-R40wCMTcJW3aqbiJdtVX969McnqQpT8mAVixbevDCRc59aScxg4f0kOUOdc56QN4pQG0w7hXFX0XWjnIdYO75jDutyjtgvxJV5BAngbxZSfkys_LTF32PcExnaBR3o8/s320/IMG_0687.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321851044795241730" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">One of my favorite things about the Philippines - livestock everywhere!!!</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6dzUdHkOm2vgTdq__0YLpxhBBurW7xkGzYOKXSfGlAM6Dm6reyq8c3vI5TZrR3LkgywrWvGEWj3FYlAS3o5_1n3pxu-SMVXrTI3xk97YZJYrKSJ7_C5DKWW_ILPeN4sUX4Br7wGxpcw/s320/IMG_0694.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321851050169479250" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dr. Jose Rizal's monument and grave in Rizal Park</span></span></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-86646261312129927382009-01-28T10:53:00.018+08:002009-02-10T13:21:39.696+08:00Motorcycle<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">About halfway through our vacation, Walter and I found ourselves at a pretty terrible resort: the mosquitoes terrorized us constantly, the water was too shallow and full of wildlife to swim in, and there were daily "brown-outs" (a planned power-outage because work is being done on the lines somewhere). Our first day there was miserable and boring, so when the power went out again the second day we decided to take matters into our own hands and rent a motorbike for the day.Motorbikes are definitely the vehicle of choice in the Philippines. People use them to carry multiple people around, transport goods, and attach them to carts to make "trikes", which are the nearest approximation to taxis most towns have. <br /></span></div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Despite the apparent lack of road rules (other than "always honk when passing") and the fact that roads can vary from paved to gravel to "under deep excavation" within a single kilometer, traffic feels surprisingly safe. Because I actually have a motorcycle license in the States and because no one laughed at the idea of two American-sized people riding one one motorbike, we decided I would drive and Walter would ride behind me.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP8I7wASOkCaRWQK-j2GYA6P9pH8_6XHZKsBcQaJH99EDwut9DmcUR3RJjzKDJfRJLFKsj4hcicG7AykI_ss2JjxovIXMpkv1_dt6pjZbDhJcurqJoYabsvSClHUqzqNZm5rdpZqOfuug/s320/IMG_0624.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301011242932226322" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Pause for road construction</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />Map in hand we took off and encountered our first problem: I couldn't figure out how to up-shift. On every motorcycle I have ever driven you step down to down-shift and pull up to up-shift. Not this time. When I pulled up I down-shifted and when I stepped down nothing happened. No problem, we just got used to shifting from 2nd to 3rd by down-shifting (2nd to 1st to neutral to 4th to 3rd). This, of course, is a terribly rough way to drive, but I couldn't figure out any other way.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">For the next hour or so we motored along a coastal road at a speedy 40 km/hr (25mph), taking in the sights. We passed rice paddies, cows and goats tied alongside the road, dogs sleeping in the street, schoolchildren taking lunchtime walks, and a lot of people escaping the heat in shaded sitting areas. Many of the people we passed waved and yelled "hello!", some stared in wonder at two white people on a motorbike, and quite a few pointed and laughed when they realized the woman was driving the man around.Eventually we got to the one turn we had to make to get to a waterfall we wanted to see. The turn immediately turned into a steep hill so, being the skilled motorist that I am, I down-shifted and the motorbike immediately stalled to a stop. We both hopped off the bike and very carefully rolled it back down the hill to a closed-down gas station. After our failure the first time with the hill, I was certain that trying again would lead to almost-certain death. Walter, however, was less convinced because he claimed that I was in 4th gear when we idled, not 2nd as I had assumed. I declared him a liar because I had been completely unable to up-shift the whole trip, so how did I possibly do it mid-hill? After some mild bickering I hopped on the bike to turn it around (still totally unwilling to try the hill again) and miraculously discovered how to up-shift. Brilliant! I reluctantly admitted that maybe he was right about the 4th gear thing and </span><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">maybe </span></em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the hill wasn't going to kill us. With just a little bit of difficulty and a lot of cursing from me (and, subsequently, laughter from the passing Philippinoes...) we got to the top of the hill in one piece. We wound around and found the place to park for the waterfall and headed down the steep stone staircase to check it out. Walter had slightly burned his leg on the exhaust pipe when he got off the motorcycle, so he quickly hopped in the water...with the map still in his pocket. We fished it out and tried to unfold it, but mostly we just tore it to shreds. Oh well, we'd figure it out later. The waterfall was beautiful and it felt good to sit in the shade, so we hung out at the river's edge for quite a while. Eventually we climbed back up the stairs, paid our 5 pesos for parking (~US$.10) and headed off to the city for lunch in an internet cafe.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcW-Zib2zSshIsXIUSVrCVwSumoJ6J_WEgTXyxByJ00Tm8D6DUdASoyMMPUBrYK7TzhT_7LlKERzlSYoGSHQs1cPq2t9jjsuSHLOD9ho8zLZ_aZwB3seE2IQHgh5Kf6EcSDtFt12ZoxEo/s320/IMG_0675.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301031887742037778" /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Me at the falls</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br />The parking people told us the two ways to get to the city from the falls; one included winding through the mountains and one was basically back-tracking the same way we had come and then going a little further. We figured the drive there was relatively easy and familiar so it was probably a better option than the presumably steep and curvy mountain paths.<br />As we made our way back along the coastline road I started to notice that the back-end was handling funny and fish-tailing a little bit. We were in a construction zone on a dirt road, but it was getting more and more out of control as we drove. Even though neither of us know a thing about motorcycle maintenance, we decided to pull over and see if we could figure it out. Luckily for us the problem was very easy: the back tire was completely flat. Unluckily for us we had no idea how to fix this problem and we had zero cellphone reception.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We managed to get ahold of the resort but knew it would take them a while to get to us, so as I sat and read on a dirt mound Walter headed off to see if there was a vulcanizing shop nearby. A few minutes later he returned on the back of a motorbike being driven by a small Philippino man. The man knew of a nearby repair shop, so he helped us walk the kilometer or so to a house with a greasy garage behind it. In the garage (which smelled of burnt rubber and motor oil) there were a couple men working on another bike's tire with an open flame. Chickens, roosters, and a couple of well-fed but mangy puppys wandered around the working men and me on my plastic stool. Another dog slept in the shade nearby and a couple of women came and went, performing household chores. We waited there in the shade for about an hour before our bike was fixed, and we were pleasantly surprised to only pay 50 pesos (~US$1) for the repair.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihP221XLcBPNxqqX7ygAqjFAKtKkX5-ntn9bunX1ZqDpnLKKjJyrL3c9gI677gt8EIUIOKGI2QmMMcJYK8UyFPSPGlh2Ph-YZY7NfPVtXeP2mpCR7oMUWUsbLJbC84gkBovqHhp90Iccc/s320/IMG_0681.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301011248618416834" /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Our broken-down bike</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />About 20 minutes later we were going through a construction zone and saw that our path was blocked by a couple of big trucks. I slowed to a stop to wait for them to finish, but the construction workers waved me through a small path between the first truck and a pile of dirt. We easily slipped through, but I did not see how we would slip through the next path without getting off the bike and walking it. What happened next I cannot explain; as I tried to slow to a stop the back tire continued revving until I completely lost control and the bike went down. Luckily the fairly light bike mostly went down one my left leg (in pants) rather than Walter's bare legs. As the construction crew ran over to pick up the bike and I inspected myself for injuries I heard the bike loudly rev again. I looked up to see the bike hopping on it's back tire with Walter wildly trying to hold onto it. As he tried to help the other men pick up the bike, he had unknowingly grabbed the throttle and was giving it a lot of gas. "LET GO!" I screamed as the other men yelled and got out of the way. Walter let go and ran out from under the bike as it finally came to a rest on the concrete.<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The men picked up the bike again and quickly set to work pounding things back into place. At this point Walter realized he had burned his leg pretty badly on the radiator so he took off to the nearby water to dunk his very painful injury. After the men had fixed as much as they could, I was handed the very broken tail-light and was told "You can never use this again" as they pointed to the kickstand.<br />At this point we were both very shaken, but we wanted to get the bike fixed as much as possible on our own before returning it to the resort because we figured it would be cheaper that way. We very slowly made our way to the next town and the nearest repair shop.<br />I must have been quite a sight as we pulled up because everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and stared at the tall, dirt-covered, sunburnt white woman entering their shop. I explained that we had taken a spill and needed a new tail-light, but they quickly informed me that they didn't have any in stock. When I asked them to look at the kickstand, I was met with blank stares. "Kick start?" someone asked. "No, kickstand," I repeated while pointing to one of their bikes. Blank stares. "Ooooh, side stand!" they corrected me in unison. "Yes, side stand. Can you fix it?" The agreed to look at it and after about 15 minutes and 50 pesos it was repaired and we were on our way.<br />At this point Walter wanted to go to a pharmacia, but it was another 10 kilometers drive and my nerves were completely shot so I insisted that we return to the resort. Sunburnt, hungry, sore, dirty, and exhausted we returned to our room and collapsed into bed. As we lay there, drinking a beer in front of the fan, we agreed that this was going to be one of those days we'd remember for a long, long time. And while we didn't want to say it wasn't miserable, it was certainly anything but boring.</span></div></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-31536784501920105172009-01-25T10:50:00.022+08:002009-04-07T14:45:24.772+08:00The Philippines Part 1: Family Vacation<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Mark Twain is credited with saying, "There is no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them." Never is this more true than when you travel with someone else's family.<br />I want to make something very clear from the beginning: in no way am I complaining here, I know that different people have different methods for doing things with pros and cons to every approach. That being said, traveling with the Brummunds is, well, different from traveling with the Colemans. When you travel with the Colemans there is a folder full of print-outs, confirmation numbers, attractions at various points, and other well-planned and useful information. This folder is started weeks, if not months, before the vacation begins. If flying is involved, we are at the airport well in advance and always go to the gate first before wandering off for coffee or food. Not with the Brummunds.<br />Walter's parents arrived in Shenzhen one week before we were to leave for the Philippines. At this point we had no airline tickets, we weren't yet certain whether one or both of his siblings would be joining us, and Walter was very sick. Despite his fever, we were able to get out and about a little bit and eventually (after many hours on websites and making phone calls) had plane tickets and knew that both siblings would indeed be meeting us in Hong Kong before flying to the islands. The day of our flight Walter was feeling better so he took his parents out for some last-minute sightseeing before leaving. I opted out of the trip and spent the afternoon at the Starbucks just across the Hong Kong/Shenzhen border. Between my shady cell-phone reception (because I was technically in Hong Kong), some misjudgement in their timing and some plain old bad luck in the timing of my bladder, we had to really scramble to find each other in the metro station and get on the train. The train trip from the border to the airport is not particularly quick and we realized that we were really pushing it, but once we were on the train there was not much we could do. For the whole trip we had to buy two sets of tickets and switch trains twice, with each switch eerily resembling a flock of headless chickens running around. When we finally got to the ticket counter our plane was supposed to be boarding, so we flew through security and ran to our gate (which of was the farthest one, of course). As we arrived, completely out of breath, we saw that our plane was delayed and we could actually grab a bite to eat before leaving. We boarded about 30 minutes later and were in Manila about an hour after that.At this point I should mention that Walter and I were by ourselves because his parents were waiting for his siblings' flight to get into Hong Kong. Their flight into HK was kind of late, so they couldn't get into Manila until well after midnight. We decided that it would be a good idea for at least a couple of us to go ahead and secure the hotel room before it was the middle of the night. Upon arrival at the airport we, of course, had no Philippino money so we had to hit up the ATM before getting a taxi and heading to the hotel. We were very happy to find an ATM that accepted UnionPay (the Chinese equivalent of Visa or American Express on our cards), but we were markedly less happy when it would not allow either of us to withdraw money. Oh well, we decided to figure it out later and used our American debit cards instead. We grabbed an airport taxi and as we pulled away I was fighting back tears because all the signs we passed were in English! I didn't even know how homesick I was for my own language!<br />We drove around for quite a while because the taxi driver had no idea where the hotel was, but we didn't mind because the price was fixed and we considered it a bonus city tour. Finally we made it, eventually his family made it there too and everyone fell into bed, exhausted.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br />The next morning we were woken up, brighter and earlier than most of us had expected because our flight to the island of Bohol had apparently been booked for about 10am. We threw our things into our bags and headed back to the airport. Initially we were running a little late, but were blessed with another delayed flight so we had some time for breakfast and a newspaper. Eventually we took off and 45 minutes later were in Bohol. Now, the airport we landed in was tiny. Tiny. To put this in perspective, it was about twice as big as the Monticello airport and our plane was bigger than a plane you would take from Champaign to Chicago. Walter's parents (who both have pi</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">lot's licenses) both commented on how tiny the runway was for the size of our plane. We deplaned, gathered our luggage and found a taxi van to drive us around.</span><br /><br /></span> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy-EzPwGo92KI5pRcv2K75YhwgUQHE_hBlYwhjYSzBYTGwpNT1jz_UqsQGleKbp5TIN_rJJIsLxGq8bvqFhRm_WdBTdLXfYZRSRLoIV8o9XtLd00ntpwcZ54_6xDmfmTLMpceackF8Zpw/s1600-h/DSC01532.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy-EzPwGo92KI5pRcv2K75YhwgUQHE_hBlYwhjYSzBYTGwpNT1jz_UqsQGleKbp5TIN_rJJIsLxGq8bvqFhRm_WdBTdLXfYZRSRLoIV8o9XtLd00ntpwcZ54_6xDmfmTLMpceackF8Zpw/s320/DSC01532.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321825219973471554" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">A sign near the baggage claim</span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">At this point we had no real plans and no reservations yet, but we did have a list of possibilities, so we asked to driver to take us to check out some resorts. The first one we got to was right on a pretty nice beach, had a decent enough restaurant, and had two rooms available for the six of us. Good enough, so we made our reservations and headed off to settle in. On the way to our rooms there were two animal cages. One had turtles and chickens, the other had a monkey and a monstorous lizard. As we bent over to check out the monkey it immediately swiped Walter's US$400 perscription sunglasses and started to chew on them. Walter flipped out, but was able to grab ahold of the monkey's arms and pull them through the bars (as it shit itself) and a nearby small child was able to reach through the openings and grab the glasses that had been dropped in the process. The whole ordeal pissed off the monkey and Walter almost equally and the monkey definitely held a grudge, because it hissed and spat at him every time it saw him for the rest of our time there. Walter 1, monkey 0.<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Eventually we got tired of that resort because they kept fiddling with our reservation and moving our rooms. On the last day I was playing with the monkey and Walter was standing behind me. Quick as lightning that thing snapped the glasses off his face and promptly broke them into three pieces. We practically had to tie Walter up to keep him from killing the monkey. Walter 1, monkey 1</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br />Our next resort was called the Bohol Bee Farm and it was GORGEOUS. Each room was different and unique (we moved rooms every night), the food was delicious (and usually covered in edible flowers), and the view of the ocean was spectacular. The farm was self-sustained with wonderful organic gardens, bee hives for honey, compost pits full of worms, a craft shop, and (most importantly) no monkeys.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"></span><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz3gEfe3BIP0tCImkNYhN0ec3E140Yn9rFNsOhruZ2nB_7_80PxLsf38GkYgxBqSuFbvLmNmuRVQhkuffqAN5AlAo2YTxAz4TEMy35n8zoall44SJqQdqPnIOFJWcaeElyAkwCHncXhjU/s320/IMG_0566.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321827937452052482" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The view from the Bee Farm's restaurant</span></span><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8nFxN836eVHxBr4n_eYwN3wUYk2E6w0STqpd5jresZufDYUzxMKqyPGDP8dH7H-A6-i69W-tiuQVQuvxD9mgub7zCplD80T0DImqYubekGWGtqIk5DQImzug2ahQrQlUbHftPUqoHl7s/s320/IMG_0578.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321827943977322338" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Me with the bees...I don't like bees</span></span><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP6RfxxPX6BTgRkS6bHPitVBIuO3nMqJVfBIqNtWilFbtbfhOvbCjjoYuuSCQIB-RZJFavBsXp-ZA9qFaPtBNUC0KECk1sVwoNRioL7_90DzPWQVRgDbGRAPqxQrONW4QYPf2eYGaotjw/s320/DSC01587.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321827950866430802" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-style:italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Someone's beautiful dinner - all edible!</span></span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Walter's mom met some Australians who were also staying at the resort and decided to have both groups go on a sight-seeing tour together. The next day this absolutely ridiculous-looking open-air van thing showed up with an Australian expat in the back to take us around the island. This van was definitly built for Philippinos, NOT 5'10"+ tall white people. Not only could I not see out the "windows" (read: opening at approximately window height) without practically laying down, every time we hit a bump I got a concussion. Eventually I quit being a huge crab about the whole thing (mostly because Walter made it his mission to make me happy) and started to enjoy the sights. We drove around the islands and saw wonderful and interesting homes, schools, and locals, as well as a plethora of animals lining the roads. We passed rice paddys and climbed mountains for spectacular views. One of our destination was the Chocolate Hills. The area that the Chocolate Hills occupies used to be an inland sea. Over time the underwater mountains were eroded and smoothed until they resembled...well...boobs. The inland sea dried up and now the mountains are covered in a kind of vegetation that turns brown every year, making the mountains look like chocolate mounds...thus the name.<br /></span><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcRpEuVXxvxiioKlKwvE-4V4chd-CnXccNNRYYtMxEm6we_qglBHqWRj-RDy7zaOuVsVH2Ha1DOiVoA2ZEFhKLWDt1qIzyzuKOArm4wSQj5ZOnnGAedR57doS_CSjNJZCfdNkEeog5iCg/s320/IMG_0609.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321831257845963458" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The "bus"</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilK8sFaa2fFgaE0146wZSrzBDg7PGKUUv6qy-XBB4FZmDEdHTPM12kCqQlW5NEoXcJO_WiK7HtOdNYIyaoQzRigXolpCPzHIFrOdT1NIIRI4Ytv0RVlyywWPdnKvbqJeAvEYtt9SrC7yk/s320/IMG_0641.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321831266459427858" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Chocolate Hills</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Some other highlights:</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNUW7h7IDYmNDBXWuSXv7GkvNFbOLj4gPeB6xyhn5t7RbFSU7Z8fTwUxFepcEy5Qv0stug1nWN4JCYt32LhPxZbvsUFZeFyZfGkHUaA85sQDWHrRCxkgVi7UE2-Oo3Y8lQXxCfyVaSj4E/s320/IMG_0616.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321831272860469666" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Tarsier monkey (their brain is smaller than one of their eyes!)</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqwalCJFMqPSBVFfE8rgB65BXMmpgkgTkXG1_pSrjk1rPcxzlezI0sAa-KxjNCiC_v2GekNuo9EohkkJqzJNEULtWVtsOEj0Q64ciSO7XOnzOxolsjEcUb3KgPo3BvpVklljjwrp3mt9g/s320/DSC01582.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321831280849783090" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Which one is the monkey?</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiANxNuLfKFnfYhJeYClyOe-BYkflp5AUPXF2upt0EqCkrcTRy_94E7cjHKswshBAwkk07RNV3f6s7U_u-FPlbbKt7fR_MI4A_zPSGUIuYChoS7f7aypxmrEtm1fkdE3IaYGhhJQmCeaM/s320/IMG_0626.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321831288425871138" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Rope bridge (my father would NOT walk on this...come to think of it, most of my family probably wouldn't...)</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhhqEUADWC9MdA_aK-ujSSOAAItr_WJd_p1RqJhFN0NyLbMN3LhsJP-mGjCQHSlnfsvlk9zcG4PPHrtplIHDcDxzwhpN2AquYoYrJv98_b4cUPzA-Jeo6JdysXHdezE6kWxqyLULBaxqI/s320/DSC01553.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321834081262967186" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">On the lunch tour boat</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinnaY8umqSntb-XyyS8Hko2Ec9qBOS0iPYBghIhg2sQx03cKFtOWrXh-nNkc6O1x8j2jYTkre-g4ojWMGePlYZ1m15dxOIqSkMui2Ge1uogodZnyNXDiwYmVkXjHiGLdnddeF9WwsqDkg/s320/IMG_0601.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321834087611669138" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">How to drive a tour boat in the Philippines</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFvxEyzz6sy-pjk-tze0svYmRNa9su61cqCUvZqnz4pzMqEEi0YMvOSdhFwGMr2ujMf76QQybt2MLy4Q2fjHeYC5WF94gnz7H85HSmUUTS_Bui-xrIlWXefc9Ze6jqy5w2hRpHMoQteXM/s320/IMG_0592.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321834097574934226" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Musical performance, native style</span></span></div><div><chocolate mounds="" pic=""><pics and="" brief="" explanations=""><br /><br /></pics></chocolate></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><chocolate mounds="" pic=""><pics and="" brief="" explanations=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Walter's family was in the Philippines with us for about 10 days before they had to go home (they had school and real jobs, after all). It was really cool to hang out with all of them and we were sad to see them go, but we were also excited because there was still a lot of fun to be had in those beautiful islands!</span></pics></chocolate></div></div></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-9258538380117616922009-01-04T22:45:00.014+08:002009-01-28T10:48:54.324+08:00Chinese Health Care, Part DeuxLast week Serena asked Wally and I if we wanted to join her and a couple others on a trip to Hainan (an island off the south of China that is known for beautiful beaches and lovely weather). It was to be a perfect interlude between the holidays and our and trip to the Philippines. If only.<br />Serena et al decided to take a plane to the island, but after hearing the price of transportation we decided to try a cheaper and more adventurous route. On Friday night we headed to Luohu train station to buy tickets for the next day to Guangzhou. From there we would hop on another train to the island; the whole thing would cost about 450RMB (~US$75) and take about 17 hours. Unfortunately we got such a late start that we arrived at Luohu just as the train station was closing. No big deal, we decided to get something to eat and try again tomorrow. Next to the station was a hotel restaurant called the Berlin Cafe that looked nice and not too pricey. As we sat down we were very pleased with our choice: the restaurant was beautiful, the music was great and the food was decent. We took our time eating a combination of Chinese and Western-type food and sipping a monster bottle of cheap Chinese champagne. Despite the chick-fight we witnessed outside the hotel and some issues getting home in a taxi, it was a really lovely evening.<br />The next morning I woke up sick. I spent some time on the toilet in the morning and a little time hugging it in the afternoon, but by late afternoon I was able to down half a banana and was feeling a little better. I decided that I was going to be miserable all night anyway, so I might as well be miserable on the train and wake up at the beach when I felt better. With that in mind, we hopped on the bus, as planned, at about 6:30pm to go back to Luohu. About half-way into the short trip I was not feeling well and was starting to overheat. Wally asked if I wanted to turn around, and I did, but the driver had just pulled away from a stop so we couldn't get off right away. As we stopped at a light just past that missed stop I knew I was going to be sick. Wally tried to get the guy to let us off at the light, but he wouldn't. Plan B was to find a plastic bag, but it was too late and I threw up all over myself. At this point the driver decided that he better let us off, which was good because I was extremely dizzy and my hearing was muffled. Wally drug me to a bench, where I promptly went from being overheated to having the chills, and he told me he was taking me to the doctor.<br />Before long I was sitting in the little clinic near his school where the doctor was asking questions about my symptoms. He told me to avoid oily food and fish (a real no-brainer since seafood was the culprit anyway), and then promptly wrote me a prescription for the Chinese cure-all: IV's. I paid my 320RMB (~US$45) and was lead to one of two beds in the clinic. They gave me a shot in my rear and poked my wrist before hooking me up to a massive bottle of liquid with two slightly smaller bottles hanging there for later. I was clearly in this for the long haul.<br />In the bed next to me was a little boy who was maybe 10 years old. This poor kid was so sick: he was passed out when I first got there but later woke up disoriented and nearly ripped his IV out trying to go to the bathroom. At this point his mom and another young lady came running up and tried to comfort him. He was crying a little and throwing up every 15 minutes or so and looked just so miserable. I tried to read and not see him throw up, but every minute felt like an hour in that uncomfortable bed. <br />About 3/4 of the way through my IV's my hand started to hurt. I tried to forget about it, figuring the new pain was all in my head, but it was hurting and throbbing more and more. I looked at my hand and saw that where the back of my hand is usually bony and veiny, a big bubble was growing. Oh shit! I had no idea what to do and didn't really know how to get a nurse to come over, so I just sat up and hoped someone would notice me. Luckily the mother of the sick boy saw my expanding hand and called a nurse over who switched the needle to the other hand and semi-gently scolded me for moving around too much (at least that was my interpretation of what she said).<br />Finally, after 2 hours, I was set free and headed back to Wally's with some medication and multiple reminders from the nurse to "come back tomorrow". I slept great that night and felt much better the next day (though I still couldn't eat anything) and after another round of IV's I was feeling nearly good as new. Around dinner time I said I felt good enough to travel, but we decided that losing that day made the trip not worth it anymore. This turned out to be a very good decision.<br />At about 9pm (which, coincidentally <span style="font-style:italic;">would</span> have been the time we were boarding the train for the very long ride from Guangzhou to our city in Hainan) Wally started to feel sick. After a rough night, he made a visit to the school nurse and by dinner time we were both finally able to stomach some food.<br />So, I may have missed out on Hainan and it's beautiful beaches for now, but experiencing Chinese health care firsthand was definitely an experience. Not the most fun experience I've ever had, but an experience none the less.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-26982279083437716862008-12-19T07:49:00.005+08:002009-01-10T15:03:40.773+08:00A Night of Impromptu KaraokeAs strange as it sounds, I'm getting so used to this place that it kind of feels like home. I've settled into a sort-of routine and I have a decent grasp of how to get around (so much so, in fact, that I saw a clearly lost man in Longgang the other day and started to stop to help him before catching myself...I may know my way around, but I still can't speak Chinese well enough to share that information). I have my foreign friends and my teacher friends, and (believe it or not) I'm so used to hearing the constant background noise of a language I can't understand that I find myself agape when I happen to overhear an English conversation!<br />Yesterday at lunch Maggie mentioned something about a singing competition she is going to take part in. She loves to sing (really though, she sings constantly) but feels that she is out of practice so she said she wanted to work on it before the contest. At the time, I couldn't have known how involved I was going to become in this process.<br />After school I had to tutor from 5-6. Tutoring jobs are one of the lovely perks of being an English speaker in this country; they are absolutely thrown at you and you get to charge pretty much whatever you want. The girl I tutor is in 4th grade with excellent English, so we just hang out, chat, and draw pictures and I get paid 150RMB (~$25) per hour. She also happens to be the music teacher's daughter. Maggie, of course, knows this, so when I went to meet up with the girl she tagged along to talk to the mom about working on her singing.<br />After tutoring I shuffled off to dinner and was waved over by Maggie who happened to be just finishing up. As I sat down she said, "I'm going to sing on the 6th floor tonight, would you like to join?". Laughing out loud I said no, which, judging by the look on her face, was the wrong answer. Feeling bad I asked, "what time?", only to find out that this was going to start in about 15 minutes. At this point I figured there was little chance to escape so I reluctantly agreed.<br />After we finished eating and washed our dishes she asked me if I was going to the office. In a last-ditch attempt to get out of singing I said no. Rallying quickly from my shocking answer she said, "Okay, you go to your dormitory first and then meet me at 6:30" (it was 6:25 at the time). Seeing that I was clearly NOT going to be able to wriggle my way out of this one, I agreed that it made more sense to go to the office since I didn't know where this singing room was.<br />A few minutes later we were trudging up to the 6th floor of one of the buildings where the maintenance guy let us in. I was shocked at what I saw: a massive KTV room right there in the school building! KTV is what they call the karaoke places in China; you and your friends sit in a room the size of a medium bedroom and sing. It is outfitted with plenty of comfy couch space and a couple tables, and there is an all-you-can-eat bar down the hallway. There are usually some colorful lighting fixtures and, of course, a stage. Fu'an School's KTV room was 6 times as big as a KTV, with all the crazy lights and couches, but no food and only the three of us.<br />Once we got the stereo working, Maggie informed me that she invited everyone she saw that night but only a few were going to come. Great. The only thing worse than karaoke with your friends is karaoke with just two people. Maggie insisted that I go first, but I insisted she went first since I had yet to see any English songs in the book. We found the page and she left me to peruse it as she sang her first song. Now, this was a pretty big book of songs; there were pages and pages of Chinese songs, a couple pages of Japanese songs, and one single page of English songs that was only 2/3 full. To make matters worse, I only recognized about half of the songs and only liked about 5 of them. Oh well. As we took turns singing a few people came and went, so there were always about 3 of us hanging out. I sang "Tears in Heaven" and a lot of Beatles and we all had a pretty good time for the first hour or so.<br />By hour 3 I was ready to make like a tree and leave, but Maggie still persisted. She insisted on me choosing songs even though I had fully exhausted any and all songs that I had a chance at being able to sing and had even faked my way through a couple. I finally decided that the only way out of there was to claim exhaustion and hit the road. This excuse always works in China because they believe that rest is an extremely important component of your healthy.<br />So at 9:30 I finally made it back to my room and I just laughed to think about what a strange and random night it was. I also realized that no matter how used to China I become, there will always be something waiting to surprise me.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-63584800742628660312008-12-19T07:33:00.004+08:002009-01-10T15:15:57.306+08:00Typical Junior High Behavior (?)An incomplete list of the things kids have done in my classes:<br />~ played badminton<br />~ threw paper airplanes<br />~ punched a nearby student<br />~ knitted<br />~ played with live turtles<br />~ one kid said he would like to f*** me<br />~ asked for my signature<br />~ asked my blood type<br />~ given me their phone number<br />~ broke a clock (I was somewhat responsible for this one too though)<br />~ gotten a finger extremely stuck in a hole in their neighbor's desk<br />~ discreetly corrected my spelling of "favorite" and "color" (psst! Laoshi, you forgot the 'u'!)~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-85341317543274179802008-12-11T19:24:00.004+08:002008-12-11T22:16:07.430+08:00It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the gameEvery year in Longgang there is a basketball tournament for the teachers. Each school fields a women's team and a men's team to compete - no p.e. teachers allowed though, because they are "professionals". Because I am an American, and a tall one at that, I <EM>must</EM> be good at basketball, so they asked me to play. I insisted that I am not good at basketball and I don't even really like the sport, but they took this as me being modest and got very excited because they were certain I would carry their team to victory. Thursday I was given two jerseys and a new pair of shoes before being sent out to attended practice. "Practice" was really just about 20 minutes of shooting around followed by full-court 5-on-5 ball. This, of course, exhausted me. As the practice went on the group of students watching grew, and every time my team had the ball there were chants of <EM>Wai jiao, wai jiao</EM>! ("foreign teacher" 外教), which resulted in the ball being passed to me over and over, making me more and more exhausted. Finally (and mercifully), the practice ended and I was allowed to go pass out in my room. The next day in class, multiple boys called out "<EM>lao shi</EM>, Kobe!", with the appropriate basketball-shooting hand motions. I guess they think I'm good...silly youngsters. This Monday was game day and I was informed that the bus would be leaving at 5:30pm. Wally was coming to watch and the school was going to pay for a nice post-game dinner for everyone, so it looked to be turning into a nice little evening. However, at lunch Karina (an administrator) informed me that unfortunately I was not allowed to play because I'm paid by the Education Bureau, not the school. Bummer. I still wanted to watch the games though, and I'm so glad I did because they were absolutely ridiculous. In typical female fashion, the women teams made up for their lack of athleticism and talent by beating the shit out of each other, and the men strutted around like they were NBA All-Stars. In typical Chinese fashion, every man who was not currently playing basketball was smoking. I tried to get a picture of a man in a jersey smoking on the bench, but I couldn't get away with it on the sly...trust me though, it happened! Both teams lost that night, and Tuesday too, so we are out of the double-elimination tournament. Maggie told me that it is not important to win, we just have to try our best. I told her that we have a saying that, "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game"...but only the losers say it. That, she found hilarious.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-65858052879224305552008-12-11T18:10:00.002+08:002008-12-11T19:00:43.953+08:00ThanksgivingOn Thanksgiving night I sat down at my computer with a glass of "Peanuts and Milk" to write about how strange/funny/etc. the day was in China. If you are paying attention you may be wondering why, then, this post is dated December 11th. There is a very simple answer to that question: nothing really happened.<br />The Sunday before Thanksgiving all of the CTLCers got together for our best approximation of the holiday feast. We had all of the basics like turkey, mashed potatoes, and yams, but there were some strange additions like these Chinese desserts with plastic dolls on top and orange juice. We all really enjoyed being in our big group again to laugh and commiserate about our experiences here. There was even a pick-up football game!<br />I had to get back to Longgang that night so I could teach the next morning, and the rest of the week proceeded as usual. I had been teaching about Thanksgiving for a week already and I was teaching it for the remainder of that week as well, so when Thursday came it was just like any other day. I taught my classes (all three of them...it was my "long" day) and at about 6pm I headed down to the cafeteria for dinner. As I grabbed my lunch box out of the cabinet it hit me: I'm getting ready to eat dinner in a cafeteria in China by myself on Thanksgiving. A knot started to form in my throat, but I immediately told myself to get over it because I was being ridiculous.<br />As I sat down with my food, three 9th grade teachers I don't really know asked if they could sit with me. "Of course," I said, motioning for them to have a seat. It turns out that two of them don't really speak English at all and the other one only kind of speaks it, but we were able to sort of chat in broken Chinglish, and it was nice to be eating with people. I finished eating and as I got up to leave I told them I was so happy they sat by me because it was Thanksgiving and I would have been sad to eat alone. I don't know if they understood or not, but I wasn't kidding; I was thankful for that.<br />After dinner I decided to head across the street to the grocery store to seek out some American-ish food to gorge myself on in the name of the gluttonous holiday. This particular grocery store is pretty poor in terms of selection anyway, and American food is basically non-existent. I bought a small bag of dried fruit, some cookies that looked like those creme-filled vanilla/chocolate sandwich cookies (they weren't very good...kind of like crackers with a drop of icing on them) and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Feeling moderately satisfied with my selection I headed home.<br />At my apartment I enjoyed my pseudo-American feast and cracked open my deliciously terribly PBR as I chatted with my family over Skype. As I talked to them and heard the hustle-bustle of everyone (animals included) I finally felt a little homesick.<br />I was sad because their lives were going on as usual and mine is completely upside-down and inside-out, I was sad because Thanksgiving came and went without much more than a blip here, and I was scared that Christmas will feel the same. However, more powerfully, I was thankful for the experiences I'm having here and I was incredibly thankful that the people I love are safe and sound and still on the other end of a phone line. Looking back, I realize that in some ways it may have been the best Thanksgiving I've ever had because I learned that I don't need to eat certain foods or even see my family to have a good Thanksgiving; all I need is to know that I am blessed in so many ways and to pause for just a moment to give thanks for all that I have...and the PBR was pretty nice too.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-150012965577918682008-11-20T10:44:00.015+08:002008-11-20T19:25:49.962+08:00Chinese Health Care"Amelia, I'm in the hospital"<br />This is the first thing my, obviously very drugged, boyfriend said to me on the phone Tuesday. Because of my crappy cell phone and his pain- and drug-induced state of mind, the ensuing conversation was very confusing. All I knew was he tore up his knee, surgery was involved, he was going to to be in the hospital for multiple days, and I was too far away to do anything except worry.<br />The next day I found out that he had been rushed into emergency surgery on Tuesday night and he was laid up in a hospital near his school for at least a week. I was happy to hear he was doing much better and that I would be able to visit him later that day. That afternoon I skipped Chinese class and headed up to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Dongmen</span> where I bought a small plant in a very Chinese-looking pot and took a taxi to his hospital (he's obsessed with house plants, he has 10 or more in his apartment).<br />As soon as I was out of the taxi and surveyed my surroundings, I realized that finding him in this messy complex was not going to be easy. I knew the building number, floor, and room number I was heading to, but this complex looked as organized as a 5-year-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">olds</span> Lego project: building 1 was next to building 2 which was next to building 6, and buildings 3-5 were not in plain sight. As a further complication, I could not remember the word for "building" so I couldn't even ask anyone if I had to. Eventually I happened upon a map with big numbers on it and saw that I had to walk through a sketchy-looking construction zone to get to the right place. I should not have been surprised by this because there are always sketchy-looking construction zones, and you always have to walk through the middle of them to get places. Such is life in a developing country.<br />I got to building 3 and saw the sign for "bone and joint surgery" and knew I was in the right place. As the elevator doors opened on the third floor I was greeted with big cloud of cigarette smoke. Apparently cigarette smoke is not bad for hospital patients in China.<br />As I entered the "bone and joint surgery" hallway I was greeted by a smiling, waving Chinese man I didn't recognize. I figured he must have seen a white person wandering around and assumed I was looking for the only white patient in the place (this, of course, was the correct assumption).<br />The room (like the rest of the hospital) felt reminiscent of a US hospital in the 1950's: four simple metal beds in a stark-white room, with patients wearing hospital gowns heavily faded from years of repeated washings. The room was full of people talking and shuffling bags of food and bottles of water, and the patient where laying there looking uncomfortable. Wally explained that the nurses in the hospital don't take care of people the way they do in the States: they administer medicine and run tests, but that's basically it. If patients need to eat, bathe, use a bedpan, or otherwise move around, it is up to family members to help them. This is unfortunate for a foreigner whose closest family members live on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so a school employee has been appointed as his designated caretaker.<br />I had been there less than 15 minutes when a doctor walked in wearing a mask and well-worn scrubs, dragging a gurney. After a brief conversation with the caretaker it was clear that some sort of test or procedure was in order. I was assured that they don't bar visitors from any part of the hospital, so I was invited along to wherever it was he was headed.<br />We shuffled onto the elevator then down a twisting hallway to the radiology area. There we took a number and continued to the next building, up another elevator and into an ECG room. I stayed in the hallway while they pulled a sheet around him so passer-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">bys</span> wouldn't be scandalized by his very <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">un</span>-Chinese amount of chest hair. After handing me the machine printout, we headed back to radiology where I again stayed in the hall while they x-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">rayed</span> his chest, because they don't bother to protect anyone from unnecessary radiation.<br />Now, if you have been paying attention you might be asking yourself "If he tore up his knee, why does he need an ECG and a chest x-ray?" The answer is this: God only knows. He has no idea why they ran these tests, nor why they keep testing his blood sugar like some diabetes patient. His best guess is that it is some combination of curiosity about a foreigner, odd ideas of "health" in China, and a desire to run up the bill.<br />Eventually we made it back to his crowded room and he was (painfully) pushed back into bed. I stayed as long as I could without risking my ability to make it back to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Longgang</span> that night, and the rest of the time was pretty uneventful. Only time will tell how knee surgery recovery will go in China, but he seems to doing pretty well so far!~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-62785501761912556892008-11-17T17:05:00.016+08:002008-11-20T22:08:25.261+08:00The sports meeting and "Successful Land"<div><div><div><div align="left">Last Wednesday morning I woke up sick. My throat felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper, my nose was running, and as the day progressed I got shakier and shakier. Somehow, luckily, I ended up not teaching my two lessons that day because the teachers forgot I was supposed to, and after a trip to the school nurse I was armed with some Chinese medicine. The rest of the day I took it easy and made sure to go to bed early because I knew I had a couple of long days in front of me.<br />The next morning I was feeling a little better, so I put on my new track suit and ridiculous China shoes and headed downstairs bright and early for the opening ceremony of the "sports meeting". As it turns out, a "sports meeting" is basically a school-wide track meet, and because it is in China, there must be a certain level of pomp and circumstance to start it off. Because I am a token figure, rather than and actual teacher, I got to sit next to the principal and other administrators on the stage as the procession went by. First a group of kids in military uniforms marched by with flags, then each class in each grade went by and paused for some chant right in front of all of us. With nine grades and eight classes per grade, you can do the math and guess how long this whole thing took, but it was kind of cool. Some of the younger kids rode by on roller skates or bikes rather than marching, and some of them wiped out pretty bad. I'd love to say it <em>wasn't</em> funny, but it was.<br />After the opening ceremony was over and all the speeches were made, the events got going. There were races, shot put, archery, high jump, and the littlest kids did relay races and three-legged races in the middle of the track with their parents. I was asked by several people if this is how our sports meetings are in America. They didn't seem all that surprised when I told them we don't have sports meetings in America (I guess our reputation precedes us).<br />An hour or so later I heard my name (well, their bastardized pronunciation of my name) and someone whisked me away to the shot put area; apparently this is one of the things I signed up for. Everyone seemed very excited for me to be there because they were sure I was going to be very good at it. I, on the other hand, was nervous because I had never thrown a shot put before in my life, I have no idea how to do the spin thing, and I'm still slightly wimpy about my right shoulder. The first woman went, then the second, and I realized that "correct form" in not even remotely important and it was perfectly acceptable to sort of shuffle forward and hurl the ball. Fantastic. When my turn came, a grinning 8th grade boy who was in charge of fetching the shot put after we threw it, handed it to me with a thumbs up and said "Very good!" High praise indeed considering all I had done so far was not drop it on my foot. I shuffled up and threw it...a good two feet past all the other throws. A chorus of "very good!" and "so strong!" with plenty of thumbs-up showed their approval. My next throw went a couple feet past my first and my third went a couple feet past that. When all was said and done, not only had I beat all the other female teachers by over 2m, I had beat the school record by 7cm. Not bad for a rookie! </div><div align="left"> </div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNwrerfMcIIGn-1fLNJE84UTfcHZrasuglaHVbWZAglUb1QnCiExGMLRdKcyaqZdvwDpF9sLbcs2msg3fdYbryvlrDUn0-rFJalXNYWwi182oOtPlC9TaKGBT7HNs-0Tps5-lGECVBj80/s1600-h/Sports+Day+4.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5270738637816729266" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNwrerfMcIIGn-1fLNJE84UTfcHZrasuglaHVbWZAglUb1QnCiExGMLRdKcyaqZdvwDpF9sLbcs2msg3fdYbryvlrDUn0-rFJalXNYWwi182oOtPlC9TaKGBT7HNs-0Tps5-lGECVBj80/s320/Sports+Day+4.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></div><div><br />Students hanging out<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div align="center"></span></em> </div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0v5mCETgPd8k-MADMn7fdQlv3mt_EoJpCt3rWigfh2mmuKiGkEXskWuW67tib8a58b38d7gA4fvzJnZkb_eS0Q8-clUuQPfIgy6ORYssUmlINBSt8YQZRcGwOKPx2bkop-HaqNcSoCJA/s1600-h/Sports+Day+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5270738621809867698" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 252px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0v5mCETgPd8k-MADMn7fdQlv3mt_EoJpCt3rWigfh2mmuKiGkEXskWuW67tib8a58b38d7gA4fvzJnZkb_eS0Q8-clUuQPfIgy6ORYssUmlINBSt8YQZRcGwOKPx2bkop-HaqNcSoCJA/s320/Sports+Day+2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em></div><div><br /></div><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Me with a couple of 7th graders...why do they look so scared?!?!</span></em></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /> </div><p align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy7X6cpD1KIXTB0DuDaJx9IjjlkQTcpW1LDSh7Yd41KB4K4HsBF3f8xcbc9e3h3Ar47XVAPANTK-Mpf2sUVkGKJophMRdBAHk_8dzIc2MOiYBjLlSld9wYZZUR3ib-AaT_9Kg03aD8Tc4/s1600-h/Sports+Day+shoes.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5270738612549832546" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy7X6cpD1KIXTB0DuDaJx9IjjlkQTcpW1LDSh7Yd41KB4K4HsBF3f8xcbc9e3h3Ar47XVAPANTK-Mpf2sUVkGKJophMRdBAHk_8dzIc2MOiYBjLlSld9wYZZUR3ib-AaT_9Kg03aD8Tc4/s320/Sports+Day+shoes.JPG" border="0" /></a></p><div><br /><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">China Shoes</span></em></div><em></em><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div align="left"><br />I was supposed to run in a 100m race later that day, but I didn't hear my name because I was busy chatting with last years foreign teacher, Michael. He teaches at a different school in Longgang this year and had the afternoon off, so he stopped by to watch. We spent the afternoon chatting about sports day and having our pictures taken by students (sometimes they asked first, sometimes they didn't). At some point they told us that there would be a dinner later and they wanted Michael to come along too. He accepted and at 5:30pm all the teachers and administrators piled into a couple of buses and headed to the restaurant. As we turned into the parking lot we saw a beautiful open-air restaurant, situated in the middle of a garden, partially up a hill. We also heard the first murmurs of <em>gou rou</em>.<br /><em>Gou rou</em> is one of the things in China that disgusts Americans. The mere thought of it makes most of us shudder and think "how could they?!?" <em>Gou rou </em>(<span style="color:#000000;">狗</span>肉) is dog meat. I was told that many old Chinese people think that <em>gou rou</em> is very good for your healthy and it is warm for your inside. With hesitant anticipation they asked, "will you try?"<br />"Yeah, I'll try a little"<br />We sat down and dinner started to come pretty quickly. <em>Gou rou</em> was the second dish to arrive and it was disgusting. I'm sure that this was partially psychosomatic and partially because the two bites I tried were too fatty, but either way I'm not a fan. Before long the toasting started. Since I was just starting to feel better from my cold, the last thing I wanted to do was drink beer. However, since I had put on such a performance last time we all drank together, and because Michael was there, I felt there was little I could do about it without being rude.<br /><br />I woke up the next morning with a vague memory of being in the Principal's living room drinking tea and found a drunken text conversation on my phone (and was later told I also had a drunken regular conversation on the phone). I also found that, even though my throat felt better, I was completely unable to speak. <em>Mei guan xi</em> ("never mind" 没关系), I put my track suit back on and headed downstairs for day two of the sports meeting.<br />All the teachers I saw at the track greeted me with a hearty "Hey! Amelia! How's your throat?" (in some combination of Chinese and/or English) and I found out that I had apparently spoken Chinese all night long in my drunken stupor. Fantastic. I was told many times that I speak it very well and I should use it more, though, so that's a moderately good sign. All the students I saw asked "Who was that guy you were with yesterday?" and seemed very disappointed by the answer of "another foreign teacher"; apparently they were really hoping he was my boyfriend.<br />The very last event of the sports meeting was the teachers' relay race. Each grade picks 4 women and 2 men to compete in a 4x250 race. I, of course, was included in this race and all the other teachers seemed to think this was unfair...except the lone female p.e. teacher who took it as a personal challenge. Before the race I was told by many teachers that I should run slowly and one teacher even said "may your legs work as well as your voice today"...which I thought was hilarious. They explained to me, no less than 10 times, that one teacher was going to hand me the baton when it was my turn to run, and when I was done I was supposed to hand it to this other teacher. I'm not sure why they were so sure I was going to get this confused, but it was nice that they were keeping me informed.<br />I was the 5th person on my team to go and by the time I was up we were already behind by a few places. I took off running and all the students <em>lost</em> it. They were yelling and screaming and I was running faster than I had any business running. In the last stretch I felt my weight was getting pitched too far forward, but I was able to right myself. Just as I was back on balance, the teacher running in front of me wiped out; I was so glad it was her and not me! I handed off the baton (nearly taking out the teacher I was handing it to) and a few minutes later the race was over and we got third place. Lots of "good job" and "so fast" all around, and it was back to the stage for the closing ceremony. About 45 minutes of speeches and certificates later, I was up in my room preparing for the weekend. </div><div align="left"> </div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7TN_ozBRRekhZ8xo4XPbG4Zr4XBjs_U-1CZIGJ3CACP0Hwg9z0AaPtuo3vcNuoWO5JrspbWqKB_On4QwMJJPF4z3bU4rAjU_yexouwvLnfbW4pDpDTc315BKeBexxHwIbXt_0YByWa64/s1600-h/Sports+Day+9.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5270738640173004946" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7TN_ozBRRekhZ8xo4XPbG4Zr4XBjs_U-1CZIGJ3CACP0Hwg9z0AaPtuo3vcNuoWO5JrspbWqKB_On4QwMJJPF4z3bU4rAjU_yexouwvLnfbW4pDpDTc315BKeBexxHwIbXt_0YByWa64/s320/Sports+Day+9.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Closing ceremony</div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><p align="center"></p><div><br /><br /> </div><div> </div><div><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirbNugt6i-GldQzPfNqDGV883PHT2UafuviBAF03caSWenKlutesB4ttTgAIei4LakpkXSIou6jJjlhASSvkc_eVHFe7WW5J_jmVD_lO3mNocqXzHWJnvhXGTkBBiuzMC4SSIHELjcEUg/s1600-h/Sports+Day+3.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5270738629336679554" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 238px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirbNugt6i-GldQzPfNqDGV883PHT2UafuviBAF03caSWenKlutesB4ttTgAIei4LakpkXSIou6jJjlhASSvkc_eVHFe7WW5J_jmVD_lO3mNocqXzHWJnvhXGTkBBiuzMC4SSIHELjcEUg/s320/Sports+Day+3.jpg" border="0" /></a></span></em><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em> </div><div><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em> </div><div><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em> </div><div><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Me, Joy, Maggie, and Michael</span></em></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div align="left">Earlier in the day I had been invited to an event taking place that evening and continuing through the next day. It wasn't clear what exactly was going on, all I was told was that it would be relaxing, there might be a boat, it would be a good chance to practice Chinese, and it would be cold. With that description in mind I packed a small bag of things and went down to the gate at 5:30, as instructed.<br />As I waited for someone to show up and tell me where to go, a well-meaning teacher asked me where I was going. The following conversation went on in a combination of broken Chinese and broken English:<br />"Where are you going?"<br />"I don't know, I'm supposed to take a bus."<br />"But the bus just left!"<br />"I know, not that bus."<br />"Okay, where are you going?"<br />"I don't know where I'm going. No one told me, they told me to wait here."<br />"But if you tell me where you are going I can help you."<br />"I don't know where I'm going, but the 7th grade English teacher does."<br />At this point she either understood or got tired of trying because she just smiled and awkwardly said "Okay, I go now!"<br />Before long some other teachers showed up and we all piled onto a big bus and headed to the nearby town of Fenggang. We ate a delicious dinner in a nice restaurant (complete with some campy-looking live singers who tried to impress me with their English) and then stowed our stuff in our luxe hotel rooms before heading to the spa. At the spa we relaxed for a couple hours and got foot massages before heading back to the hotel around midnight.<br />The next morning we tried to sleep in (no easy task for a bunch of teachers who get up at 6 or 7am every single day) and had a late breakfast before heading off to the real reason for this excursion: a meeting. Luckily they took pity on me and let me sit out of the meeting which was, of course, totally in Chinese. The 7th grade English teacher also played hooky to sit outside and chat. We had some really interesting conversations about language and culture, and I was shocked at how good her English is when she gets going!<br />The meeting lasted about 3 hours, so at about 1pm we headed to the next part of the outing: barbecue. We pulled up to a park, cheerily named "Successful Land" and were carted off to the grill area. Now, Chinese dining is generally a free-for-all, so of course a barbecue is no different. You sit around the pit and everyone cooks stuff and eats it as it finishes. We had vegetables, hot dogs, chicken, pork, yams and more. There was rampant bone-spitting and loud chewing, and it was delicious!<br />The melee went on for about an hour before we were handed some ticket things and told to "go have fun". We rode paddle boats, shot arrows, played with clay, rode a carousel, did bumper cars, rode a horse, and rode the scariest roller coaster I've ever seen. Now, I'm not really a fan of roller coasters anyway because I'm generally not a fan of being thrown around in the name of fun; and riding a <em>Chinese</em> roller coaster sounds just plain suicidal. This thing looked like it was constructed in 1953 and it's last paint job was probably in 1997. It was small and creaky and the seat belts looked like they were swiped from an old Grand Am. Despite my better judgement I got in and held on and, against all odds, survived the experience.<br />We finally left Successful Land and Fenggang around dinnertime and I rushed off to downtown Shenzhen to hang out with some friends and listen to a live band. Finally, on Sunday I was able to really rest, relax, and start to recover from my cold and the ridiculous events of the last few days!</div></div></div></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-11876556648487953162008-11-04T17:38:00.007+08:002008-11-20T19:08:14.466+08:00So beautiful! So fat!I'm not sure how this happened, but I have managed to sign up for every event at the "sports meeting" that is being held "maybe some day in November". I don't know what exactly this means, but I'm fairly certain I have to run at least twice and throw something. I also don't know when exactly this meeting is going to take place, but I do know this: I get free clothes.<br />Last week I got a slip of paper from the newspaper lady that was covered in characters with "Coleman" printed at the top. I suspected that this meant I had something to pick up from the post office, and after an unnecessarily long and painful conversation with Maggie it turns out I was right. On Thursday I had a few hours off in the afternoon so I decided to try and get my mail. Because I don't know where the post office is, and I'm nearly certain they won't speak English, this would almost certainly be an adventure. As I was walking out of the school gates to get on the bus, the principal, Mr. James, pulled up out of nowhere in his van and hollered, "Amelia! Where are you going?"<br />"The post office"<br />"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Mmmm</span>, okay, get in."<br />So there I was, in a van with Mr. James, Perfect (remember him?), and two people I don't know, going to the post office. Presumably we were going to go somewhere else too, but no one bothered to tell me.<br />When we got to the post office Mr. James sent Perfect in with me, and it's a good thing he did. In order to pick up my mail I had to fill out some form (written entirely in Chinese, of course) and make a photocopy of my passport. This would have likely been impossible if I had been there by myself.<br />Package in hand we got back in the van where they finally told me what part two of the trip would be: shopping. The explained to me about sports day (which I had already signed up for earlier in the day) and told me that we were going to pick out a sports outfit that all the teachers get for the occasion.<br />This shopping took took two hours in two locations, totally in Chinese. Needless to say I was pretty bored, but I definitely know the word for "pants" now (<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">kuzi</span></span> <span style="font-size:100%;"><strong style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-FAMILY: arial">裤子</strong></span>). Eventually some decision must have been made because we were back in the van heading home. On the way out the door someone stopped and bought some juice drinks for all of us. I had no idea what it was, but no matter how many times I said that they insisted on asking "How do you say this in English?" We eventually settled on: it is something that sugar is made out of and it comes from Cuba.<br /><br />Fast-forward to a few minutes ago, when I was summoned by Maggie with the usual "Amelia! Okay, let's go". As we walked she explained that we get free clothes and shoes for sports day, so I need to tell them my size. "Maybe you can get the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">men's</span> clothes," she giggled. "Maybe," I said through a gritted-teeth smile. She has made this joke before and, given the clothing situation in China, it should be funny. However, as the resident freak-of-nature it's a little irritating to have these sentiments vocalized.<br />When we got there I was immediately the focus of gaped-mouth attention from the kitchen staff who were almost done trying on stuff. I'm not sure why they were so intrigued because they literally see me every single day. Anyway, I was handed a men's XXL shirt which was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">waaay</span> to big and then a medium which was fine. They then held up a medium pair of women's pants which were laughably small. No, we all agreed and someone stuck their foot next to mine to compare sizes.<br />Soon a pair of shoes showed up that (shockingly) fit! Then they decided that I needed a <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">women's</span> shirt, not a men's, and my women's size is definitely a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">XXXL</span>. I told them that I'm sure that XL would be just fine, but they insisted that there is another woman in the school that is as fat as me and she's getting an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">XXXL</span>. Yup, they called me fat.<br />So my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">XXXL</span> shirt, XXL pants, and shoes are ordered, and I'm still not entirely sure why my presence was necessary since I didn't actually have a say in any of it. As for being called the f-word: I'm not that upset, I guess, since I think they are a little confused about the differences between and connotations of "fat"and "big" and "tall" and "strong". And even if they meant it, I do get told that I'm "so beautiful" every single day, so a good "you're fat" every once in a while just keeps my ego from over-inflating.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-11874758484499968552008-11-02T15:44:00.004+08:002008-11-20T19:07:51.191+08:00I'd rather shower with a garden hose.On September 10<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">th</span> I wrote about my apartment and concluded with "...but I'll save the shower story for another time." If you have been paying attention to my blog, then you may have noticed that I never followed up on that promise. There is a very good reason for this: I'm not ready to find the humor in the situation yet.<br />From day 1, showering at my apartment has been...well...bad. The shower is just in the middle of the bathroom, the water pressure is terrible, and (worst of all) the water is rarely warm. Rarely. In the first two months of living here I have had less than 10 warm-water showers, and by "warm" I mean "scalding". Basically I either freeze or boil my skin off.<br />I have tried different strategies to remedy this situation: showering at different times of the day, turning the air conditioner off 20 minutes before taking a shower, going for a jog right before, etc. with varying levels of success. Some days it's not too bad, and some days I have to keep reminding myself that a lot of people have it a lot <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">worse</span> than this, just to keep from crying.<br />After a couple months of this I finally had enough and I emailed a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">CTLC</span> coordinator to see if there was something I could try to do about it, and he told me to ask my school.<br />I asked my contact teacher about it and she sent the maintenance man up to check it out. Now, if you recall, I have had a handful of warm showers, which means that <em>sometimes</em> it works. Of course, it decided to work when the maintenance man came. You should have seen this man demonstrating how a shower works: "turn this way, warm...turn this way, cold" while making me feel the water, Helen Keller-style.<br />He chuckled to himself as he left (can you blame him?), and I'm certain that it took all of 4 hours for everyone in the school to know all about it. I was completely enraged by this situation because, not only is nothing going to change, but also I look like a total moron.<br />The shower has been working slightly more <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">consistently</span> this last week, so maybe somehow the damned thing fixed itself...but only time will tell....~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-4861876299070211602008-10-30T08:19:00.009+08:002008-11-20T18:56:59.804+08:00A 50yuan (US$7) dayNext time you need a haircut, I dare you to try and get your wishes expressed non-linguistically. You can say "hair cut" and "how much will it cost", but everything else must be gestured. I double...no, <em>triple</em> dog dare you...<br />Monday and Tuesday this week I didn't have to teach. I don't really know why, but it has something to do with either parents or teachers from other schools coming to observe. I didn't find out I was off the hook on Monday until I was walking to class, but I knew about Tuesday shortly thereafter so I was able to make plans for the day. I hadn't had a massage in a couple weeks and my friend <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Alaina</span> happens to have no classes on Tuesday afternoons, so we decided to meet up in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Dongmen</span> for massages and a little shopping.<br />I got up early that morning and put on my new China outfit: black leggings, jean skirt, colorful tank top and red shoes. Whenever I leave during the day, especially when I'm wearing non-teacher clothes, I make sure to leave while the kids are in class so they don't see my "scandalous" clothing. That morning, however, I forgot that people were coming to observe, so even though the students didn't see me, a large group of professionally dressed people did. Oh well, chalk it up to being the crazy <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">waiguoren</span>.<br />I got to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Dongmen</span> relatively quickly and, upon checking the ATM, discovered that I had not been paid yet, which means my original plan of going to the tailor was foiled. <em>Mei <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">guan</span> xi </em>("never mind" 没关系), I had a feeling this would happen so I had another plan: hair cut.<br />Now, in China there are two types of stores: those that look like real stores, and those that look like someone stuck a card table into a corner. I decided that I would at least try to find a salon that looked like a salon, rather than a chair on a corner with a scissor-<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">wielding</span> Chinese person. It took about 20 minutes of wandering around, but I found one tucked in the corner of one of my favorite "malls".<br />I walked in and was immediately pushed into a chair and surrounded by 4 Chinese people asking me questions. I said "haircut?" and they nodded and asked me something I imagine meant "how would you like it cut?" I wasn't sure how to describe this so I asked for a book of pictures. I couldn't find what I wanted right away and they kept asking me if I wanted a perm or something else I couldn't comprehend. I tried to gesture how short I wanted it, but I was afraid that that could go very wrong so, feeling overwhelmed, I took out my translator. They poked around with that asking me "bob?". "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Mmm</span>, not really," I tried to express by shrugging and twisting up my face. More scratching, then "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">mora</span>?". "I don't know what that means in English," I said. I kept searching the books I had while they poked at the translator some more and I finally found a picture that looked like what I wanted. As I looked up to show them, the translator was shoved in my face again. There was a long list of English words associated with the characters they had written, but these words didn't seem to go together. I remember seeing words like, "line", "to draw out" and "diarrhea" and decided that whatever that was, I didn't want it. I said no to that, and pointed to the picture I had found. "Oh!" they said and whisked me away to wash my hair.<br />Getting your hair washed in a Chinese salon is very different than in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">an American</span> one. In the States, they only wash your hair if they need to and you're head is stuck backwards into a sink. Not in China. The hair washing section of the salon is separate from the hair cutting part, and rather than bending backwards into a sink, you lay down on this bed thing. Not only do they wash your hair, they massage your head, and it is awesome.<br />When that part was all done, I was whisked back to the chair where the hair cutting commenced. As I was sitting there I noticed that one of the workers was taking a picture of me on the sly with her camera phone. This is certainly not the first time this has happened, and I always wonder why they don't just ask if they can take a picture!<br />I got a lot of hair cut off, but the guy did a great job and he did it pretty fast too. I went to pay and was pleasantly surprised to find out that a hair wash, head massage, and haircut only cost 25yuan. That's less than US$4!<br /><br />Not much later <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Alaina</span> showed up and we went to the foot massage place. As we sat there chatting she said "oh! will you be my witness for my vote?" "Of course" I said, and as we sat there in a Chinese massage parlor (with 25yuan hour-long foot massages) she voted for the US president.<br /><br />Only in China....and God bless America!<br /><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263956792824724594" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 261px; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivqZrqLSXY1D3E6sUUd726W-NBuc_0i83tkIDHf7swxYRkvbWlyGMUhrEO7iqKC_D_4j-e9kfw2IoqW-vh4Kr8BpW5o5JZGoRjab_bmCdC6DPVapGOE19dSlfDFl01jV1y-VV_CWJnja4/s320/just+me+2.jpg" border="0" />My new (very short) look!</span></em></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-82979719888427381152008-10-27T18:59:00.007+08:002008-11-04T19:55:56.509+08:00Sometimes you win, sometimes you won't. Sometimes you beat the devil, sometimes you don't.It seems as if my life in China is a constant cycle of something good happening, then something bad, then something good, and on and on. The last few days have been an excellent example of this phenomenon.<br />Last Wednesday night I got a text message from a school administrator telling me that I did not have to teach on Thursday because the kids were taking exams. Awesome. The next morning I slept in a little, waited until after my 9:05am class would have started (just in case I misunderstood something) and then hit the road for the Book City mall in Shenzhen. I spent more time than usual in transit for this trip, but I got some Starbucks coffee, an Oreo blizzard from DQ, a couple of workbooks for the kids I tutor, and my favorite book of all time: Gone With the Wind. I got home in time to tutor and as I was settling in for the night I found out that there had been a fire at my parents' house. Not awesome. Happily and luckily no one was hurt (including any animals) and the damage was relatively minimal considering what could have happened.<br />The next day I had to teach one class in the morning and then meet up with some friends at a boat show. Class was fine and I stuck around Fu'an long enough to get free lunch before taking off for the beach. I wasn't exactly sure how to get to this place and was planning on taking a taxi, except (for the first time since I've been in China, I'm pretty sure) I never saw one in the 30+ minutes I stood at the bus stop. No good. Eventually I gave up and got on a bus, then the metro, then another bus and a three long hours later I was there. Upon arrival I was tired and somewhat frustrated, but two beers and touring the beautiful yachts served to be pretty decent therapy. After a while we had seen enough and decided to head back to the downtown area for the unlimited beer and pizza night at NYPD Pizza.<br />Another long bus ride and short metro trip later, we joined our friends at the outdoor seating area and had our fill of English conversation, drinking games, and pizza. Eventually the restaurant closed for the night, so we tried (and failed) to find a bar to go to. First there was confusion with the cab drivers, then we were denied entrance to the only bar we could find in the area where we were dropped off. We ended up sitting on benches outside a 7-11, drinking beers from that 7-11 and chatting some more. This only had limited appeal, so it didn't take long for people to drift away and head back home. I ended up staying over at a friend's apartment who has an extra bedroom.<br />My own bed = fantastic.<br />No blanket or pillows and way too much air conditioning = not fantastic.<br />I slept terribly and was up way before the other people staying there, so I quietly let myself out and headed up to Dongmen for the day.Dongmen is a part of town that is absolutely insane. It is crammed full of restaurants, malls, and street stalls; and the streets are full of beggars, shoppers, and people waving advertisements for manicures, hair extensions, and tattoos in your face. A group of us had decided to meet up there Saturday to shop for Halloween, which was almost certainly going to be a good time. However, because of my sleeping arrangements I ended up getting there at 9am. No problem though, I just milled around for about 4 hours and went to Starbucks twice before my friends got there. We shopped all afternoon and when all was said and done I was moderately successful on the clothing front: a skirt, some leggings, a couple of shirts, and a necklace. Shoe shopping did not go as well. My feet are on the bigger end of average at home (9-10 depending on the shoe), but here I'm a giant. The sales girls at shoe stores openly point and giggle at my feet and a couple have straight up waved me away (it is the same experience at the bra stores...but I only go to those to mess with the salespeople anyway). So, with a small collection of clothes that may or may not fit (no dressing rooms in Dongmen) and zero shoes, I ate dinner with my friends and we tried to figure out what to do with our Saturday night. By the time we decided that no plans were going to materialize, it was too late for me to try going home (if you read my post "Cause the world turns on lessons learned" you'll know why...) so I ended up heading to a friend's to spend the night.<br /><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261789240183514194" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 240px; height: 320px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8aZEOepAom28bwxQ6hJukWAM0fjKUHwGpwLm9VatMWuzw8zbpTl4eWzQUGvEnIkuayWe08NAmnqjF8M9KBeLkaiIFpiXteTz1IcQ5i7X8D2LDj3BB1PD5Hom4mfROejtCPu0Zh8Frwec/s320/IMG_0492.JPG" border="0" />My new, shoe-less China outfit!</span></em></div><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em> </div><div align="left">This friend didn't have a spare bedroom for me, but they do have a big screen television to watch and extra towels for a shower so I was a happy camper (a shower on the weekends is a bit of a luxury since I'm basically living out of my purse if I'm not in Longgang). I slept wonderfully and chilled there until about 2pm Sunday, when I decided it was time to head home. To get home from where I was, I have to take a short bus ride to the metro, ride for three or four stops, then either take another short bus ride or a 25-minute walk to the bus stop I use to get on the 365. The 365 takes about an hour and drops me off at a stop that is a 5-minute walk from Fu'an. Generally the whole trip should take about 2 hours. If only.</div><div align="left">I got to the stop for the 365 at about 3pm. With a coffee and huge bottle of water in hand I waited. Now, since the 365 has such a long route, they only come every half an hour or so and if there are no open seats, you aren't getting on the bus. I have been waved off before, but I have also beat out people for seats before; I figure it's just give-and-take. The first bus drove past waving me off, and I realized that there were about 5 other people at the stop who also wanted that bus. Knowing this, I was prepared for a battle when the next one came about 45 minutes later. It too, was full and waved us off. The next one did the same. So did the next one.</div><div align="left">After 8 buses had come and gone and many of the Chinese people waiting for it had long since carpooled taxis (something I knew better than to try doing with my broken Chinese), I was ready to punch the nearest available soft object (no use getting hurt over it); and thanks to the venti coffee and 1.5L of water, I really had to pee. I found a Wal-Mart and a KFC around the corner where I used the bathroom and got some food before heading back to brave the bus stop. Thinking strategically, I decided to see if getting on the bus one stop earlier would make any difference. It did! The bus stopped and I ran onto that thing like my ass was on fire and dove into the first seat I saw. My quick reaction was very necessary because some of the people who got on the bus were shooed off when they was no place to sit. With a huge sigh of relief, I settled down with my book for the long ride.</div><div align="left">Normally these rides are very easy: you sit down, they say <em>na li</em>? (那里 "where to?"), I tell them and they buzz my pass-card. Not this time. I told her <em>Huang ge cui yuan</em> and she said...something. Basically she told me that they weren't going to drop me off where I wanted to go, but they would take me somewhere (presumably closer to home than my present location) and I could do something about getting home from there. I said <em>hao</em> (好 "okay"), hoping that wherever they dumped me would be close enough to Fu'an that a taxi would know how to get me there.</div><div align="left">45-minutes or so later they kicked everyone off the bus, and she told me something about another bus stop and pointed off in its general direction. I got off the bus and walked to the bus stop where I was delighted to see that the stop I wanted to go to was only two stops from where I was standing. Awesome! I decided to try and just walk home instead, and took off in a direction that I guessed might be right.I didn't get too far before I saw a police officer and I decided that since it was dark I should probably make sure I'm heading the right way. He wasn't really able to understand where I was trying to go so he asked if I had it written down. After my adventure a couple weekends ago, that is something that I <strong>always</strong> have now. He called someone on the radio and pointed me off in the opposite direction from where I had originally been headed. Before long I recognized where I was and decided on a pit stop at the grocery store for beer and cookies before heading home.</div><div align="left">On the way to the store I nearly fell into a manhole whose cover wasn't on correctly, fought my way through the throngs of people on the street, and finally made it home at 7pm, a mere 5 hours after I left my friend's apartment. I tried on my new clothes, which all fit wonderfully, drank my beer and ate my cookies (which tasted a little like meat...) and fell asleep happily listening to my Ipod.<br /><br />Ironically, as I write this story about good things and bad things coming hand in hand, someone has just arrived in the 8th grade office with a huge box of deliciously sweet oranges for each teacher...and there were 4 rotten ones in there.</div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261789245082664178" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 320px; height: 240px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDaaal6tfrFst6_fc-a67fUA91kihC0VE4MAN1IXyGuW2hH0Qy03dyBQ-IU3zris9GWTACgp-2nAZfdzMR2TQoS3BsfJeJWTn_XmerJkypvpetfDdi1iZollUrS83vaTzBihyphenhyphen2VBeDRVo/s320/IMG_0491.JPG" border="0" />~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-23465382316242617682008-10-16T21:54:00.009+08:002008-11-20T18:58:17.255+08:00Teaching for dummiesIf we really thought about it, I bet most of us would agree that junior high was the worst few years of our lives. Your body is changing and so are your social roles, you are ruled by a whirlwind of hormones and sometimes you want to act like an adult but aren't allowed to, while other times you expected to act like a grown-up but don't want to. It takes a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">truly</span> brave, and possibly crazy, person to willingly stand up in front of a group of these awkward creatures day in and day out, year after year trying to cram some knowledge into their preoccupied brains. To junior high teachers of the world, I salute you.<br />I did not want to teach junior high. In fact, in my interview I said "I'll teach anything but middle school" and they hired me anyway...and then assigned me to 7<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">th</span> and 8<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">th</span> grade. No matter what country you are in or what language you teach, it is scary to stand in front of a group of 50+ teenagers who constantly giggle, pass notes, and hit each other; and the fact that we can barely understand each other makes it down right terrifying. Luckily for me I have a very powerful weapon on my side: Chinese teachers.<br />As you can easily believe, the Chinese education system is a world apart from its American counterpart. The days are long and class sizes are huge, teachers move classroom to classroom while the students stay in their room with the same pool of classmates all day, and the preferred teaching style is like a college lecture, rather than the interactive multiple-intelligences approach we prefer in the States. The tests are hard, standards are high, and failure really is an option (the look on the teachers' faces when I tried to explain the "No Child Left Behind" act was priceless, it is simply unfathomable from their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">perspective</span>). The atmosphere is extremely competitive and every kid knows their exact rank in their class in every subject: the highest are praised and the lowest are shamed. Misbehavior is not tolerated and the punishments are <em>real</em>; kids are not simply sent to the principles office for an "I'm disappointed" speech, rather, they are reamed by a screaming teacher in front of the class, made to stand in corners or on <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">balconies</span> for periods of time, and sometimes even spanked. To these kids an angry teacher is a terrifying force, even I'm a little afraid of them.<br />Now, my job as the <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">wai</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">laoshi</span></em> ("foreign teacher" 外老师) is to be the fun teacher. I'm expected to play games, get them to talk a lot, and basically sit around being the token white person. In theory this should be an awesome gig: the kids automatically love my class and I'm essentially goofing off everyday. If only. The problem is that only about a third of the kids ever understand what I'm saying, and those students only understand about half the time (<em>if</em> I speak slowly enough, repeat myself a few times, draw pictures, and write on the board a lot). Something as simple as "get out a piece of paper and a pencil", accompanied by me holding up a pencil and waving a piece of paper in the air, will only result in half the class having both items in front of them. This is understandably frustrating for all parties involved, so the kids will often do what bored teenagers do: the opposite of what the adult in charge wants.<br />I have decided (for better or for worse) that if they aren't going to listen to me, then as long as they are quiet I don't really care what they are doing. On a regular basis I have kids who sleep, read, do homework, etc. while I'm teaching and I let it go. I have also accepted a certain level of general talking on the assumption that the kids who understand are trying to help the ones who don't. Occasionally (except in the case of 2 classes, with them it is every time) I will have one or more kids who aren't interested in listening to me and would rather spend their time hitting their friends or trying to be the class clown. For these kids I have a simple system: for the first offense they sit in a chair at the front of the room, if they continue to be disruptive they have to stand behind the door, and if they are still a problem they are kicked out of class and have to sign a piece of paper saying "I will not ___ in English class" which is turned in to their head teacher. For most kids, having to sit in front of the room is plenty of punishment and stops the issue (keep in mind that "saving face" is a <em>huge</em> deal in this country). I have, however, kicked a handful of kids out of class and all hell has rained down on them.<br />My latest and greatest class of demons was the most frustrating by far. The first kid to sit in the chair at the front continued to yell and talk, then refused to stand behind the door. For that I tried to punish the whole class for his behavior (in an attempt to incur the wrath of his peers) by giving them a test. It adds an entirely new level of frustration when you can't even punish a class because they don't understand enough of what you say to even realize they are in trouble (though I did make myself feel a little better by making the last question "Whose fault is it that we are taking this test?"...no one got it...). When that route proved useless, I grabbed him by the collar and threw his ass outside. No sooner had he been tossed, then another kid was in the chair. He was quickly thrown behind the door where he continued to be disruptive, and as I was yelling at him and the class, the head teacher showed up.<br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Apparently</span> some teacher had happened by, saw the kid standing outside and went to fetch the head teacher for me. He came into the classroom, asked me something that I couldn't understand, then took off with both kids who were in trouble and some other kid who, presumably, was going to explain what had happened since I obviously couldn't. The rest of class went much smoother, but my nerves and emotions were pretty much shot for the day.<br />The next day I was apprehensive going into class, but I put on my best teacher face and went for it. All three classes went pretty smoothly, with controllable amounts of mischief and I was feeling much better. After the last class of the day, a boy came up to me and handed me a folded up note. He said that it was from his friend who was very, very sorry and wanted me to read this. I had no idea who he was talking about (though I suspect it was him, not some friend) and what exactly a kid in that class was very, very sorry for, but I took the note and said "thanks". The last of my frustration from the previous day melted away and I laughed out loud when I read this poor kids note:<br /><br /><br /><em>I wanted to say sorry to you!<br />Last lesson, I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">throwed</span> a rubbish. I don't want to throw this to you. I only wanted to throw rubbish to one student.<br />For these reasons I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">wante</span> to say sorry to you!<br /><br /></em>(signed)<em> A bad student<br />2008.10.16<br /><br />Remember don't say this to my teacher!<br />Thank you!</em><br /><br /><em></em><br />I guess that if they aren't all good, then they can't all be bad either. Maybe this teaching thing isn't so terrible after all.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-14667529801057627912008-10-14T13:39:00.007+08:002008-11-20T19:06:49.307+08:00'Cause this world turns on lessons learnedAs I've mentioned before, and as you can easily imagine, a 5'10" American brunette with an Irish complexion and a D-cup chest gets a lot of second looks and blatant stares in China. Imagine, if you will, that same tall white woman stomping around the streets of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Shenzhen</span> alone at 10:30pm with mascara-stained cheeks, cursing aloud and talking to herself. If I was Chinese, I probably would have taken a picture.<br />October 1st is National Day in China, and in celebration of the holiday the Chinese declare the entire week a "Golden Week" where people don't have to work and everyone travels. Luckily we got our passports back just in time to join in the craziness of travelling in China. I ended up tagging along with a group of people on a 3-day trip to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Macau</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hong</span> Kong. In <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Macau</span> we saw some pretty sweet fireworks and poked around in a casino for a little while (after all, Maggie did say that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Macau</span> is the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Las</span> Vegas of China). We had no intentions of really gambling in the casino, maybe just a couple pulls of a slot machine, but we ended up not being able to even do that because of a mix-up with the money. You see, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Macau</span> is part of China (trust me, I made the mistake of saying it was another country and was swiftly put in my place), but you have to have a passport to come and go and they do not use the same currency as most of China (the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">RMB</span>). To prove they are Chinese, they make things unnecessarily complicated and use both the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Macau</span> dollar and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Hong</span> Kong dollar. However, the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Macau</span> dollar is quite possibly the most useless currency on the face of the planet: shop keepers willingly give it to you as change, but do not necessarily accept it for payment, the casino machines would not take it, and we were unable to convert it back to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">RMB</span> or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">HK</span>$ as we were leaving. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Macau</span> is very interesting because it is a blend of European and Chinese culture: government buildings look very European-colonial, but the narrow streets are lined by tall apartments piled on top of each other like Mainland structures, you hear many different languages in the streets (still not a lot of English though), and you can see a mixture of Chinese and Mediterranean features in the faces of the locals.<br /><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256881266151857762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhonOfJpFdNsveBo2FwviLMcg_9BjZXGxLz8k6rakQzQWaPCWsFijnrFe4UIgJtuuRbnqj1wUS5xLS8xNxcOT688xQ9ROFWS9sVu7G_FJCev3MdzAgfmhRbun8e9BRXor8HoKU12wVXZbg/s320/Macau+4.JPG" border="0" />Macau</span></span></em><br /></div>Now, as interesting as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Macau</span> is, one day there is plenty, so we got up early for our ferry-boat ride to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Hong</span> Kong. At the ferry station we hopped in a couple cabs and headed off to our hotel. The girl who arranged this trip had never been to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Hong</span> Kong before, so she had relied on a recommendation from a friend there to find our hotel. As it turns out, he had gotten a recommendation from someone for this hotel from someone and had never actually stepped foot in the place. If he had, he would have never recommended it for a group of more than two...let alone a group of seven. Our room was so small that we could all barely stand in it! Oh well, we decided that because the room was so expensive anyway, and since our plan included a lot of time on a bar street, all seven of us passing out on top of each other for one night was not so bad. With that decision made, we headed out for food, shopping, and exploring.<br />After a full afternoon of wandering parts of the city we all met up at the hotel to get ready for our night out on the town. Four of us (me, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Alaina</span>, Ashlee, and Jodi) were supposed to meet up with Jodi's friend Scott (a British expat living in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Hong</span> Kong) and he was going to show us around. It certainly was an interesting night out, some highlights include: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Guinesses</span> at an Irish-style pub, flaming shots at a Euro-style dive bar, vodka shots in a freezer at the Russian bar, a Chinese Elvis impersonator, Scott doing one-armed push ups for reasons we still do not completely understand, me being picked up in the air twice by Scott, spitting contests, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">motorboating</span> (think "Wedding Crashers"...), Ashlee dancing on the bar, and all of us being denied entrance to a bar because of the fluffy red bunny ear headband Scott was wearing. The night ended with a trip to McDonald's and promises that we would do this again soon.<br /><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256881267906822754" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhLMG9-RpHSWsG2Cm8iZSlAdzhLia0uBPRGgVyxssRaHmbEbVv_Q7ZgcwiEstuvTfz8ulMsvnSxlXReb2S2s1sOUJWxv54Kdk4xFafLI4Xpiv4Y7k1vn5zkC9e3ZDtfxqIx-PABtc9qKE/s320/Jodi+and+Chinese+Elvis.jpg" border="0" />Jodi and Chinese Elvis</span></em></div><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><div align="left"><br /></span></em></div>The next day we drug our hungover selves around <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">Hong</span> Kong some more before heading home. The four of us had so much fun on the trip that we decided to continue our vacation with some shopping in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">Dongmen</span> (in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">Shenzhen</span>) the next day. We met up for massages and manicures and spent about an hour shopping for "real" fake purses. We had some dinner in a Japanese-style restaurant and then hit up a Cold Stone Creamery for dessert. As the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun, and before we knew it it was 9pm. We all decided that we had better go because a couple of us have very long commutes home from that part of the city. Earlier that day I had been very proud of myself because I had figured out a new and better way to get to the subway from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">Longgang</span> by reading the bus sign and asking the conductor a couple questions (reminder: people have the terrible habit of speaking and writing in Chinese here). So, feeling confident, I decided to take the new route home. I got to the bus stop to wait and after about 20 minutes the #329 approached. Like a good Chinese commuter, I waved furiously at the bus to get the driver's attention, but unfortunately was waved off and passed by. This occasionally happens with the buses that travel pretty far distances: if there are no seats, you aren't getting on. I was kind of pissed because usually the wait between these buses is about 30 minutes, and I was a little nervous because I had never actually taken this bus home before and I couldn't find my stop on the sign. A half an hour passed and no #329, so now I'm starting to panic a little. I tried to read the sign again to see what time the bus stopped running (they stop curiously early here), but was having a hard time. I started to ask someone and then I saw that the bus had already stopped, so the bus that passed me was likely the last bus to run that night. Shit.<br />I decided to make a run for the bus that I had used to get home previously, the problem was that I had 3 metro stops and a 10 minute bus ride between me and the only place I know it stops...and 20 minutes to get there. I ran through the metro and quickly got on the train, it got there pretty quickly and I ran up the stairs...of the wrong exit. As soon as I got to street level I realized my mistake and I realized that there was zero chance of me actually getting to that bus. I called my friend to try and stay at her place that was "pretty close" to the metro, but "pretty close" consisted of walking a few blocks then catching a bus for a few stops. I decided that I was better off sleeping in the metro than getting lost, God knows where, trying to find her. My next idea was to get a cab, the problem there was that I had about 30<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">RMB</span> on me in cash, which I knew would not be anywhere near enough. I then set out on a mission to find an ATM so I can at least have some cash before trying to explain to a taxi driver where I live.<br />By now I am thoroughly pissed off (at what, I'm not sure), really starting to panic, and have been crying on and off for about 20 minutes. Of course Murphy's Law is in full force and the first two banks I find have "Out of Order" signs on all their <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">ATM's</span>. Upon seeing this I become even more enraged and upset, so my talking to myself becomes cursing to myself, and gets much louder. I realize after a couple blocks that this has attracted the attention of a group of Chinese men who are about my age. "I dare you to mess with me f*<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">ckers</span>," I think to myself right before one of them jogs up with a "Ha-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">llo</span>!". I turn and glare at them and say "what?!?" as threateningly as I can muster. They turned at the next corner.<br />The next bank I came to had a working ATM, so I got money and hurried to the street where a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">cabbie</span> quickly saw me and nearly ran me down to make sure he got the fare. After confirming that he does go out to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">Longgang</span> I hopped in and he asked where exactly in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">Longgang</span> I wanted to go. I told him the name of the school and the street it was on, but he didn't know it so he more or less kicked me out of the cab. I had a feeling something like that was going to happen because, to put this in perspective, for me to tell a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_33">cabbie</span> in downtown <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_34">Shenzhen</span> that I want to go to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_35">Fu'an</span> School on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_36">Hua</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37">Meizhong</span> Road in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_38">Longgang</span> is kind of like me getting in a cab in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_39">Urbana</span> and telling the driver to go to Lincoln School on Buchanan Street in Monticello. Without any extra information, it's probably not going to happen.<br />As I stood on the curb and he drove away, full-blown panic settled in. You see, it wasn't that I was in danger per <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_40">se</span>. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have never been safer because anyone who crossed me was asking for an ass-kicking. Rather, it was the fear of being stranded so far from home and unable to even ask anyone for help because I simply don't speak Chinese well enough, and the fact that this situation was not going to get better any time soon. I decided that the only thing I could do now was call someone at the school for help.<br />Maggie didn't answer her phone, but an administrator named Karina did. She listened to me explain what had happened and what was going on, then patiently said, "Okay, well I cannot understand you at all right now, maybe you should find a police man." I walked back toward the metro stop and found a police man on a motorcycle. I said "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_41">Qing</span> wen..." (Excuse me please), and then immediately broke into the same panicked English that even Karina could not understand. The poor man's eyes got as big as saucers and he waved his hands to indicate that he did not understand English at all. Pointing to my phone, I recovered some of my Chinese and told him "Ta <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_42">shuo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_43">Zhongwen</span>!" (She speaks Chinese) and he took the phone. I stood there feeling stupid as the police officer listened to Karina and scribbled a page of notes before leading me to a taxi. Back on the phone, Karina told me that the police man was going to give the taxi driver directions and her number and that everything is going to be alright. After saying thank you to the cop about a thousand times I was in the cab and we were off.<br />As I sat in that cab, watching a Mr. Bean episode on the television on the back of the head rest (the one where he is too scared to jump off the diving board), I finally started to relax. A little while later Karina called me and asked if I felt safe. I told her that I did, and she asked me to call her when I was safely home. The second she hung up the cab driver pulled over and stopped in the middle of nowhere. "So this is how I'm going to die," I thought. No sooner had I thought that, then a car pulled up out of a side street and a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_44">Fu'an</span> driver I recognized popped out of the car! I was so happy that I didn't even notice how much money I paid for the ride (about 120<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_45">RMB</span> I think).<br />In the car I said "sorry" and sat quietly, feeling like a teenager caught at a college party by her parents. I know that this particular driver does not speak a word of English, but I decided to try to break the silence with a question in Chinese. I tried to ask him if he had a good holiday, and he responded (in Chinese) "I don't speak English." Apparently whatever I said was such mangled Chinese that he didn't even recognize it as an attempt to speak his language! Shot through the heart on that one, I fell silent again. Soon enough we were at the school and I got out of the car, saying "thank you" and "sorry" over and over again. I felt terrible, it was midnight and all of these people had been disturbed from their relaxing weekend to take care of the lost American teacher. I found out later that even the police man called Karina back to make sure I made it home alright!<br />On Monday school started up again and, of course, word had spread like wildfire about my adventure Saturday night. And, of course, everyone had a suggestion for me: "maybe next time you should go out with a Chinese person", "maybe next time you should stay with another foreign teacher", "maybe you should always have the address of the school written in characters with you", and so on. I just smiled, accepted my penance, and thought to myself, "Believe me, I've really learned my lesson this time."<br /><div align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_46"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256881267155316370" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtNw44AlcHiJCgKyeByYThHoi3VBKpU9s-KxX7UPRYu5_aVC1pRVU5OYFkNov-Lx78IS6ZJvSWV-fDfZ9XTawT4KMOr-hfRFlhhDLQ_rIZDkSyWxGWXvH5N1PyUvKJzNf8r0h_QTBAuwo/s320/On+the+town+4.jpg" border="0" />Hong</span> Kong</span></em></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-78900991037407059842008-09-20T08:08:00.004+08:002008-11-20T19:05:48.674+08:00Perfect"My English...mmm...not so good."<br />This is a phrase that very often indicates something crazy is about to happen.<br />Every Wednesday and Friday at 1:15pm I am picked up at the school gate and driven to Chinese class with the other <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Longgang</span> foreign teachers who go to class. The three involved schools are supposed to take turns driving us there, and when my school is not driving, I'm the last person to be picked up. A little before 1:15, yesterday afternoon, a nice black car pulled up to the gate and waved me over. I walked up and saw that there were no other people in the car, "Me?" I ask. "Yes" he replies with more waving. I got into the car and he proceeded to say something about my classes, so at this point I figured he must be taking me to the right place...well, that or I've been quite easily tricked into being sold into slavery.<br />We wound around to the main road, merged into traffic and then more or less parked right there in the right-most lane. For some reason this is perfectly legal in China, the rightmost lane of any road can be driven in unless someone chooses to park there, then it becomes a temporary parking lane. Anyway, as we come to a stop he explains that the other school's driver can't bring us back from class so he's going to, and since he doesn't know where the building is he needs to follow the other driver into town. Getting this explanation was no easy task because his English is very broken and he often wanders off mid-phrase to talk to himself in Chinese. Eventually we got it figured out, and eventually I find out that his name is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Luo</span>, but only after we exchanged phone numbers and I needed to save his into my phone. With a big toothy grin he states that his English name is "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Peedy</span>". He looked so confident in this that I hated to do it, but it made no sense so I said "what?". "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Peedy</span>" he said again. "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Peedy</span>?" I tried to confirm. He shook his head, picked up his phone and typed in 'Perfect', explaining that his Chinese given name means 'perfect', so that is his English name as well. About that time the car we were supposed to follow appeared, and as we pulled away he told me, with slight <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">embarrassment</span>, that "Um, my English is...mmm...not so good." Perfect.<br />As we drove to class, zipping in and out of lanes with only inches to spare between cars (which is the way everyone drives here) we talked about the differences in getting a drivers license in different countries, the other foreign teachers in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Longgang</span>, what we studied in college, how old we were, he showed me a picture of his 6-month old son (very cute!) and told me about his wife. He asked some odd questions about marriage in the US and seemed quite perplexed when I told him (totally guessing) that it was pretty common for people to get married around the age of 25. This was baffling to him because "you graduate from university when 23, then one, two years after you marry...so young!" Good point Perfect, but then again, he's 29 and has been married for two years. I guess 25 is really young, but 27 is not. I tried to explain that some people get married even younger than that, and that I have a cousin who got married when she was 19. I'm pretty sure I lost him on that though, because I got no reaction.<br />After going through the two toll booths (where I had to give the lady the money. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Apparently</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Hong</span> Kong cars are driven on the right side, so they have booths for this...though I don't know why Perfect picked that booth) and the checkpoint we made it to class and I told him that we would be back down in a couple hours.<br />After class we called him and he showed up pretty quickly. The drive back was pretty uneventful: the other two foreign teachers chatted and I read my book. They were making dinner plans and asked me if I wanted to come along. I declined because I knew there was free cafeteria food at the school and I was ready to have some food, read my book, and call it a night. We dropped them off and it was just me and Perfect again. He asked if I wanted to go to the grocery store, well, sort of. After some confusion and nearly stopping in the middle of the street I figured out what he was asking and said that I didn't need to stop, I was just going back to the school to eat at the cafeteria. It took a while for this to get established, but once he figured out my plan he decided that he had a better idea. He insisted on taking me for some <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">xicai</span>, which neither of us knew the English translation for. We again temporarily parked in the street so I could look this up. Xi means 'west' and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">cai</span> means 'dish'. He wanted to take me to eat western food and he insisted on paying. Perfect.<br />There are two kinds of "western food" restaurants in China: ones that are actually western-style because they are run by expats and ones that are a Chinese persons interpretation of western-style food. This place was the latter. There was a French phrase on the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">place mat</span>, but one of the categories of food on the menu was "Nosh" (I tried to tell him that "nosh" is a colloquialism so it was funny to see it on a menu...blank stare). There was certainly a lot of meat on the menu (very western), but there wasn't a potato to be found and we ordered something called 'eight fingernail fish' (which was <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">octopus</span>, as it turns out). He really wanted me to order because I'm the westerner, but because I wasn't sure if this place was family-style or not and because he was the one paying, I insisted that he order. After a long Q and A with the waitress (who was staring at me most of the time) he eventually got some food ordered and before long the soup showed up.<br />They set one kind of soup in front of him and one in front of me. He asked me some question that I couldn't decipher, but I think he was asking which one of the soups I wanted. I said "what kind of soup is this", which was met with a blank stare. Then I tried the soup in front of me and said "oh, it has corn in it." Another blank stare. Now I don't know what to do so I just stare back. He said "it's good?" I said yes, and he dove right into the soup in front of him. Before long a HUGE sizzling plate of some sort of rib meat and noodles is set in front of me. The waitress picks up the corner of a napkin and holds it in front of me. I though that maybe I was supposed to tuck it into the front of my shirt like some people do at restaurants. Luckily I (correctly) decided this was <em>not</em> what I was supposed to do, just in the nick of time. Instead, I was supposed to hold the napkin in front of me so that the sizzling sauce she was pouring on the meat didn't splatter all over my clothes. Eventually the sizzling settled down and I was allowed to put the napkin down, but I wasn't sure if I could eat yet because I still wasn't sure if this was family-style or not. Mercifully his food showed up and I knew that I was expected to eat this by myself. As he went through the protective napkin procedure he gestured for me to go ahead and eat.<br />His plate was decidedly more Chinese than mine, so he pointed to his rice and asked if we make "mice" or corn in America. I told him that we grow a lot of corn and soybeans, especially where I'm from. He asked if we ever ate "mice", and I told him that we do, but we have a lot of different types of rice and some are different colors. "Different colors?" "Yeah, black and brown and white" Perplexed look.<br />Eventually we finished eating (including the 8-fingernail fish) and the waitress brought our coffee. Of course, because this is China, there was some sort of cream in it, but luckily no sugar this time, so I was a very happy camper. He paid the bill and we left. As we got in the car he asked me something about the park: either he wanted to know if I've ever been there or he wanted to know if I wanted to go there right now. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Apparently</span> my answer indicated that I wanted to go for a walk in the park, so off we went.<br />We got to the park and had to circle the whole thing to find a place to park the car. As we drove he mumbled things like "no space, no space, no space" and "oh my god, no place to park" and kept trying to call someone on the phone. I'm not really sure how people know if there is a place to park or not; in America all the parking is relatively neat and tidy with people generally parking between the painted lines. In China, a row of parked cars looks like some giant child dumped out a bucket of match-box cars: people <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">apparently</span> just pull up and stop. Anyway, eventually we found a spot that was about one and a half car lengths long (no challenge for an experienced parallel-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">parker</span>), and after an approximately 15-point <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">maneuver</span>, we were satisfactorily in the space.<br />By now we had been hanging out for about three hours, so we had settled on a sort-of pidgin English-Chinese that enabled good-enough communication. Basically we used English, but there is a lot of "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">zenme</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">shuo</span>" ("How do you say") going back and forth. As we got near the lake he said "there is the lake". "Lake", I repeated. "Who!?" he almost yelled. "Lake", I repeated again, then asked "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Zhongwen</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">zenme</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">shuo</span>?" ("How do you say it in Chinese?"). "Who" (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22"><em>hu</em></span> 湖) he repeated...<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">apparently</span> he already tried to tell me...<br />As we got around the lake we neared a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">pavilion</span>, which was full of people moving around with some music playing. He told me that these were "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">womens</span> who are 40 to 80". "Middle-aged?" I asked, to which he triumphantly exclaimed "They are old ladies!" We walked up the the edge of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">pavilion</span> and watched these "old ladies" doing a very traditional dance that I'm sure is very beautiful when everyone knows what they are doing. It was a little chaotic, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. It sort of looked like line-dancing, only slower, which I tried to explain to Perfect. Blank stare.<br />After a while we got tired of that and kept walking. We eventually wound around the lake and walked across a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">zig</span>-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">zag</span> bridge to a pagoda in the middle of the water. In one corner there was a group of men sitting around playing instruments: a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">Peepaw</span> (<em>pipa</em> 琵琶) and two Ah-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">hus</span> (<em>er<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">hu</span></em> 二胡). We watched for a little while and he laughingly told me that the old ladies danced over there and the old men sat over here. I guess old men and old ladies get tired of each other in China too...<br />It was a very moving experience to stand there watching and listening to those men play their music. It's a simple combination: very old music played on very old instruments among old friends. It's something that these men have probably done for years and something that their countrymen have been doing for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">millenia</span>. Some people noticed me and stared, but most people were too wrapped up in their own worlds to care if I was there or not. It was so paradoxically Chinese: crude but beautiful, simply complex. It was perfect.<br />A little while later it was time to go. Perfect told me that if I ever need to go anywhere, just call him and he will make sure someone takes me there. He dropped me off at the school and I thanked him for dinner. I laughed to myself as I climbed the stairs to my room; only in China can a drive to class turn into a night like this.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-89067146590313976322008-09-11T22:48:00.005+08:002008-11-20T19:04:09.116+08:00Gan bei!According to the Google search I just did, the first Tuesday of the first full week in May is Teacher Appreciation Day in the United States.<br />I don't really have any memories of this holiday as a student, but I'm sure that teachers get some sort of gift from the school and maybe a card or two from students whose parents are teachers. As I tried to explain this to the Chinese teachers, I might as well have told them that we publicly flog our educators and steal their shoes.<br />You see, yesterday was Teachers' Day in China, and it is a big deal here. I got a call from Maggie, my contact teacher (aka translator and guide to China), at 7:30am telling me that "maybe you should come to the flag raising ceremony now" - which means "you should have been at the flag raising ceremony 10 minutes ago". So I throw on some clothes and run down the 6 flights of stairs from my apartment and up the 3 flights of stairs to the office, where Maggie is waiting. "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Ok</span></span>, we'll go" she says and we rush to the playground/track/open area where all of the student are lined up military-style, filling the yard. A song that I recognize as the national anthem is playing over the loudspeaker and a group of 9<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">th</span></span> graders are hoisting the flag up a pole. After the flag is up, a couple of people step forward to give speeches and I am shuffled to the front with the other new teachers, where a group of adorable <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">kindergartners</span></span> in their little uniforms give each of us a bouquet of flowers that is approximately as big as they are. A couple of speeches later we are all allowed to file back into the school and get the day started.<br />The day proceeded fairly normally, except for the fact that everyone was giving everyone gifts and flowers and chattering about the fancy dinner we would have that night. This dinner is notorious for having lots of good food and <em>lots</em> of drinking...and because I am the only one in the school that does not have an Asian level of alcohol tolerance, I am an obvious target. The debauchery started with the all too familiar yell: "Amelia! <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Ok</span></span>, we go now"<br />The restaurant was pretty nice, and "very famous" according to Maggie. Each place was set with the typical Chinese dishes and two glasses: one for milk and one for red wine. To me, this milk business is pretty bizarre, and it became even more so when I tried the milk and it tasted like a cross between milk and yogurt...yet another example of the many ways in which China is similar to the west, yet so very different.<br />The dinner was <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">really</span> good and there was a lot of toasting and good cheer all around. It wasn't until everyone had finished eating, though, that the <em>real</em> drinking started.<br />I knew that things were going to get crazy when the principal came to our table with a carafe of wine. He sat down and said that he hopes I have a very good year at their school and that he wants to have a special toast with Maggie and me. He starts to pour wine in my glass and tells me that he'll pour until I say "stop". When the glass was 2/3 full he stopped pouring, which means he either temporarily forgot how to speak English, or it was a blatant lie from the beginning. He did the same thing to Maggie and then started to fill his own glass. He only poured a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">swallowful</span></span> before yelling "stop!" and then started laughing and told us that <em>that's</em> the way to do it. He of course filled his glass and gave a very nice toast, finishing with "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">gan</span></span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">bei</span></span>!"<br />"Gan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">bei</span></span>" is like "cheers", but you have to finish your drink or it is considered impolite. So, like the champ that I am, I finish that huge glass of wine and got a round of applause for doing so. Poor Maggie, who is a tiny Chinese woman, also finished hers, and as she set the empty glass down she turned to me and said "I am drunk!"<br />A few minutes later her face is bright red and she wants to leave, so with an "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">ok</span></span>, let's go" we get up with the intention of going home. This plan is quickly foiled when I hear the principal say, "Amelia, come here". He takes me over to the table that is full of 9<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">th</span></span> grade teachers and we toast again. Then he tells me that each teacher wants to toast with me individually and we are going to switch to white wine.<br />Now, Chinese white wine is not really "wine" as much as it is rubbing alcohol. Fortunately though, you drink white wine from these very small glasses that are approximately half a jigger. By the time we went around the table and each teacher toasted with me, I had approximately 10 of these. Needless to say I was getting very drunk, and it wasn't over yet. For some reason we started doing toasts where I would have one drink and the other teacher would have three...and then I would have two and they would have three. Luckily someone finally decided that we better stop before someone died, and it was time to go. From here my memories get very spotty: I know that we took a school bus back to the school and that I was trying to speak Chinese to everyone (God only knows how that went), I also remember being handed a bunch of little boxes while I was standing in the guardhouse (it turns out they were pieces of a kit to ward off mosquitoes), and I know that I was talking to people on instant <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">messenger</span>. The next thing I remember was my alarm clock.<br />My alarm went off at 7am and it hurt: my head was pounding and my stomach was very queasy. I hit snooze as many times as I could, but I had to teach a class at 9:05am, so I eventually had to get up. Now, I love Chinese food and even back in the States I ate a lot of Chinese and other Asian cuisine. But I have never, not one time, woken up with a hangover and wanted to eat Chinese food. Ever. And since my food options were the canteen downstairs or the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">moon cakes</span> in the fridge, I opted for some cola before wobbling off to class.<br />I did survive the day without puking, I taught my three classes, and by the time lunch rolled around, the food was a welcome relief for my poor body.~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-17780333069445356622008-09-10T22:35:00.006+08:002008-11-20T19:03:38.973+08:00Home sweet homeChina has certainly been an adventure so far, but as far as adventures go, things can only be so crazy when, no matter what happens, there are 100 people just like you back at the hotel. It is an entirely different experience when all the people that remind you of home are at the other end of the phone line or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">internet</span> cable.<br />Its hard to describe the feeling I had in my stomach as I rode away from the hotel with Mrs. Huang and her husband. It was kind of like a tightening knot of excitement and curiosity and sheer terror. I didn't know whether to cry or laugh or just stare off into space...though I quickly settled on staring off into space, as it was the easiest to do.<br />After driving for about a half an hour we got to the area of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Longgang</span> where the school is and Mrs. Huang had her husband drive around for a little bit so I could see the area. Immediately surrounding the school is a factory that makes most of the eyeglasses sold in the world, various types of housing, a handful of stores and street vendors, and a lot of construction. There is clearly a lot of poverty in this area because of the factory workers, but buildings and arenas for the 2011 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Universitad</span> will literally be across the street from the school, so <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">apparently</span> this neighborhood's days are numbered. Not all of the housing is bad though, some of the teachers live off-campus in nearby buildings and those buildings look alright ("alright"on the scale of China housing, of course). The downtown area is about 10 minutes from the school via public bus and it has a decent amount of department-type stores, restaurants, and grocery stores. Because I mentioned my deep love for black coffee (which you cannot find in China), I was also shown the two coffee shops in town. I have not tried either yet, but I'm not holding my breath because I'm sure it will either be the Chinese idea of coffee (cream and sugar...<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">blech</span>!) or too expensive to be worth the habit. It didn't take too long to see the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">highlights</span> of downtown <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Longgang</span>, so we quickly pulled up to the school grounds, drove through the security gate, and Mrs. Huang said, "welcome home!" We pulled my stuff out of the car and lugged it up the the 6<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">th</span> floor and into room 603.<br /><div align="center"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244771247279280226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZiFf5e7cHcrCKB6fdoKen4tjIXs2IBeiuU0xh_soCwsdDhENyACLu5KV-GXr7Ey4gn5NFBJNQD2N3FX56PEUSEClD_O8sCEuiTv0-aRcFOOdnoagdshLagmYKkvgCqB1BpTqcKTpD1EU/s320/apartment+view.jpg" border="0" /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">The view from my balcony</span></em></div><em><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></em><div align="left"><br />My first impression of my room was similar to my first impression of many places in China: why is everything always dirty and just a little bit wet? There was a small puddle of water in the middle of a dirty room with a tile floor and filthy walls. The bed is a bunk bed with a mattress on top (dirty from the air conditioner above it, of course) and one of those "mattresses"that's really a board on the bottom. There is a "closet" that's really a free-standing wardrobe (the kind that zips closed), the "kitchen" is a metal table with a microwave and a hot-plate, and across the room is a refrigerator and a desk. On the balcony there is a washing machine (which, from what I hear, mostly eats clothes) and a rack for drying your clothes (no one has a clothes drier in China). The bathroom is very small and the "shower" is just a hand-held shower head hanging on one of the walls with a drain in the middle of the room. </div><p align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244771100538086770" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOL8UH7g7LfJH2Osc9XpjqyyHaxdrdEPDDfsvisUQJltuVZajSfu-rNE1AYlZKBtBFTMye5W9uUPrwcIBhdAo5aMa5FDn9txlMG0Gp3Tl4kWnWNTUForVJIh_r-71l4o3chs0egiry7SY/s320/from+the+balcony.JPG" border="0" />My dormitory</span></em></p><p align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244771119580750674" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTsmNW9daUr7kS1BfdaiJR5fc6-uYYpyP1oubitAU3MsegeG87I5PDteVDCbT6L251SAqW8r7ZmObRQlLMdyBRzbfHqYR0UpBblgtak0XsH-htbKkQxX_PIHBw7lb1hG_Wtf3lgPdg_Pk/s320/the+closet.JPG" border="0" />The closet</span></em></p><p align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244771123164748754" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOwHZTm61cXd_3kiqHlTn7OtlseHvf5Ed8zWlUXOUuhBzS68ykIwWhQmc3qMFdT2omzKkvtb4EYnDz2epTXq-rYkDN7_E8uwx570549zQxZm3oDe9Owzrs7BBgmGsDokaH7VPOi4ZktEc/s320/the+kitchen.JPG" border="0" />The kitchen</span></em></p><p align="center"><em><span style="font-size:85%;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244771127791546802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqiY_Vz0hEpBjPqk0E3osjN8cqEjcr0AujEwO3Zey5yL0xPZcMkNUSqD2yYe4-D9hAN9oAkvwyA82e4_XwUMy5jjvOATFTd69xgZe07jNjk7zBs-MCjY7RvNkha2VwqoyIjP-BxmamLtk/s320/the+study.JPG" border="0" />The study</span></em></p><p>I was instructed to "sit and have a rest" (I am given this order a lot around here) while these four people set to work <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">on this</span> apartment. After a brief flurry of activity, the bathroom was cleaned, the floors were swept and mopped, my bed was set up and they were leaving me with the promise that "maybe after some minutes have passed we'll be back". And then, I was alone.<br />I started to go through my things and unpack, deciding that this place really isn't so bad when it's cleaner. I put all my clothes away and did a load of laundry (a "load" of laundry is different when you wash your clothes in the sink). As promised, Mrs. Huang reappeared after some minutes had passed and handed me a few bags of groceries (including some coffee - cream and sugar already added of course) and told me that dinner is at 5:30, and she would see me tomorrow because she does not live at the school. A little bit later there was another knock at the door, and this time I was greeted by a the principal, Mr. James, and the small woman whose job it is to follow around any man who is visiting a female teacher's dormitory. He was very nice and asked how I liked the room and told me to make sure and talk to him if I had any problems or needed anything. I must say, based on the things I have heard about Chinese headmasters, I was pretty impressed that he made a house call on my first day!<br />As instructed, I had a little rest until about 5:30 when I wandered down to the "canteen" for dinner. I'm not really sure why it's called that, but I think it has to do with the fact that the Chinese word for cafeteria is can1ting1. Anyway, I walk into the canteen and am immediately greeted by about 6 people who do not speak English. A man appears out of nowhere who claims to be an English teacher (though we were still not able to communicate particularly well) and he tries to help me. I'll spare you the painful details of my learning curve on this one, but basically the way the canteen works is this: you have your own dishes that you can keep in a cupboard in the dining area, every meal you put rice and some vegetables and clear broth into your dishes and the lunch lady adds a few <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">ladlefuls</span> of whatever the main dishes are. When you have finished eating you wash your dishes in a trough outside and put your dishes back into the cupboard. Theoretically, the dishes inside the cupboard are disinfected between meals...but this is China, so who knows.<br />After dinner I headed back upstairs and decided to take a shower, watch some Chinese television, and call it a night. This plan was quickly foiled when I realized that the biggest towel in my possession was the size of a kitchen hand towel. The sleeping thing also didn't go so well because it turns out my air conditioner was broken. Eventually I got to sleep, and as I write this a few days later, I have since had the air conditioner fixed, acquired a towel, and taken a shower...but I'll save the shower story for another time.</p><p align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244771110573091410" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-k2lmSLpY_SC2Ywdfb78lNeOXoey17uwHQejuPqTXsReIOBZzKeejoFmsMkCKhj9AttPb3yWDdwspZGW0391juSEid9uemqbx2WMiq3MYfr9KB7XcusDOgnQTOvLP16mE5pX5VkR1jk/s320/bathroom.JPG" border="0" />The bathroom</em></span></p>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-28999562998606567812008-09-09T09:19:00.004+08:002008-11-20T19:02:52.622+08:00This ain't yo mamma's Wally World...There is a very specific smell that hits you when you walk into a store in China. I have no idea how to describe <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">it and</span> I don't know why they all smell like that, but it is distinct.<br />I shouldn't have been surprised that the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Wal</span>-Mart in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Shenzhen</span> had that smell, but it seemed so familiarly "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Wal</span>-Mart-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">ish</span>" that I was not expecting it. The store has all the normal components: a special section to buy glasses and get your eyes checked in the front, a large make-up and toiletries section, books, food, kitchen wares, large and small appliances, clothes, and those familiar blue signs with white block print.<br />We had two hours to spend at the store, and it took me the entire first hour to figure out how to get a cell phone that would work. It took another large game of English-Cantonese-Mandarin telephone with Serena leading the way yet again, but we eventually figured it out and I now have a cell-phone that is the technological equivalent to the cell phone I had when I was 16. But, the important this is that it works and the whole thing only cost 440<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">kuai</span> (about $67).<br />The only thing I needed other than the phone was some conditioner and something cold to drink, so that left me with an hour to explore the store. The first floor is mostly books and toiletries, so I started out looking around the book section. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">I considered</span> buying a kids book (because I am, after all, illiterate), but chickened out. Next I headed over to the hair-care section and it took me all of 30 seconds to realize that finding conditioner was going to be kind of hard, so I decided to put it off for a little bit and go to the second floor.<br />Now, because this is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Wal</span>-Mart and you generally need a shopping cart to get everything you need, there's an "escalator" that is really just a ramp to take you to the second floor. I think this is a good idea in theory, but considering I was carrying nothing except my rather empty purse and STILL nearly tumbled backwards down the thing, it might not be the greatest idea ever...at least not at that angle anyway.The second floor is where all the food is. At first it looked pretty normal (well, "normal" in the sense that it looked like the other Chinese grocery stores I've been to). There's a bakery and a snack foods area, the produce section is well-stocked and the masked people who man the produce and bulk scales are standing around looking bored as usual. There is a section to buy ready-to eat stuff (kind of like the deli section in the US), and aisles of frozen foods, drink stuff, and other <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">pre</span>-packaged Chinese foods. And then, there is the fresh-foods section.<br />The first thing I noticed upon walking into this section was the sausages hanging on the wall. These sausages kind of look like some sort of scat you would see in the woods, and I hear that they are very good...but that is not the point. The point is that they were hanging on the wall without any sort of packaging or wrapping whatsoever. After the initial shock of this wore off I realized that the same went for all kinds of dried fish-looking items and other meats that were cured in some way. It doesn't seem very sanitary to me that random people are brushing up against your food, but then again, China in general is not particularly sanitary...and it turns out that wasn't even the worst of it! The next thing I noticed was a woman using a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">colander</span> to scoop live crawdad-looking creatures (they were probably shrimp, I guess) out of a large tank. Next to that was another tank with a floating <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">colander</span> and LIVE FROGS (well, except for the one floater). Next to that tank was a block of shaved ice that had dead squid sitting on top in a pile. I continued to wander this <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">fascinating</span> and horrifying section and saw tanks of large fish and turtles, big chunks of very fresh meat, another block of ice piled high with chicken feet, and a section to buy pieces of animals...like fish heads. After circling this area three or four times, I decided that I was done being a gawking foreigner, and since I was not going to be making a purchase, it was time to move along. I spent very little time on the third floor because, well, it was boring. So after a quick lap I headed back downstairs <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">to the</span> first floor. I decided that it was time to face the music: I had to find conditioner.<br />Standing in the shampoo aisle I <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">truly</span> felt what it means to be <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">illiterate</span>. There is a lot of writing...a <em>lot</em>. Bottles are covered in words that are supposed to be catching my attention and making me want to buy their product, but since I can't read them, all they do is confuse me. Luckily I have bought hair products before, so I know that most companies put their shampoo and conditioner in similar but different-looking bottles. I went from shelf to shelf comparing similar-looking bottles to try and find some small difference that might be the word "shampoo" on one and "conditioner" on the other. The aisle had a sign that said "shampoo" in English under the Chinese characters for the same (presumably), but even that served to be little help. After several minutes of me staring at bottles like a monkey doing a math problem, a nice saleswoman saw me and tried to come to my rescue.<br />I say "tried" because she doesn't speak English and I clearly do not have a firm grasp on Chinese. After she tried to explain in Chinese and I tried to ask a question in English, the conversation that finally got me my answer went as follows (roughly translated):<br />me: "<em>This one and this one the same?</em>" (pointing to two bottles)<br />her: "<em>Not the same</em>" (also adding some information in Chinese I had no hope of understanding)<br />me: "<em>This one and this the same?</em>" (pointing the the one I thought was shampoo and the sign that said "shampoo")<br />her: nodded yes<br />me: "<em>Thank you! I want this</em>" (followed by me all but running out of the aisle with the alleged conditioner)<br />By the time that was all squared away it was time to go back to the hotel. By coincidence, it was also the time the sky decided to open up and pour down a few inches of rain. This phenomenon of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">beautiful</span> weather, then torrential rains, followed by beautiful weather again all within a couple of hours, is completely foreign to me. Coming from the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Midwest</span>, we see weather coming for days before it actually hits, and while sometimes it fluctuates quite a bit from day-to-day, it just <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">doesn't compare</span> to the hour-to-hour fluctuations here.<br />After running around in ankle-deep puddles in the pouring rain, we eventually found our bus and made it back to the hotel. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">I was</span> soaked to the bone, but I had my new cell phone and my Chinese conditioner (at least I think its conditioner), so all in all it was a successful day.<br /><div align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5243826437377979490" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMmpnmP5DR7Px-Xt7879H-AHyf6tAXnnLR6cmzaGgEFZJQAqmRXr_KmRyYqLVXpHUR9Mf2ECEJCzTNz5wdjTlZP3-syGhKyQ-4L3BjN-UIjoufiTbok-B5v2D6XhXZ4hUMZ4KQsUrk2EE/s320/hair+care.JPG" border="0" />Two of these are conditioner, one is hand soap, and one is shampoo...I think</em></span></div>~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227210720025172563.post-81445623267370714982008-09-06T23:52:00.006+08:002008-11-20T19:01:55.566+08:00Welcome to China!I think it is fair to assume that most people are <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">fascinated</span> by (or at least somewhat curious about) other cultures, but generally distrusting of the people themselves. The Chinese are no different, and for this reason I spent yesterday morning in a hospital and the afternoon in a police <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">station</span>.<br />Now, if you just read that sentence and assumed I was being treated for alcohol poisoning and then charged for disorderly conduct, shame on you! I've only been here for two weeks, and there's been no time for things like that. Rather, we were getting the health exam that is required for all non-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Shenzhen</span> citizens who want to work there, and registering with the police station in the district we are going to be living in.<br />Walking into this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Shenzhen</span> hospital was sort of like walking into a hospital in a 1970's movie. It's clean and the staff is friendly, but everything feels a little...well, retro. The nurses are wearing dresses and those little triangle-looking hats (although their outfits are pink rather than white) and they speak just enough English to order us around. The hallways are long and narrow and lined with wooden benches. Each room is designated for one specific purpose and is outfitted with a sink, a table, some old-fashioned looking machines, and little else.<br />Before arriving at the hospital we were separated into groups and each person was given a little booklet with spaces for the doctors to fill in our information about each test. The idea was that each group would do one kind of test at a time and switch tasks as a group until all groups had done all the tests, rather than having a free-for-all with all 115 of us <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">lining up</span> for 10 rooms in one narrow hallway. Upon arrival to the hospital, however, it took all of 10 minutes for the group idea to fall apart and the melee to commence.<br />The first thing I did was get my blood drawn and was given my marked cup for the urine test I was to take at some point. Getting the blood drawn was no problem (I'll get back to the urine test), and from there I went on to the EKG line. For this test I walked in and laid down and was instructed to raise my left pant leg to my knee and my shirt "over the bra". The nurse swabbed something on my wrists, my ankles, and my ribs and put these clamp things on. After feeling like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Frankenstein for</span> a couple of minutes, she let me get up and handed me a print out of my heart rate (which was normal, but indicated I was somewhat nervous...go figure). After grabbing a quick bite to eat to avoid passing out after my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">pre</span>-blood test fast I hopped into the (very long) ultrasound line.<br />At this point it is getting to be 9am or so and there are Chinese citizens starting to show up for whatever testing they are getting (I'm sure they took one look at our hallway and thought "why me, why today?!"), so now, not only are we contending with each other to get all of our tests done, we are also having to keep away from all the line-cutting Chinese. After being <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">ultrasounded</span>, x-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">rayed</span>, weighed, measured, and otherwise poked and prodded it was time to take my measuring cup downstairs for the urine test.<br />In case you've never done one, a urine test in the US usually consists of you being sent into a single bathroom with a cup (and a lid) and told to put it on a certain shelf when you are done. Not in China. First of all, I was given this cup with no lid at the start of my testing, which means I was carrying it around with me for about an hour before I actually peed into it. Second, there is no specific bathroom for this test, you just stand in line and pee in a stall in the regular bathroom. Third, there is no "certain shelf" where these cups are placed, there is a wheeled cart that is placed in the hallway outside of the bathroom where <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">everyones</span> pee is just sitting right there next to everyone <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">elses</span>. If you are starting to think that this seems very unsanitary, it gets worse. This "regular bathroom" we are all using is a Chinese "regular bathroom", which means there is a hole-in-the-floor toilet, no toilet paper, and no soap at the sinks. Luckily some of us remembered to bring our <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">kleenex</span> and hand sanitizer, so the amount of urine that was exchanged was kept to a bare minimum.<br />When all was said and done, it only took a couple of hours for the whole process and we were all so glad that we were allowed to leave the OB/<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">GYN</span> portion blank that the rest of the ordeal seemed pretty painless.<br /><br />We eventually made it back to the hotel and had a couple of hours to eat and relax before heading off to the police station. I will be living in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Longgang</span> district, which is one of the more outer districts, so the bus ride there took about an hour. When we got to the police station we were taken upstairs to some sort of foreigner detaining/interrogation room and told to sit and wait. There was another foreigner sitting at the table in this room when we got there, and we overheard just enough of his interview to know that his visa expired in 2005 and he is in a lot of trouble.<br />After about 40 minutes the policeman showed up and handed us our passports, and a card with some laws that foreigners need to follow and sent us on our way. We made sure to read the card on the way back and were very disappointed to find out that it is against the law for foreigners to be "overly drunk" and engage in prostitution and whoring while in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Shenzhen</span>.<br />All in all it was a crazy day, but like we keep saying, "Welcome to China!"~Amelia~http://www.blogger.com/profile/15575332036674801013noreply@blogger.com1