My China Adventure

Lost in Translation

2008-12-08T22:50:00.003+08:00

This week I am teaching 2 extra classes, one for each freshman class, due to our upcoming Christmas vacation to Hong Kong which is a week earlier than when classes are supposed to finish. In English we call this a make-up class, and I forgot that might not translate into Chinese directly. My freshmen knew (I think?) that it was simply an extra class to make up for missing the last week of classes, but Leslie told several of her students that I was teaching a make-up class and when we met with them later, they asked how my cosmetics class went.

I forgot that make-up has multiple meanings and they were not aware of the one I was referring to! Bless their hearts! The shocking part of it all is that me teaching a cosmetic class was not a strange concept to them, the student just asked if I could she could join my next class :-P I was called a fashion (read: fashionable) woman in class by my students today, and have been asked on multiple occasions where I get my 'eyelash paste' (read: mascara) and how come I look so beautiful (read: any foreigner in China is beautiful).

On the note of beauty, I couldn't help but smile and laugh when 2 of the girls who come to my office hours each week were talking about makeup and asking what type of makeup I use when they said that bad eyeliner makes them look like a Panda! I've grown up calling that raccoon eyes, but am forever changing my expression - a Panda is much cuter!

We survived our 13.5 hour work day by eating lots of great food at the restaurant by school and discovering that our offices, as simple as they may seem, are quite conducive to afternoon naps (hey, we've got to do something during our 2-hr long breaks). English Corner tonight was about Christmas and as always there was absolutely no structure so we had a Q&A session for an hour or so. We did sing for the students though! This might have been the one time I would have liked to have a secret fly on the wall recording us - Leslie and I singing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' and 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' was probably one of the funniest things our students have seen in a while. Silly American teachers!

I guess we were just solidifying our rockstar status. I had at least 20 cell phone pictures taken of me while conducting English Corner, and all the boys there (and most of the girls, too) came up to me after and asked to have their picture taken. And they yelled at me when I tried to bend down to be on their level for pictures. I'm starting to feel more like a freak show than a rockstar: "Hey, look at that tall freakshow of a foreigner!!" On second thought, maybe I should stop wearing heels...

Clueless

2008-12-08T21:47:00.001+08:00

I woke up early bright eyed (but definitely not bushy tailed) this morning preparing for a long (13ish hour) day. Walking to wait for the bus with my large load (13 hours leads to needing lots of books, papers, etc.) in tow, Leslie and I both had a minor panic attack thinking we had missed our bus. Finally we saw one of our coworkers who always takes the bus with us – phew!

Turns out everyone was by the school gate because some of the local people who live around the perimeter of the school were protesting at the gate and no cars/busses could get in or out of the school! How bizarre! Thank goodness our co-worker (fellow English teacher who understands perfect English but almost never communicates with us) told us to follow her, and we busted through the crowd together. People walking in and out was not a problem, they were trying to block vehicles for some reason. First I asked DanDan, the admin at our school who works with our students and their schedules, but she shrugged her shoulders clueless. Next I asked our co-worker and she said, “Maybe it’s because of the water problem?” My first thought was, “What water problem? My water worked just fine this morning!” Leslie asked one of her students who was shaddy and would not tell her what was going on (I think she just did not know but didn’t want to seem clueless in front of her).

We caught the bus outside of the school gate since there was not way it was entering the school (even though it could have easily taken out the 25ish people standing there, haha) and some other co-workers had to go to the back of the bus and direct the bus driver on how to back the [coach] bus out of the narrow road leading up to our school – hilarious! We are backing out of a small street because the demonstrators would not let us in, and in turn we went the wrong way down a one-way road to catch the high-way (okay so that’s not too out of the normal) and caused another traffic jam on top of the on outside of the school. On a Monday morning when all you want is to be back in bed, entertainment like that is definitely much more amusing than it should be. After the bus was moving in the right direction we asked another co-worker what in the world was going on and he told us “the farmers [motioning to the shack houses surrounding the school] are upset.” That’s as much of an answer as we got.

And that is typical for China – we don’t know what’s going on half of the time, but just have to laugh it off because that is all we can do!

Teacher or Judge?

2008-12-04T21:46:00.002+08:00

Lately it's felt as though I spend as much time judging various competitions as I do teaching! Tonight we judged our third competition - the first 2 were English speech competitions, this one was an English Song competition. This time it was more than just Leslie, me, and one other person; we were part of a 6-person panel. I'm kind getting used to being a judge but it's still a rather weird feeling. Tonight's was especially awkward and hilarious! First, I do not and can not sing (besides to myself in my apartment when, of course, I sound just like a superstar). Second, it's really weird when some of our students are up on stage and we have to be impartial! Regardless, I played the role of an American Idol judge tonight (I'd like to think I was the nice one like Paula, the Chinese teacher next to me was being very harsh!).

To make the situation even funnier, we didn't recognize a lot of the songs on the list! Popular English songs in China are either A) 10-15 year-old songs or B) Songs NO ONE in America has ever heard of. Here's the night's playlist:
-If I Ain't Got You by Alicia Keys
-Crush on You
-Far Away from Home
-No No
-Drowning by the Backstreet Boys
-Skater Boy by Avril Lavigne
-Nobody's Fool by Avril Lavigne
-Tell Me Why
-Anything But Ordinary by Avril Lavigne
-It Is Your Chance
-Bring It All Back
-Hey Jude by the Beatles
-Whenever Wherever by Shakira
-Baby One More Time by Britney Spears
-Because of You by Kelly Clarkson
-Just One Last Dance
-Wanna Be by the Spice Girls
-Whistle Down the Wind
-When There Was Me and You
-Walk Away by Kelly Clarkson

Needless to say I had many middle school flashbacks watching the show :) OH China...

Mrs. Ding?

2008-12-01T21:25:00.002+08:00

Well right now I am technically Miss Ding (Dīng Shān Shan, to be exact) but my freshman class 3 (one that invited me to the picnic) today tried very hard to convince me to marry a Chinese man and stay in China. We are discussing families & love/marriage in class this week but this class got me off-topic and on tangents for practically the entire class! Their arguments for why I should marry a Chinese man:
1. The man's family pays for the wedding (Dad would like that one haha)
2. Engagements are unnecessary (who needs to wait that long for a wedding anyways, right?)
3. Instead of calling your husband/wife's parents your in-laws, you simple call them your mom and dad (I'd gain another set of parents - not that mine aren't great already!!)
4. I could be a teacher and only work 20 (that's how many hours they think I work...I didn't want to admit that I work less than 1/2 that, haha)
5. Chinese get over 4 weeks vacation/holiday in a year
6. Many companies give extra vacation for a honeymoon (even more vacation!)
7. A woman can get up to a year off work when she has a kid
8. You must be 20 to legally marry (perfect, I'm older than that)

Despite all these arguments, staying in China to marry is definitely not in my future at the moment. They forgot that I would most likely tower over my husband and never get to see my family and friends! Students trying to marry me off = just another day in the classroom here in China. My students never cease to amaze and amuse me and they have an uncanny ability to make even Monday mornings turn into a great time :)

Sara's Series of Unfortunate Events

2008-11-15T00:30:00.002+08:00

Everyone's got their good weeks and bad weeks, and it's no different in China. This ever-present concept of "luck" was not on my side this weekend, and the klutz genes were in full force.

It started Monday when I walked into my first class of Sophomores excited to tell them we're watching a movie this week and I'll let them out of class early, only to learn they've already seen Dead Poets Society! I knew my other 2 sophomore classes had not seen it so I (ignorantly so) assumed they hadn't seen it either. Wrong! Apparently one of their teachers had shown it last year. On-the-spot lesson re-planning had to take place, but I'm getting semi-used to being a teacher so that went well.

After school Tuesday we volunteered at the Fifth Tone (coffee shop) English Corner where I've met some awesome people who come every week (new Chinese friends to take us shopping and show us around) but this week I got stuck with 4 guys, 2 very smart university students with great English, and 2 junior-high schoolers with practically no spoken English skills. I had to juggle the 2 university students talking my ear off (both go to the Business College so they love chatting it up about the business world with me) and getting watched over my shoulder (literally) for most of the 2 hours by the concerned mother of the younger guys. She was concerned they did not understand anything. Maybe she should get tutors instead of throwing them into an English corner then getting mad at me for them not understanding! Ugh! Everyone else was with my favorites having fun conversations and I was painfully trying to make 4 guys make up a story about a picture of a cowboy riding a horse, ha! Anyways, at the end, one of the younger guys said he was very happy after the English Corner because he finally got to practice his English so I that was rewarding.

Wednesday mornings I have office hours for 1.5 hrs during the period where I do not have class. I have a group of about 6 regular girls who come in and talk with me the entire time. Although I get no work done, it's fun to talk to them and help them conquer their fear of speaking in front of me and the class. I also take advantage of their time with me and have them help me out with how to get around the city, or where to buy things I need (last week they wrote down their favorite spices in Chinese for me so I could go to the store and get good spices to cook with since I can not read any of them in the market!). Anywho, this week I was greeted by a newcomer - 15 minutes before my office hours even begin! Leslie and I were still eating breakfast so I had to ask her to come back. I felt a little rude, but as we were warned, you've got to learn when to say no because the students will literally take up every morsel of your free time if you let them. It's actually quite liberating when you get the "no" word down. I'm always a little flustered after office hours though because I have to run to my next class. Coffee cup in hand (my students laugh at my coffee addiction, "it's not good for you") and purse and school bag in tow, my graceful self bit it UP the stairs in the classroom building. Thank goodness one of my best sophomore students was behind me because I broke the coffee mug, sliced my hand and wrist on the broken pieces, had coffee all over myself, and bruised both kneecaps on the fall down. Oh did I mention that this was all 30 seconds before class was to start? And I was very advantageous that morning and was wearing my suit! What an oxymoronic sight I must have been. I shamefully walked into class trying to hide my battle scars. I thought I was covering it up well until Vicky, a little bit of a brown-noser but a sweetheart whose mission is to make sure I am completely satisfied with my experience here, told me I had "soil" in my hair. Note: soil=coffee. Oy vey! I came home in pain from my fall and decided to forego Chinese lessons for a nap to sleep off my embarrassment!

To top if off I got ripped off at the DVD store and my second season of Lost was missing a DVD. Thursday we showed Dead Poets society for those sophomores who had not seen it but had to go into school 4 hours early because of the bus schedules. We chose not to tell our students we'd be in our office since it was technically our day off and we'd had a long week already - but we helped Bernie and Jane (girls who took us on the trip for the National Holiday) practice their speeches for the final round of the competition, and then talked to them forever! Bless their hearts, they bought us dinner and told us they'd help us book our flights to Hong Kong for xmas.

And now I'm sick for the 3rd time here! My immune system sucks! Someone told me I should live in a bubble and I'm beginning to think that is a better and better idea :) Jane booked our flights today and we'll be gone Dec. 24-Jan.3 in Hong Kong and the surrounding cities - so we'll get to spend Christmas AND New Years in Hong Kong. I can not wait!! I guess the misfortunate events turned into better luck by the end of the week - but it certainly adds to the hilarity that is life in China!

One of my freshmen classes has invited me to their class picnic tomorrow (saturday) morning. I am too nice and said I would attend, so I'm venturing to the other campus by public transportation for the first time tomorrow morning to mingle with their class for an hour or so. The picnic is from 9-2 but there was NO WAY I was going to meet them at 9am to have my ears talked off for 5 hours!!

Some pics

2008-11-11T23:40:00.005+08:00

Picking out fresh veggie from the local market; In front of the entrance to the campus at which we live (tau hua ping); Very cute little baby at the campus where we teach (zhong gong ling); The massive amount of students who came to my English Corner

Happy Singles' Day!

2008-11-11T22:56:00.002+08:00

Or Happy Bachelor's Day...whichever you prefer. Yes, November 11 (11/11 - all singles, get it?!) is Singles Day in China. Haha Les and I had a good laugh when we heard this - it's the greatest thing ever! Kind of like a big F*** you to Valentine's day, huh? We taught all day long so no celebrating for us girls, but some of my students told me they will celebrate by having a BBQ tonight. So innocent of them!

There was a random mid-autumn monsoon in Changsha (and most of southern China from what I understand) last week (Wanted: rainboots) but now it has cooled off significantly and has been sunny and beautiful the last few days. We've even had blue skies with coulds (you may laugh, but that is rather rare here!) We've been spending our spare time pretending to be professional photographers (Wanted: actual nice camera) so you all can see what life's like here.

Hm, what else? Chinese lessons are going well! We've graduated from Pronunciation (hold the applause, please) and are on to the basics of the language. The characters are VERY hard to learn - we will not learn them in a year - but the pin yin is actually fairly simple to learn. We've found that taxi drivers and the people at our local markets are great people to practice with! I am sure we have made some people's days by our attempts at holding conversations. Our students would be ideal teachers but they are so intent on improving their English whenever they are around us that speaking Chinese with them would just be a joke. Oh well...taxi drivers it is then!

Speaking of students, we were asked to be judges for an English Speech Competition last night! Me, a judge?! What?! I'm no expert in my own language but I pretended to be last night :) Okay, so it wasn't that bad, but I do have a newfound respect for judges of all kind. I felt so bad for those who choked in the spotlight but we had to judge fairly! It was fun to see our students practicing their English in a different environment, and fun to see the skills of the other majors (there were broadcast majors in the competition, engineer majors, etc...it was open to anyone on campus). The most difficult part was remaining unbiased white still keeping up our guanxi (relationship building). Some students who come to us for help often and who have taken us out to eat and show us around (oh, and on a 4-day vacation) were in the competition!! None-the-less I think we remained pretty unbiased. Our students are SO smart and had some great things to say about the topic - What my University means to me. Only downside was we were gone for 14.5 hours (relying on busses is getting a bit inconvenient!)

Teaching is going well all-in-all. I have a group of 5 girls who come into my office hours every Wednesday morning who are just adorable. They stay there the whole 1.5 hours (Im not able to get any work done but it's okay!) and talk about anything from traveling and places I need to go, to recommending good spices for me to cook with, to looking in awe at my American magazines and getting to know me. One of them, Maggie, really wants to study abroad in America and I've made it my newfound mission in my spare time to find some charities/organizations in the states who have scholarships for Chinese students studying abroad in the US. In fact, I have several students who have actively sought out my help in how to study abroad. The cost of their education here is ¥28,000 for 4 years (¥7,000/year). When I tell them the average US yearly tuition is $20,000 (or ¥130,000) they are really crushed. We'll see if I'm successful, but if I could even help one student get a scholarship to go abroad it would make my year. So, if anyone knows of such organizations, please let me know!

I'm a slacker - sorry!

2008-10-28T20:27:00.005+08:00

This blogging thing has been one of the last things on my mind the last month, but I'm trying to be better about updates again! Pictures on Picasa have been updated, so check those out!

Our trip to ZhangJiaJie during the National Holiday with the students was amazing - we got to see sights we never would have seen on our own and were treated VERY well by the students, the local military, and her family. We climbed 3 mountains (and by climb mountains I mean trudged up what felt like millions of stairs) to the point where my calves burned beyond belief! The Asians travel very differently than us Americans - we were up by 6:30 every morning (woken up at 5, however, by tour busses full of Korean and Chinese travelers) and didn't stop until 8 or 9 at night. Every 5 minutes provided a great "scenic spot" or "good place for photo." My apologies in advance for the abundance of photos - many were taken against our will! I'll be honest, a mountain starts to look like a mountain after a while, especially when the tour guide is not speaking your language and, therefore, you have NO idea what the meaning of this rock versus that rock is. Nevertheless, the trip was better than imagined, we paid for practically nothing (naturally treated myself to a new purse afterwards as a result!) and ate like Kings all week. We learned 'Gambei!' with the old Chinese men at our 12+ person dinners (where we got to sit next to the head of the table - which is hard to determine at a round table, lol).

IT was nice to return home to Changsha after a busy 4 days of traveling - I needed a vacation from vacation. We spent the weekend relaxing and planning to start our full (8.5 hour) work week with freshmen and sophomore students.

Foreign Expert's Dinner - 9/28/08

2008-09-28T23:53:00.002+08:00

Well today was the big foreign experts dinner in the city that caused us to miss out on the trip Lisa and friends are going on. Yesterday Eimely told Leslie the driver would pick us up at 2:00pm. Other Journey East teachers were invited and told us the dinner was at 5:30 so 2:00 seemed a little early! With knowing how punctual our school is, we were getting ready at 2:00 but figured it would be later. Sure enough, Eimely texted Les around noon and told her she was just invited and we would take a taxi at 4:00. 4:00 is the new 2:00...and apparently we are no longer good enough for drivers, darn!

Other teachers told us it was a fairly formal dinner so for the first (and probably only) time I busted out my heels and got dressed up. Eimely knocked on my door at 4:15 (oh yes, 4:15 is the new 4:00) and told us the driver was waiting. Apparently they debated and decided we still are worthy of a driver!

We went to the main campus to meet Zhou (Eimely's co-worker in the foreign affairs office, and the always-stressed guy who took us to get our medical examinations and our foreign expert papers). Always dressed appropriately, Zhou showed up in jeans, tennis shoes, and a blazer. You've got to hand it to him - it's probably the most dressed up he ever gets haha (so needless to say he was a bit under-dressed at the dinner when we walked in and most of the men were in full suits...oops).

As usual, we were early and had to wait around for a good half hour (circa medical examinations when we waited for the other people for 45 minutes because they told us to be ready an hour before anyone else...we need to talk to someone about this because it is getting annoying!) A bus picked us up and then picked up the other teachers from the main campus and we went to the hotel.
[Side note: Eimely gave us our schedules for after the holiday (a whole week earlier than we thought we'd get them!) and we still have 4.5 day weekends!!!!!!!!!!!! Intense travel planning will begin next week!]

The hotel was GORGEOUS - this must be one of the hidden gems of Changsha that only the government officials and wealthy businessmen get to see on a regular basis. The dinner was hosted by the local government and was for all foreign teachers and some business persons as they honored about a dozen foreigners from Germany, the USA, Ukraine, Australia, to name a few. Alex was one of the organizers so we got the scoop on what was going on. After we received our gifts (an eco-friendly grocery bag filled with a big red box with a pretty porcelain tea set inside of it) and mingled with other WT and Journey East teachers we waited over an hour for the government officials and distinguished guests to arrive! Apparently they were stuck in traffic or something like that?! Whoooo knows.

The reception was immaculate and included the awards ceremony then an entertainment show full of traditional Chinese dancers, singers, and acrobats. I hear it was cool, but I wouldn't know since I was sitting behind a huge column! At one point I tried to bust out my video camera to record the amazing music, but I did so RIGHT before it finished. The Japanese teacher from HNU laughed hysterically at me. Good thing the only English he knew was to make fun of me. Oh well, we made a connection and cheered each other and continued to drink the wine! Alcohol is a world-wide comfort drink for "I have no idea what's going on, and don't care, so let's forget about it and have a good time!"

We all sat around and joked and ate TONS of food the entire night. We were one of the last tables to leave - HNU knows how to close down a party :) The food was amazing - I tried Lily root, a new type of sweet roll, ears of a tree (aka mushrooms!), and pig's ear (literally). I also ate some mixed meat balls (not so sure I care to know what melange of meet was in it) and a new variety of greens I've never tried before. Somehow despite all this food I've consumed here in China my pants are fitting better by the day!! The rice diet really does work (well, rice plus many other things!) Must get to bed now - Bernie's dad will pick us up at 7am for lunch then we're off to ZhangJieJia with Bernie and Jane from Leslie's class.

Alex and Eimely just found out we are traveling with the girls tonight. Not sure if it's really allowed or not - they are SO concerned about our safety. Alex asked for both of the students' phone numbers so he can check up on us to make sure we are safe and 'satisfied.' He and Eimely both kept stressing they want to make sure we are satisfied and have a good time. Little do they know we will probably be in the best hands possible between Bernie's dad arranging all accommodations (having the local army on our side can't hurt) and Bernie and Jane having impeccable English - I am sure we will be just fine!!

Teaching on a Saturday?? - 9/27/08

2008-09-28T23:44:00.002+08:00

Since I missed the message that I was supposed to teach Friday, I had back-to-back classes Saturday morning. It was nice to have my Monday class because they are 2 weeks behind the other classes. However, I had my Tuesday class as well. I caught up the Tuesday class and fit 2 lessons into 1 class pretty efficiently. I think a lot of students skipped out on weekend classes (heck, would!) and went home early for the holiday. Also, the Freshmen were having the culminating competition from their month-long military training (aka orientation) so some of my students had to miss class to watch their freshmen (do what, I'm still not so clear?! all I know is that it was more important than my class)!

I love my Tuesday class- they are all very vocal and funny. I tested my memory and tried to take attendance by heart. I know about 75% of their names. Okay, maybe just 50%?! They found it amusing to see me struggle with their names! When you stick Eve, Emmy, Emma, and Irene (pronounced Erin?!) together it gets confusing!!! I found an interesting lesson plan online about 'fat genes' and the problems with obesity in our society. It was VERY interesting to listen to their responses to the lesson - obesity really isn't an issue here in China. They think as long as you eat well and exercise regularly one should be fine, which for most of them, is the case. They all agreed that they don't have the problem we have in America, mostly because of the fast food (they thought only McDonalds, Subway, Pizza Hut, and KFC caused our nation's problems...I had to educate them on the multitude of other fast food chains at home)!

One thing I have found interesting throughout my short time here is how much attention the Chinese, especially the females, pay to what they eat. My uneducated self came to this country thinking they were all small because of the food they eat and the rice. Little did I know they obsess about food almost as much as we do. The only difference is their obsessing is preventative, not trying to reverse a problem like in America. They believe that the oil makes you fat (there is oil in all the food here in Hunan) and that the spices make one's skin break out. They had a funny debate about whether cheese is a food that's good for you - or if it is bad for you. It just made me miss cheese EVEN more :(

Making New Friends - 9/26/08

2008-09-28T22:15:00.003+08:00

This weekend's been one of the more productive thus far in Changsha. Friday night, after the anxiety and stress of missing a class I didn't even know about wore off Leslie and I went into the city to meet Cristina. Thanks to E.Bond and her new friend at Target for the friend match-making, Cristina and I got in contact and decided to meet up for dinner. As she put it, "there are only so many of us here...we must stick together!" She came with a program called World Teach and arrived in late July so is much more experienced in the Chinese culture and the city of Changsha. While waiting by the infamous meeting point in the city - the big statue by the walking street - I spotted a group of other westerners. Turns out they were friends of hers from WT. Their program brought some 50 people to Hunan, about 25 in Changsha. I immediately grew jealous of a. their social network and b. their month-long orientation (2 hrs in LA before we left just didn't cut it!)

After trying, and failing, to get some good Japanese cuisine (got my hopes up for sushi and hibatchi steak...I'm quite depressed still) Cristina took us to a Northern Chinese restaurant. The food was delicious (and the large brewski we grabbed on the way was quite delicious and needed as well!) I think northern food will be a staple in my diet from now on - it is less spicy than Hunan food. Don't get my wrong, I love the spices and all the dishes, but some days my poor taste buds (the ones that weren't fried off after eating the squid on a stick on the street) need a rest every once in a while! After dinner we met up with some other WT teachers and their Chinese tutor to go Bowling! Per standard protocol, we risked our lives to grab a taxi, gave the phone to the taxi driver, and Dana (their Chinese tutor) told him where to take us. Thank goodness the taxi drivers here are good-hearted because for all we know they could be taking us to Tibet...

We saw a bowling sign on the street corner, but no bowling sign on any buildings. Turns out we had to climb some stairs, walk across a platform with no lights, enter a building with no lights, and go up a creepy elevator. After going down first then going up (the Chinese woman in the elevator got a laugh out of our stupidity) we arrived at some underground bowling alley! Okay so it wasn't underground, it was totally legit and legal, but on more than one occasion throughout the night I was not so sure of this. After realizing that real bowling is NOT like Wii Bowling (you can guess which one I'm better at) I decided I was going to retire from the sport. However, it was fun meeting some of the other WT teachers who've been here for 2 months. We now know where to get head massages, full body massages, underground DVDs (of course I would never do something illegal like that), sign up for a gym membership, find cheap flights w/in china, and can call Dana anytime we have troubles!! Successful night. Then we leave the "bowling alley" only to discover that the doors were locked. After a minor panic attack I realized the 'lock' was a twist-tie. Bahaha thank goodness I've broken into a few twist-tie locked doors before and knew how to free us - I had to use a lot of brain power, though.

So we're free from the building, phew, only to find that the gates at the top of the stairs are locked! Underground sketchiness? I think so! We had to climb over the fence and prance around the barrier to get to the stairs. Skinny little Dana was able to squeeze through the bars of the gates. Too bad the rest of us have some cushioning on our bodies - there was NO WAY I was squeezing through there!

One the way home we got to utilize for the first time the paper on which Eimely and Vivien wrote down directions to where we live. It's sad when you can't even tell the taxi diver WHERE you live, none-the-less HOW to get there! Thank goodness we had another kind-hearted taxi driver who got us home safely, and w/o ripping us off!

Communication Problems - Friday 9/26/08

2008-09-26T15:03:00.002+08:00

Today I encountered my first problem with the communication barrier. Journey East warned us these things might happen because of a. the language barrier and b. the Chinese way of communicating is often very last-minute. The life lessons I am learning keep racking up, for instance being told we must get our picture taken for visa photos and we must go now to do it. Or when we were given 12 hours notice we had a medical examination the next morning. Or in today's case, having an hour's warning that I am teaching class on a day I thought I had no classes. One big problem: it takes an hour to get to the other campus and I have to rely on busses or taxis (which I can't quite navigate at this point w/my lack of Chinese knowledge). A student texted me an hour before class apologizing for not feeling well and telling me she would not be able to attend class this afternoon. WHAT CLASS? The worry wart in me panicked, called Eimely (no response), texted the student asking what class she was from (my Tuesday class - hello it is Friday?!) and then called Alex (he is the boss when it comes to dealing with us Foreign teachers). He said the student was probably confused and if my schedule said I was not to teach on Friday to stick with what the schedule said.

Well 4 minutes before I was supposed to start teaching I got a call from our friend Dan Dan who works in the campus at which we teach. Turns out I was supposed to teach! Dan Dan's English is not the greatest so it took a minute to explain to her that no one told me I was supposed to teach class. I finally got out of her that she told someone to tell me but the message never came my way I guess!

Leslie had previously been told that we will teach our Monday classes on Saturday at the same time they are scheduled on Mondays. This is a big cultural difference here - make-up classes on the weekend before a Holiday?! What about being able to extend a holiday by a few days since we do not teach Thursdays and Fridays?! Thank goodness we did not plan a trip! As it turns out, the National Holiday is from Monday - Sunday, so the schools make up classes the weekend before. No Monday/Tuesday switch days here, Miami friends! I don't quite think it makes sense, but I will adjust none-the-less. Alex told me of this at first when he called to invite Leslie and I to the dinner this Sunday, but said he would cancel our classes for Sunday so we could attend the dinner. Apparently that meant they would re-schedule them to another day and I was supposed to read their minds. Cool. Sorry I missed the ESP day in PSY 101. Oh wait...I didn' take PSY 101. Guess I was destined to be screwed!

I am happy I get to teach my Monday class tomorrow because they are 2 weeks behind their classmates. However, my Tuesday class will be ahead if I go on to teach the Lesson I had planned for the week after the holiday, so now I have to scramble and make up an extra lesson for that class. This is where an education background would come in handy - they didn't teach us these things in my marketing classes!

I didn't realize how much I took advantage of my printer at school. It is hard not having a personal printer to which I can print articles for the students to read or notes for myself, etc. I haven't used notebooks so religiously since middle school! The only way to print is to buy a printer (and I'm not sure I could find a descent-priced one to work with my Mac) or hit up the local copy shop (even sketchier than the Oxford Copy shop, my friends!) We've been told to be careful of where we print and how we transport our documents because of viruses. Hmm...where is the Geek Squad when you need them?!?! I think I'm going to have to get brave and adventure to the copy shop this afternoon so my class isn't bored out of their minds tomorrow.

Best Night Ever - Saturday 9/20/08

2008-09-24T21:52:00.003+08:00

Psyche! No nap for us. Our co-worker, Lisa, with whom we went to KTV last week for her birthday, called me and asked if we’d like to get together w/her and her friends at a bar. Obviously Leslie and I never pass up a night at the bar, and especially with adorable Lisa and her funny friends. We were told to meet outside of the KTV spot we went the previous week – so we thought we might be KTVing again…I prepped my vocal chords and was totally prepared to bust out some more Celine Dion. Maybe even some Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston this time (A. Kay, bet you can’t sing like me anymore!) Oh no, Quentin (see: hilarious text boy) and Lisa met us outside of the KTV bar then ushered us to ‘Song Song.’ Traditional ‘bar’? Check! Yes, from the minute we walked in I knew we were in for a treat. By the time we arrived (we may or may not had to get off the bus and find a McDonalds for this girl to go to the bathroom – thanks a lot Tsing Tao!) at 9:30pm the bar was PACKED!

Thank goodness for VIP status once again. We walked upstairs to find Lisa’s boyfriend and some other friends at a table w/a bottle of Vodka, lots of tea, and a ton of dice. Combine all of that with some great 90s tunes (which are the most current things here, haha) and some even greater Chinese tunes, and it was turning into the best night ever. We learned a new bar game – dice. I am still unsure of all the rules, but its kind of like Yahtzee (spring break, anyone?!0) with the cup and 5 dice and you must guess how many of one number your opponent has. The Chinese don't drink near as much as we do back home (I swear we are not alcoholics!) and they dilute drinks much more than at home. The college tolerance is plummeting by the day, that's for sure. We tried to see if they knew the Cupid Shuffle, Electric Slide, or Souja Boy, but all we got was some classic elementary school-style Macarena action. It's amazing how that stuff comes back to you after not having done it in so many years. We also learned another dance of theirs. Watch out America - the Chinese dance moves are coming back with me and you have no idea what's in store!

A little after midnight I thought we were off the hook and could go home and sleep off our long, but fun day. NOPE! Jerry and Quentin decided they needed drunk food and we were all going to join. Where's the Bagel & Deli when you need it most?! Well, not in Changsha, that's for sure. We didn't just hit up the street food and head home - instead, we went to a restaurant. After the poor waitresses dealt w the boys and got us a table big enough for the gang (8 at that point I think) we sat down to our standard Chinese table (large lazy susan in the middle to share all meals). The guys ordered who knows how many dishes and next thing you know the one cup of peanuts on the lazy susan turned into a HUGE bowl of crawfish (at least that's what we think we were eating) -- I might have a new favorite crustacean, btw! However, with my fear of fish staring at me while eating them, you can imagine my fear of handling crawfish who not only stared at me, but had some massive pinchers on them. Jerry demanded that Quentin help leslie and I by cracking all the crawfish for us and giving us the meat inside. I could get used to this not working for my food thing!!

After stuffing our faces w/some of the more bizzare (but very Chiense) food, Jerry decided it was time to continue the drinking w/drinking games at the restaurant. Great! These friends of ours are all out of college and work, so they don't use their English except for around us. Let's just say their English get's very good after a few drinks (much like my French improved greatly when we were at European bars, haha). In Jerry's broken English he would yell to the waitress, "Waiter! Two. Beers!" Haha Leslie and I were in tears laughing so hard. This poor waitress didn't know a lick of English, so everything was repeated in Chinese, but to impress us and get a laugh out of the entire restaurant, they stuck to English. We played "James Bond Oh Oh Seven" until 3:00am while Jerry and Quentin tried out all their English swear words (if they lost) and/or other phrases that randomly popped into their heads. Poor little Lisa was holding her own w/the boys and helping take care of all of them (no wonder I like her so much...I think I might have been there a time or two before!)

All the while I am scared out of my mind as to how we are getting home. All I had was a little piece of paper compliments of Eimely and Vivien to hand to the taxi driver to get us home. A 'take me home' card, if you will. Well, the guys were worried about our safety so Lisa made them hop in a taxi with us, make sure we got home safely, then went back to wherever they lived -- all the while we spent Zero yuan for the night. These new friends of our take better care of us than I've ever experienced in my life before.

A couple days later we got a hilarious e-mail from Quentin telling us how he and his friends are looking forward to being best friends with us and improving their English through speaking with us. We now have a handful of great new friends eager to show us the ropes of Chinese young-adult culture...many fun times to come!

Wednesday 9/24/08

2008-09-24T21:18:00.004+08:00

It has FINALLY cooled down here in Changsha and I could not be happier. The 110+ degree heat was taking its toll on my spirits here. My students told me that the storms we've had the past 24 hours are an effect of the Typhoon that hit the southeast cost the other day. It was actually rather chilly out today - I am looking forward to the fall!

We got invited to travel with Lisa and her friends this past weekend while at the bar to travel with them to a beach town during the national holiday. Not sure if this was a real invite (or if they would remember after the night the guys had, lol) Leslie and I brushed it off and did not get our hopes up. We were wrong! Yesterday Lisa caught me after my class was out and officially invited Leslie and I along for the week. Turns out she, her boyfriend, and Quentin are going to this little beach town in the south of China with an outdoor club. It all seemed perfect because the club will take a charter bus (no having to deal with the millions of people traveling via public transportation next week) and be gone for the whole week and sleep in tents on the beach!

One major problem: early yesterday morning Alex, our FAO, called me and invited us to a dinner with all the foreigners of Changsha at a hotel downtown Sunday night, and that is when the bus is to leave :( It turns out we will not know the time of the dinner until the day before, and Lisa needed to sign us up by today. As much as Leslie and I wanted to go, we decided that we could not, and should not, miss the dinner (the concept of 'saving face' is very important here so we must go with the first invite). It was hard breaking the news to Lisa (partially because we were not sure the real reason was getting through the language barrier!) but she was a sweetheart as always and said hopefully next time they travel we can accompany them!

Luck was on our side today because the 2 students of Leslie's who took us shopping in the city on Sunday invited us to travel to Zhang Jie Jia with them next week for 4 days. We've come to realize that Bernie and Jane both come from pretty well off families here, so it did not surprise us when Bernie told Leslie her dad would arrange for a car and driver to take us there?! Heck, if it means not being crammed into a bus or train with millions of other Chinese travelers, I'll take it! After more thought, 4 days sounds better than the whole week - we can have some time to relax this weekend and next before we start teaching the Freshmen and have little free time for a while. Zhang Jie Jia also happens to be where Eimely is going with her boyfriend for a couple of days, so hopefully we can meet up with her one day while there. The city looks BEAUTIFUL and is apparently the home to the first national forest in China. Regardless, I'm excited to start the first of many (hopefully) travels! Bernie and Jane have excellent English so they will be great tour guides and companions for the week.

I am officially a Foreign Expert as of today. Aka I have my permanent residency and will not get kicked out of the country for not processing my papers on time! I passed the medical exam with flying colors apparently, and am good to go. Only sketchy factor - our passports were confiscated by the Exit & Entrance bureau today and will not be returned to us until after the national holiday. Leslie is a little concerned about traveling w/o our passports in hand, so we will ask someone tomorrow to make sure we are okay to travel. With copies of our passports in hand, and the foreign expert passport from China, I think we will be just fine - especially since we are not leaving the Hunan province.

Getting our residency was kind of a hoot today. First off, as customary in China, our driver was over 45 minutes late (somehow I keep thinking they will be on time, silly me!). We were taken to the office, told to fill out a form (haven't I already filled out enough?!) and then sat and waited while Zhou took care of everything. There was the cutest little Chinese girl I've seen to date waiting with her dad and grandma, so she provided our entertainment for the afternoon. We also saw a few other westerners...that was comforting per usual! We also saw 2 guys who looked European, but Les glanced at the passports and they were from Tajikistan!! I came home and looked up the country (thanks to Dad's geography knowledge help me spell the country, ahah) and was pretty curious as to why these guys are in China. Too bad they were not very friendly when we said 'Hi' to them - guess we'll have to keep in search of more foreign friends!

We used the ever-cherished text message from Eimely to order our go-to meal at the local restaurant today: potatoes w/chicken and spicy green beans.

My students told me today that they have class this weekend to make up for the classes they will miss next week. I guess Les and I will teach our Monday classes on Saturday, and I should teach my Tuesday class on Sunday, but the school is canceling my class session due to this dinner we must attend. School on Saturday? Ew! Poor students...poor us! Good thing we weren't more adventageous and didn't plan ahead a trip for 10 days like we talked about at one point. My patience is being tested daily here as we get very little forewarning of places we have to be and when we will teach. Heck, we won't find out our Freshman teaching schedule until Monday, Oct 6 - the day the Freshmen start. Looks like I'll have to have a lesson plan ready in case I have a class that day. Oy vey!

I Hiked the Yuelu!

2008-09-20T16:10:00.001+08:00

Well, hiking might not be the correct word. After paying 15 yuan (all of about $2.20) to enter the mountain we started up a Very steep hiking path on which I could barely catch my breath. I was worried I was never going to make it to the top! Turns out that was just a shortcut from the gates we entered to the main road that winds all up and down the mountain, so from then on we walked alongside a paved road the entire time...Much better than hiking up some steep trail where I was sure to fall flat on my face or tumble down the mountain. I like the outdoors, but I'm not THAT outdoorsy! I am not sure how hot it was during our hike, but when I got home the weather channel (online, of course...I still can't do the math from C to F in my head yet) said it was in the high 80s and felt like the high 90s. After about a half hour we were so soaked because of the humidity that we became immune to the weather and it really wasn't bad at all.

Some of the people in our group were not as adventurous as myself and Leslie - we will leave them behind next time (er, just not invite them?!) We've been told the mountain is absolutely beautiful in the fall when the leaves are turning. I think I could hike it every weekend if time permits as it was good to get exercise and have a view at the same time. Maybe next time we go the smog won't be so dense. Of course I found the ice cream lady on the side of the mountain (that makes it sound primitive, it was along a road in actuality) and was able to satisfy my craving while hiking! Shane and I were the only fat kids who chose to chow down on food along the way - ice cream is probably not the best thing for hydration when it's so hot and sticky out, but I don't really care!

I had fun meeting and getting to know the other teachers’ students from the business college. Call it the business nerd in me – but I felt like we had a lot in common, haha. We met Lily, Shane and Lisa’s version of Eimely, a gorgeous girl willing to help anyone at the drop of a hat. Teddy, the one trekking up the mountain in heels and a dress who is apparently the fashionista of the group and the one we should go to with any beauty questions! Maybe she’ll be the one to help us do all of our shopping (if we find clothes we fit into – size Large is handed to us the minute we step into the store – awesome ego boost let me tell you). And then there was Slova (I thought they were supposed to have English names, we’re not in Russian class, haha) definitely the quieter one of the group but so bright and kind.

I am not sure how much I want to take beauty tips from them, however. Skin bleaching? No thanks. Green tea masks? Maybe. Seed oil on my eyes to grow my eyelashes? No thanks, I’ll stick to my mascara. Nails 2x the length of your nail bed (eh hem, Teddy)? Just plain sick! Unshaved legs? Mom, please keep sending the razors. But I have to give it to the Chinese women, they spend a lot of time taking care of their skin and looking good. It’s also an ego boost when they point out your not-so-flawless skin and suggest a remedy for it. I’m sorry I don’t have China Doll skin…darn genetics. Or perhaps its all the oil and spices we’ve been eating (they think spices are bad for one’s skin)? Oh well, I’d rather be full and content off my food than starving with some strange concoction on my face!

There was even a man we saw (multiple times) running up and down the mountain. I think he had to have been a bit crazy - or training for a marathon. The runner in me actually wanted to join him at one point...maybe I'll try running up the mountain next time :)

Oh yes, and we also got mobbed by Chinese students who wanted to take our pictures. It got so ridiculous at one point that we couldn't help but laugh out loud and walk away before we heeled over in laughter. I now have sympathy for Hollywood stars and know what it feels like to be followed around by the paparazzi! I also had girls ask to take my picture before we even bought our tickets - kind of flattering, but kind of creepy as well!

After the climb we had a great Chinese lunch (my first fried rice dish here, yum!) and found our way to a huge statue to ChairmanMao (when speaking of him you must say it faster than the speed of light and slur the whole thing together, FYI). It is pretty interesting to hear of their adirmation for Mao, I must say. Leslie and I found a bus and finally got into the airconditioning! After some brief consideration we figured it’d be best if we did not nap and just went to bed early that night…

Changsha's Movin' On Up!

2008-09-19T17:12:00.003+08:00

I've noticed an abnormal number of street sweepers (and by that, I mean a Chinese person in an orange vest walking the streets, highways, sidewalks with a broom and dustpan) throughout the city. There are also street-sweeping trucks that will spray water on the street then come back and sweep. Well, it all made sense when Steve, another Journey East teacher, told us that Changsha is trying to gain status to become a 'top city' in China. I guess the government actually gives a sort of certification to cities that meet X and Y requirements. To my knowledge, the only cities of this status now are Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. This explains all of the cleaning around the city. The smog is bad, but the streets and sidewalks really are amazingly clean! Steve brought the subject up because he saw a woman on his way to our lunch who had a scraper in had and was literally scraping the gum off the sidewalk. That is dedication right there...

However, it's cool to be living in a city that is on the brink of modernity. On our way to the campus where we teach we pass some slums where people are just scraping by each day to live, but also pass some gorgeous apartment complexes and very modern commercial buildings in the city. I am not sure how long it will take Changsha to get this to this certain status, but it would be cool if it's in the next year while I'm here!

Sisterhood of the Traveling Dress

2008-09-19T17:12:00.002+08:00

Les and I watched the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants yesterday since I was not feeling well and it has been over 100 degrees here the past 2 days (does not look to be cooling down in the next week). Since the other 1/3 of our special friends at school is in Columbus w/o any friends (haha, love you Toral) we've decided we are going to start a sisterhood of the traveling dress. The Chinese women dress impeccably and have some of the cutest dresses. Since we all know that jeans do NOT fit 4 (or 3 in our case) women with different shapes (thank goodness for special effects for the movie's sake) we've decided a dress is the way to go. So we are on the mission to find a dress to ship around the world! Don't judge us...we thought it was a brilliant idea! So watch out Toral, there will be a package on your door-step in the next month from Chinaland :)

Friday 9/19/08

2008-09-19T17:12:00.001+08:00

So I've been a little lazy with this blog things this week, sorry! I finally got internet hooked up in my apartment so I don't have to bum off of Leslie anymore. And (after much frustration and some more lost internet for a few days), I got my Vonage working also. I am not allowed to touch any wires or settings on my computer from now on because apparently I'm an idiot and will mess something up again!

So it's 6:30 here and very dark already. I think my body is finally over jet lag and adjusted to China time, but I am still getting used to it getting dark so early. Leslie and I get confused every night thinking it is Much later than it really is!

Happenings of the week:
-Met with other Journey East teachers on Monday. It was nice to be around other Americans and talk fluent English. However, in a group of 7 people it is difficult to make decisions as to what to do. I took charge a few times because after Europe and the way we traveled over there, I have little patience for pondering over where to eat or what to do for more than about 10 minutes! Maybe I need to work on my patience, I do not know, but I just despise traveling in groups larger than about 4. We ended up eating lunch at Leslie and my favorite food court and shared with the other teachers our favorite Chinese food. We found out that our school has been treating us phenomenally - we are the only ones who have been paid thus far, some people don't have cell phones yet, other schools seem less organized, our FAO is amazingly helpful, and we had discovered the city way more than anyone else had before then. It was fun to show them around. We ended up taking the gang to the coffee shop when it opened, only to find out that everyone's bus stops right by the coffee shop so it will actually be a great meeting place from now on! We sat and shared teaching stories, cultural adjustment stories, and other helpful tips. Also got some questions answered like where to hike the mountain, how to print things off, etc.

-I had a crazy woman (drug addict, alcoholic, mental patient, I don't know) scream something then run down a hill by Central South University come up to me and grab my wrist while walking to the bus! Leslie and I both just looked at her in shock, then shook our heads at her. Not sure why shaking our heads was the split-second reaction, probably should have been to slap her hand off of me, but what can you do?! I had a coke in my hand, not sure if she was trying to take my Coke, or grab my bracelet, or if she was just nutzo? Regardless, it was rather disturbing! Luckily she didn't try to take money or anything else from us!

-Our neighbor has 7 chickens as I have mentioned. You'd think that by now Les and I would be used to these crazy little creatures, but one morning on our walk to the bus while rounding the road I looked down out of the corner of my eye and saw a huge black thing not more than 2 inches from my ankles. I jumped, Leslie screamed, and then we realized it was one of our chicken friends. I think everyone around us was busting out laughing. My excuse is that I didn't grow up in the country or on a farm - Leslie can't use that excuse so I'll just call her a chicken (no pun intended!)

-Great advice: do not go to 'tea' with a man alone. Apparently the Chinese do not take a women out to get drinks and take advantage of her that way, they just lure her in with the sweet aroma of tea. Still don't think people realize that I am half a foot taller than the Chinese men and don't have much desire to have 'tea' with anyone! But good to know...

-Had my first laundry experience. Minus ruining my favorite shorts, the washer works great, the detergent we randomly picked at Wal-Mart the first day smells amazing, and hang-drying clothes outside leads to very quick drying! No one here uses washers (great way to save energy to be honest), but the washers spin dry the clothes at the end of the cycle. Since I've adapted the 'When in China' mantra and re-wear clothes if they do not smell before washing them (oh don't judge, people, they all do it here!) laundry only took a few hours! Note to self: do not close glass door into bath/laundry room anymore...I may or may not have walked into the glass door to retrieve my laundry. Actually have a bruise on my forehead from the fight the door and I got into...clutz genes coming out Again (A. Kay, please tell me you run into doors too?!)

-I started not feeling well Monday and woke up pretty sick on Tuesday. I started taking Brock's cure-all drug Monday night and it worked after about 72 hours. I am feeling almost 100% today!! However, this cure-all drug happens to be some herbal remedy that comes in viles. The stuff is a beautiful shade of brown and tastes about like the street by our campus smells. I got in trouble by Leslie for telling her it tasted like that so when she had to take it, it is all she could think of. So now I will tell myself (and all others) that it tastes like cherries. Yes, I cringe when I eat cherries. But in all seriousness, as bizarre as it was sucking down 2 viles of liquid 3x a day, it made me better and I escaped my standard bronchitis the first time around!

-We had our first (and hopefully only) hospital experience today. The school picked us and other foreign teachers up early this morning and took us to a hospital on the opposite side of town (why we didn't go to the largest hospital in town which is only 20 minutes away I do not know). We thought we'd bypass the exam because we had the doctors at home sign a form, but Leslie and I were the winners of the day who got to experience the full Chinese medical examination. Lucky us! Turns out when Journey East told us that we could practically fill out the form ourselves, as long as the doctor signed and stamped it, we'd be okay. WRONG. The other foreign teachers, and American couple and a Japanese man, all had extensive blood work papers from their doctors and chest x-rays and had to wait for us the entire time! I hope to never enter a Chinese hospital again! The squatter of a toilet was hands down the worst one I've been in this far (I thought I was getting used to them until today), the sanitation is non-existent (they didn't change the bed sheets after each person, just had us rotate in one-by-one! Let's see, I got blood drawn to make sure I'm not carrying around HIV or some other disease (doc at home could have told them that!), got a chest x-ray taken (all clear, thank you!), had an ultra sound (no bun in the oven or kidney stones, thank goodness!), had an EKG (apparently my heart works just fine) and got weighed and measured for my height (giant status...I was off the charts, naturally). Leslie tried to warn me of the EKG, but there were too many people around and I was pushed in the room right after her. The woman barked: Bag there! Shoes off! Lay down! Shirt off! Bra up (WHAT?! No one warned me of this, and where way my cute white paper robe to put on?!) and then put suction cups all over my chest, ankles, and wrists! It was very difficult not to laugh the entire way to the next station about the series of events that had just occurred. Our only saving graces at the hospital were the two couples we were with. An American woman and Chinese man who have been here for 10 years were going to all the same stations as us at the same time and were incredibly nice and helpful and asking about our experience. The American couple who also teach at Hunan Normal had to wait an hour for us, but were SO kind and patient, and gave us a car ride full of helpful hints about adjusting to life here (and where to buy cheese!!!!). The Japanese man on the other hand, who did not speak English, did not seem too happy about having to wait for us. To our defense, it was not our fault we were told so little about how extensive the doctor's form from home had to be!

-Next up: start planning some trips around the region sine we have 4.5 day weekends until after the national holiday (where we get an entire week off!) in October. We start teaching the Freshman and will each pick up about 6 more hours a week starting October 5th. Do not yet know what our schedule will be after then, but I am hoping for these long weekends the entire semester!

-I am going to call the Chinese tutoring school next week and start to set up lessons an hour or two a week. Not knowing the language is really getting to me, especially since I knew French so well in Luxembourg and know how much easier knowing the language makes everything! We've been told this school has a great reputation, many years experience, and does one-on-one or two-on-one classes so we'll get pretty intensive language learning! I do not yet feel as at home here in China as I did when I lived in Luxembourg, but I hope learning the language will change that.

-Finally got our mailing address today (after a week or so of asking for it...that is how some things go here in China) so mom can send me the care package I have in essence made for myself! Deoderant, Purell, Clorox wipes, razors, English magazines, to name a few, are in this box coming my way!! There are just some things I can not live without. I think I am most in need of the Purell since the bathrooms are oh-so sanitary, and there are rarely sinks and soap in them!

Chenglish...

2008-09-19T17:12:00.000+08:00

...Also known as Engrish. Dad used to send me random funny Engrish sightings from this site [http://www.engrish.com/]. The author of that site was in Japan (the name Engrish comes from the fact that many Asians put 'r's in very bizarre places in the English language) but we have found Engrish to be spreading like wildfire across China as well. The marketer in me cringes when I first see these, then die laughing! I hope you all find these as amusing as Leslie and I have:
(1) Snoopy has a long-lost identical twin named Snooy
(2) The bag of tea packets I got: has anyone ever heard of Nutriments before??
(3) At the grocery today I was looking at the ingredients to some rolls, and it appears my life surrounded by bankers just follows me here in China. 'Banking powder' was one of the main ingredients. Will you all please stop being so greedy and just stick to the monetary transactions? K, thanks.
(4) My favorite: Wal-Marketing.
(5) The Chinese Citic Bank. Pretty sure that's supposed to be the Civic bank...

Pictures are up!

2008-09-15T00:09:00.001+08:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/Sara.J.Dieringer

Saturday 9/13/08

2008-09-14T10:38:00.001+08:00

The Dieringer clutz genes (ah hem, Aunt Kay) surfaced in China today. Walking along a sidewalk to chose to take the slant rather than the stairs to get down the level we needed and, well, I bit it. No worries, I am okay, just a little scrape, but my ice cream cone on the other hand was not okay. The only thing I got upset about was my delicious Mc.Donald’s (don’t judge – I miss western food kind of a lot) mocha swirl cone face planting the sidewalk. But hey, at least this time I had the ice cream cone to catch my fall unlike my 2nd night out in Oxford Freshman year. No trips to the Hospital this time!

Our main mission of the day was to find a Pin Yin map of Changsha so we adventured into the city yet again on the trusty bus route 202. We took a slight detour and got off near Hunan Normal’s main campus to walk to the river. Today was pretty clear and we decided we wanted to take pictures from the river during the day. We found our way to the river with no help, and found the coffee shop along the way – now we know how to get there all on our own!

We got some awesome pictures of the city from across the river yet again. It turns out there is a path even closer to the water than where we walked with Eimely Thursday night, and there are also steps leading directly into the water. I was tempted to jump in and take a bath to get a rest from the sweltering sun, but someone already stole my idea! There was a man who appeared to be fishing, but upon further investigation (okay, we’re nosy, so what?!) he looked like he might have just been taking a swim. No worries, we slyly snapped a photo of him, and his clothes laying on the side of the steps, proof of the level of creepiness! The view from the sidewalk is really beautiful because right below you is the river, across the way is the booming city, and behind you is the peaceful Yulue mountain. People tell us the mountain gets extraordinary in the fall when the leaves turn –I can’t wait. I think we’re lucky to live on the west side of the river. We may not be as close to the city center and all the shops and businesses, but we’re practically on the mountain and have more peaceful surroundings.

I think today was the first time that the sheer number of people in China was a. prevalent to me and b. got to me. It is very overwhelming and exhausting trying to navigate the city, shops, busses, and restaurants when (it feels like) all 6 million inhabitants of the city are also trying to do the same thing. I think we counted somewhere around 60-70 people crammed into one bus today. It is hard for me to understand why it is necessary to cram as many people as humanly possible (no exaggeration here) onto a bus when sometimes a bus from the same route is directly behind it (or at the very least, only 5 minutes away). But I guess with that many people in the city it is necessary. Tomorrow Leslie and I will stay around our area and just venture to the markets and streets to where we can walk. Being around all those people, and being on our feet walking most of the day got to both Leslie and myself by the end of the day – we were quite exhausted.

Cultural nuances of the day (apparently I have much left to learn): People are not as kind in public as those we have met around campus – in line to use the bathroom (er, squatter) today a woman just cut in front of me, and about 4 other people) to use the restroom as soon as another woman left. And in line at a few markets Leslie and I found ourselves being cut in line. I am still not sure if this is because we are foreigners and they think we are stupid and won’t say anything (which we don’t), or if this is normal behavior for many people who are in a rush. Speaking of being in a rush, since there are constantly so many people in stores and in check-out lines, they ring you up then immediately start ringing up and bagging the other person, sometimes before you have your change back. I have a feeling I will have to pick up the pace of my everyday behaviors, such as putting money back in my wallet and stepping out of lines. Also, it is very normal to buy your food live during the day then go home and cook it.

Standing at the bus station this afternoon I thought I smelled something a bit odd (other than the everyday smell that is China). I looked down to the person next to me and there was a beak sticking out of a black plastic bag. Next thing you know, another beak pops out! This person had 2 ducks (maybe more, but definitely 2 in one bag) just chilling by his side waiting for the bus!!! I turned to Leslie and said “if they get on the 202, I will wait for the next one!” (Luckily, they got on another bus.) Oh but it gets better – this guy’s friend had a white plastic bag that was tied off at the top and his bag was moving on its own! At one point in flopped onto the street and he had to pick the bag back up – ducks and chickens are smarter than we give them credit for! All this was after we’d passed what I thought was a pet store earlier, only to realize it was the tanks at a restaurant from which you could pick your fish or lobster for your meal. Oh the freshness! These things I am trying to get used to but have a feeling it might take a month or so.

The bookstore was rather disappointing since we could not find a pin yin map of Changsha – for that we will have to keep looking. We did find some large art books we bought to rip out pages and hang up on the wall for some more colorful decorations, and another Oral English book to help in planning the semester’s lessons. Wanting to get off our feet after the bookstore we went to Mc.Donald’s (trip #2 of the day there – gosh we need to stop being typical Americans!). Despite not being able to find the one thing we went looking for, I was very fascinated by the bookstore. There were so many people in the bookstore which was something foreign to me because when I think of American bookstores I think of just a few people scattered around the aisles skimming the pages while deciding whether or not to buy the book. The Chinese bookstore reminded me more of a library than a bookstore. There were people on each side of every step (there were 3 levels to this place!) quietly reading various books, and even more people seated on chairs, the floor, or just standing up reading between aisles. Even though I couldn’t read 99.9% of the books there, I was fascinated by the whole environment and probably could have spent hours there. It boggled my mind that many of the books in center feature tables were American and English books translated into Chinese. We saw many business-related books (which excited us nerd business majors from Miami!) and historical books as well as school books. I want to ask a Chinese friend when they get back if all students in the city use the same books in lower-level grades. It looked to be that there were books of various subjects for students, but in the MASSES. Like 4-5 tables stacked high full of the same book.

Tonight I figured out how to get internet via Leslie’s wireless connection and set up my Vonage. I think I will be able to sleep a little better tonight knowing that the Vonage will work and my friends and family from home can call me at no cost to them. I can tell being the only Americans around is going to get lonely at times (I have a better appreciation for why people congregate with people from the same country as them back in the States now) and hearing from friends and family will definitely help that feeling. We have been e-mailing the other Journey East teachers tonight and are trying to meet up with them in the next couple of days before some people start teaching again.

2 more days to the weekend – we still need to plan lessons so that is top priority right now. Off to bed – I read by candle light since I have yet to get a bedside lamp. I can’t fall asleep w/o reading before bed, but get too lazy to get up and turn off the light (slash it wakes me back up) so blowing candles out seems like the better option. Too bad the light isn’t near as good, lol. I think it’s time for a bedside lamp…

Friday 9/12/08

2008-09-12T22:17:00.000+08:00

Today was the first day we truly had nothing to do and we took advantage of it. I think I am finally starting to adjust to the time difference and am at the tail end of the jet lag. However, my rock hard bed is still comfortable and does not keep me up at night, so I am either still in the jet lag more than I think, or am getting used to the new mattress?! I hope it is the later of the two.

For the 2nd day in a row Leslie and I managed to leave our apartments in the heart of the lunch rush-hour so we ran into much foot traffic on the street by our apartments and on the way to the bus station (by station here they mean a designated place on the sidewalk!). Hunan Normal University plays music during the lunch hour, this is how we know we’ve been leaving at the same time every day, lol. We went to the ‘walking street’ in the city center today and explored a different part of the city. For lunch we decided to go back to the food court Eimely, her brother, and Stefanie took us to the other day because Leslie was craving a certain pastry we had. Luckily we knew the drill of how to pay at this place and could not get taken advantage of (one of our biggest problems at the moment not knowing the language)! There are so many shops all around the city and where we live, it is incredible. Every shop is much smaller than stores in the states, so it seems much more congested due to the sheer number.

It is weird to think that Leslie and I are representing all of America to many people we run across in Changsha since there are so few foreigners. I can’t help but feel that I have to smile at everyone so we make a good impression upon our country. We continue to have random people come up to us and speak English with us, or hear little kids on the street say an excited “Hello!” when we walk by. At home there is so much diversity I can never tell if someone is a foreigner unless I hear them speak, but here all we need to do is exist and we scream “Foreigner!” The pointing and stares, however, are starting to get old. I can’t help but feel like a freak show after a while. Brock told us at orientation that he got very sick of the pointing and would start pointing back and asking them how it felt, but I a. do not now enough Chinese to do that and b. am not THAT bothered by it at the moment.

Wal-Mart is becoming our new favorite store (never though I’d say that). It seems that every day we keep remembering basic things we need for our apartment, and Wal-Mart is the only place we know (at least for now) that has all those things we need. Today we had to get cleaning supplies for our kitchen and some things to make our apartments look like someone actually lives in them – the bare white walls are getting to me! We survived the insanity that is Wal-Mart. All on our own!

Since we had no plans for dinner for the first time we decided to cook ourselves our first meal. We cooked dumplings (okay, they were frozen and we just had to boil them), sautéed onions and red peppers (of which we were very proud we knew how to pick out and buy at the store…the peppers look different here) and had some dragon fruit! Now all we need to do is learn to use the rice cooker and buy spices so our food tastes like that of Eimely and our Chinese counterparts. We also bought some Great Wall wine…for 20 yuan we each got a bottle. For those of you math impaired persons, it comes to about $3.25. The onions (2) and peppers (5) combined cost a whopping $1! I am beginning to realize how cheap things are over here – hopefully we can save most of our salary for travels!

Oh yea, we got paid last night, all in cash. I need to find a bank to deposit my money because I am not comfortable with the amount of cash I have laying around my apartment! Since everyone is going home this weekend we are on our own for the next 3 days. We might try to venture to the coffee shop or meet up with other Journey East teachers for the holiday assuming we can get a hold of one another.

Stereotypes of Americans

2008-09-12T22:16:00.000+08:00

I asked my students on the first day of class to discuss any and all stereotypes of Americans. Leslie (who did the same exercise with her class) and I bought found their answers very interesting, so here goes:

Easy to make friends; Efficient; Power politics; Intelligent; Creative; Adventuresome; Wisdom (Wise); Optimistic; Confident; Outgoing; Kind; Romantic; Open; Wrong to start war in Afghanistan; Do anything they want; Tall; Independent; Easy going; Developed; Free; Modern; Athletic; Brave; Proud; Strong; Convenient; Full of Energy; Humorous; Lyrically (Lyrical); Crazy; Too many crimes; Rich (Wealthy); Successful education; Explore

I also asked them what they want to learn in their oral English class this semester so when Leslie and I are planning lessons we can cater them to their true interests. The Chinese students as a whole have a greater desire for knowledge than American students (in my opinion at least) and knew much more about American & English culture than I anticipated they would! This weekend we must roughly plan out lessons for the entire semester and give it to the school on Tuesday. Since we have a long weekend I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to plan it all out.

This Monday is the mid-autumn festival. At dinner last night the deputy director of Hunan Normal University, Martin, explained the holiday to us in more detail. It is the second most important holiday in China (2nd to the New Year) and sounds much like our Thanksgiving. Many of our co-workers are heading home to be with their families this weekend. They eat something called moon cake and everyone eats the same foods (hence, like Thanksgiving). Martin explained to Leslie that the moon cakes are in the shape of a circle and everyone eats around circular tables – all representing the unity of family. Moon cakes are all over the stores and we’ve seen many people carrying them around the past couple of days we’ve been in the city. They are rather expensive right now but someone told us if we go to the store the day before or day of the holiday they are dirt cheap. Hopefully we can make it to the store on Sunday or Monday to buy ourselves a moon cake and celebrate on our own.

Point in case: we had/have a 5-day weekend this weekend!

Highlight of the trip so far

2008-09-12T11:18:00.000+08:00

I don't know how I forgot about this earlier - but Wednesday night we were invited to go to KTV (aka a Karaoke bar) with some co-workers of ours at the campus where we teach. It was Lisa's birthday so she and Dan Dan met up with us in the center of the city. At this time Eiemely and Vivian still didn't trust us getting anywhere on our own so they took us to a spot to meet up with Dan Dan and Lisa - we felt like children of divorced parents meeting on neutral ground for the exchange - pretty humorous! Continuing the VIP treatment, we bypassed all lines and adorable little Lisa ushered us all upstairs to a private Karaoke room. 10 of her friends and me and Leslie sat in this room all night and sang Karaoke. They take it SO seriously over here and all actually had good voices. The first time we saw alcohol since we left the states, Leslie and I were so ready to enjoy ourselves out on the town.

Next came in a huge tray of Tiger beer (never seen it before?!) and Bacardi Breezers...yes! Apparently Americans are alcoholics because they all only had a bottle or two and called it a night - we're going to have to get used to this.

When I think of karaoke I think Brickstreet Monday nights rocking out to all our favorite sing-along songs. NO, not here in China. Every song they sang was straight off the playlist of 'Love songs with Delilah' in the evening. They sang duets together, guys and girls...it was HILARIOUS. Our goofy tall co-worker, Jio Jio, or Joe, was there also and was the life of the party. On the karaoke machine there was an option to make clapping and booing sounds. Joe found this incredibly entertaining and played them repeatedly after he sang a song!

Leslie and I didn't understand a word of the songs they sang, but we did sing a few songs. We started off with Rhiana's 'Take a bow' then moved onto some 'We will rock you' (per Joe's request). Thinking we were off the hook for the rest of the night we finished our drinks and ate some birthday cake and learned the Chinese version of the line dance (we're going to tear up the dance floor when we come back - watch out!). Then right before we left we were forced to sing one more song.

Celine Dion?! Really?! I think I should have been kicked out of Choir in middle school had it not been a required class. But we couldn't refuse, so Les and I busted out some "My heart will go on." THANK GOODNESS I did show them that I have the video camera because I would never come out of my shell again if that was caught on tape. They told us how great our duet was but I can tell polite white lies even through the language barrier! Besides our embarassment it was a night to remember, that's for sure. I think we will have to practice our singing skills because KTV is the epitome of nightlife here!

Changsha is gorgeous at night - so many lights all over and just as many people. It feels a bit like Times Square in NYC, and we're not even in one of the biggest cities! For any of you who come visit, you will also have to freshen up on your singing skills because you WILL go to KTV with us :) Haha we also got a few phone numbers of our new friends and had one hit on us! Quentin said he wants to practice his English so he wanted our number, but his friends harassed him for wanting them for another reason. I must share a few texts because I haven't laughed that hard in quite a while:
"Nice to meet you. And I'm a ashamed boy, but I like English very much."

Next text an hour or so later (I was in bed.): "If you're asleep don't reply me. Just say "good night" to you, and have a sweet dream!"

I think he wanted the phone number for other reasons than to learn English - awkward! Too bad I was a good 6 inches taller than him. Many more text messages to come later - Eimely sends us some of the cutest texts telling us that it is cold out so we should dress warmly, and we got some wishing us a happy Teacher's Day! Time to go explore the city again - hoping we don't get lost on bus 202 for 2+ hours again today!!

Thursday 9/11/08 - We finally met other Americans!

2008-09-12T10:50:00.000+08:00

As I write this I am creeped out because not alone in my apartment. I had an encounter with a rather large black bug in my kitchen as I was getting ready for bed. The kind soul I am, I decided to let him stay in there until the morning when someone less kind than me can kill him…er…set him free. Ah it gives me the willies – I may not sleep so well tonight! Les has an ant problem so we’ve decided we can either a. do noting or b. let my big creepy crawler eat her ants to get fatter then fry him, put him on a stick, then eat him. I mean…When in Rome. Ha!

Today was quite the adventurous day. Like little birds first learning to fly without the help of the mother, Leslie and I found our way to the bus station (a good 10-15 minute walk – 10 minutes downhill, 15 uphill – we are so out of shape, haha) and onto the right bus into the city! We decided today was going to be our first (probably of many) tourist day. As if we don’t stick out enough already being the only 2 foreigners around where we live, And the fact that we are giants compared to the average Chinese citizen, we decided to take photos and video of our bus ride and the scenery into the city! The students by us on the bus definitely got some laughs out of us and we were probably the talk of the lunch table today, but we’re learning to tune out the Chinese (it is hard when I understand it so well and all) and ignore the comments about us.

Main mission of the day: Find (and eat at) Pizza Hut, and get cash exchanged at a bank. One of two missions was accomplished. Sadly, we did not try mission 2 before mission 1, or it would have been success all around. Let me start by saying that Pizza Hut here is some sort of luxury restaurant here in China. We were exicted to sit down the the A/C and eat some pizza…until we opened the menu! It is mighty expensive to import pizza to China apparently! We were both low on Chinese cash (yuan, RMB, quai (s?) – they use it all interchangeably to talk about their currency) and our credit cards do not work over here so we had to get up and walk out before we ordered. Talk about sticking out like sore thumbs and being stupid Americans – Again! Naturally we settled for KFC. We have been good about trying lots of Chinese food thus far but couldn’t help but crave some good old country fried chicken today! After trying to speak broken Chinese they gave up on us and handed us a picture menu at which we pointed to what we wanted. Ah to be treated like we’re ignorant is a feeling we are just going to have to get used to.

Eimely would be happy to know that not only did we make it to the bus, on the bus, and to the center of the city with no problems, but we also managed to exchange cash at the bank and find an ATM that accepts our card and let us draw money out! Gleeful we looked in the shops for a little while then decided to get back onto our bus and head home in time to shower before our dinner tonight.

Good luck only comes in small portions when your cell phone does not have enough 8’s in it I guess (ha sorry had to add that … it took us 20 minutes to pick cell phone numbers because Eimely and our driver wanted us to have lucky numbers. Heck, I just wanted the one that was easiest to remember. They won, I still do not know my phone number, and it is not lucky, haha!) Anyways, we got on the bus at the same station we got on at thinking it was like the Miami Metro which makes a circle back to its point of origin at all times. Well…we got back where we needed to be…2+ hours later! Turns out that bus stops at Every station in Changsha…and we were just at the beginning when we got on. We ended up all the way at a bus station in a part of town we’d never been to before, then had to go All the way back! The driver had to have been amused by us as we were on there for a looong time. However, we got to see practically all of Changsha by bus (and found a million more places we want to explore) and definitely learned our lesson: Cross the street when getting back on the bus so it is going the right way!

We met Michelle, the teacher who lived in my apartment before me and taught my students last year. She is now teaching Phd students at Hunan Normal University’s main campus. The dinner was at a really nice Chinese restaurant and not only did we meet Michelle, but a few other faculty high up in the foreign relations office, but also 3 other teachers from America. One has 3 little kids and lives with his wife and kids over here, and the other lives close by to the family w/the kids. They have all been here for several years and speak fluent Chinese. The kids were adorable and fun to be around, and it was nice talking to other Americans (besides Les, but she doesn’t really count) for the first time since our arrival. They had some great advice for us and we exchanged information.

On the way home we stopped at a coffee shop that was just opened by a couple (American man, Chinese wife) as a place for foreigners (mainly Americans and Koreans in this area) to congregate. They have brownies, Coffee (obviously), apple pie, smoothies, and other food from home! I think Leslie and I will be frequent customers very soon. As much as we want to immerse ourselves in the culture, it gets lonely being the only Americans, and exhausting speaking through the language barrier 24/7. They also told us of a school in the center of the city that does one-on-one Chinese lessons. I guess it is on the expensive side but has a phenomenal reputation so we are going to look into that. After being around all those Americans who spoke Chinese my desire to learn it became even more pressing.

Eimely took us on a detour to the bus station along the river. China at night is one of the most beautiful and fascinating things I have ever seen. Paris is still my favorite city, but I do not think I can call it the city of lights any longer. Every building is lit up at night and since we live on the opposite side of the river as the center of the city, we have an amazing view! The bridges are all lit up and you can walk all along the river. Changsha is much bigger than I realized. During the day the smog is still pretty heavy so it is hard to see the vastness of the city; however, at night, the air was much more clear and you could see just how big the span of the city is! I took some video and pictures and can’t wait to put them up online (when I get internet…won’t be until next Tuesday now…UGH I am getting impatient). I am very glad I got the video camera because for sights like the city from the river, I think the video camera captures the essence much better than photos! Eimely tells us next up we have to climb the Yulue mountain at night so we can get an even better view!

Getting Into the Groove 9/10/08

2008-09-10T18:21:00.000+08:00

Trying to be über-on-time this morning we freaked out and thought we had missed our bus. Turns out being 20 minutes early is a little much and just causes more problems! There are multiple busses and the one driving away when we arrived at 7:30am was to another campus. I felt terrible because I am pretty sure I woke up Eimely, but now we know when the bus truly comes (7:50am). I still can not get over the traffic laws here, or lack there of. It is perfectly acceptable to make a sharp turn at the last minute, causing everyone behind you (and in a country of 1.3 billion, that is a lot of people behind you) to slam on breaks. Now I know why cars have horns on them. I think those yellow and white lines on the pavement are sheer decoration. We did, however, see our first policeman on the road today. Not sure what he was doing, but he was there. It was very difficult to see across the river today – smog was very dense this morning. It is a shame how smoggy Changsha is because, from what we saw yesterday when it was a bit more clear, it is beautiful – mountain on one side (we actually live partially up the mountain), river below on the way to the heart of the city. We are thinking that perhaps when it cools down and the air is not so insanely humid the smog will somewhat dissipate and we’ll be able to take some cool pictures to show you all the vastness that is Changsha.

It baffles my mind how many apartment complexes are being build in and around the city right now. And their apartment complexes put ours to shame – think Heritage Commons at Miami + 10 or so floors to each building x 20. I kid you not. Eimely told us that many people from the Hunan province want to come to Changsha for economic reasons, hence all the new housing. With so many people, they really have no choice but to go up, and very close to one another. Changsha is a very business-driven city; there are very few factories in the area. However, Eimely tells us there are a few surrounding cities with many factories, and it is from those factories that Changsha receives the smog and pollution. Aside from the many cultural differences, Changsha is much like Columbus – the capital city of the region (state, province) with many people moving in for business.

Being our first morning up early (well, out of our apartments so early) we got to see the elderly Chinese women practicing Tai Chi on the basketball courts. There are a good 8-10 basketball courts right outside of our apartment building, half of which were full this morning with either Tai Chi participants or little kids playing basketball. It is all beginning to make sense why the Chinese are so tiny!! We also got to converse with (okay, said “Hello” to) a little Chinese girl. They are so stinkin’ cute!!

First Day of Teaching 9/9/08

2008-09-10T18:19:00.001+08:00

First off, Felicia, we went to Wal-Mart (again!) today and James Blunt was playing on the loud speaker. I could not have felt more at home circa Oxford Sophomore year!! Oh yea except that there were a million (literally) Chinese people around, hehe. Other Westerner sightings today: 4 people. We first ran into a western man in Mc Donald’s (go figure?!) then 3 very lost Americans in Wal-Mart. Over here you can’t help but smile and feel much empathy when you make contact with another Westerner. It’s like Nemo going back home or something heart-warming like that.

Today was a day of many firsts. I taught my first class, went to McDonalds for the first time, Eimely gave us our first Chinese lesson, my first near-death Taxi experience…yet somehow I still have a smile on my face!?! ‘The workers’ came to get Leslie hooked up to the internet today but Alex tells me it will be another 2-3 days before mine gets set up. I am not sure why mine is much more difficult than Leslies, but there isn’t much I can do about it. We were finally able to check e-mail and let people know we are okay today. It appears our parents were both really worried and had contacted Keith and one another as to our whereabouts and general well-being. As I said before, it was a very sickening feeling not being able to let our loved ones know we are okay, but hopefully they understand we did try! I cried over being home-sick for the first time today after Les got her internet and got to call her family while I was stuck helpless still. It is very much so jealousy, but sucks that she can stay up at night and write e-mails and Skype family and friends and I have to wait another couple of days…definitely does not help the home-sickness but I guess it’s all a part of the experience.

After getting internet Eimely and her ‘friend’ (I think it is her boyfriend but we still aren’t sure, lol, and are afraid to ask) took us to lunch. Her ‘friend’ got us Chinese milk + tea to drink…another new favorite beverage of mine. It had little berries and tapioca pudding strips in the bottom of it. It is only 3 yuan so I think I might be living off of that for a while!

First Days 9/7/08-9/8/08

2008-09-10T18:18:00.001+08:00

It is the end of our second day and I’ve already experienced so many firsts. Let’s see – first, I ate stinky tofu, a Changsha staple. I did not really care for it but ate 3 pieces anyways (mom, your rule from childhood still haunts me, thanks a lot!). We had this right before we went wall marketing … aka ‘Wal-Marting’! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have not one, but TWO Wal-Marts here in Changsha. I stand corrected for those of you who I complained that I would not be able to ‘just go to Wal Mart and pick up what I need the first day when I get there.’ It was the second day…sorry! Haha I was amazed that they have Wal-Mart here. It is rather sad, actually. But none-the-less it was a hilarious and overwhelming experience! It is much like ours but with a million Chinese people all over the place. We picked up a bunch of essentials for our apartment to make us feel more at home and enable us to cook and do laundry. We saw one other westerner at Wal-Mart (still the only other westerner we have encountered since we parted ways with the group in the airport) after which we were asked if we could tell where she was from. I guess the Chinese can tell what province one comes from by the way they look, and Eimely’s brother assumed we could tell where she comes from based on the way she looked. Too bad we only got a glimpse of her, but from the way she was dressed she looked like she came straight from Woodstock circa the 60s and had not showered since then either. Oy vey!

Sensory overload is an understatement for our first 2 days. We have been surrounded by others pretty much non-stop since we arrived. Everyone is kind beyond words and so worried about our well-being and comfort level. The people here are truly amazing. We have had several little girls on the street come up to us in awe (they have probably never seen a westerner before). One told her mom (and Eimely translated for us) that we were beautiful. Actually, we get that a lot. Changsha is big, but not a very western city, so we are few and far between and are considered beautiful (maybe just because we are a rarity!?) It is very flattering, I must say. At the food court where we ate lunch I had a man come up to me and ask to take his picture with us. If we wave at the people staring at us we are usually greeted with a huge grin in return. It is phenomenal what their reactions are to us. We tried some great authentic (well, as authentic as a food court gets) Chinese cuisine. Since we do not know what to order, one of the students, Stefanie, basically ordered all of our food for the day. I guess it is much better that way, I probably would have stuck to the noodles and pot stickers if I didn’t have a personal helper!! The food is great all-in-all. I have a new favorite drink: B- juice (sp?) It was served hot and is the consistency of warm milk but tastes nothing like it. I am on a mission to find some B-juice to have in my apartment.

On the note of food, they are all so Tiny over here - I have only seen 2 fat Chinese people thus far! I feel rather large compared to all of the people around me. However, I now know why. They eat so healthy and it is just habit for them – fruit with each meal…and their portions are so much less. No one sits until all of the food is eaten clean off the plate. If we are all full, we just get up and leave – no leftovers and to-go containers! Leslie and I might come back in the best shape of our lives thanks to the Chinese diet (or one can only hope!)

Stefanie came with us to dinner last night (she ordered, we paid…it was not expensive in US$ terms, but based on how much we make in a month, we can not eat like that every month or we will be poor). I still have to get used to some of the cultural nuances. They think we are very rich Americans – that we want the best of the best of everything we buy and eat. Little do they know we want to try to average Chinese things and way of living, and came over here for it to be cheap! After being around people constantly catering to us and asking us questions about life in America and ourselves for the whole day we were Drained! Once again, I did not notice the hard bed one bit at night.

As I write this we still do not have Internet access or a land phone line. I always knew I was a bit of a phone junkie, but not having any access to a phone a. confirms that and b. makes me understand why I was such an addict. It is a very strange and uncomfortable feeling not being able to reach family and friends to let them know I am okay. I can only imagine how freaked out my mom is right now – sorry mom! I do, however, have a cell phone now! Today, Eimely (aka Emily, their spelling of names here is very interesting) took us to the other campus (turns out there are 5 at the school) where we will be teaching. We met Mr. Zhou, or Alex (everyone has English names and Chinese names and as much as I try, I think the Chinese ones might be too difficult to remember at first), and he gave us our schedule. Our school is SO accommodating! Right now, Leslie and I will split 10 teaching hours a week (6 for me, 4 for Leslie). They wanted to give one of us just 1 day of classes, and the other 2 days, but we are NOT ready to be separated just yet so we are splitting the classes on Monday and Wednesdays. They thought it was an inconvenience for us but we tried to tell them we do not mind at all! I do not know what I’d do without Leslie here with me!!

We have blocked classes so we’ll teach 1.5 hour classes of 35 sophomores. The school counts our travel time to the other campus (about 45 minutes each way) as hours worked!! Once the freshmen are done with orientation (in a month!) we will have more hours – probably double. But still, we thought we’d be teaching 16+ hours a week! Looks like we’ll need to find a hobby to take up our time…that, or we’ll have Lots of time to wander around the city, learn Chinese, and travel. Oh, and we only have class M,T,W ☺ 4 day weekends for a month might spoil us to the point of no return. I am not sure how much our schedule will change once the freshmen start classes, but I am sure that the school will be accommodating so we are not worried. Now we can start planning trips! We met the president of the university today – kind of cool! He said he will take us out to dinner sometime this week but that he is very busy and apologized for our brief encounter.

We registered with the police today so we are official – and we also bought Cell phones (I spent the equivalent of about $60 on phone plus 500 minutes…not bad at all!) The cell phones are just for use within China for Leslie and I to call one another and our fellow American teacher friends. Also, Eimely is on speed dial – she said we can call her any time we get lost or need help. If we have one Angel in China with us right now it is her – I do not know what we’d do without her.

I am exhausted now but will describe the city and campus and apartment later. Simply put, we are not living the high life by any means and to be quite honest, it is very humbling. I am excited to live on the bare minimum for a year – maybe I will be a much less gluttonous person when I return home, or I hope so. We are also not in Shanghai or Beijing (obviously) – our town is an interesting mix of the modernity of the Western influence, with true China.

Please keep the e-mails coming. Once I get internet it will be very nice to hear from friends and family and I promise I will respond to all correspondences when I finally get internet access.

The Journey 9/5/08-9/6/08

2008-09-10T18:07:00.000+08:00

Oh what a couple of days we had getting here. From when I left Columbus until we landed in Changsha and arrived at our new homes, I had been traveling for over 48 hours! A walking Zombie was an understatement of my state of being. Despite the rock hard box I will be calling a bed for the next year, I slept like a baby. Note to self: sarcasm does not translate well across language barriers, at least it will not until I learn some Chinese. This will take some getting used to in my daily conversation!

So, my predictions of the LA ‘hotel’ we stayed at were true. After traveling all around Europe and staying at some very interesting hostels, such as the $8/night one in Prague, I thought I’d about seen it all. Wrong! We had not even left the country yet and were staying in quite the shady establishment. Maybe Journey East was just trying to get us ready for the living conditions in China. Leslie and I shared a 2 bedroom hotel suite (for lack of better word, that makes it sound so luxurious, ha) that was not clean upon our arrival. Although I have no idea where we were staying besides the fact that it was about 10 minutes away from the airport, we were definitely in the Ghetto. Me in my preppy pink shorts and black turtleneck (please refrain from judgment, I know what the weather was like – the plane gets cold!) and Leslie in her preppy dress definitely stuck out like sore thumbs while wandering around on the street looking for food. Once again, preparing us for being the minority and getting lots of stares for a year. We found a Jack in the Box and decided to try it since we don’t have any back in the Midwest. Our lunch wasn’t bad at all! We wandered back and had some interesting characters strike up conversations with us at the hostel – one man was staying there for a month trying to meet people. Needless to say after a long day we decided to be recluses and nap.

We finally met Keith and Brock from Journey East after much communication with them all summer. For dinner the entire group congregated in the ‘restaurant’ to meet one another and have a free meal and drinks. When you need a drink most it is surprisingly difficult to get one!! Leslie and I wanted to start boozing to ease all the stress but decided we might be looked down upon as the crazy ones of the group (we should probably wait a few days for them to realize who will bring the party!). After dinner we went to a bungalow and had orientation and formally met the group. The people traveling with us are all so nice and seem like a great bunch – we will definitely be friends here in China since there are so few westerners! Orientation calmed my nerves completely – I had been stressing about the many unknown factors and unanswered questions as many of you probably know! Brock speaks fluent Chinese and told us 2 important things to say in Chinese: the name of our school and an over-the-counter medicine that cures all colds and the flu. Haha I loved that those were the two things we learned in our quick Chinese lesson.

Up early Friday morning (my birthday!) we piled our bags (I got all of my belongings into 2 checked bags and 2 (rather big) carry-ons!) into the shuttle and headed to the airport. Seeing my juggle all my bags had to look like something out of a movie – I’m glad we all provided entertainment to our fellow travelers at LAX. [Sidenote: I got made fun of for how dressed up I was for our 15+ hour journey to China! However, I felt like I fit in much better when we arrived in China than those in your typical American tourist clothes. But then again you all know how much I despise looking like a tourist – anywhere (haha, mom!)] No celebrity spotting, by the way. I was slightly disappointed. Anyways, we had no security problems and the day (and a half) was a breeze. All of our flights were only half full so we spread out and napped across seats. Leslie and I made friends on the plane, myself with a business man from Arizona who works for Intel and is moving to Dailian (sp?) in Janurary with his family for Intel, and Leslie with a Chinese man who has lived in Seattle for 8 years, but traveled all throughout China before he moved to the U.S. for work. We got some great travel tips and e-mail addresses if we are ever in their towns! With such an empty plane we got up and walked around and chatted with the other people in our group throughout the flight – who would have thought 12 hours on a plane would go by so fast! We tried to go see what first class on the 2nd floor looked like but apparently we were not VIP status (obviously someone missed the message of our arrival, I guess it can be forgiven this once).

The Beijing airport was SO quiet it shocked me. For all the people that were around it was eerie how silent it was. We landed the day the Paralympics started so there are still lots of Beijing 2008 signs around. It was cool to see some of the Paralympics athletes and their families arriving in Beijing – we saw quite a few. Through miscommunication with Keith about our flight to Changsha (of which we got the information just the day before in LA) we missed our scheduled flight to Changsha. Luckily there were 7 of us, and we must have looked pathetic as all being, so the manager of China Southern Airlines waived the fee to put us on the later flight (the one we thought we were on all along – so no delay in scheduling to us).

Upon arrival in Changsha we parted ways with the group and were greeted by Eimely, our FAO (Foreign Affairs Official, aka our personal translator for the first couple of weeks and the person who shows us around the city to get acclimated) and another man from the school, as well as the driver. Fitting all of our massive luggage into a tiny van was a riot to watch, but we managed. Having long legs is not going to be the most convenient thing for my year in China. I might look at having them pared down slightly (ha, I wish!)

It was dark when we arrived so we could not tell what our school looked like, and quite frankly I did not give a darn at that point – I was so tired I thought I might fall asleep standing up at any moment! Thank goodness Eimely was SO nice and helpful! She and the other man helped carry our luggage for us (I reside on the 3rd floor, Leslie on the 2nd, obviously no elevators!) We each have our own 2 bedroom apartment with a living room, bathroom (shower and sink are separate from the toilet and washing machine – I will post pictures later) and a kitchen. Our toiled is a western one, thank goodness. Ah I almost forgot – I bypassed my first squatter experience by using the handicapped toilet in the Changsha airport. I was not quite ready to be that fully immersed in Chinese culture. Eimely told us we could sleep in the first morning, but Leslie and I both set alarms for 9ish so we would not seem like the lazy Americans the first day. It is all about first impressions, after all.

Getting ready to leave

2008-09-04T02:35:00.001+08:00

I am about packed up and ready to leave bright and early tomorrow morning for orientation in Los Angeles. We do not leave for China until Friday morning, but I am leaving my phone at home so today is the day to say goodbyes! I am not sure how long it will be before I can set up my new phone in China, so e-mail will be the best (well, the only) way to get in touch with me for a couple of weeks. Leslie and I have made a million and a half phone calls back and forth in the past few days, but I think we have remembered everything we need by now. Keep in touch!