Oriental Observer

Blog Break

2009-10-18T10:24:00.003+08:00

So I've discovered that grad school isn't very conducive to keeping up with a blog. Plus I don't take nearly as many photos as I did while I was in China (I know, I'll probably regret that). Plus, my life is a lot less adventurous on this side of the world. Any blog post that I would write about my life now would probably just be related to what I'm studying and I don't want to be a boring blogging (I think what I'm studying is interesting, but the rest of the world might not find it so enticing). So, to anyone still checking my poor neglected blog, I think that posts are going to be sparse. I'm not giving up on my blog completely; however, I think I'm on blog sabbatical. But, feel free to send me an email or a Facebook note.

Movin' On In

2009-08-30T07:02:00.003+08:00

Getting moved into my apartment in Bloomington. Dad making good use of his truck, some rope, and his redneck packing skills. (Mom refused to sit on top of all that in a rocker as dad drove down the highway)
Cleaning and getting stuff organized in my apartment. Max Magee pulled a trailer and helped get my larger stuff down. He is also responsible for me having the cutest small vacuum ever. (sorry these pictures are slightly out of focus . . . I think my camera was on some odd setting)
Mom helped me do lots of cleaning and organizing, especially in the bathroom and kitchen.
Max taking a break. He had just finished installing knobs on my kitchen cabinets helping avoid future broken fingernails, for which I am very thankful.
Since my furniture was red, it clashed with the already red wall (not to mention there were spots on the wall in a different shade of red from someone trying to cover up holes or something). Dad was skeptical of the brown, but I like it and think it goes nicely with my Chinese/Asian hodgepodge decor.
My apartment is a work in progress as far as decorating is concerned. In a few weeks when I've finished painting and gotten some more pictures on the walls, I'll try to take some "after" photos to post. The apartment is small but good enough for me and the location is nice. I'm about a 10 - 15 minute walk from almost anything on campus. Since parking on campus is not an option, being within walking distance is a big plus for where I live. Check back with me after a series of rainy days or after the first Indiana blizzard to see if my opinion on this has changed.

Together with Family

2009-08-25T06:47:00.002+08:00

Last Saturday, my cousin Ben got married. I was glad to finally be on this side of the world for a family event. I missed my cousin Michaela's wedding back in March. It's hard to believe my "little" cousins are getting married! (I'm the oldest of the grandchildren). Here are a few pictures of my family and my cousins. Sadly though, neither Kara or I got a picture of the bride or groom together at the reception!

My Grandma and all eleven of her grandchildren. This is the first photo we've all taken together since we were all together for a piano recital I did back in 1999! The guys got a little hidden back behind all of us girls. Guess we should have put the guys in the front!

Visit to N'ville

2009-08-08T12:10:00.006+08:00

I met back up with Katie on Sunday and we drove together down to Nashville, TN to be reunited with all our "awesome" Yichang friends. It'd been about nine months since we'd seen Amy and Brad and a little over a year since we'd seen Beth. Happy to be reunited on this side of the world.
Fun to get to stay in the "House of Awesome" and get some quality porch time in (love the rocking, collapsible lawn chair and the hammock!)
Corn hole (which might mistakenly be called Beanbag toss by us newbies) was a new experience for me. Seems to be a popular Southern lawn game. Brad and I took on Katie and Justin. I was no good. Katie get the much improved award and won the game for her and Justin at the end with two bags in the hole and one on the board.
We were there for Brad's birthday but the celebration was low key since Brad had to spend almost the whole day studying for his finals for his summer school classes. But we did go get some amazing Greek food which we took to the park and enjoyed the swings. We then returned to the House of Awesome for grasshopper pie, lots of glasses of milk, and some good porch time.
Getting ice cream at The Pied Piper--a fun independently run ice cream shop in Nashville. I got Trailer Trash 2.0 which was chocolate ice cream with about every kind of candy in it you can imagine--M&Ms, Snickers, Crunch, Oreos, and much more. Other great flavor to choose from included Some Like It Hot (had Cinnamon and Cheyenne pepper in it!), Dough-Re-Me, Melon Dramatic, and Banana Fanna Fo Pudding. Fun place!
Other fun activities included helping Beth organize her classroom library, visiting the Parent Teacher Store (where Amy works) and lunch at Chick-fil-a, Tacos in a bag, watching The Brad open gifts (if you know Brad, you know what I mean :), 6:00 a.m. Zumba class at the YMCA, a ride on Beth's Vespa, and pool time at Beth's parents house.

Rice Visit

2009-08-07T10:47:00.009+08:00

Last Wednesday the Rice family came to Coatesville! They've been in the States this summer traveling around to visit family and friends. I was so happy that they could come visit and that we could have a chance to catch up and see each other in America. To make it even better Katie and Kristy came out from Illinois. A China reunion in Coatesville!

The Rices talking about China and giving a presentation at C.M.B.C.
While standing up in front of everyone, Grace and Esther found the air-conditioning vent to be quite entertaining. Everyone else found them quite entertaining and adorable in their Chinese outfits :)
Group shot - Rice family, Kim, Katie, Kristy, and Dad and Mom
Having dessert and coffee at our house afterward while recounting stories of Mr. and Mrs. Tomato Head. Brian even had family from Terra Haute, IN who came to visit and hear their presentation.
Dad reading Dr. Seuss to Esther and Grace. Practicing for when he's a grandpa (which will be in March by the way, my sister and brother-in-law are expecting a baby!).

Always fun when Katie comes for a visit! She went on from my house to see friends in OH and then we met up again and made a trip down to Nashville, TN to see Brad, Amy, and Beth our awesome Yichang friends.

Stand in Line, Get Your Game On

2009-07-26T05:41:00.005+08:00

On Monday, I went to the downtown branch of the Indianapolis Public Library and checked out a stack of books about China. I was on the history-travel-biography floor (by far my favorite of the 6 floors, if only the cafe was on that floor instead of the first floor) and I didn't make it any farther than the Chinese history and travel sections before I had as many books as I could carry. I figure I need to get in as much "fun" reading as I can before I start school next month, after which I'm sure my reading time will be fully consumed by dense, inscrutable scholarly discourses which I will be expected not only to read but also to give intelligent opinions and criticisms about. Anyways, here's an amusing excerpt from one of the books I picked up about standing in lines in China. I've tried to explain Chinese lines (or the lack thereof) before, but this author gives a humorous and accurate description of the sport of Chinese Line Standing.

"Lining up in China, I soon discovered, was played as a contact sport. Men and women, young and old, cigarettes dangling from their lips, used their elbows and shoulders to muscle their way to the cabs. With knobby elbows in my ribs, strange hands on my arms, and my back feeling the amassing weight of the hundreds who had not yet slinked ahead of me, I began to ponder the idea of personal space, and after being shimmied aside by a grandmother who could not have been more than three and a half feet tall, concluded that no, such a concept is evidently alien to the Chinese. And so I, too, began to dig in against the line hoppers, flinging my shoulders to contest the passage of three businessmen behind me. A shoulder here, a foot there, soon I was moving like a heaving linebacker. Some fifty people had managed to bypass me in the scrum, but now that I knew that lining up and getting bruised were intertwined, I was determined not to let this troika of businessmen pass me by. If I hadn't begun to regard the queue as a forum for physical sport, it is quite likely that I would still be there today, for lining up in China is not for the meek. " --Lost on Planet China, by J. Maarten Troost

It might be hard to comprehend if you've never experienced it, but this really is exactly what you have to do. Katie and I would work as a team--one of us would "box out" while the other pushed up to the front (I remember doing that especially at train stations) all the while shouting warnings to each other: "Watch out for Grandma over there! Hey, they're trying to send their kid up to the front since he's smaller! Don't let that guy behind you stick his money on the counter and order first!"

The other day I was eating at Chick-fil-a with dad and mom and was amazed to see dozens of people waiting to be served but no one pushing. A line like "Oh, were you here first? You go ahead." would never be heard in China. Before the Olympics, there were "Practice standing in line" days on the 11th of every month. I've come to learn that I can accept and forgive a lot in the name of culture, but standing in lines (and not hacking and spitting) is something that I think should be a common courtesy no matter where you're from.

Experiencing Everest

2009-07-18T04:29:00.008+08:00

Last week, I met my college roommate Hillery at King's Island, an amusement park in Ohio. Hillery had her two kids with her and also two nephews and a cousin. Since Hillery's baby is only 6 months, she needed to go to the "Baby Care Center" to feed him a couple times during the day. One time while Hillery was feeding Micah, I asked the cousin, a sweet 13-year old girl named Liz, if she wanted to go ride something while we waited to meet back up with Hillery. Liz was extremely timid and nervous about the rides, but finally decided she could handle a "Scrambler"-type, county fair caliber ride. While waiting in line, I tried my best to sympathize with Liz's fear (me who will ride any coaster, has been bungee jumping, and has endured hours of turbulence on Chinese domestic flights). Liz told me about going to Disney World so I asked her if she was afraid to ride the rides there.
"Oh Disney World is so much better than here so I rode lots of rides there."
Said with all the logic of a 13-year-old mind. We stood in line a few more minutes as Liz watched the swirling, octopus-like ride trying to decide if it would make her "puke" which I sincerely hoped she wouldn't do since I would be sitting next to her. Then she looked at me and asked--
"Have you ever been on Mt. Everest?"
I found this a rather random, surprising question coming from a 13-year-old.
"Yeah, actually, I have."
"Did you like it?"
"Yeah, it was an amazing experience."
A few more minutes of line standing pass.
"Well, I didn't want to ride it, but my friends, like, pushed me on it and then when I got off I thought it was totally awesome."
Ah, there's a ride at Disney called "Mt. Everest." Silly me. Adulthood and six years of living out of the country have put me slightly out of touch with the Disney scene.
"Oh, I didn't know Disney had a ride called Mt. Everest. I thought you were asking me about the actual Mt. Everest in Tibet. I've been there." (You know, most people think that's pretty cool)
To which I got a slightly confused, quizzical look from Liz, a little like the way a puppy tilts its head and listens to you but doesn't quite know what you're saying.

Later in the day, while waiting in line to ride "The Beast," the song that was playing on the P.A. system was "Oh I think it's gonna be a long, long time." The projected wait was over an hour. How fitting.

Hurray for a Honda!

2009-07-17T05:51:00.010+08:00

Thanks to my Uncle Tim and Aunt Colleen, I have a 1998 Honda Civic to drive! For being 10+ years old, it's in amazingly good shape. No exterior problems, spotless interior, barely over 100,000 miles. It's reliable and gets great gas mileage and seems perfect for me right now--especially since I got the 0 down/0 monthly payments plan (the car was given as a donation through our church with the provision that I could drive it). God has already provided so much for me since being home!

The freedom that comes with having a car was one thing that I really missed when I was in China. You can't realize how much independence a car gives you until you have to live for an extended time without one. You become dependent on public transportation--taxis, buses, trains, etc.--which is ok, but involves more time, more planning, and a lot less flexibility in whatever you're doing. Another thing about having a car is that you can carry anything. When shopping or traveling in China, I always had to remember that I had to be able to carry whatever I packed/bought. That really changes what you put in a suitcase or shopping bags. When I went on my road trip to Detroit and through Ohio a week ago, I was so happy to be able to throw in whatever I wanted for the trip. 5 pairs of shoes because I can't decide which ones I want?--Sure! Throw them all in! Can I take home the extra ironing board my aunt had for my new apartment?? No problem!--put it in the back seat!

Having said all that about being so glad to have a car, I will also say that Americans are way too dependent on cars. We as Americans will get in cars, seatbelt ourselves in, just to drive two blocks. We'll spend 20 minutes in the car so that we can go to a gym where we proceed to walk 20 minutes on a treadmill. And the sad part is that even when people want to walk or ride a bike, you can't do it in a lot of cities even though the distance isn't that far! There just aren't ways to walk across most streets and intersections. Katie said that last year when she got back from China, she tried to walk somewhere in her town and she kept getting honked at to get off the road. Since I live in a tiny little town, I've decided that I will not take my car to anywhere in town since it's all within walking distance.

Detroit - Ohio Roadtrip

2009-07-14T09:30:00.003+08:00

Last weekend I went up to my sister and brother-in-law's house for the 4th of July. We had a really great time together. I haven't gotten to spend enough time with my sister over the past 6 years and we both agree that it's time to change that. Here's a "self-portrait" that we took at the fireworks display we went to see. Love you, Kara!
After leaving Kara and John's, I did an Ohio circuit to visit family and friends that I haven't seen much of the past six years. Seems like whenever I was home and free, we couldn't work it out to get together. This time though, everything worked out perfectly. I got to spend a day with Tim and Colleen and Josh (my mom's brother, his wife and their son), a day with Beth and Mark and my three cousins (Beth is my dad's sister), a day with Carma (Carma and I lived in Yichang for two years together and were roommates the first year), and a day at King's Island with Hillery and Matt and their kiddos (Hillery was my roommate my freshman year of college). I finally got to meet Carma's husband Mack. They've been married for over two years so it was about time! And I got to see Hillery's cute kids, Amelia and Micah. I had met Amelia when she was just a few months old, but now she's two and Micah is 6 months so this was my first time to see him. Sadly, I was delinquent and didn't get photos with Tim and Colleen or Carma and Hillery. But I got photos with Beth and her kids! It was a great week on the road.

Scroll Down

2009-07-12T09:58:00.007+08:00

Last October, Dad and Mom's dog, Lucy, had four puppies. Mom and dad decided to keep one of the boy puppies since, sadly, their other mini-schnauzer, Heidi, is getting rather advanced in years. So the puppy, Tucker, is now 8 months old. I got to meet Tucker when I got home a few weeks ago and he's a fun, cute dog who still has a lot of "puppy" in him. Generally, he's well behaved; however, he still gets into mischief every now and then. Usually dad and mom keep him in a kennel when they're not home, but last Sunday afternoon while dad was at church studying and mom was taking a nap, no one realized that Tucker was unsupervised. For some reason he decided to go in my room and shred a scroll that I'd brought back from China (the scroll was rolled up and laying on the floor with a bunch of other stuff I was trying to decide where to put). Maybe he wished he had Chinese food? I wasn't home, but I heard he got in a heap of trouble for eating my scroll. I'm a little sad to lose the scroll, but not devastated, by any means. He's so cute even when he's naughty that it's impossible to stay mad at him.

The Chinese characters painted on the side of the scroll are/were Psalm 23. Dad thinks that maybe Tucker was just literally following the verse in Jeremiah 15-- "Thy words were found, and I did eat them . . ."

But, like I said, he's too cute!!
And a couple more dog photos . . .

Last week, I woke up in the morning and went out to the kitchen to eat some breakfast. When I went back to my room, this is how I found Lucy on my bed.
Then, Tucker decided to join her. This is why I make sure my door is tightly latched at night, so I don't wake up with two dogs in bed with me :)

7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Expats

2009-07-02T20:31:00.005+08:00

This will probably be more interesting to those of you who have lived in China (or anywhere overseas), but I ran across a good post the other day on one of the China blogs that I occasionally read which I wanted to share and comment about.

The article is called 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Expats

Here's a condensed list of the 7 things listed in the article (the article explains more)
1.) Comparisons - "It's not like this back home"
2.) Counting down - "What's the point of learning the language if I'm only here two years."
3.) Getting stuck in a rut - "Let's meet at the usual Starbucks."
4.) Obsessive traveling - "I have three days off, I think I'll head to Thailand."
5.) Increased alcohol consumption - "Beer is cheaper than water."
6.) Decadence - "I bought 300 DVDs since coming to China."
7.) Know it all - "That's so Chinese. I understand China."

From what I've observed this is a pretty good list of common downfalls for foreigners living in China. I will admit, I definitely did the obsessive traveling part; however, I'm not so convinced that one is a bad thing. First, since it's not as economical to try to save yuan and convert them into dollars and since traveling in Asia is affordable, I feel like you should take the chance to see new places. I don't regret any of the trips I took and learned a lot from them. And, sometimes you just really, really need a break from China.

The thing that irritates me the most when dealing with other Westerners in China are the foreigners I meet who make no effort to learn the language. I once heard a American guy say in exasperation to a Chinese friend who was struggling to express something , "I'm American! Speak English!" That same guy would probably get irritated here in the States at immigrants who didn't speak English! I figure, if you live in their country, you should speak (or at least be making a valiant attempt to speak) their language as a sign of cultural respect.

One other note on foreigners in China. After several years in China and after running into lots of other foreigners there, I decided that foreigners in China generally fit one of three categories:
1) People who are there for some kind of higher purpose such as missions or humanitarian efforts or who want to make a difference by either teaching or doing business. These people generally get along with each other despite differing purposes and they tend to make efforts to fit in with the Chinese and learn the language.
2) Travelers and wanderers who aren't quite sure where they're going in their lives and are seeking some kind of romanticized adventure, are running away from something back home, or who have ill-fated ambitions of writing a travelogue, book, or becoming a journalist. These people generally get caught up in cheap alcohol consumption and (if they're male) pick up a Chinese girlfriend who doubles as a translator. They usually don't care about learning the language. They may teach for a time, but are not teachers and schools regret hiring them.
3) Oddities who obviously didn't fit in their home country so they moved abroad. Yet, not surprisingly, their oddness followed them and they're still strange in China (or wherever). The upside is that Chinese people regard all foreigners as slightly odd or at least different, so odd is the norm and the Chinese don't really differentiate between degrees of oddness among foreigners. So their oddness might go unnoticed by the Chinese, but other foreigners will still pick up on it. These people usually make a slight attempt to learn the language, but end up butchering it so badly that their efforts are futile. I always wish these people had to wear signs written in Chinese that say, "Not everyone in my country is like me. Please don't make any generalizations based on what you've just witnessed."

So I suppose the point of this post is that if you ever go overseas, be conscientious of not only how the local people perceive you, but also of how your fellow expat friends perceive you too.

Dinner with the Chelli Family

2009-06-29T04:05:00.001+08:00

Last Friday night, I got to eat dinner with the Chelli family. I had no idea they were even in the States, but Dr. Chelli had been in contact with my dad and despite a slight miscommunication about when we were supposed to meet, we all met up at Olive Garden last Friday. Dr. Chelli heads up Berean Bible College in Bangalore, India. When my friends and I spent a month backpacking around India last year, the entire Chelli family housed and fed us and showed us around (and washed our clothes . . . we were so dirty when we got there!) when we were in Bangalore. It was a nice surprise to get to catch up with the whole family last Friday. The Chellis are doing a great work in India to train pastors and missionaries to go out and plant churches all over the country. I hope I can go back to India and see them there again someday.

Here I am with the Chelli family last Friday.
Katie, Beth, Brad, and I with Dr. Chelli and Sarah in January of 2008 when we visited Bangalore. Sarah let Katie, Beth, and me "shop" in her closet so that we could dress up in Indian outfits and we even found a Indian shirt for Brad.

Graduate Assistant

2009-06-27T11:54:00.003+08:00

This past Wednesday, I had an interview at Indiana University for a graduate assistant position in IU's East Asian Studies Center. Despite what I felt like was just an ok performance in my interview, I found out that same night that I got the job! I'll work 20 hours a week in the EASC during the '09-'10 school year and in exchange my tuition will be fully covered and I'll receive a stipend and health insurance. I'll either be helping to coordinate events and activities that the EASC sponsors or else I'll be assisting with data collection and research for the grant that the EASC has to write to receive funding from the Department of Education. I feel like this is a huge answer to prayer since I had no idea how I was going to pay for graduate school. Plus I'll be working in an area that's directly related to what I'm studying and I'll get to meet more people in that field. If you're interested to read about IU's EASC, here's the website.

Next step . . . housing in Bloomington.

Back to the USA

2009-06-23T06:21:00.004+08:00

After 20+ hours in the air, 5 airports, and more than 130 pounds of luggage to lug around (I see why they call it "luggage"), I finally made it to Detroit. Amazingly, this trip there were no delays (my last flight actually arrived in Detroit 15 minutes early) and my luggage all arrived intact. I do have to say, Hong Kong and Beijing have much nicer airports than most of our airports here in the States . . . and they're much more helpful and polite there (especially the customs officials!) and there's free wireless internet. LAX was not a fun place to have to transfer at since I had to walk for 15 minutes, pushing my luggage cart by myself across a parking lot to get from International Arrivals to Domestic Departures.

It was so nice to see dad and mom and Kara greet me at the baggage claim in Detroit. We all went out to breakfast together (cinnamon pancakes at Bob's!). Mom and Kara had an amazing Orange-themed "Welcome back to America" basket. It was full of amazingly wonderful things--Coke Zero Vanilla, granola bars, cereal, coffee, gum, post-it notes, chapstick, and enough good smelling shower stuff to make me smell like a walking fruit salad (and by the time I arrived, I really needed all that shower stuff!). It's really nice to be with family again.

I leave tomorrow to go back to mom and dad's. On Wednesday I have an interview at IU for a graduate assistant position. Pray that I can get the job! It would really be an ideal situation for me to be able to work as a G.A.

Hoping to see a lot of you soon! I'll probably have a few more posts about my last couple weeks in China.

Bye to the Kiddos

2009-06-21T13:32:00.003+08:00

Wasn't easy to say goodbye to my kiddos at the orphanage. I love those kids and the babies. We got to color and play together one more time on Friday, the day before Katie and I left Mengzi. Maybe someday I'll get to meet some of those kids in America if they get adopted internationally! I told several of my students who also regularly go to the orphanage to play with the kids that I want regular email reports about how the kids are doing. I'm also going to miss the workers. Bao A-yi ("A-yi" means "auntie") and Yang A-yi have been really sweet to Katie and me when we come to the orphanage. Bao A-yi, the lady on the right in the photo, took Katie and me about to lunch afterwards. I really will miss all of them so much.

Xia Ke 下课

2009-06-18T23:15:00.004+08:00

I got this email from one of my students. I really have enjoyed being a teaching while I've been in China. It's so nice to know that the work I have been doing is meaningful and is making a difference. I've gotten a few other sweet notes from students. The notes have meant a lot here at the end of my China teaching career. I'm not a perfect teacher, by any stretch; however, I can leave this school satisfied that I did the best I could to help these students in my classes. It's the right time to go home . . . I know that. But, I'll miss being a teacher.

Dear Kim：Thank you for your hard work this semester, we have learned a lot of useful knowledge in your classs, you are the most responsible teacher which I have met . You will leave China, I sent to you my best wishes: wish you achieving in study! Good health! Give your family the same blessing! I will miss you! Thank you for you gave me unforgettable memory!
Best wishes!

Yours truly: Kevin

(the title of this post is what you say in Chinese at the end of class to say that class is dismissed. Class over . . . really over . . .)

Top 10 Food List

2009-06-16T13:38:00.004+08:00

Hard to believe I leave China in only4 days. As always, there's a million things to do at the very end, not to mention saying goodbye to people and packing everything up. I'm still finishing exams and a mountain of grading, but the end is in sight.

I'm very excited to see my family and judging from my mom's emails and Facebook notes, she especially is more than ready for me to come home too. My mom is so great . . . she always tells me to email her a list of my top food requests that I want to eat when I come home, so that she can have them ready when I arrive! So, after 10 months in China with limited access to Western foods, here is what sounds especially good to me.

1. Lots of veggies and stuff for salad
2. Fat-free yogurt (that you can eat with a spoon, not drink with a straw . . . which is how they "eat" yogurt here)
3. Cottage cheese
4. Cinnamon Life cereal
5. Coke Zero vanilla
6. Deli turkey/ham for sandwiches
7. Wheat bread
8. Seedless red grapes and good Indiana cantaloupe
9. Monster cookies or brownies

and . . . of course . . .

10. Milk!!

I also requested a meal with "cook-out" food--meat grilled on the grill (my dad is a great griller!), corn on the cob, Mom's 4th of July beans, fresh fruit, etc. etc. etc.

Food sounds so good right now! I'm sure eventually I'll really miss some of the Chinese food that I like here, but right now I just want homecooked American food . . . oh, and Starbucks coffee!

Mom McG and Kristy

2009-06-15T11:00:00.004+08:00

It's always fun to have people come visit from the States, especially when it's family. A few weeks ago, Katie's mom and sister Kristy came for a visit. Katie's mom got to stay about 5 days (after having spent some time in Beijing and Yichang) but then had to get back home because of work. Kristy, who just graduated from college, decided to stay until the end of this month and go back home with Katie. It's been fun having Kristy around to get to hang out with. Having Katie's family here is probably the next best thing to having my own family here. Only a week and I'll be with my mom and sister (and, of course, dad and bro-in-law)!

P.S. Blog is still blocked. Boo. Posts are still infrequent due to having to use a slow, flinicky proxy server (which currently thinks I am in Germany and so all of my blog buttons and menus are in German).

Going Postal

2009-06-08T19:13:00.003+08:00

The Post Office can be a frustrating place no matter what country you're in, but China Post can literally make me go postal. If you think the U.S. Post Office is not the most customer-friendly place, try China Post. I swear the workers there hate their lives and take it out on whoever they're "helping." Thankfully there is one nice girl here in Mengzi that Katie made friends with, but still, I always dread having to mail anything. Here's a short recap of my last two attempts to mail things from our Mengzi China Post.

A few months ago, I had my writing students write letters to my friend Beth's class in Tennesee. I had about 70 sheets of paper in a large brown manilla-type envelope.

K: I'd like to mail this to America
CP: Ok, but you have to use a white envelope not a brown one.
K: Um, that's a litle strange (since I've mailed brown envelopes to America before), but ok. Can you give me a white envelope?
CP: No, sorry we don't have any white envelopes.
K: So, where do I get the right envelope? Can I buy it somewhere? If I go buy it somewhere else, how do I know I'll have the right one?
CP: We don't know where you can buy it.
K: . . .

So if you're going to require a certain color or size for packaging, don't you think you should have the correct packaging available? At this point, we were pretty much having a stand off. I was standing there staring at her, thinking "um, this is YOUR JOB to help me figure this out." So, one of the workers decided she could use white paper and GLUE it over my brown envelope. So while I waited, they proceeded to use gloopy messy glue to turn my brown envelope white. I guess that was acceptable, because Beth got my letters a few weeks later.

Last week, I was back at good old China Post. I decided to send some of my winter clothes and shoes home by slow boat in order to free up space in my luggage. So I loaded up a big plastic bag of stuff and lugged it downtown. The bag I was carrying stuff in is a sturdier plastic/canvas bag that I have. At China Post, they have to box the stuff up for you. If you come with an already packaged box to send, they'll make you open it so they can check the contents. And, anything you do by yourself, would of course be in the wrong packaging.

K: I'd like to put these things in a box and send it surface rate to America.
CP: (goes and gets a box . . . at this time there's some sort of mass mailing going on in the PO and there are people and boxes and envelopes and brochures everywhere . . . it was chaotic to say the least. PO worker struggles to find a box and custom's form in the chaos.)
CP: Ok, put your stuff in here.
K: Great.
CP: Um, this isn't ok. There's some space here at the top of the box
K: So? It's just sweater and shoes. Nothing will break.
CP: But the rule is there can't be any space. Do you have anymore stuff to send?
K: No, this is all I brought. Do you have a smaller box?
CP: No. The next size down is much too small.
K: Can we just stuff some newspaper in there?
CP: No, that's not ok and we don't have any newspaper.
K: . . . (thinking to myself I am not lugging all this stuff all the way back just to have to lug MORE stuff back and how was I to know how much stuff would EXACTLY fit in that size box??)
CP: Do you want to keep that canvas bag you brought the stuff in?
K: Well, yes sort of, it is useful for carrying things. Why?
CP: If we put the stuff back in the bag then in the box it will be ok.
K: But that won't make it take up anymore space in the box?
CP: But it will be more secure.
K: Ok, fine.

So we proceeded to unpack the box, pack the stuff back in my bag (which doesn't close at all so I don't see how it made anything more secure), then put the whole bag in the box. I see absolutely no logic at work here . . .

So there's my China Post rant. Banks and post offices . . . two things I won't miss having to deal with in China and in Chinese.

Village School

2009-05-25T11:08:00.007+08:00

Right now, we have a group visiting Mengzi and Honghe University from Clearwater College in Florida. There are about 15 college students and 4 adult sponsers. On Thursday last week, Brian organized a trip for the group to a small village about an hour outside of Mengzi. This village is very poor and extremely remote (our drivers had no idea where it was and were not too please about having to drive down a narry, bumpy dirt path to get to the village.) The village has about 25 families in it, I was told. In the village is a small primary school that one of Brian's former students attended. The school is literally a one-room-schoolhouse that is about as primitive as you can get. There are about 25 - 30 students of all different ages who study in this little school. Most of the students belong to the Miao minority. These students had never seen this many Westerners before. Their faces and the conditions of their school just melt your heart. I think it was a one-of-a-kind, memorable experience--for both the Americans and the village students.

The Clearwater team helped buy notebooks, pens, soccer balls, and blackboards to give to the students and for the school to use. Here some of the boys on the team are carrying the blackboards up the path to the school.

The students stand outside their school, singing and clapping to welcome us.

Our group could barely fit into their little classroom. Brian gave a little introduction and then we all sang a few songs for the kids and did an impromptu English lesson.

This girl, who I named Lucy since it sounded like her Chinese name, opened up to me a little bit although she was still pretty shy. I would have guessed her to be about 7 or 8 years old, but she told me she was 12. When I asked her how old I was she guess I was 16, so I guess we were both having trouble gauging each other's ages! :)

The girls wore their traditional Miao dresses which are brightly colored with many layers and lots of elaborate beading.

One good thing about kids is that even if you don't speak the same language, throwing and kicking balls are universally fun and doesn't require much communication.

Me with some of the boys

The kids wave goodbye to us as we leave.

Big Block of Cheese Day

2009-05-20T00:30:00.004+08:00

So if you asked the average Chinese person . . . "Got Milk?" . . . the answer would be "mei you!" (don't have) . . . you're not going to see some Chinese person walking around with a milk mustache. Chinese people are not huge dairy consumers. For six years, I've lamented a lack of acceptable milk. I can put Chinese shelf-milk in coffee or on a bowl of corn flakes, but I still don't like to drink it straight. Cheese is another scarce commodity. When I lived in Yichang, we had to go to the bigger city of Wuhan to get cheese, which was a four-hour bus ride away. Now, Kunming has become our cheese provider (our "Wisconsin" so-to-speak), still about a 4 hour drive from Mengzi. Last week, Brian was in Kunming and did some shopping for us. Usually we buy blocks of Land-o-Lakes cheese from a large grocery store with import items. One block of cheddar is usually 35 yuan (about $5). This time though, Victoria found a place to buy cheese in bulk. We got this massive block of cheddar for about half of what it would have cost to buy that much Land-O-Lakes cheese. Don't worry, I'm not eating all of that myself. Katie, Dave and I are splitting that one block three ways. Katie and I had a rather fun time chopping up the cheese into smaller pieces to freeze. This cheese will definitely see me through until next month when I come home. I can't wait to just stand in awe in the cheese aisle of Meijer when I get home!

*for any one else who watched the West Wing, do you remember the episode called "Big Block of Cheese Day" where Leo invites all those bizarre interest groups and organizations who never get heard to come to the White House? Always loved that episode, especially when I watched it in China! :)

Flood

2009-05-16T22:55:00.011+08:00

I know many of you in the States have been getting a lot of rain lately; so have we here in Mengzi! Generally, our rain comes in short showers, but the the last three days have been one long downpour (although some blue sky might pop out just long enough to trick you into thinking it was clearing up). This morning it poured, but then the afternoon finally looked a little better. Katie and I decided to go to the orphanage to play with the kids since we figured they'd be sick of being cooped up. But when we got to the orphanage, the entrance was blocked by a huge lake! There was no way to get in unless you wanted to wade in water up to your knees. One of the workers, who we know pretty well, heard we were outside and came to talk to us; she was having to wear galoshes up to her knees (I love that word!). She told us that some sort of rescue squad was helping them pump out the water (notice how hard they're working in the photo) and that hopefully by tomorrow it would be ok. I guess they moved some of the elderly peolple to another location in town and the kids were being kept on the second floor. I was sad not to see my kiddos, but we're going to try to go back tomorrow or Monday. I'm going to pray the orphanage can move to a new, better (and higher) facility soon!

Street outside the orphanage.

Pomegranate fields backed up with water.

(blog is still "harmonized," but proxy server worked well enough to let me upload the photos)

Harmonized Blog

2009-05-16T18:17:00.002+08:00

I just discovered today that blogspot blogs have been blocked by the Great Firewall of China . . .

The big political campaign/buzzword in China during Hu Jin Tao's administration has been the promotion of a "harmonious society." I hear and see that phrase everywhere in China--on the news, on billboards and banners, in my students speeches. I hear that phrase so much it makes me cringe (or roll my eyes, depending on the context). Now when things get censored on the Internet, Chinese netizens say the webpage has been "harmonized." Youtube has been harmonized for several weeks now, the BBC is always harmonized, and I guess blogs are the next harmonizing stop for the Chinese censors. The reason--a rather sensitive anniversary coming up on the 4th of next month. I can't even begin to express how frustrating I feel when I become a direct "victim" of Chinese Big Brother!! Anyways, I can still sort-of access my blog if I use a proxy server; however, it's so slow that it's almost not worth it. So blog posts from me might be few and far between in the coming weeks. Or maybe blogspot will be accessible again tomorrow, who knows.

Mark Twain on Spelling

2009-05-11T18:38:00.003+08:00

This doesn't really have anything to do with China, but since I'm still reeling from all those writing assignments I've been grading, a funny look at the English language was a nice diversion. I came across this tongue-in-cheek idea from Mark Twain while looking online for some ideas for my writing class. I've always liked Mark Twain quotes--he was amazingly humorous and witty. Spelling was always my worst subject, and still today I freely admit I'm a bad speller (spell check only making my problem worse). If his idea had been put into practice, maybe I'd be a better speller today.

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Bless Their Hearts

2009-05-07T20:09:00.011+08:00

I've spent a lot of time grading the past few weeks. I gave all my students written mid-term exams and my freshmen students had oral exams. The big project though has been grading nearly 70 portfolios from my writing class. It's slow going because there are lots of mistakes (that might be an understatement). These students just really need help with their writing, so I want to make sure I thoroughly correct all of their papers so that they learn from their mistakes.

Anyways . . . I know it's probably in violation of some kind of Teachers' Code to laugh at or take pleasure in students' mistakes, but I either need to get a little bit of enjoyment out of this endless task or else I'll go completely nuts. So I thought I'd blog a few of the funnier things my students came up with. Bless their hearts . . . they're trying, but sometimes it just comes out funny.

In a cover letter . . . "I would like to introduce myself as a qualified applicant for the poison you are offering."

On a resume, one girl said she had a lot of "piratical" experience. I was unaware I had a former pirate in my class.

In an essay about making smoking in schools illegal . . . "Smoking should not be allowed in schools because the students ate teenagers."

In a cover letter . . . "I'm a bachelor." (He was trying to say he is pursuing a bachelor's degree. I'm sure the student has no idea that his sentence had a totally different meaning.)

On my freshman exam one question was "How can you finish a telephone conversation in English?" (Chinese people tend to be quite abrupt on the phone which is acceptable in Chinese but not so much in English) Here are a few of the answer I got--
"I'd like you to go."
"I'm glad to talk about you."
"This is all the information, thanks for listening."

On the same exam I had a section where the students had to fill in the blanks with the correct vocabulary words from their dialogues. When they chose a wrong word, it was rather humorous.
"What kind of institute do you want on your salad?"
"What kind of stink do you want on your salad?"
"Please fill out this stink form first."

I still have quite a few (more than I want to admit or think about) portfolios left to grade, so if other entertaining student quotes come up, I'll update this list.

Contradiction

2009-05-01T09:51:00.006+08:00

Long ago, in ancient China (so I'm told), there was a man who had a weapons shop, probably located on Weapons Street, where he sold such useful things as knives, swords, spears, shields, helmets, soft drinks, Wrigley's gum, and packaged chicken's feet. This weapons seller claimed that his spears were the sharpest spears in the world and that his spears could pierce through any armor. I'm sure he even offered a discount to the local warlord if he bought his spears in bulk--cheap-ah, cheap-ah for you friend-ah! At the same time, this black smith/weaponeer/arms dealer (what do you call a person who makes/sells weapons? Dad, help me out!) also claimed that his shield was the best in all of China . . . no! . . . in all of the world! . . . and that absolutely nothing could pierce his shield. But wait there's more! . . . if you buy one impenetrable shield and one ultra-sharp spear within the next 30 seconds, you'll receive not one, but two!, retro Roman-style broom-top helmets absolutely free (doubles as a Dustbuster during peacetime)!!! So, after listening to this arms seller's sales pitch one-too-many times, some clever customer asked the man what would happen if he used the able-to-pierce-anything spear against the impenetrable shield. The shop seller realized he was in a bit of a conundrum. If he said his spear was strong enough to pierce the shield, he would be admitting that his shield was not-so-impenetrable. If he said that the shield could stand up to a stab from the spear, then obviously he was admitting that the spear wasn't quite as sharp as he was advertising. I guess false advertising has had a long history here in China . . .

And so today, the Chinese word "contradiction" is made up of two characters. The first one is 矛 (máo) which is the word for "spear." And the second character 盾 (dùn) which is the word for shield.

矛盾 máodùn has to be one of the most useful words I've learned in Chinese in a while, and it definitely wins the prize for Best Etymology. Obviously, I embellished the story a little, but that is (according to my Chinese teacher) the basic idea of how the word came about. Do we have any words like that in English that have come about because of some kind of historical story/fable? I can't think of any.

The entire country of China is one giant living, breathing contradiction. On a national scale, China is the most curious blend of despotic, Communistic politics and Western, capitalistic economics. Chinese toddlers are bundled up in layers and layers of clothing until they look like little walking marshmallows with heads; yet they have split-bottom pants on, leaving their little rear-ends exposed to the cold. Chinese people will push and shove to get on a bus without a second-thought for the people around them who they just elbowed; yet they'll welcome any guest into their home and put Westerners to shame with their hospitality and generosity. In China it's considered rude and dirty to touch food with your hands; however, it's common to see people picking their noses (maybe that's why they don't touch their food!). At 5 feet 5 inches, I feel like a giant compared to most of my Chinese friends; yet China can produce a 7 and a half foot NBA center. I've always thought I could write a book about China entitled "Contradictions" (or maybe a grad school paper in the future?) Now that I know the interesting history behind the word in Chinese, I'm even more interested in the topic.

2009-04-30T08:34:00.004+08:00

Picture of a Chinese Job Fair in Nanjing (borrowed from another China blog)

China might not be be facing as much of an economic crisis as the US is in some areas; however, they are facing an employment crisis. I'm slightly worried about having to look for a job when I get back to the States, but I'm very thankful I'm not a recent Chinese college student looking for a job! I pray that my students can find good jobs. Imagine the frustration of being one of the first from your family or village to attend and graduate from college only to find that the jobs available to you aren't much better than if you didn't have a degree since there are so many college graduates in the Chinese job market.

Here's a link to the original blog where I saw the photo with an article from the Wall St. Journal and the blogger's comments.

Characters with Character

2009-04-21T21:44:00.003+08:00

I have Chinese lessons twice a week with Katie and, this semester, we're really enjoying our teacher. Her name is Nong Fei and she's about our age with a fun personality and good teaching style. Nong Fei has a passion for the Chinese language, especially the characters. The more I learn, the more I'm amazed at the complexity, intricacy, and depth of meaning wrapped up in each Chinese character (especially as you learn to break them down into their component parts). Nong Fei likes to tell us folk stories and proverbs in class too which always produces interesting vocabulary and sheds light on many cultural aspects.

I thought I'd share a few words, phrases and sayings that I've learned recently that I thought were funny, insightful, poignant, or especially picturesque. I figure this is a good way to review, too. I hope the Chinese characters show up on your computer!

(I'll write them out characters, pronunciation, literal translation, idiomatic meaning)

找不着北 zhăo bù zháo bĕi = Can't find north = Unable to find direction in life

被炒鱿鱼 bèi chăo yóu yú = Have your squid fried = to get fired

白马王子 bái mă wáng zi = White horse prince = Prince Charming, Mr. Right

旧的不去，新的不来 jiù de bù qǜ, xīn de bù lái = If the old doesn't go, how can the new come? (said as a way of comfort/support when a friend loses something)

种瓜得瓜，种豆得豆　zhòng guā de guā, zhòng dòu de dòu = Plant melon, get melon; plant beans, get beans = You reap what you sow

白眼 bái yăn = the white of the eye = a disdainful look, look down on someone

水蛇腰　shǔi shé yào = water snake waist = a thin waist, hour-glass figure (curvy like a snake is the idea)

水桶 shǔi tǒng = water bucket = pear-shaped figure, overweight (slang, as a joke)

伤脑筋 shàng nǎo jīn = injure one's brain = trying and troublesome

凹凸 āo tū = concave/sunken and convex/protruding (these characters are about a pictographic as you can get . . . They look like Legos to me. Makes me laugh that they're real characters!)

哭 kū = cry (can you see the two empty eye and the tear drop?)

Easter Eggs!

2009-04-16T14:58:00.005+08:00

Every year that I've been in China, coloring Easter eggs with students has always been one of the highlights. The kids are always so creative and, without fail, we have a blast. Thanks Carma for the egg dying kits!

A Chinese poem on an Easter egg
This egg had a round crack in it so I decided to try to help it out.

A Good Read (if you're interested)

2009-04-10T17:13:00.004+08:00

I just finished reading a book called "The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . and Why?" (thanks to Dave for introducing me to it) by Richard E. Nisbett. If you're interested in philosophy, cross-cultural studies, social psychology, or if you just want to challenge your brain with words like epistemology, dialectical, cognition, dichotomy, decontextualization, etc. then I recommend tackling this interesting study.

Spending just a short time in China, reveals that there's a marked difference in how Chinese and Americans think and how they perceive the world. For anyone planning to live abroad or work in a cross-cultural setting, this is important fact to keep in mind, especially Americans dealing with East Asians (Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese) since that's where the philosophical spectrum is at its widest. Americans often come to China, get exasperated with the apparent lack of logic and organization, and turn into ethnocentric, egotistical, "China bashers" who complain about everything and everyone (I always look at those people and think to myself, "just go home then and live among your 'own kind' if living abroad makes you that annoyed!")

In this book, the author traces the roots of our modern thinking back to the Greeks (for Westerners) and the Chinese (for Easterners). Ancient Greeks were concerned with personal agency--the sense that they were in charge of their own lives and free to act as they chose. This fundamental idea resulted in the Greeks have a strong sense of individual identity which fueled the Greeks' interest in debate, scientific discovery, and acquiring knowledge for it's own sake. The Greeks had a curiosity about the world around them and wanted to categorize and classify and then logically study what they saw. The ancient Chinese on the other hand were more focused on what their place in the world was and where they fit into society and focused on harmonizing relationships. Although the Chinese were in many ways more technologically advanced than the ancient Greeks, their lack of curiosity resulted in less scientific discoveries.

Building on that principal, this book reports on numerous studies that show how that historical background results in a different thinking by Easterners and Westerners today. One of the author's main findings in that, "Westerners attend primarily to the focal object or person and Asians attend more broadly to the field and to the relations between the object and the field. Westerns tend to assume that events are caused by the object and Asians are inclined to assign greater importance to the context." The author also shows how Americans tend to have an "either/or" mentality and Chinese people tend to have a "both/and" approach to contradictions. Some of the more interesting studies show pointed out in the book show that children in Western countries learn nouns more quickly while Eastern children learn more verbs; that Westerns see object whereas Easterners see substance (for example, Americans see a wall but Chinese people see concrete); and that Easterners expect and can deal with change better than Westerns can.

The author's conclusion seems to be that the Greek thought pattern was useful for science and technology but he finds it limited and sometimes even detrimental when it comes to social settings in modern day. The author seems to favor the Eastern mentality, but still employs Western logical methods to come to his conclusions. For my part, I agree that both Western and Eastern mentalities have their strong points but can leave big holes in some areas which I see played out a lot in my dealings with Chinese people and American people. But, as is obviously the point of such a study, it is important to realize your own cultural and philosophical biases when dealing with people of other countries on an everyday basis. While you can probably see how your viewpoint is right in a certain areas, you probably can't see in what areas your viewpoint might be flawed.

There's a lot more to this book; I'm oversimplifying its content and its conclusions. But it was insightful and is worth a read if you're going to find yourself in cross-cultural setting, especially with Americans and Chinese.

Hair Survival

2009-04-07T16:01:00.003+08:00

Generally, now, I'm comfortable in China and can do things on my own. Getting my hair cut, however, remains the one activity that I dread and am completely intimidated by and still feel like I need to take someone to translate for me. I have a hard enough time explaining how I want my hair cut when I'm speaking English--trying to convey a hair style in Chinese is next to impossible for me. And, most of the places in Mengzi (as was the case in Yichang) have never cut a Western person's hair. Chinese hair stylists tend to want to show off their expertise by coming up with their own ideas for how to cut your hair. Sometimes it's hard to get them to listen and pay attention to what you want. What the Chinese find to be a stylish haircut is usually not what I'm thinking I'd like for my hair at all (they like lots of swooping bangs, wispy frayed ends, and they love using the thinning scissors) and they don't know much about dealing with naturally wavy hair. Plus whenever I go to Chinese hair salons, I end up being a kind of attraction for every to watch and it makes me feel so self conscious. That's one of the reasons I've let my grow longer since being in China; I don't want to have to keep with a shorter style.

Back in November, I went to a Korean-run hair salon in Kunming that Victoria recommended and got my hair trimmed and highlighted. It was less painful than some experiences, but took forever (that's another thing about getting your hair cut in China, plan on it taking several hours no matter what you want done to your hair) and while I was happy with the highlights, the cut was just ok. Katie and I had realized that is was desperately past time to get our hair cut again, so, yesterday I went with Katie and one of our Chinese friends to try a place in Mengzi. Thankfully the friend understood what we wanted and when she translated it to the guy who was going to cut our hair, he did seem to listen. All I wanted was the ends trimmed off and the layers re-cut. Thankfully, it went ok and while my hair doesn't look dramatically different, I can tell it's healthier already having the split ends cut off.

On my way to class this afternoon, one of the hotel workers who sometimes helps takes care of things in our apartments, told me she really liked my hair today! She had no idea that I'd just gone through the ordeal of getting it cut, so that really boosted my confidence!

So, I'm celebrating that I survived a Chinese haircut and I think (unless something strange happens) I probably won't have to get it cut again until I get home in June. I've already commissioned my sister to help me find a new style for when I get home. I'll be really happy to be able to talk to the person who's cutting my hair in my own language again!

About Time

2009-04-01T09:08:00.007+08:00

Growing up in Indiana, we never observed Daylight Saving's Time. I was actually rather confused what DST meant until I was in my late teens; the first time I ever changed a clock was when I was a college student in South Carolina. Since IN didn't observe DST, instead of changing our clocks, we ended up changing time zones. Half of the year we were on Eastern time and the other half of the year we were on Central time. To make it more confusing, some of the counties in the southeastern part of the state wanted consistently to be on the same time as Cincinnati so they did observe DST and were always on Eastern time; while some of the counties near Chicago in the northwest of the state wanted to consistently be on Central time. (In one of my favorite episodes of the West Wing, Josh, Toby and Donna, who work for the president and are campaigning in Indiana, get stranded in a corn field and end up missing the flight back to D.C. on Air Force One because they crossed a county line in IN and were then in a different time zone.) Finally, a few years ago, after a good amount of local debate about which time zone we Hoosiers were better suited for, Indiana did adopt DST and is on Eastern time year-round (although a few counties by Chicago stay on CST). I've always thought the subject of time zones was rather intriguing. For one of my freshman English papers in college, I wrote a persuasive essay supposedly directed to the governor of IN trying to persuade him to use DST. As a personal side note, once I drove home from South Carolina back to Indiana on the weekend of the time change and since we didn't change time at home, I "gained" an hour going home, but never "lost" it going back . . . does that somehow mean I cheated time and got a free hour?

So after dealing with Indiana time zone schizophrenia my whole life, I moved to China and got another interesting take on time-zones. Just to travel from the U.S. to China, you cross 12 time zones and, upon arrival, force your body to completely rewind its biological clock. The entire country of China, which is bigger than the U.S. and could possibly fall into 5 time zones, operates on the same time--Beijing Standard Time. So whether you're on the east coast or out in Tibet, it's always the same time (thank the Great Helmsman). So, why make such a large country operate on the same time? Probably ostensibly to promote unity, but more likely a subtle reminder of who's in control.

The area of China where the time zone problem is most pronounced is in Xin Jiang province in the far northwest. Xin Jiang, China's largest province, is made up of an ethnic group of Muslims called the Uighers. Over the last few decades, however, Han Chinese have been flooding into Xin Jiang slowly edging out the local population (Xin Jiang, like Tibet, is an "autonomous" region of China and has, at times, made attempts at independence. But, with the absence of a Dalai Lama-type figure, Xin Jiang and the Uighers don't quite get as much international attention as the Tibetans do). Xin Jiang is forced to operate on Beijing Standard Time even though in doing so the sun sometimes doesn't rise until almost 10:00 a.m. or doesn't set until nearly 11:00. The local population has set up its own time which is two hours earlier than Beijing time.

This interesting article highlights some of the problems and results that come from people operating on two different times in the same place.

Clock Square Off in China's Far West

Here are a few excerpts from the article (but you should read the whole thing!):

"Uighurs, the dominant minority in China's northwestern Xinjiang province, balked at running their lives on Beijing time, which would have them getting up in the pitch dark and going to sleep at sunset."

"The separate time zones are in fact a metaphor for the chasm between the Uighurs and Han Chinese living in uneasy proximity in Xinjiang. Since 1949, the ethnic Chinese have grown from 9% to more than 40% of the province's population, and Uighurs accuse the Chinese government of suppressing their culture and faith."

"Schools, government offices, post offices all use Beijing time. So do the airports and railroad stations. Some bus lines use Xinjiang time and others Beijing time. Local people have strangely adjusted. Ali Tash, a 28-year-old tour guide, said it's really quite simple. Pointing at empty sofas in a hotel lobby, he explained how he would set up a hypothetical meeting with a Chinese friend and a Uighur friend. "So I say to the Chinese guy, come at 4 o'clock, and to the Uighur guy, come at 2 o'clock, and then everybody will be there the same time. No problem."

"Unofficially, the Chinese themselves have skewed their working hours, so most schools and many businesses don't actually open until 10 a.m. Beijing time. Abdul Hakim, a Uighur watchmaker in the Kashgar market, said he used to stock a watch that displayed two different times, but nobody bought it. 'People use one time or the other, not both. The Chinese use Beijing time. The Uighurs use our time," he said. "But if somebody buys a watch from me, I'll set it however they like.'"

I visited Xin Jiang back in 2006. The flight home at the end of my trip left at 11:00 a.m. Katie and I wanted to get some breakfast before we flew out. Even though it was 9:00 a.m. when we were leaving to go to the airport, we couldn't buy any breakfast because the people who sold food were just getting up. Too bad we couldn't have had breakfast delivered from Beijing, since people there were obviously awake and open for business.

Maybe Hoosiers and Uighers have a chronological commonality--two time zones, one state.

One Child Thoughts

2009-03-31T11:10:00.007+08:00

When I go back to the States, I often get asked about China's one-child policy. People ask me if Chinese families can really only have one child and if there is a strong preference for boys. I usually say that, yes, the policy is in effect and enforced; however, there are exceptions, especially for the rich (they pay the fines and bribes), the rural poor (they try to avoid being caught), and ethnic minority groups (the government wants to promote minorities in China so they're legally allowed more children). Regarding a preference for boys, I don't tend to notice that among my students and friends. I have just as many girls in my classes as boys. In fact, my classes usually have a majority of girls (language, music, and art majors tend to be girls, while boys tend to excel more in, or are steered toward, math and science). Chinese couples that I know who give birth to a daughter seem just as happy and excited and loving towards their daughters as the couples who have boys. And, especially in the cities, most Chinese people genuinely seem to think that one child is enough. They tend to think that with the costs of housing and education, more than one child would be more than they could afford (granted, that perspective may be propaganda-induced)

Every once in a while, however, I run into situations that remind me that there are other sides to the one-child policy and those negative stories that we hear in America about abandonment, forced abortions, and a dislike for daughters, while probably not the norm, are true. At the orphanage I volunteer at, the negative side of the one-child policy seems to play out on a small scale. The only boys at the orphanage are disabled, either mentally or physically. The five healthy infants and two healthy toddlers that are currently at the orphanage are all girls, along with two older healthy girls. Two days ago, I was talking to a former student and she began to share some of her family background with me. Her parents already had a daughter, her older sister, but wanted a son. They decided to risk it and had another baby (my student). Because she was a girl, she was "hidden" by being sent to be raised by her grandparents for a time. My student's parents then had a third child which was a boy. In the end though, my student's father lost his job as a government worker and ended up working in real estate/construction. (Tragically, my student's brother died as a teenager from an illness that wasn't supposed to be fatal. Her father still hasn't recovered from the loss of the son.) This same student told me that she has a cousin who, in an attempt to have a son and gain control and status in the family, has given up two daughters.

Since I now live in a more rural location and the students I teach now are mostly from villages and the countryside, I bet if I could get them to talk candidly, I would hear more stories like my student from Yichang told me. I've read countless books about China with scores of stories like my student's. That kind of behavior is still atypical, but not unheard of.

The most common complaint I hear from Chinese students about their country is about the population--"There are too many people." Too many people want to get into universities and graduate schools. Too many people make jobs scarce. Too many people make travel impossible during holidays. Too many people make housing hard to find. Too many people . . .

I don't know what kind of humane, plausible solution you come up with to deal with overpopulation, but I know that when people are giving away babies, something's not right.

Smell Your Soap

2009-03-27T13:45:00.004+08:00

As a follow-up to my toothpaste sampling post . . .

Yesterday I was at the same grocery store and I noticed that in the soap aisle they had a bar of every kind of soap out and setting on a little soap dish on the shelves! Again, there's no sink, so I can't actually sample the soap to see how well it washes my hands. I guess it's all about being able to choose the scent you want. As with my thoughts on the toothpaste, nice gesture on the store's part I suppose, but it's still funny and slightly odd. Not to mention, a rather big waste of soap.

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of the soap aisle because there were too many workers around (if you've ever been to a Chinese supermarket, you completely understand that) and they don't like you taking pictures in the store.

Maybe this trend will catch on to the other aisles and they'll start offering samples of all the different kinds of food and snacks they sell too. I would find it useful to be able to sample all the different flavors of chips or cookies (especially since they have some weird flavors here) before I buy them.

Study Girls

2009-03-27T07:44:00.004+08:00

Katie and me with some of the girls who come over to our Book studies. These girls are really sweet and it's fun to share and study with them.

St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-26T10:52:00.004+08:00

Last week, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a McGreen O'Dinner at the Rice's house. We had green and orange mandarin salad, spinach stuffing, potatoes (of course), cucumbers, asparagus. For dessert - Rachel's Over-the-Rainbow cake, shamrock cut-out cookies, scones and a pot of (chocolate) gold (do you think we had enough dessert?). Fun times and lots of green!

Which came first, the chicken or the duck egg?

2009-03-20T09:32:00.004+08:00

After the winter vacation, Matthew (one of our student-friends) was really thoughtful and brought fresh eggs for me, Katie, Dave and the Rice family all the way from his village. The eggs were wrapped up and tied together with straw to make a great homemade egg carton. We realized after we got them that they were duck eggs, not chicken eggs. At first I was a little unsure about using duck eggs instead of chicken eggs, but it turns out they're pretty much interchangeable. Victoria even made deviled eggs out of the duck eggs and none of us could taste the difference. We did notice that the shells were much harder to crack and that the yolks were bright orange and slightly bigger. We ended up using them in scrambled eggs, cookies, scones, deviled eggs, and boiling them to put in tuna salad. Never expected I'd be cooking with duck eggs.

Bowling

2009-03-19T08:30:00.008+08:00

We found a bowling alley in Mengzi. Five lanes hidden away on the third floor of a hotel! We were the only customers (yeah for no smoking or that funky "bowling alley" smell that permeates your clothes when you bowl in the States). Fun Saturday afternoon activity!

Two Boxes in Two Days!

2009-03-18T21:29:00.002+08:00

Yesterday I got a package from Beth!! So happy! Beth sent me a necklace she made herself which was green for St. Patrick's Day and I got the package exactly on St. Patrick's Day--perfect timing. I wore my new green necklace last night to our St. Pat's McGreen O'Party at the Rice's house! Beth also sent me a box of peppermint Peeps--so funny (long story) :) And, I got letters from all of Beth's 4th grade ESL students that she teaches in Nashville, TN. The letters are super sweet and cute. I think I'm going to try to have some of my students write back to these kids (I teach a practical writing class so I think that sounds like a perfect project!). Thanks so much for thinking about me Beth!

Then today, Katie picked up a package for me while she was in the International Affairs Office. Two packages in two days, quite exciting! Today's box was from Ruby who's my church grandma. She's one of the most thoughtful people I know and I was surprised and happy to see a box from her. When I opened the box I found a fall candle, some candied pecans in a pumpkin bag, and a birthday card! My birthday is in November!! I looked more closely at the label on the box and saw that Ruby had sent me the box at the end of October! What in the world. It took more than 5 months to get here?! Seriously sometimes I think the mail in Mengzi must be some of the slowest in the world! I feel like we still use the Pony Express here. But, ironically, the last box I got from my parents arrived in only about 9 days which is quite speedy. I don't get it. I wonder if Ruby's box was just sitting somewhere on campus all this time and either no one knew who to give it too or else they just didn't bother to contact me to tell me I had a package. So even though the pecans are sadly too old to enjoy, I'm enjoying my scented candle right now and am still happy to get the package even though it wins the prize for my most delayed box ever.

*As a side note, last January while in India, Katie, Beth, Brad and I sent a postcard to Amy. It arrived in Yichang over ONE YEAR later, just a few days after Amy had left Yichang to return to America! I don't know exactly how, but I did hear that Amy's postcard finally made it to her in America just a few days ago! :) Seriously, where was it all this time?! I wonder if the problem was with the Indian Postal system or with China Post?

Toothpaste Sampling

2009-03-12T09:26:00.006+08:00

A couple days ago, I was at one of the two supermarkets in Mengzi doing some shopping. I needed some toothpaste and was surprised to find that in the toothpaste aisle, every flavor of every brand of toothpaste had an open tube on the shelf that you could "sample" before you buy. Part of me finds this odd . . . are you supposed to taste the toothpaste? just smell it? squeeze some into your hand and then do what? should I have brought my toothbrush? But, having made the mistake of buying "green tea" flavored toothpaste instead of mint in the past, I actually did flip open one of the sample tubes and sniff it to make sure I wasn't making that mistake again (I've also learned to recognize the characters for "mint"). I can't quite make up my mind about leaving open tubes of toothpaste on the supermarket shelves--is it a nice, customer-friendly gesture to help people avoid the horror of accidentally getting green tea or magnolia flavored toothpaste? Or is it just a really odd thing to do? Maybe people were already opening all of the toothpaste boxes to smell the toothpaste so the store figured they'd try to avoid that by just giving in and having an open tube available? How long do they leave the tubes there before they get rid of them? If they get rid of them, do the workers keep the open tubes or are they just thrown away? Is it a subtle way to promote dental hygiene? Should costumers squeeze the sample tubes from the end or the middle? Does this help contribute to a more "harmonious society" in some way?

I have this funny image in my head of a spoiled, bratty, chubby 4-year-old (you know, the ones in grocery stores that start screaming when they can't have every single thing they see) coming down that aisle and squirting toothpaste all over himself, the floor, and all 10 supermarket workers who are stationed in that aisle before his helpless mother or grandmother comes over and drags him away kicking and screaming but smelling minty fresh.

Recession-Proof Plan

2009-03-11T23:01:00.007+08:00

Every day, I read several news sites and China-related blogs (gotta love Google Reader). Today I read this blog post: Chinese lessons - recession-proof?

The blog post talks about a man named Ken Carroll who is one of the people behind Chinesepod.com. Chinesepod is absolutely one of the best ways to study Chinese. I love it. I subscribe to and listen to their podcasts as soon as they're put out. They are practical and often very humorous and a painless way to improve your Chinese (no, they're not paying me for this). Anyways, that's not exactly the point of this post, but if you want to start studying Chinese, I recommend Chinesepod.com

Ok, the above mentioned blog article goes on to say this:
Investment analysts think education in China could prove to be a recession-proof business. Education in general seems to be a smart way to go during the great recession, with many people returning to school due to job scarcity. Teaching Chinese is positively brilliant, because the number of customers willing to spend money on it is growing constantly.

I sometimes wonder what the economy is going to mean for me as I return home, plan to start graduate school, and then eventually look for a job that's hopefully China-related within the next few years. At least this blog seems to think I'm on the right track. I wouldn't say for sure that I want to be a Chinese teacher, but giving beginner Chinese lessons isn't something I would rule out as a possible job opportunity for myself in the future (even if it's just a part-time job). Nice to know that someone thinks that teaching Chinese and knowing Chinese are useful skills that won't be affected by a depressed global economy. Sometimes I get a little annoyed at myself that I don't know exactly what I want to do, but maybe I'm ahead of the times with an recession-proof plan and just didn't realize it.

Do You Like My Hat?

2009-03-08T18:09:00.004+08:00

After watching the Hani minority performance at the terraced fields, Katie and I thought it would be fun to see if we could try on the colorful minority hats and take some photos. We started chatting with a woman about it and she happily said she'd bring us two of her hats for us to try on. She and some other minority women helped us figure out how to get the "hats" on (they were more like head scarves with some kind of braided black twine that they tied around our heads first). The one thing we didn't foresee was what a spectacle we would become. There were dozens of photographers at the performance with cameras and lenses that could rival the Hubble Telescope. I was slightly appalled at the gall of the photographers in the first place--I think there's a fine line between observing and appreciating a minority culture and exploiting it and treating the people like exotic animals in a zoo. I've never quite become comfortable with having cameras stuck in my face (which happens pretty frequently in China) and being photographed just because I'm foreign and look different than the people around me always makes me uncomfortable. Gives me a little more sympathy for the paparazzi-plagued celebrities. Anyways, it was fun to get to try on the hats and try to chat with the women and kids.

(Oh, the title of my post is a reference to the kid's book "Go, Dog. Go!" If you didn't read "Go, Dog. Go!" as a kid then you really missed out.)

Minority people + White Foreigners + Minority clothing + Terraced Fields = I can stick my camera in their faces and be as pushy as I want to get my photo. Who knows, maybe Katie and I will end up on some billboard or in some coffee table book about the terraced fields . . . but I hope not.

Terraced Fields Performance

2009-03-05T13:56:00.004+08:00

Last Saturday, Katie and I got invited to go with some friends to Yuan Yang, a town about 3 hours from Mengzi. Yuan Yang is famous for the Terraced Fields and the minority groups that use them to plant rice. I'd been through Yuan Yang back in November, but it was foggy and gray then, so it was nice to see the fields on a clear day. During the winter months, the fields are saturated with water and make for an amazing site. The Rices were able to go Yuan Yang about two weeks ago and see the fields at sunrise and sunset when the light makes the Terraced Fields even more spectacular (check out the Rice's blog . . . they take amazing photos!)

Our Chinese friends, Min and Maggie, who we went to Yuan Yang with, told us that we were going to see a performance in a village. But when we got to the village, we couldn't find the stage. After asking around and figuring out what was going on, we realized that the performance was actually going to be on the Terraced Fields. I've grown a little weary and cynical of Chinese performances over the years; however, this performance was unique, interesting, and (best of all) an acceptable length. Supposedly this performance was put together by a famous (or maybe two famous) Chinese director. The performance was quite the undertaking with several hundred minority people who were part of the production, including lots of kids and even dozens of water buffalo. We were actually there for the dress rehearsal. The big show for all the V.I.Ps who were going to have to pay hundreds of yuan to see it was the next day. We got in for free! Made for an enjoyable day trip.

Be careful not to take a wrong step when you're walking through the fields. One wrong step to the right or left and you're up to your knees in mud!
We were surprised to see the women selling dyed eggs which looked just like Easter eggs.

Video of part of the Hani singing and dancing about the rice harvest.

"I Just Threw in the Gold . . . "

2009-03-04T21:20:00.005+08:00

" . . . and out came this calf."

This is the enormous golden calf statue that we have in Mengzi in front of our huge government building. Every time I see it, it makes me think of Aaron making the golden calf statue for the Children of Israel while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Law from God. I guess our statue is more of a golden bull than a golden calf.

Chicken Soup for the Soul?

2009-03-02T23:42:00.002+08:00

Right on Track

2009-03-02T14:42:00.009+08:00

Last weekend, we were all invited to go to the nearby village of Bai Sha Chong with some friends to have dinner and meet some new friends. When we got to the village, dinner was still in the works. As seems to be the case a lot of times when you're waiting for a meal to be cooked, we (the guests) were sort of left to entertain ourselves while the hosts all cooked in the kitchen. Rather than sit in a warm room inside surrounded by a swarm of flies, we decided to enjoy the sunshine and go explore the old, deserted train station and railroad tracks that were close by. We discovered that walking on old railroad tracks is endlessly fun and makes for good photo ops.

While Victoria and I were seeing how well we could walk and balance on the tracks, Esther (age 5) turned around and in all serious said to Victoria, "Um, I don't think Mommies do that."
Um yeah, the sign posted on the column that Brian is trying to climb says "no climbing" we discovered. :)

Caroline's Road Home

2009-03-01T18:24:00.010+08:00

Classes started back up last week. I'm happy to report that the first week went relatively smoothly and I was actually happy to get back into a schedule and a routine after being on vacation for so long. I'm teaching two freshmen speaking classes which are both basically just a continuation of the class we had last semester. Thankfully, the school actually followed a suggestion that Katie and I made and reduced the class sizes down from nearly 50 to 15 -20. It's so much easier to teach a speaking class to a smaller group and it helps me get to know the students more quickly. I also have two sections of junior writing. The class is called "Practical Writing" and the students are supposed to learn how to write things like business letters, resumes, cover letters, and how to fill out applications. I'm hoping it really can be a useful class for the students since it does seem like Chinese students struggle with writing. The thing I'm worried about though is that between the two sections of writing, I have about 65 students--that's a lot of grading. Any time I give them an assignment, I have 65 things to read and check. But, my schedule is pretty light so having to put a little more time into grading won't kill me.

For the first writing class, I passed out a bunch of blank postcards that I'd accumulated from dozens of different cities that I'd traveled to. I told the students to either write something about the picture on the front of the postcard (if they were familiar with the place) or else write something about their winter holiday, as if I were a friend they hadn't talk to for a long time. My purpose in this was, first, to give them some kind of writing warm-up exercise and, second, to give me some idea of their writing levels and common mistakes they all made so that we could work on correcting them in the future.

One of the postcards, written by a girl named Caroline, really struck me so I want to share it. Here's what she decided to share about her winter holiday:

Dear Kim,
I'm very happy this winter holiday, because the road to our village was repaired. We had to walk more than one hour when we went home before. The car and truck can't go to my village. Now we can go home by bus, though the road isn't good like here, I'm very happy in heart. Yours, Caroline Shen

Wow. The event from her winter vacation that she wanted to write about was that she finally has a road to her village and doesn't have to walk an hour (and I'm sure to get to the point where you have to walk an hour, she would have had to take a bus for many hours already). Reading Caroline's postcard made me stop and think. First, I definitely take roads for granted. I've never had to walk an hour (with my luggage) just to go home because the road home is impassible to vehicles. And second, these are the students I get to teach--kids from villages so poor that there isn't even a road to get there. I feel a renewed motivation to be as much help to these kids as I can be--for them to even be in a college is quite the accomplishment. Another one of my students, Matthew, told us that he thinks he's the first person from his village ever to go to college. I visited Matthew's village back in November and it was nearly impossible to get there in a four-wheel-drive jeep. Students like Caroline and Matthew sound like they should be characters from someone else's memoir (makes me think of the students Peter Hessler would write about in River Town) but, instead, they're sitting in my class. Maybe through my classes, I can try to give Caroline something as meaningful to her as a road to her village.

Freedom Square

2009-02-27T08:57:00.004+08:00

Last post about Taiwan. A few pictures from Zi You Guang Chang (Freedom Square) and the Chang Kai-shek Memorial.

The National Theater

The gate at Freedom Square
Chang Kai-shek's Memorial
There's a changing of the guard every hour at the CKS Memorial which people crowd in to see.
I feel like I need to do some research about the Generalissimo since he seems to have a mixed reputation and legacy depending on who you ask and where you are. But one thing about him that Katie and I liked was that his monument shows him smiling. Usually when you see a statue of someone, especially a male military leader, they're shown as being very austere and serious. CKS looked grandfatherly and approachable to me . . . like you should go sit on his lap and tell him what you wanted for Christmas (or Chinese New Year, I suppose).

Well, I think it's time I moved on from Taiwan in my blogging. Here's a link to an online album if anyone wants to see the rest of my photos--Taiwan Facebook Album.

Life Can Be So Pressful

2009-02-26T12:50:00.003+08:00

A few days ago, I got an email from a former student in Yichang. One of the sentences in her email said, "We are pressful because of the depressed economy, so ,everyone seems more serious."

Pressful?! . . . what a fun new word! A combination of "pressure" and "stressful" (and possibly "depressed"), I think. I'm going to try to get this word into circulation and common usage. Second-language students put English into such a fresh light so many times!

Unusual Museums

2009-02-26T09:05:00.008+08:00

Because Katie and I are such cultured, refined travelers (ha!), we decided to take the time while in Taiwan to visit a few museums. We spent a few moments contemplating visiting the National Museum, supposedly the finest collection of Chinese art in the world, but hey, I've seen the "replacements" in the Forbidden City and, as with Chinese music, can enjoy Chinese art only in moderation. So, to quote my friend Amy, our feelings about the National Museum were, "Meh." Katie and I decided instead to visit the Museum of Drinking Water and the Taiwan Nougat Museum. Sounded a lot more exciting, or at least oddly intriguing, than a whole museum of Chinese art and artifacts.

So here we are at the Museum of Drinking Water. My initial thinking was that we'd see lots of different "specimens" of bottled water, but in fact, we saw the evolution of Taipei's water purification system, the mechanics of which were way over my head.

The building that houses all of those displays of pipes and machines and gauges was actually an old historic building that didn't seem to match what was inside at all. There were actually three or four couples outside taking their wedding photos at the Drinking Water Museum while we were there which we read was a really popoular activity at the museum.

And this tops my lists of hilarious places that I've visited. I've always loved and laughed at the word "nougat" and couldn't get over the fact that Taiwan has a Nougat Museum. It was a small, out-of-the-way place in the "dodgy" end of Taipei, but we found it and were the only guests in the museum at the time. The workers politely turned the lights on for us :)
Explanation of old nougat making techniques. I guess this is a family-owned business and the son wanted to honor his mom and her nougat making so he made this factory into a little museum. This brand of nougat is famously used at wedding in Taiwan.
Here I am posing next to an impossibly-large piece of gold covered nougat with an impossibly-large piece of nougat in my mouth as I discover how hard it is to chew a big piece of nougat without drooling! For larger groups, you can have a D.I.Y nougat-making lesson. How fun would it have been to take a field-trip to the Nougat Museum when you were in elementary school?!

Bikeride on the Taiwan Coast

2009-02-24T11:56:00.006+08:00

While in Taiwan, Katie and I decided we wanted to see more than just Taipei so we took a 3-hour train to the city of Hua Lien on the eastern coast of the island. We wanted to see the Taroko Gorge and get a look at the ocean. After a slightly disappointing trip to the Gorge (we were there a little too late in the day and it was very overcast and the mountains tops were completely hidden by dark clouds), we decided to rent bikes and see as much of the coast as we could. We happened on a map that showed a 15km bike trail running straight along the coast of Hua Lien. After going a little too far and ending up in what seemed like the industrial end of town, we finally figured out where the bike path started and enjoyed a gorgeous ride.

The city of Hua Lien and the cloud-covered mountains .

At the start of our trip, we found ourselves riding behind this man. We started up a conversation with Mr. Liu and found out he's Taiwanese but has been living in Texas for the past few years teaching Chinese at a university. He spoke decent English, but was happy to talk to us in Chinese and even said our Chinese "ting hao de" (quite good . . . a high complement from a Chinese teacher!). Hua Lien is his hometown and he was back for a visit. Mr. Liu was friendly, chatty, and in amazing shape for being in his 50s (Katie and I were really struggling to keep up!) and he helped us not make any more wrong turns or lose the trail. It seems that when Katie and I travel and it's just the two of us, we tend to meet friendly, local people along the way who go out of their ways to help us even though we're complete strangers and who end up making our trip so much easier and more fun.
At first, I was a little disappointed that we didn't have a clear day. But, it turns out that the dark foreboding clouds decided to only occupy half the sky and we did have patches of blue sky peeking out. And in the end, I think the swirling gray skies made the scenery more beautiful, dramatically set against the foaming blue-green ocean and the dark, fog covered mountains.
In the end, we think we rode 20 - 25 km which I was pretty proud of. I was worried I'd be so sore the next day that I couldn't sit down, but I guess all the biking we do in Mengzi has gotten my rear in gear, so to speak.

Taipei Street Scenes

2009-02-23T10:14:00.005+08:00

View of Taipei from the window of our hostel room.Taipei streets reminded me of Hong Kong with the bright, gaudy vertical signs stacked up and down every street. The locals love their electric scooters. Scooters are definitely the preferred method of travel.

I love traveling to places in Asia and finding 7/11 convenience stores! I don't know why but there's just something comforting and welcoming about them and every time I walk by one, I want to go in and buy a drink. When you're standing in the door of a 7/11 in Taipei, you can literally see probably 5 more stores on the same block. Taiwan 7/11s had real milk--white and chocolate!! And Coke Zero!Crazy crowded night market in Taipei.
Some kind of odd street food for sale. Sticky, gooey rice balls? I'm not really sure . . . The first night we were in Taipei, KT and I went to 3 Starbucks stores (all within a block of our hostel!) and they ALL had lines out the door and down the block. Granted it was Valentine's Day and the weekend which I'm sure made for a more crowded time, but that's so many people wanting coffee!

Peng Yi

2009-02-23T08:49:00.004+08:00

On our way to Taiwan, Katie and I had to spend the night in Shen Zhen after flying there from Kunming. Shen Zhen is just across the "border" from Hong Kong and is one of China's SEZs (Special Economic Zones) so it's easier to do business there. Katie and I have lost several friends to Shen Zhen because thousands (probably millions) of recent college grads go there in search of jobs since finding decent jobs is nearly impossible in most Chinese cities, espcially for young people.

About two years ago, our good friend Peng Yi (whose English name is Matt) went to Shen Zhen. Since Katie and I had to spend the night in Shen Zhen, we called Peng Yi and worked out the details to meet up with him. It was so great to see him! In Yichang, Peng Yi was one of the guys in our close group of friends, known affectionately as the Bu Zhi Freakin' Dao group. It's amazing to me that I've been in China long enough to meet friends, have a long deep friendship with them, watch them move away, miss them and not see them for months or years, but them have a chance to meet back up with them halfway across China.

Matt now has a marketing research job with a Chinese fast food chain and seems to be doing all right for himself although he says that in Shen Zhen people have to work so much and there's a lot of pressure. Since Matt's in the restaurant business, he and a friend helped us track down a Subway store in Shen Zhen! Subway and good friends . . . it was a fun night.

This is a picture of Peng Yi, me, Katie, and another Bu Zhi Freakin' Dao friend, David, on the day Peng Yi left Yichang for Shen Zhen.

Taipei!

2009-02-20T17:36:00.001+08:00

Got back from Taiwan last night at 2:30 a.m. What a great trip! Katie and I loved Taiwan. There's so much I could say. I'm so glad we took the chance to go. So many blogable moments (I love how people now think of experiences in terms of their "blogableness"). Since I'm still organizing, editing, and uploading photos today this post only features one bloggable item.

The Taipei 101 Tower. Might be the world's tallest building, might be second to the Dubai tower now (reports on these towers differed on whether or not the Dubai tower was actually finished yet and what actually defines a "tower"). You can go up to the observation decks on the 80-somethingth floor, but Katie and I decided to just admire the tower from the ground, although we did go in and eat at the amazing foodcourt in the tower's basement. The entrance price was a bit steep for our ultra-budget trip and we had mostly overcast weather which wouldn't have made for good views anyways. Supposedly the tower was built to resemble a stalk of bamboo. So, I wonder why the purple lights and not green lights? . . .

It was quite a cool site to see though--purple or green, clouds or no clouds.

The Renegade Province

2009-02-12T13:44:00.003+08:00

I had no plans to do any extensive traveling this winter vacation, but Ctrip (a Chinese travel service) "made us an offer we couldn't refuse"--Katie and I are leaving tomorrow for a 5 day trip to Taiwan! I've wanted to make a trip to Taiwan for quite a while now because I'm interested to see how it compares to Mainland China. I think it will also be interesting to get the Taiwanese viewpoint on their status as a "renegade province" after being bombarded with the mainland partyline stance for so many years. Since I think I'll be back in the States next year, I figure this really might be my one and only chance to make it to Taiwan, so I'm not going to miss the chance. And I'm sure this is a necessary trip since I'm going to be studying China and International Relations in grad school! :) I mean, what kind of China expert will I be if I haven't seen both China and Taiwan?! I'm hoping that Taiwan is like Hong Kong and Singapore--Chinese yet western and modern at the same time. One thing I do know . . . they have Starbucks! One grande mocha frappiccino please!

Will post pictures when I get back . . .

My Babies

2009-02-10T21:32:00.003+08:00

Since it seems that all of my friends my age are blogging and posting pictures on Facebook of their pregnancies, babies, and kids, I'm going to post about my kids too :)

While I've been on vacation and have had more free time, I have been trying to spend time at the orphanage with the kids there. Right now, the orphanage has 5 infant girls who are just a couple months old. Sometimes, the workers don't really want us to disturb the infants, but the last time I was there the "aunties" (generally in China you can refer to a lady who's older than you as "auntie," which is what we call the ladies who take care of the kids at the orphanage) seemed really happy to let me hold and feed the little babies. I love those little babies so much (and all of the sweet kids at the orphanage!). Every time I get to see them, I talk to them and tell that I'm praying that their families will find them soon. I told the aunties that I wished I could just adopt them all myself!

Biker Chicks!

2009-02-10T21:30:00.002+08:00

One of my 2009 New Year's resolutions was to learn to drive* a motorcycle. Brian decided that Rachel was ready to learn to drive one too so today Rachel and I got our first lesson. I think I did pretty well for my first time (no stalling out, no wrecking, no dented trash cans), although getting used to shifting with my feet is going to take a while. I made it into third gear and around the block and up and down the road by my apartment building a few times. I have the feeling that once I get used to driving a motorcycle, it's going to be rather addicting. I prefer driving a manual car (unless I'm sitting in start-stop traffic) because you have more control of the car, rather than in an automatic where you just passively sit there and let the car do everything for you. A motorcycle is even more hands-on (and feet-on) and I know I'm going to like it. Don't worry mom, I'm sure it's completely safe learning to drive a motorcycle in China!

*Edit: I have since been informed by my dad that "The first lesson about a motorcycle is that you "ride" it. It is simply against all principles of human decency and common etymology to "drive" a bike."

Superbowl Monday

2009-02-02T20:42:00.002+08:00

Thanks to a program called TVU, Katie, Dave and I were able to watch the Superbowl live this morning. We had the game streaming on the computer and hooked the computer up to play through the TV. We had some glitches at first, but thankfully Katie's computer came through and we got to see pretty much the whole game, including commercials and the halftime show (which is important to us American culture starved ex-pats). To watch the game live, we got up at 7:30 a.m. I'm a loyal Colts fan, so with them out I wasn't really rooting for either team, but if I'd had to pick, I guess I was cheering for Pittsburg. We were all just happy that it was an exciting game and a close finish.

During halftime, we made coffee and chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Not exactly your typically Superbowl party snacks but the pancakes were delicious and really fluffy! Rather strange to be watching a live football game and eating breakfast at the same time.

Visitors in Mengzi

2009-01-31T10:12:00.003+08:00

I'm on vacation. Campus is deserted. Katie, Dave, and I feel like we're the only living souls on the entire campus. All the campus restaurants and shops are closed up, so we've been having to bulk shop in town and do a lot more of our own cooking rather than eating out. Thank goodness for our bikes, otherwise there would be no way for us to get into town a lot of times. I'm trying to muster up all the self-discipline I have and still be productive since I have so much free time for a few weeks. The past few years during the winter break, I've always traveled somewhere. Last year it was a slightly over-eager month-long trip to India. This year, due to money and logistics (not due to a lack of time), Katie and I decided against a big excursion somewhere. I've decided that while I still love to travel and would go literally anywhere, I've about had my share of extreme budget traveling (staying in hostels, taking the cheapest forms of transportation, etc.). I think the next big trip I do, I'd at least like to able to stay in a real hotel and fly there instead of camping out in a hut (like we did in India) or taking infinitely long, uncomfortable buses and trains to save money.

Anyways, with all that in mind, instead of traveling, Katie and I have been hosting guests here in Mengzi which is a fun change. First, we had Mary Beth and Jennifer come through. They're friends that live in Yidu, near Yichang, and they wanted to travel down here for some warmer weather. Then Katie had a friend from her hometown and home fellowship come visit. Natalie teaches in China and wanted to do some traveling in Yunnan province so she spent a few days with us. Then, this past week, I had three friends make a stop in Mengzi. Abigail Yoder, who I met this past summer through my Aunt Lisa's family, teaches in the extreme far north part of China. Her sister, Karina, and a friend were coming for a visit, so on their way to Taiwan, they made a week stop in my province and made a quick trip down to Vietnam. The Rices have also had guests come through and have more friends coming in about a week. Anyone else want to come visit?! Anyone's welcome!

While Abigail, Karina, and Susanna were here, we tried to take a group photo at the Rice's house. As always, we have a ton of fun and always end up laughing till it hurts when we're all together.

Victoria's checking out her bicep in this photo :)
Takes a lot of work to get 12 people in one photo!
Rachel obviously has no idea where she's supposed to be!
Finally got everyone in one shot!
Silly pose!

Happy Cow

2009-01-27T12:20:00.002+08:00

Happy Chinese "Niu" Year to everyone!! ("Niu" is the Chinese word for Cow or Ox and this year is the Year of the Ox. "Niu" is pronounced almost the same as "new" so it's a rather funny Chinese/English pun.)

Edit: After seeing my blog, my dad told me "Happy Moo Year." Maybe we should leave the puns at that.

The Audacity of [Censored]

2009-01-22T09:58:00.004+08:00

Since I'm on vacation right now and I was out of town for a couple days, I've sort of lost track of which day of the week it is. I totally forgot that the inauguration had taken place until I got in a taxi and the driver (after going through the typically litany of conversation start-up questions) asked me about "my America's" new president (in Chinese they always use "our" and "yours" when talking about the countries we come from--"our China, your America"). After getting back home, I consulted foreignpolicy.com (and a calender) and got reconnected to the outside world.

[As a side note, conversations in Chinese taxis are some of the most interesting Chinese practice I get and one of the best ways to get a feel for what the "typical" Chinese reaction is to just about any subject. And, in general, the taxis drivers are usually overly complimentary about my faltering, limited Chinese skills which is always a confidence booster since I run out vocabulary very quickly when the topic approaches politics or the economy.]

Not all that surprisingly, Obama's speech was censored when it was broadcast on CCTV and when it was later translated into Chinese. Here's the article about it from Foreign Policy. Oh and I ~~stole~~ borrowed their title for my blog post since I thought it was catchy and funny.

China Censors Obama's Inaugural Address

Watch the youtube clip. Do normal Chinese viewers not wonder what's up when they cut out like that and everyone looks flustered and the news anchor asks a completely unrelated question?

And, the Chinese officials have to see the irony in censoring out a line that says, "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history." . . . or maybe they don't. I guess they'd rather run the risk of being on the wrong side of history (in the future) for being on the right side of power (in the present).

Chinglish Signs in Xi Shuang Ban Na

2009-01-17T12:29:00.007+08:00

Some of the signs in the Elephant Nature Preserve were rather amusing.

The Chinese on this one says "Garbage has a home I can/will send it to. You, me, him (way of expressing "everyone") protect the environment." I love it that "garbage" got translated "refuse" but it comes across as /ri-fyooz/ not /ref-yoos/ in the sign :)

This one should say "We only have one earth. Please take care of the forests."
Translation for this one should be "Wild elephants live here so pay attention and be safe."
And this is just funny . . .

Xi Shuang Ban Na

2009-01-16T17:50:00.007+08:00

This past week, I made a trip down to the far SW part of my province, not too far from the borders of Myanmar and Laos to an area called Xi Shuang Ban Na. Although on a map, the distance looks like you should be able to cover it in just a couple hours, there aren't direct highways and some stretches of the road aren't much more than bumpy dirt paths (very bumpy!!). Combined that with curvy mountain roads and stops for food and bathrooms, the trip actually took 10 - 12 hours. Mary Beth and Jennifer (friends from Yichang) took a flight to get down to XSBN. Katie, Dave, and I along with our Chinese friends Jason (who's from that area) and Karry hired a Chinese mini van--complete with a driver and his wife--to make the trip to XSBN.

On the way there we crossed what was labeled as the "highest bridge in the world." I took that to mean they were measuring the distance from the bridge to the ground, not the altitude of the bridge. I am always slightly dubious when it comes to Chinese claims on world superlatives, so I'll have to do some research into world-wide bridge heights .

We visited a beautiful tropical botanical garden area.
Although rationally I know this is completely fallacious, I always pictured rubber trees as being made out of rubber--so that the trees were flexible and "boingy." But in reality, rubber trees are hard like all other trees and it's the sap that rubber is made from. This was my first time to see rubber tapping.Elephant show in the Nature Preserve.

We got to stay in Tree Houses in the Nature Preserve--Swiss Family Robinson style (hmmmm, should I say Chinese Family Wang style? Ha, doesn't quite have the same ring). It was primitive and basic but fun for one night. One problem, when you laid down at night in the bed, you could feel the whole tree house swaying back and forth . . . rather disconcerting. Felt like I was reliving last year's earthquake for a whole night.
There are lots of wild elephants in the Nature Preserve, so much so that you're not allowed off the walkway bridges in the tree houses between dusk and dawn. Sadly, we didn't see any elephants roaming around but we did see footprints.
And we saw monkeys!
These are leaf butterflies! How cool are they?! You really can't tell the difference between them and a brown dried leaf unless you get close enough to see it's body and legs.
Morning after staying in the tree houses, looking a bit groggy and disheveled.
I have more photos to post of the trip which I'll do over the next couple days. If you want to see an web album of all of my XSBN photos go to this link.

Xi Shuang Ban Na Web Album

January Flowers

2009-01-09T15:18:00.001+08:00

Outside my apartment building there are several trees that bloomed about a week ago. The trees have beautiful pink flowers all over them. Coming from Indiana, I never expected to see trees covered in flowers in January!

International Gaming

2009-01-04T17:17:00.001+08:00

Thanks to the miracles of technology, I got to play Trivial Pursuit with my dad and our family friends Dave and Fely Hawkins on New Years Day! We used Skype audio and video and dad set up the computer and so that the game board could be seen by the camera. Dave (China friend Dave, not Dave Hawkins) joined me and together with Fely (since she's from the Phillipines), we made the up the International Team and took on the American team of Dad and Dave. The International Team ended up losing, but we all had fun in the process :) I miss getting to play board games and cards with my family while I'm in China so it was nice to get to be included in the fun this time! It still amazes me that I can talk to and video call with my family on the other side of the world and it all can be done for absolutely free.

Getting "Treated" For Meals

2009-01-01T12:10:00.003+08:00

Haven't really felt like Chines food the last few days so I've been enjoying being "treated" to meals thanks to all the great food that's been sent to me in my birthday and Christmas boxes!

Day before yesterday--
Easy Mac for supper courtesy of Kara
Hot Chocolate and fudge for dessert courtesy of Kara and Mom

Yesterday--
Starbucks coffee for breakfast courtesy of Grandma
Oatmeal for breakfast courtesy of Dad and Mom

Tuna for Lunch courtesy of Carma

Potato soup for supper courtesy of Bob and Debbie
Mini Reese's cups and mini Hersey's bars for dessert courtesy of Dad and Mom and Bob and Debbie

Today--
More Starbucks courtesy of Grandma
Pop-tart for breakfast courtesy of Dad and Mom

Left over potato soup for Lunch courtesy of Bob and Debbie

Yum!

Permanent Pests

2008-12-29T11:04:00.003+08:00

I'm enjoying the warm weather that we still have in Mengzi. Most days we have sun, blue skies, breeze, and you can get by with just wearing a jacket or light sweater--certainly a welcome change after freezing in Yichang the past few winters. Winter in Mengzi is probably quite similar to winters in Florida in the States. But, the downside to warm winters is that flies and mosquitoes don't ever leave! They're everywhere still and so so so annoying! The strange thing is that the mosquitoes don't seem to ever bite me, they just buzz around my face at night making me go crazy. Any one know why mosquitoes stop biting in the winter? Bites or no bites, I need some sort of offense against the mosquitoes. Next time I'm out shopping, I'm going to buy one of those zapper rackets (do they have those in the States)?

Christmas Eve = Apples

2008-12-27T09:19:00.008+08:00

China seems to have developed it's own tradition for Christmas Eve which I find quite interesting and amusing. In Chinese, instead of calling December 24 "Christmas Eve," it's called "Silent Night" (or more accurately "Peaceful Night"). This is the same phrased used in the song "Silent Night" when it's sung in Chinese. The Chinese word for "Peaceful Night" is 平安夜 Ping An Ye. The first character "ping" has the same pronunciation (though a slight variation in the character) as the first half of the Chinese word for "apple" which is 苹果 Ping Guo. So, someone somewhere in China has decided you need to give out apples on Christmas Eve. Seems a bit of a stretch to me, but I don't think foreigners get a vote in this newly adopted Chinese Christmas tradition.

In Yichang, Katie and I got the occasional Christmas Eve apple but the apple buying and selling seemed somewhat contained. In Mengzi, however, Christmas Eve creates and all-out apple craze. Shops and fruit stalls have capitalized on this apple idea. Not only do they sell apples for Christmas Eve, but they sell special paper that you can wrap the apples up in. The more sheets you use, the more expensive, and therefore more desirable and valuable (I guess) the apples become--not that elaborately wrapped apples taste any different. Katie said one of her students got an apple wrapped in 99 sheets of paper so that then it looks like a huge paper flower. Seems overly extravagant and pointless to us--who needs an apple covered in 99 pieces of paper? Guess it's some kind of Chinese Christmas status symbol.

Since Katie, Dave, and I were hosting lots of student Christmas parties, we ended up with nearly 15 wrapped up apples between the three of us that students gave us when they came over. We decided instead of opening them all and trying to eat them ourselves (Katie had already been given an orchard-worth of fruit to eat by some of her students), we passed the pretty apples on to the hotel staff since they're all really nice about helping us whenever we need something for our apartments (our apartments are part of the campus hotel).

Here I am holding a wrapped and unwrapped apple. And the second picture is me trying to hold all the wrapped up apples that we got.

On Christmas Eve, while leaving campus to go to the Rice's house, we noticed there were hundreds of students holding wrapped apples all milling around campus and the front gate. It's like they knew it was a holiday and to them that meant they should buy an apple, but then it seemed like they didn't really know what to do since China doesn't have any traditions of celebrating Christmas. So the students were all just hanging out and walking around outside. Mostly it seemed like couples. I think the apple giving has turned in to a Valentine's Day-type idea where your boyfriend is almost obligated to give you an apple.

Happy Boxing Day!

2008-12-26T11:59:00.003+08:00

Happy Boxing Day to everyone! Wikipedia tells me Boxing Day is celebrated in the UK and UK related countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.). Since Boxing Day is always on my calendar, but since I don't really know how one is supposed to celebrate Boxing Day, I decided a couple years ago that this is a day when I'm especially thankful for all of the boxes that people send me. So to my parents, John and Kara, Grandma, Ruby, Bob and Debbie, Carma, Beth, and others who have sent me really great boxes . . . thanks so much! Your thoughtfulness means a lot and I always enjoy all of my boxing goodies! :)

Christmas Parties

2008-12-20T21:57:00.003+08:00

5 parties down . . . 4 more to go!

It's busy and a bit tiring, but the kids seem to enjoy coming over and it gives me lots of chances to tell the Christmas story.

O Christmas Tree

2008-12-18T11:35:00.002+08:00

My Christmas tree in my apartment! Having a nice tree makes me happy and the students love to see a decorated tree when they come over for Christmas parties. I also put lights in my windows and have a few other decorations around my apartment. Thanks to Ruby for sending me Christmas decorations that I could use all month. And thanks to my wonderful sister for sending a box full of wrapped packages that got here early so that I could have lots of presents under my tree.

Red River U

2008-12-09T09:35:00.003+08:00

Here's a picture of one of the buildings on campus that I teach in. We refer to it as the Clock Tower building. I'm hoping to get to go up to the top of the clock tower section someday. This is one of the newer buildings on campus. Our campus, like the town of Mengzi, is a mixture of new and old buildings. I'll try to get some more pictures around campus, something that I'm always meaning to do. I have Dawson to thank for this picture.

And here's a picture of me, Katie, and Dave at the front gate of the school. Did you know that Hong He University translates to Red River College? And there's also a famous cigarette brand in China with the same name. So whenever we say what school we teach at, (especially when we're outside of Mengzi) people associate it with a pack of cigarettes. We decided it would be like going to Marlboro University or Joe Camel College in the States! :-) Oh well! . . . it's still a good school to work at.

Mengzi's Lake and Park

2008-12-04T12:10:00.000+08:00

Last week over the Thanksgiving holiday, Dawson came to visit me and Katie. Dawson lived in Yichang with us for two years and has now moved on the business world of Shang Hai. While Dawson was here, we took some time to walk around the park that's in the middle of the lake in downtown Mengzi. When you live in a city, sometimes you don't take the time to enjoy its attractions until you have a guest that you want to show them to. The park and lake really are pretty areas and we've had gorgeous, clear, sunny weather the last few weeks to make it even more enjoyable.

Bedtime for Gracie and Esther

2008-12-03T16:12:00.003+08:00

Reading a bedtime story to my two favorite xiao peng you (means "little friend", what an adult says to a child in Chinese). Esther and Grace, the Rice's two youngest daughters, are so much fun and too cute! I'm so glad I can be an "aunt" to them while I'm here in Mengzi.

Thanksgiving

2008-12-01T14:37:00.008+08:00

Another amazing Thanksgiving dinner in China! This is my fifth Thanksgiving in China and every year I've been able to celebrate with Brian and Victoria and their family. I do really miss being home with my family during holidays, but I'm thankful to have a great China family that I feel so at home with. And I'm thankful that Victoria is willing to put together such an amazing Thanksgiving feast. We try to pitch in and help, but really Victoria's the one who does all the work. Despite being in such a small town in China, we don't miss out on anything when it comes to the holidays.

Playing games before dinner

Our Thanksgiving center-piece, handmade by some vendor on the sidewalk. In reality, it's probably supposed to be some kind of phoenix/peacock, but we decided it worked well as a turkey.

Xiao Feng (the Rice's cat) was just a little too curious about the turkey.
We always have to pose with the perfectly cooked turkey every year.
Sadly, Brian was feeling a bit sick on Thanksgiving, so Dave did the carving (sad about Brian being sick, not about Dave carving the turkey!).
Jack, excited to try Thanksgiving dinner (um, we're not sure what the "L" pose is about . . .)
There were at least 25 people over at the Rices for dinner this year. It reminds me a lot of holidays at my Grandma's house. In Chinese, there's a great word to describe a situation like this: the word re nao 热闹 means something like bustling, festive, exciting, enjoyably crowded and noisy. But I don't think we have a good English equivalent. . I always like holiday celebrations that are very renao!
We even had football on the TV . . . a taped game between Ohio and Michigan from 2005 that we've watched the past three years! But, it still adds to the Thanksgiving ambiance.
So many great desserts! Victoria's cranberry apple pie could have won a prize at the state fair and Dave's chocolate turtle cheesecake could put Cheesecake Factory out of business!
We didn't know Rachel could eat so much! :)

Too Many Cooks . . .

2008-11-26T11:57:00.004+08:00

. . . spoil the spaghetti? Not at the Rice's house!

It's so nice to be able to have "family dinners" with great American food over at the Rice's house once a week. Since Katie, Dave, and I have rather small kitchens that make cooking rather cumbersome, we'd be really hurting for some good Western food if it wasn't for Victoria and all of her culinary delights (and Caleb and Rachel who cook dinners for us sometimes too).

Waffles!

2008-11-24T14:12:00.001+08:00

In Yichang, Brad and Amy found a little stall that sells waffles. Finding waffles in China is rather amazing. You could choose from a variety of toppings (I chose chocolate, Brad and Amy went with blueberry . . . butter, apple, and strawberry were the other options). Your waffle gets covered in topping, folded in half, and is then slid into a paper bag. Waffles to go! Now I'm wanting a waffle stand in Mengzi . . .

Wrong-Way Street

2008-11-21T10:10:00.002+08:00

While out in Yichang one afternoon, Brad and I saw this rather incongruous set of road signs which made us both laugh. So I guess your only option is reverse if you're driving on this road. Hope there's no one behind you. Of course, as I've often noticed, road signs and traffic rules in China seem to be a bit, um, flexible.

Yichang Visit

2008-11-20T22:15:00.003+08:00

Last Thursday, Katie and I flew back to Yichang for a visit. We had three days off at our school because of some nebulous local anniversary/holiday. Combine those three days with the weekend and our relatively light/flexible teaching schedules and it worked out that we could spend almost a week in Yichang. It was a little strange being back in Yichang and back at TGU but not actually living there, but it was nice to see old friends and students. It was especially fun to hang out with Brad and Amy and make a trip out to Yidu to see Mary Beth, Jennifer, and Mira. We also made a trip back to Yichang Foreign Languages School, the middle school that we taught at for two years. One of my students from TGU is student-teaching there. Interesting to go back to my old middle school and find one of my old university students (who was a freshman when I first taught him) teaching a completely new generation of students there . . . made me feel, um, a little old. All in all, despite the slightly gray weather, a moderate bout with a cold/flu for both me and Katie, and the nightmare that is the Kunming bus station, it was a nice trip and a fun time. It's nice to have a hometown in China where I know I'll always have friends and memories.

Oh, and a fun happening on the way home . . . I went through my first Chinese drive-through! One of the McDonald's in Kunming has a drive-through which is a completely novel concept in China, so much so that it seems most people don't know what it is, why it's there, or how to use it. It's the only drive-through I've ever seen in China. Conveniently, that McDonalds is located halfway between the airport and the long-distance bus station, and Katie and I happened to have a surprisingly jolly, accomodating cab driver who picked us up at the airport. We easily talked the cabbie into making a run through the drive through on the way to the bus station. How fun! Big Macs on the fly. It felt so . . . American . . . except that we had to order in Chinese . . . and our fries got lost in translation. And, McDonalds in China now has Coke Zero which is also novel and progressive here in a land that knows nothing of "diet" foods.

Birthday Thanks

2008-11-10T21:27:00.004+08:00

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday special!

On Friday I got a wonderful birthday package from Dad and Mom, John and Kara. I got to open my package while talking to dad and mom and using the webcams which was so much fun (technology is so amazing . . . well, when it works, at least). My family always sends great things in boxes and this box was no exception.

Yesterday I got to celebrate my birthday with the Rices and Dave and Katie. They gave me lots of nice presents (including a birthday scepter . . . ) and Victoria made my favorite cake, Black Magic cake with cream cheese frosting. Yum! Tasted so good. And it was a bundt cake . . . even better!

Today I got this fun picture from Brad and Amy which really made me smile. Their Halloween paper-mache mannequin (a.k.a. Stevie Nicks the Impaler) had a special birthday sign for me. Oh and in case you're wondering, yes the sign says "Kimb." A while ago, a student gave me a card and on the envelope it said "To Kimb" . . . it was like they first wrote Kim, then wanted to go for Kimberly, but got stuck after the "b" and then gave up. "Kimb" kind of stuck with my Yichang friends.

Beth wrote a fun, sweet birthday post for me on her blog which I loved. Thanks Beth! Reminds me or your great "chose-your-own-adventure" stories. And, she says there's a box on the way for me so I have even more to look forward to!

Thanks to friends and family back home who gave me cards and presents . . . my grandparents, Ruby, the Dillons, and others. Several students and friends from here at HHU and from Yichang sent me text messages and I got more Facebook birthday wishes than I could keep up with.

This year there wasn't a big party with a large group of friends like I've done the last few years (oh the fond memories of roller skating and the murder mystery dinner theater!), but I had a nice relaxing day with beautiful weather and a fun time doing dinner and a movie with Katie and Dave tonight. And I got to talk to my parents and to Kara to finish up the day.

Although birthdays take on a slightly different character as an adult, it's still nice to be treated special for a day. Despite the fact that I now definitively fall into the "late 20s" age bracket, I'm thankful for the past year that God gave me and excited about another year to come.

And I have to make a special point to say Happy Birthday to my sister and best friend. Happy 24th birthday Kara! I hope it doesn't sound cliche, but you really were the best birthday present I ever got! Love you lots! (Yes, my sister and I share the same birthday :)

Fear Factor Food

2008-11-07T11:39:00.005+08:00

One of the nights we were in Lu Chun, we went and had Chinese "BBQ". Night market booths with little grills serve beef and lamb kabobs and also potatoes and other roast veggies. The normal meat and veggies are pretty good, but you can also order an assortment of other "meat."

Anyone hungry for some tongue? How about a hoof or a tail? Or intestines? Or something completely unidentifiable?
Karry (one of our Chinese student-friends that went to Lu Chun with us) highly recommended the pig's tail and ordered one for herself. The BBQ lady chopped the tail up with scissors and used a knife to make small slits in the pieces and then grilled it. Karry kept telling me it tasted great, but I couldn't figure out how she was eating it. It's seriously nothing but cartilage. One of the great mysteries of Chinese people . . . how are they able to gnaw on something so tough and rubbery and call it food?

Terraced Fields

2008-11-06T09:47:00.005+08:00

The town of Yuan Yang and the area surrounding Matthew's village are famous for the terraced fields. Since the land is quite mountainous, the peasants terrace the sides of the mountains so that they can have enough flat land to grow rice. Before planting, the fields are flooded and saturated with water making them look like a maze of layered lakes.

Gorgeous Rainbow

2008-11-05T08:01:00.004+08:00

When we arrived in Lu Chun on Friday, it was raining. But, at one point, the sun came out at just the right angel and there was the most beautiful, brightest rainbow I've ever seen. Actually it was a double rainbow (the second rainbow is there in the photos but it's not as vivid). The rainbow went over the town in a perfect arch and it was visible for more than 5 minutes! Yeah for Brian having a wide-angel lens on his camera that could capture the whole thing.

Almost seems like these photos aren't real, especially the one of Brian. It looks like he was superimposed onto a rainbow background. But I know it's real, I was right there!

Long Table Festival

2008-11-04T23:46:00.007+08:00

This past weekend, I got to go see the "Long Table Festival" (or if you directly translate the Chinese, the "Long Street Feast") in the town of Lu Chun. Brian drove his jeep and another friend drove his car the 6 hours from Mengzi to Lu Chun. There were 8 of us in our group. The Long Table Festival is the biggest holiday for the Hani minority group. Matthew, one of our closest student-friends here at HHU, is Hani and he came with us and taught us a lot about the Hani people.

There are over 3,000 tables set up in Lu Chun for the festival! It goes for literally miles through the one main street in the town. When I asked how the logistics worked, I was told that the government pays local Hani families to provide the food and serve a group of tables (maybe 3 or 4). Guests then buy tickets to attend the festival. It's like a giant pot-luck. Sadly it was pouring down rain most of the time we were in Lu Chun but we still had a fun weekend.

Brian's umbrella broke so he went out in search of a big "manly" umbrella. This is what he bought. We laughed and laughed when he carried that massive umbrella down the crowded streets.
A lot happened this weekend and it's hard to cover it all on my blog. Besides all the Long Table Festivities, we made a trip out to Matthew's remote village where his parents and extended family live. I'll probably do a few more posts about the trip, but if you want to see an online album with captions, you can click on this link - Long Table Festival.

Chinese Cruciverbalists?

2008-10-29T13:28:00.004+08:00

I'm a crossword puzzle fan. I think it must be genetic since my Grandma works the crossword puzzle in her newspaper everyday and my dad frequently likes a crossword puzzle challenge too. One of my favorite things to do when I'm home in the summers is to wake up in the morning, get some coffee and a bagel, turn on the Today show (which I usually end up ignoring) and sit at the kitchen table and work the daily crossword puzzle from the Indianapolis Star. The Star's crosswords seem to be right at my level--hard enough to challenge me, but not so hard that I get frustrated and start to feel like an idiot. And, if I ever get stuck, my dad is always more than willing to show me how much he knows by putting in a word or two to "help" me. Dad and mom even sent me several crossword puzzles in the last box they mailed me.

I've always assumed that crossword puzzles in Chinese would be impossible due to the fact that words are usually comprised of only one or two characters rather than letters that could overlap. A few times, I've used online crossword puzzle generators to make puzzles in English for my students since I thought they'd enjoy trying a word puzzle in English that they can't do in Chinese. But, not too long ago, I saw my first Chinese crossword puzzle in the back of the "Student Diary" that the school gave us (for the 30th anniversary, we all got free HHU t-shirts, caps, bags, and student planners).

I don't know enough Chinese to actually work the puzzle, but from what I can tell it seems like the clues are mostly about famous people, well-known companies, and city names . . . most of which use 3 - 5 Chinese characters. I was rather intrigued by this finding and am going to keep my eye out for more crossword puzzles in Chinese.

Neither Height, Nor Depth . . .

2008-10-26T22:19:00.005+08:00

Nor rivers, nor rickety Chinese plank bridges . . . nor any other thing shall be able to keep us from meeting together on Sundays!

This morning, Katie, Dave, and I decided to ride our bikes to the Rice's house for our Sunday church meeting. Just last week, the new road connecting the university to the highway was supposedly completed. That new road saves us about 10 minutes of riding, so we thought we'd go that way this morning. But, when we got to the newly opened section, we were met with a concrete barrier. I guess, they had just poured more cement so we couldn't ride on the new road. Not wanting to waste time having to backtrack and ride through town, we decided to take the dirt path "shortcut" through the field. We've actually ridden down the dirt path before, but this time we met up with a small river which . . . um . . . wasn't there last time. So here we are on our way to have church at the Rice's this morning.

Right after we "walked the planks" and were on the other side, Dave accidentally put his foot into some sort of quicksand-mud-goop up to his ankle which we all thought was dry and solid but turned out to be quite soft.

Vietnamese Students

2008-10-25T10:46:00.002+08:00

Here at Hong He University, there are several hundred Vietnamese students. Brian and I are each teaching an English class once a week to a group of Vietnamese students. The Vietnamese students we have in our class are motivated and fun-loving. I've enjoyed getting to know them. But since their English level is still rather low, we end up using Chinese to communicate most of the time. Americans and Vietnamese communicating to each other in Chinese . . . I just think it's a little funny. People say that Chinese is one of the most difficult languages to learn, but listening to my Vietnamese students speak to each other, I wonder if Vietnamese would be harder (pronunciation, not writing). There are six tones in Vietnamese as opposed to four in Chinese and it seems that the sounds of Vietnamese are more throaty and glottal which I think is harder to get used to. But maybe I'm just comfortable with Chinese now and it doesn't sound so foreign to me anymore. Brian and Caleb are thinking about getting someone to teach them some basic Vietnamese. They have my admiration for even considering it.

Here's a picture of me, Brian, Caleb, and Rachel with some of the Vietnamese girls that are in my class. (And in case you're wondering, no, I can't tell the difference between the Chinese students and the Vietnamese students. Neither can they until they hear each other speaking.)

Squirrel Fish

2008-10-23T16:43:00.002+08:00

I had this dish twice last week at one of our favorite restaurants near the university. It's called "squirrel fish" . . . I guess because it's cut to look like a squirrel? The head is actually split in half and flattened out. Despite the odd name and slightly disturbing presentation, it actually taste really good. Unlike most fish in China, this fish was filleted and didn't have a million tiny fish bones to try to eat around and it has a tasty sweet-and-sour sauce. I recommend the squirrel fish!

20-Legged Race

2008-10-19T23:46:00.005+08:00

On Saturday, Hong He University celebrated its 30th anniversary. There were games and activities on campus all day with a concert and fireworks in the evening. In the morning, at the stadium, there were some races. One of the races was a 20-legged race (well, about 20 people with their legs tied together, I'm not exactly sure how many "legs" that makes). The teams practice quite extensively to be able to do this without falling down. Sadly though, a few teams did end up wiping-out. I didn't actually see any bad falls, but Katie and the Rices did. I guess this is supposed to promote teamwork and camaraderie and coordination? I've never seen anyone attempt anything like this in the States . . . makes our 3-legged races look kind of wimpy.

First Mengzi Package

2008-10-17T10:42:00.002+08:00

Just when I was down on the mail delivery here in Mengzi, I got a package from dad and mom that made really good time. Some of the letters that Katie and I have gotten seemed like they were taking a long time to get here (like more than 3 weeks). So, when dad and mom sent me a box I was worried that I'd have to wait forever to get it. But it came in about 10 days!

Besides sending me a book that I really wanted, dad and mom stocked me up on coffee, mac 'n cheese, tuna, brownie mixes, sugar-free drink mixes, and Reeses! Yum! All stuff I can't get here. Plus I got a magazine and crossword puzzles. Thanks so much mom and dad . . . you send the best boxes!

I'm still having trouble sending international mail from Mengzi. The Mengzi China Post seems baffled as to how to send something overseas. The Rices say they usually save their international mail and send it when they go to Kunming. That's fine, but that means only being able to mail stuff about once a month. Feels a little like the days of the Pony Express and stage coach deliveries.

A Day in Hanoi

2008-10-10T10:17:00.008+08:00

After staying a few days in Sapa, Katie, Dave, and I took a train to Hanoi. We arrived in Hanoi at 5:30 a.m. and after getting cleaned up at the hotel, we had one of the best travel days I've ever had in a new city. We got to see all of the main things we wanted to do, we had good food, didn't get lost, and didn't get stressed out about where to go.

Motorcycles everywhere! Darting and swerving and honking their way through the narrow streets in the Old Quarter.

St. Joseph's Cathedral

A walk around the lake that separates the Old Quarter and the French Quarter. I thought this little girl was just too cute with her pointed Vietnamese hat and her missing front teeth.

Lunch at a bustling, crowded restaurant which seemed to be a favorite of the locals. Street food for the middle class is how Lonely Planet described this place. It was really delicious!

Visit to the Vietnamese Military History Museum. It was a little unsettling to see the wreckage of American planes, tanks, and helicopters that had been captured or shot down during the Vietnamese War. The museum definitely portrayed history from a Vietnamese perspective, but it was still interesting.

The Citadel, part of the Military Museum Site. That's me and Katie in the windows of the tower in the second picture.

Temple of Literature

Trying a local specialty for supper. On Fish Street, the restaurants all have very simple menus, "Only one dish in our restaurant: Grilled Fish. Price 90,000 VND/person. Drinks not included."

We thought the grilled fish tasted delicious, but the portions were tiny! Katie, Dave, and I all left hungry.

We ended the day by going to a water puppet show. Never having heard of water puppets before, we didn't know what to expect, but it was a very fun show. Musicians sing and play traditional Vietnamese instruments, while the puppets (people, dragons, boats, fish, etc.) pop in and out and seem to swim and dance on the water. The puppets are manipulated by people standing in the waist-deep pool behind a bamboo curtain. I guess water puppets are uniquely Vietnamese and highly valued folk art in Vietnam.

And still watch out for the motorcyles at the end of the day on your way back to the hotel!

Afternoon Ride in Sapa

2008-10-09T16:55:00.005+08:00

Motorcycles are definitely the preferred travel mode in Vietnam, so one afternoon while we were in Sapa we rented motorcycles to drive around in the mountains and see some of the scenery.

Checking out the bikes. Be careful not to get ripped off (as we all found out later!)

Brian, Caleb, and Dave were the drivers and Rachel, Katie, and I were the passengers. I wished I could have driven myself, but since I haven't driven motorcycles before, I decided that it was better not to learn on curvy, narrow mountainous roads in a country with crazy-aggressive bike drivers.

Making sure we didn't run out of gas.

Dave was my driver.

Women harvesting rice in the terraced fields.

When we stopped to take photos, a minority women and her kids ran after us trying to sell us jewelry.

Terraced fields surrounding Sapa

We had to drive through water and mud and around large potholes the size of craters while being careful not to go careening off the side of the mountain, since, of course, there aren't any guardrails.

Relax! . . . This isn't real!!! At one point, Brian and Rachel had gotten in front of me and Dave. Dave and I drove around a corner and this is what we saw. Just before Dave and I started panicking, we heard laughing. Brian and Rachel got in front of us and then decided to stage an accident. The Vietnamese people who were watching thought it was quite funny. You have to always be ready for a joke when you're with Brian.

View of Sapa as we drove back into town.

Sapa, Vietnam

2008-10-07T17:02:00.000+08:00

Crossing the border into Vietnam

It was rather fun to arrive "on foot" which is what we you write on your Customs arrival form.

Sapa Rooms, our hotel in Sapa

Sapa is a laid-back mountain town with winding roads and lots of interesting hotels, restaurants, and shops.

Do You Like Dog?

2008-10-05T20:14:00.004+08:00

One of the best parts on any vacation is coming back home. I enjoyed Sapa and Hanoi and was glad for the chance to go to Vietnam, but after a rickety, smelly overnight train ride followed by a shoving match to get through customs and then followed by a jarring 5 hour-long bus ride, I was more than happy to be back in my own apartment. After a shower and a pot of coffee, life was good again.

I'm still consolidating photos from the trip so I'll post photos later.

A funny story to share . . . When we got back to the border, my phone service came back and I had a text message from Robin, a student-friend. I had spent time helping Robin prepare a speech for a competition a few weeks ago. After the competition, she went back home to see her family. Here's the text message she sent me:

"Dear Kim. I'm coming back tomorrow. If you like dog, I can bring a small one to you, there are three in my house."

Knowing that dog meat is available in the Mengzi markets and after a week of hearing about all kinds of strange food that people in Vietnam eat, I just assumed that when she said "if you like dog," she meant "if you like to eat dog." So my reply was:

Thanks for the offer but actually I think it's a little strange to eat dog. Maybe it's a cultural difference.

Then I got another message from Robin:

You made a mistake. I mean I will bring a small dog to you to keep, not eat. Because you said you like dog.

Oops! My mistake, but as much as I like dogs and as relieved as I was that it wasn't dog meat, I still didn't want her to bring me a puppy. I just don't think having a dog in China is a good idea for me since I travel a lot and don't want to have to give a dog up whenever I end up going home. So, I politely declined Robin's offer to bring me a dog and laughed about assuming that she was bringing me dog meat! I guess I never thought about the difference between saying, "do you like dogs?" and "do you like dog?" . . . maybe I should point that out to Robin . . .

Nam

2008-10-02T08:38:00.005+08:00

Adding another place to the my life's list of "Places I Never Expected to Visit" . . . I'm in Vietnam (other places on that list include Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Malaysia). With all the history and negative connotations associated with Vietnam, it's a little surreal to actually be here.

To celebrate Chinese National Day, we got a "week" off school (please see previous post about "making up" the holiday). Since Mengzi is only a couple hours from the border of China and Vietnam, we--me, Katie, Dave, and the whole Rice family--decided to escape the pandomonium and the crowds that characterize all Chinese holidays and come to Vietnam.

We all went to the beautiful French-influenced mountain village of Sapa and enjoyed great scenery and cool weather. Yesterday Katie, Dave, and I ventured off on our own and took a train to Hanoi. We'll be in Hanoi until tomorrow night and then we train back to the border and repeat the not-so-pleasant bus ride back to Mengzi.

I'll have lots of pictures and more stories to post once I get back home to my computer. For now, here's a little incident that happened when I was crossing the border:

At the border, the Customs officials asked all of us if we had any books so I took out the two books I brought to read and my Bible. The one book I brought is called Red Dust and it's a travelogue from an free-spirited artist/vagabond who wondered China in the 1980s. Anyways, there's a map in the front of the book outlining the author's travels and although it's in grayscale, Taiwan was a slightly darker shade than China. The border guard took my book and went and had a discussion about it and then came back and told me that I had to tear out the page with the map and it was a very serious issue. I couldn't help laughing because I bought the book at a bookstore in Beijing and the author is Chinese (the book is translated into English). I offered to write "Taiwan is a part of China" on the map page. After a few minutes, the guard just gave a sheepish look and finally just said it was ok since the book came from Beijing. My book and its map remained intact. Sadly, the book turned out to be just an average read, so I swapped it at our Sapa Hotel book exchange for two other books to read during the rest of my trip. Maybe some other traveler will find the contraband and attempt to take it back across the border.

I'm off to have the local specialty grilled fish dish. I really am loving the food.

Communicatory Day

2008-09-27T00:29:00.005+08:00

I'm not always the best phone person. I talk to mom and dad and Kara quite often, but when it comes to friends, a lot of times I wish it really was the thought that counted . . . because I do think about calling people a lot. I'm just not really good at following through. But, the last 24 hours have been quite happy where the phone is concerned. I got to talk to my dad, then Kara, then Beth (on gtalk), then Amy, quick hi to Dawson (also on gtalk), then Shin Hong, then my mom . . . all since last night.

I'm continuously thankful for modern communication technology. I can talk to friends and family on the other side of the world (or the next country over) for free or nearly free!

Thanks to a tip from Victoria, I just discovered talkster.com which is a great way to make free long-distance or international calls . . . unless your family lives in Coatesville, IN which is the black hole of all telecommunications.

Daily Confusion

2008-09-25T11:50:00.003+08:00

Today is Thursday but I have no class until tonight so it feels like Saturday. Tomorrow is Friday and I'm teaching my Tuesday class. Saturday morning, I'm teaching my Monday class. Sunday we're leaving for Vietnam and by then I really won't know what day it is.

Kate, Dave, me and the whole Rice family are going to go spend a week in the northern Vietnamese town of Sapa. We got our passports back from Kunming yesterday with the Vietnamese visa stamped in it. Katie, Dave, and I are going to take a bus to the China-Vietnam border which is about 4 hours from Mengzi (Brian's driving his family there in a jeep) and then the hotel comes and picks us up to take us to Sapa which is about an hour from the border. While we're in Sapa, we might get to see some of the Vietnamese students that study at HHU and going home for the Oct. 1 holiday.

Excited about getting to visit a new country!

Students' Sonnets

2008-09-21T16:18:00.004+08:00

Here are some of the sonnets that my British Literature students came up with.

To You--My Missing Lover
When I am first time to meet you.
I can't help myself to missing you at the night.
All the happiness feeling come from you,
My heart always with the joy and delight.
For your smile give me much warm.
Like a cup of tea in the winter.
There is no more unharmony and no more harm.
Just so much sweet emotion occupy my heart when it entered.
Thanks to the God let us meet in here.
Unforgottable for your back shadow fades away.
I can't find that in anywhere.
The sweet memory take me in my dream always.
To you, my missing lover, I will waiting for you in my life.
Loving you in this life if only I'm alive.

Autumn Day
We all went home on Autumn Day.
It was a short happy journey.
In my heart, my hometown is never far away.
My love and soul always live in my lovely small country.
It was bright moon to lighten the way home.
I missed my family for Autumn's sake.
I enjoyed the days I followed my mum.
I loved we all set round to eat mooncake.
Peanuts, delicious food and sweets.
Let us eat so much.
Leaving wonderful memory to us.
It was great happiness for each.
How wonderful Autumn Festival!
It was my short and unforgettable travel!

I had four or five other sonnets that I thought were quite good considering it's being written in a second language. One of my the student's sonnet was "Shall I Compare Thee to a Red Apple" and although some of lines got a little confusing, I thought her last two lines were cute.

Happiness, unhappiness of all my life. And, if God blesses,
I would like to be you Mrs.

When I was reading the students' sonnets, a few of them seemed to be a little too good and some of them were obviously not the students' own work. I started checking and found that the students had turned in two Shakespeare sonnets, two poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one poem by a man named Samuel Daniel, and two poems from a Chinese "let-us-do-your-homework-for-you" site. How my ESL students think they can get away with turning in a Shakespeare sonnet and claiming it as their own, I'm not sure. They're going to get a little lecture in class this week.

Rome Wasn't Built In A Day

2008-09-19T00:10:00.004+08:00

On the highway going from my university into town, they're building . . . The Colosseum. Why? . . . I have no idea. I guess it's some sort of large amphitheater. Seems a rather odd thing to be building in the small town of Mengzi. I might start getting worried if I hear anything about lions arriving in Mengzi.

Buzz, buzz . . . crunch.

2008-09-18T21:05:00.005+08:00

I thought I'd already eaten my share of weird foods in China (snake, eel, live shrimp, starfish), but one of the dishes at supper tonight has to make it pretty high on my Top 10 List of Bizarre Foods I've Eaten. The dish was fried bees. That's right, bees . . . as in the insects that make honey. A whole plate of fried bees and fried bee larva. And yes, I ate a bee. And a bee larva. It tasted like chicken . . . just kidding. It was crunchy and just tasted like the batter it was fried in. I don't ever need to eat another fried bee. Maybe this is why we have a bee shortage in America. The Chinese are eating all the bees. I never saw this in Yichang so maybe it's a Yunnan specialty? . . .

Half way through dinner, while our host wasn't looking, Dave made a buzzing sound and threw a bee at me. It landed on my plate and I about choked on my tea. There's just something funny and slightly disturbing about a plate of fried insects on the table.