I had lunch with a student today. What was even better about it was that she calmed down substantially about the fact that we were talking once it became clear that, well, we could just talk. So it ended up being rather a nice meal! And I had a Real Soup for the first time in China. (The soups here tend to be water with chunks of bone and a random vegetable thrown in, not as delicious as I would like.)

On the way back from school I had a awkward drawn out conversation with a random student who decided I looked like I wanted to talk. This isn't particularly uncommon, but we got to do it in half English half Chinese! Yay!

Tonight there's some kind of "party" that I think is more like a lecture/discussion. I'm a little concerned that it's actually a lecture/discussion given by Megan and I. We'll see. So long as we survive it, we're headed to Loudi tomorrow to visit Emily's friends (and one of the two walmarts they have in the town. Peanut butter here I come!).

In an effort to move from my comfort zone, I decided I would go to dinner with my students. They didn't know this, so I was going to have to ask/inform at the break. In planning to keep me from backing out I didn't have the right change to get on the bus, so I would have to go buy dinner in order to be able to go home.

Well, while they seemed receptive enough when I brought it up, when class was over I finished cleaning off the blackboard and turned to find a nearly empty room. One girl was still packing up, though, so I descended upon her.

(in English)
me: "Are you going to dinner now?"
girl: "Yes!"
me: "Can I go with you?"
girl: (horrified look) "Oh... I'm going home to eat!" (rushes out of the room)

Le sigh. I go to the bus and have to get change from other teachers. Totally shot down.

(A note on the format of these posts- generally if a conversation is happening in Chinese it is in italics, whereas English conversations take place "within quotes".)

--

In happier news, I have a winter coat! It is furry on the inside and quite warm while being only moderately unflattering and only a few inches short in the arms! And after buying coats Megan and I met up with Emily and I had waffles for dinner! Yum!

--

I've begun teaching my students slang and idioms. Every time I ask a question I hear a chorus of "Sweeeet", and I've heard several students tell others to "Keep your chin up!".

Well, maybe not every Mountain. But Hengshan, one of the 5 great Mountains in China, at least. Although I suppose we also only made it half way up. But still! Half a mountain is still climbing a mountain!

Since I've gotten no better solutions for mixing pictures and type, I'll direct you to the photobucket site and describe what happened here. (All the pictures with time/date stamps were stolen from Emily.)

Emily, Megan and I were tired of people asking us if we had been to the mountain, so we finally got around to going. Dressed in so many layers, we hopped a taxi to the bus station and bought tickets for a bus leaving in... ahh! 7 minutes! move!

We make the bus with plenty of time to spare, and poor Megan meets a new drunken friend. We get to Nanyue about an hour after we leave, and start asking people on the street how to get to the mountain. They all point us in the same direction, so we walk and walk. We stop to eat some lunch (it's around 12:30pm and the mountain is supposed to take 4 hours to climb) which is a noodle soup with a very different flavor than the kind we're used to- odd, but still okay.

We find the entrance after much meandering, Emily has the foresight to suggest we get a map and 15 dollars later we're in! Off we launch on our first of many stairs.

We climb through a valley with a lake and it's gorgeous. Additionally, the air feels clean, which is a really welcome change from Hengyang. We walk for a long time, enjoying the sun and cool air and stop to eat oranges here and there. Lots of waterfalls, greenery, what have you.

We climb for about 3 hours and I get a glimpse into our near future when we pass three old guys walking down the mountain. I don't hear the first thing the guy says, so then they have a conversation that goes along the lines of Oh, they don't understand us. Do you think they know it's still 3 hours to the top? I laugh because it's funny to understand people, but am slightly concerned with what I heard, and hope that I translated something wrong.

Oh no, consulting with the map shows us nearly half way up the mountain. My Lonely Planet guidebook, often so excellent, had told me 4 hours, and I'm not at all clear how they got that number. We climb a bit further, hearing several other people shake their heads at us and mutter something about 3 more hours, and after a bit we decide we are cold and tired and content with our mountain progress. We manage to buy tickets for the bus that goes down, get back into town and then again manage to get tickets to go back home. We stop at a food tent where, as usual, they are entirely thrilled/puzzled to have us eating there, and then we go back to my house to drink some well earned watery beer.

We climbed a mountain! I climbed a mountain with my knee! It was even mostly totally okay and I haven't noticed any bad reaction since! Woo!

I totally forgot to mention that this weekend (while at the picnic) I learned what you say in Chinese when you're taking a picture. You know, like how we say "Say Cheese!". Instead of Cheese, the Chinese say Eggplant. I find this hilarious, although it makes sense because the word for eggplant is reasonably similar to the word cheese (qiezi pronounced chee-A-zuh).

Also, the background on this blog will soon be changing- when I find a good winter themed one you'll know. I appreciate the brightness and leaves of this one, but the seasons they are a-changin'.

I've got a shopping date on Friday with the extremely excitable English teacher... I'm not sure if it was a bad idea, but I would like to get gloves/hat/scarf and she wanted to go shopping.

Last random thought for the day- One of Emily's friends (his name is Tony) who teaches in Lou Di explained to me this weekend his method of dealing with all the staring- the CEO theory. In his mind he's the CEO of some ginormous corporation and it's important to keep up the moral of the little people by acknowledging them. I've given it a try and I find it better than scowling or saying "Hello", because scowling just reinforces my irritation and having to say "Hello" makes me irritated. The appropriate way to greet someone as a CEO is something along the lines of "How the heck are ya'?" or "Hey, what's up?" or "Keep up the good work!". This way I get to feel amused and the non-English speaking populace has to acknowledge me as a person, not just a laowai.

The activity in today's lesson, which was planned to take up half the class, crashed and burned. It was so totally non-functional that I had to laugh as I saw its demise.

The premise was reasonably simple; students were supposed to practice greetings (long time no see, how're you doing, fine thanks) and to do this we'd play a modified version of Mafia. 3 "Murderers" in the classroom had handshakes that included tapping the other person while shaking the hand. They were all to go around for a set amount of time, shaking hands and saying hello until stopped, when the people who had been killed would sit down and the rest of the class vote out one of the surviving members (presumably because they were suspected of being a murderer). The greetings would then commence once more.

Well, yeah. That was the theory. In reality we had mass chaos. But it was lively, loud chaos which is good... and at least some of the chaos happened in English. But tonight I've got to rewrite that part of the lesson plan cause there's no way I'm trying that again.

--

In other news, so many mosquito bites! They attack while I sleep, and they fly waaaay faster than the ones back home. And in bubble tea we're at a list of (best to least good) coconut - regular - blueberry - honey peach - green apple - jasmine - mango - hami melon - chocolate - watermelon

Sorry for the extended absence- My internet went down sometime Thursday night and didn't get back up until late Sunday evening.

First: Chinese Ninja-ing
No, this does not involve awesome karate skills of nunchucks, but I felt ninja like all the same. Fridays are the only day that I have all morning classes, which means it's the only day I ride the school bus to the other campus. Some dude was sitting in the seat I like, so I sat across the way. Listening to my iPod and minding my own business I see the seat-stealing guy staring at my (birkenstock clad) feet, say something to get another guy's attention and then proceed to point at my feet, saying something about the cold. It had been a tiny bit cold earlier in the week, but it had recovered to the unpleasantly warm stage, and most of you know I like to wear my sandals cold or no.

The combination of the nerve of this dude to *point* at my feet when I can obviously see him and the (what I would consider) rudeness of making a comment in a language he presumes I cannot understand without even attempting to converse with me prompts me to irritated action. I mean to say "It's much colder in America" but come out with a not-quite-so-biting America is too cold, China is not too cold. The seat stealing guy's jaw pretty much hits the floor and the guy he was talking to laughs. The whole bus, only about 10 people at this point) is silent as I can hear them thinking Did I say anything about her where she could hear? Did you know she understands Chinese? so I continue listening to my music, feeling smarmy.

--

Second: Let there be light
The light in my bedroom that was the strongest burned out a while ago, but I hadn't done anything about it. Well, this weekend there was a massive light migration.

Bulbs / Location previously in:

1. Bright white florescent bulb / bathroom
2. Medium bright yellow bulb / middle room aka kitchen extension
3. Dead bulb / critical bedroom light
4. Tiny but bright slightly yellow bulb / washing machine room 

So, bulb #1 is now in critical bedroom light position, hooray being able to see! #2 moved to the bathroom, since I don't really need good light in there. #3 is on a garbage pile, and #4 has moved to the middle room / kitchen extension. This leaves the washing machine without a light bulb, but frankly, I don't want to be doing laundry when I would need to turn a light on.
--

Third: Decorations!

On one of the last visits to the supermarket it was discovered that they have English language learning posters, which for me are Chinese language learning posters. Megan and I were back in the neighborhood after failed pizza search #2, so we stopped in. I am the proud owner of 5 double sided posters: famous sights/flowers, musical instruments/sports, foods/random things, animals/birds, and one poster that has common Chinese characters on it (not meant for English learning, meant for literacy learning). They are hanging up in my apartment and I am very fond of them. Hooray having something on the walls!

--

Fourth: PACKAGE

After a long and ridiculous series of events, the package my parents sent me finally came into my ownership. Containing a wide variety of excellent things, I think maybe the most comforting has been the enormous bag of candy corn. Mmm, tastes like America. Cereal! and Cheese! :D :D :D

--

Fifth: Outdoor Cooking

I was invited by one of my classes to attend an activity they were holding with another class- a picnic of sorts. The whole thing was pretty crazy, so bulleted list form:

• Something came up for Megan at the last minute and she couldn't go, leaving me a bit apprehensive about hanging out alone with 80 freshmen
• The event took place in the hills behind the school... I guess I don't know what I thought was back there, but certainly not picnic areas. It wasn't beautiful by any means, but there was a higher nature to things creating pollution ratio, which was nice.
• Food pushers. All of them. The students were organized into 8 teams of 10 people, and in those groups needed to prepare food for themselves... anyone I would walk by (student of mine or no) would pick up whatever they had produced and shove it towards me: try it! There wasn't anything too crazy, but being told to eat every 30 seconds is a little overwhelming.
• Speaking of overwhelming, I don't think I can count how many pictures were taken of me. At any given time there was a camera pointed at me, and during the official 'picture time', well, my face nearly fell off from smiling.
• Cooking outdoors means the same thing as cooking indoors, but with more flies. They drag out the wok and all the oils and spices and chopping boards and have at it, producing the same thing that they eat every other time.
• I taught them how to play the card game B.S., and so far no one has asked me what it stands for.
• They have class flags- the one this class has is very cool, maybe if I get pictures from the event (stupid me, didn't bring my camera) I'll post it up.
• SUNBURN. Oh man sunburn. It was crazy hot and the sun is super strong... I think this is probably the latest in the season that I've ever had such a bad one. In other news, the forecast claims snow on Thursday... riiiight.

--

Sixth and last: Emily's Birthday!

Emily came back from visiting her friends in Lou Di with them in tow, so we finally got to meet Kirby (having already met Tony previously). Roy and two of Emily's students also joined us, making us a party of 8. Roy had been told the name of a restaurant that serves pizza by some of his students, and it turns out to have been the restaurant we were taken to when we first came to Hengyang. I was still skeptical that we would find pizza there, but when we arrived there was clearly a pizza in one of the pictures. After a fiasco of trying to communicate that we wanted a cheese pizza (the waitress was not able to grasp the concept of taking ingredients off), what we received was a fairly delicious pizza-esqe food. The only reason it doesn't get the label of pizza is that there was no sauce, which made cheese pizza pretty much cheese on bread. But the cheese was delicious, and Megan found Guinness for three and a half bucks, so we were fairly happy pandas.

--

Sorry for the length! I'll try to space posts out better in the future. Also, I'm officially a month behind in replying to emails- it makes me a bad person. I promise I'm not avoiding you, I just need to buckle down and start typing.

 

As I was trying to get to the bus to go home yesterday I was stopped by 3 people who looked like students. One of them asked me Do you know where the (something something) is? and, since I wasn't sure what they were looking for and reasonably certain I wouldn't know where it was anyway, I responded with a Sorry, my Chinese isn't so great.

They looked surprised (about the fact that I could speak a little Chinese? about the fact I wasn't fluent? unknown) and the girl repeated what she was looking for again, but spoke slower. I still had no idea what she was looking for, and the three of them conferred and said "teaching building". There are 4 buildings on campus where teaching happens, and I tried to explain this. See those? Those are buildings 1, 2, 3 and 4 and they are all buildings with teaching. Those buildings over there (while gesturing) are dormitories. I'm still not sure what you're looking for, though.

They told me they were supposed to go to the teaching building and again looked at me expectantly- I suggested they ask someone else because I didn't know. Questions kept coming, though... I finally gave a Sorry, I can't help you. Go ask someone else, maybe they can and departed.

The incident left me feeling confused (why had they picked me to talk to? Why didn't they get that I wasn't going to be able to answer them?) and elated (I remembered the measure word for buildings, which I just studied yesterday! I had a mini conversation!). It occurred to me a few weeks ago that I'm probably being excessively hard on myself for my lack of Chinese skills... I mean, by the time I went to Germany I had been studying German for 3 years and I was probably not much better with German than I am now with Chinese. I remember the summer after my first year of Spanish class coming up with the phrase for "get a hair cut" by combining words from "mow the lawn" and "hair" and feeling pretty darned pleased with myself.

Of course, this realization hasn't led to me being much more content, but I try to remind myself that it's okay that I don't speak the language.

--

One of the websites at the top of my favored list right now is listen.grooveshark.com, which is a lot like pandora except that I can use it outside of the country, yay! It's nice to hear some music that isn't part of my iTunes library.

--

Some of my stronger personality-ed/lower English skills students have invited me to a park this weekend... I'm not sure exactly sure what will come of it, but if they manage to communicate a meeting place and time I'll let you all know how it goes.

Megan and Emily went out to a park with some of Megan's students last week, and while they were out the students mentioned the existance of a pizza place in Hengyang. David, one of the Polish foreign teachers, had told us earlier this year that there used to be a pizza joint but that he doesn't remember where (How can you not remember where?!). So on Wednesday we set out to explore the streets and locate this excellent food-source-to-be. We failed. After asking a shoe saleslady and some police officers and being told that there was no pizza in Hengyang we decided to give up for the night, though I was still quite optimistic that it exists (when people don't know something around here they just say there is no such thing).

I've neglected to mention we went on this journey with Roy, yet another foreign teacher that we've met. He's a recent graduate from California, and very (very very very) excited about life and quite the active listener. He's also Chinese, so the whole 'getting stared at' thing while he was with us was new and weird for him.

So we ended up at a noodle place that Emily and Roy had been at earlier in the week- it was a different set up than I'd seen before. There was a billboard of food pictures (maybe 10 dishes?) that you choose from at the front and pay for your food. Emily recommended some, I pointed at one and we sat down. Emily's comes out in a pewter cauldron type thing and is literally boiling, causing me to lose faith in my interest in eating my dish, since I thought we ordered the same thing. Turns out no, no we didn't.

Mine comes out in non-pewter boiling style, and looks to be a soup type thing with really thick udon-type noodles, chunks of veggies and chunks of meat. I poke around a bit with my chopsticks and find a tiny (slightly larger than quarter sized) egg, which kind of freaks me out. As I start eating the dish I inspect the various things floating around in it- there's this fungus guy that I've seen before that looks like eyeballs on strings all attached to each other and eating it feels, well, like eating eyeballs on strings attached to each other. I turn next to what looks to be a chunk of mushroom cap, but as soon as I bite it I determine it is not, in fact, mushroom, and is probably not even vegetable.

But the best is still coming; the whole time I've been narrating my food discoveries for the rest of my table and I am nearly overcome when I see something long, wavy and purple. I pull it out and, of course, find tiny suckers on the other side of it. Yes, we have a tentacle! I laugh, freak out and drop the thing back in the pot. I think better of it and push it to the side and then down into the soup so I don't have to look at it. I now realize that the big hard chunk of sort of purple stuff must also be from the same creature, and I momentarily consider not poking around at my food anymore. But, dinner is dinner! So I continue and pull out an inch and a half chunk of what is clearly a segment of a larger tentacle, because the suckers on this one are dime sized.

I start trying the odd foods with the egg- it turns out to look pretty much like a tiny egg inside, although I have no idea what animal it may have come from (Emily suggests a variety of adorable birds, and I curse her for it). I finish off the eyeballs on a string, decide I don't want any more "mushroom" and decide this story will be much better if it includes me eating some tentacle. I'm a little nervous, because I expect it to be rubbery and I just want a bite, not the whole danglely thing. I decide I'll probably prefer the thicker end with fewer suckers, psych myself up and take a bite.

Total let down. There's little to no flavor to speak of and the texture is only a little rubbery and certainly not delicious. Disappointed, I decide it was neither good enough nor bad enough to warrent further consumption, so the rest of the sad little tentacle (and its larger brethern) remain in the pot.

--

Happy Halloween! Megan and I celebrated with scary movies (we watched Friday the 13th and Hostel, and while Hostel was just kind of dumb I did end up shrieking during the former), American candy (peanut M&Ms, chocolate covered oreos, skittles, fake whoppers, fake crunch bar), and beer. Minus the heart attacks that I narrowly avoided during Friday the 13th and the walk back to my apartment it was pretty awesome.

Now that Halloween's done, though, I've got to get back to teaching regular class... their textbook is so boring! But most of them want to use it and they'll be using the same company of textbook for the rest of their college career, so if I don't teach them now they'll be behind. Lame.

This week has been Halloween themed class!

When I asked my classes in weeks past what they knew about Halloween I figured there would be some of this and some of that... turns out pretty much everybody knew nothing. Which left me with plenty of options and ground to cover.

Halloween lessons consist(ed) of:

What is Halloween- history (Celts + Romans + Christians + immigration to America + Irish), symbols (black cat, spider, bat) , colors (orange, black), activities (trick or treating, bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving), etc

Song: Halloween by Wade Denning (Thank you Jacqui for getting me the music)
"H-A-double L -O-W- double E -N spells Halloween
H-A-double L -O-W- double E -N spells Halloween!

Halloween means ghosts and goblins, skeletons, monsters and howling cats,
Spooky masks and jack-o-lanterns, Witches and devils and big black cats.

H-A-double L -O-W- double E -N spells Halloween (2x)

Halloween means ringing doorbells, Scaring the people who open the door.
Trick or treat gets you candy and apples, then go to the next house and get some more!"

Scary stories! The Hook, The Little White Dog, Down in Back, Room for One More, Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn On the Lights, and China Doll. They had to read the story, understand the words and the meaning and then read the story to classmates. Some students really enjoyed this, some not so much. Some classes even jumped at the ends of the stories! If you'd like to read the versions I gave them click here ->( The Scary Stories )

But yes! Good fun all around and they maybe know a bit more about the holiday now... I 'll tell you, there are few things funnier than listening to me explain The Hook using simple English, speaking very slowly and explaining everything with gestures. You see, the man was in an accident, and he lost his hand. Instead of a hand, he has a hook. Do you know what a hook is? *curls finger to make pirate hook type thing* ... And at the end they saw the hook on the car! *silence from audience* Because the crazy man with the hook was trying to get to the boy and girl! *more silence* The man with the hook wanted to kill the girl! *Ohhhhhh, the class says, and looks horrified.* And then someone always asks why did he want to kill them, why did they put a hook on his hand, etc. ah, culture translation.

I’m feeling quite victorious at the moment- I successfully managed to get a document printed! Go ahead, scoff, but I’ve been trying to get stuff printed for class for a million years and have been, until today, unsuccessful. Probably the only reason that I actually got it done was that I ignored the non-workable system/procedures that should be followed in order to get things printed and just did the damn work myself.

So while I’m 20 yuan poorer, I’ve now got scary stories for my classes to read this week and I get to enjoy the (fleeting) feeling that I am, in fact, not an imbicile but rather can actually get some things done in this country. Hooray!

I've been lax in mentioning my tea conquests, so here's the current rating from most to least delicious:

1. coconut- delicious! I didn't know what it was when I ordered it (by pointing at the sign), but Megan identified it as something nutty and when I translated it it all made sense!.
2. regular
3. honey peach- pretty delicious. Didn't taste like fake peach, but was still powerful. Another one that I was surprised by when I translated it.
4. green/sour apple
5. mango- eh, tastes like mango. Good, but nothing to rave about.
6. hami melon
7. chocolate
8. watermelon

Ack, today I went in to order watermelon... I'd translated all the flavors, so now I know what's coming, and I was not super excited about watermelon. Something about tea + milk + watermelon flavoring just didn't seem like it would be delicious, and sadly, I was correct. eww. Perhaps the first tea that I would rather skip having a drink than have to drink that again.

--

In other food related news, Megan and I have started getting lunch at school from this little noodle stand/corner. When we'd first been shown around the school this stand was described as somewhere you would go if the main line ran out of rice before you got food. We finally wandered over last week because the line for food was crazy long and the meal itself did not look delicious. And what fortune! The noodle stand has a small team of workers cooking furiously, with one of them MAKING FRESH NOODLES.

Not, like, pasta maker machine. Like, he rolls out a hunk of dough and pulls it with his hands until it is a bunch of tiny oh-so-tasty noodles. The first day we went over, as with all our new endeavors, we had no idea how we were supposed to get food. We eventually pushed our way to the front of the crowd only to have our request of "Noodles and vegetables and tofu" met with incredulity and the woman tapping the glass where the menu is hung. Unfortunately, she can't see the menu from where she is and, well, we can't read it. Generally in these circumstances I point at something and hope for the best, but that wasn't an option, given her lack of being able to see what I would point at.

I scan the menu and see one dish with characters I recognize: earth/dirt bean (some character I assume is fried) noodle. I tell/ask the woman earth/dirt bean fried noodle and she seems to get it, so I tell her 2 plates. Megan asks what we're going to be eating and I tell her I've got no idea. Happily some of the astonishing fresh noodles are included in our dish.

Turns out an earth bean is a potato, so what we get are plates of noodles covered in shreds of oily potato. Probably not the most colorful dish, but the noodles are all that I could have hoped for and the potatoes are okay. I can't promise this video will show you what I want you to see (since I can't access youtube), but check out this video and maybe you'll see the awesomeness. As I learn more about these noodles (for example, I'm pretty sure the noodles are connected to a religious minority in some way) I will update you. My favorite part is when the dude at school slaps the noodles on the table- if they don't show that on youtube, you're missing out.

Between the two of us (Megan and I) we've tried potato, bok choy, eggplant, green chile (this one was an accident, whoops) and mushroom. So delicious!
wow, food heavy update. Can you tell I'm excited for dinner in an hour? Megan and Emily and I are going to the little noodle soup lady, where I think I may try the unknown meat dumpling things. We'll see.

So I still haven't figured out a good way to mesh text and pictures, so today what you'll want to do is click here and it will take you to the photo bucket site. From there you can click on the individual photos and read the title and comments, should you so wish.

--

Yesterday at school students were out with big red boxes, giving roses to people who put money in them. Not knowing what the money was going to I declined to do so, but later asked a class what was going on. They told me that one of the students at school was sick, was in the hospital. Somebody in the class apparently knew the translation for why the student was sick: Cancer.

Seriously, cancer? wtf. Other than making me both angry and sad, it really drove home the point that for as foreign and insane as people and things can seem around here we really are just all human. On the way to the bus home I stuffed some money in the box and they insisted I take one of the roses- it seemed a bad idea to refuse, so now I have a sad lonely rose sitting in my water pitcher at my house. It is rather pretty, though.

Fixed several small but noticeable mispronunciations students had apparently been taught!

Used Chinese to ask snack stand dude if he had anything delicious and had an entirely bizarre-yet-delicious lunch! (I think my drink was some kind of tea sludge with rice chunks.)

Located person I was supposed to meet at specified location in Hengyang!

Acquired train tickets with which we will travel to Changsha tomorrow!

Learned the location of *2* bars in Hengyang, bringing the total of bars I know of up to 2!

Have tentative plan to learn how to make dumplings from university student! Aforementioned university student is extremely uncomfortable in English, so we are both happy to use a mix of Chinese and English!

New jug of water obtained! Old jug returned! I can now drink room temperature water at a moment's notice!

Bought and ate some celebratory oreos! Plan to take a shower! Excited to go to Changsha!


Hooray for the days when things just go right!

Who's got two thumbs and is the proud owner of a Chinese bank account? This kid!

Now that I've got a snazzy bank account, and we're approaching the 15th of the month, I am likely to get paid! And be able to roll around in my money! Well, actually, it gets wired directly to my account, so I could pretend to roll around in it if I really wanted to.

Annie, our school liaison, hilariously thought that we would be able to set up the bank accounts ourselves. David, one of the Polish foreign teachers, called her to explain that no, we didn't think that would work out. So, as per usual procedure, she sent some poor student of hers to help. When we got to the bank we would have been immediately defeated had we not the poor Chinese students; I mean, I don't know that I could open a bank account in the US by myself. There was a form to fill out- 3 versions of this form ended up with my name on them, because the first 2 times they let me work on it myself and apparently I did something incorrect (the third form they filled out for me). So we sit as the poor student does all the work, and each get called up to select a PIN for our debit?/atm? cards.

There's one Chinese bank dude helping us out; when he looks at my passport he says to the student Tell her she is so young and beautiful, causing the student to giggle and tell me in English He says you are very young and beauty! Apparently he doesn't think what she said could have included the entire message, because he repeats And beautiful, which of course the student echos. I though I was getting better about handling these comments, but what was embarrassment in the beginning is starting to turn into anger-bordering-on-rage. It's starting to remind me of being in Spain, where I couldn't go anywhere without people staring or trying to grab me- as far as I've heard David isn't constantly accosted with Handsomes and the gender-targeting is really starting to tick me off. Hopefully I will move out of this angry phase and enter a blissfully ignoring one.

--

Questions in class today seemed to tilt to the extremes- from really normal to kind of uncomfortable. For example, one of the boys in class opted for "This is a very simple question. What do you like in a boy?", which I met with "you know, there's not really any pattern I could identify in the people that I've dated... except that they were all very smart". Follow this up with Fancy, a girl who 1) brought her boyfriend to class and then proceeded to 2) sit in the waaaay back of the classroom: "Have you considered having a Chinese boyfriend so that he could help you learn Chinese?". I told her the idea had been brought up to me, but that I thought it sounded like using the poor person, rather than actually being in a relationship.

I think my smoothest answer of the day goes to the question "What do you think are traits of your personality?" "Uhh, I guess I 'd say I'm pretty tall. And I try to be nice... and I'm clumsy." Yeah, right. I have a clumsy personality. Sigh, nice try, Me.

Recently classes have consisted of me giving the students the opportunity to ask me questions. Some are pretty straightforward (How long will you stay in China?) but some are, well, otherwise.

Angela: My favorite singer is Jennifer Lopez, she is very popular in America. I am wondering if you know her.
Me: Yes, they call her J.Lo.
Angela: What is your favorite song from her?
Me: (trying to remember what in the world J.Lo used to sing) Umm, "Jenny from the Block" was pretty good, I think.

Vance: You speak quite quickly. Can you do an American rap for us?
Me: Uh, let me try to think if I know any parts of rap songs... err, "Stop! Commiserate and Listen! Ice is back with a brand new edition!"... uh, I don't think I know any more. There's a rap in part of Michael Jackson's Black or White that I know, but I can't think of how it starts.

Kayla: This is a very traditional question on Hunan Television.
Me: Okay, shoot.
Kayla: What is your favorite part of your body?
Me: Uh... er, well, I guess I like my hands. They, y'know, do lots of stuff.

Anna: Will you marry Chinese husband?
Me: You know, I'm not looking to get married. And I don't generally pick my significant others based on race.
Anna: So he could be Chinese!

Candy: Do you like to play basketball?
Me: Launch into my explanation about how I used to play, but then I started frisbee and it was AMAZING but I've torn a ligament and look! You can see the outline of the brace I wear and you can hear how hard it is (as I knock on it for dramatic effect). So sadly now I can't run or turn or stop suddenly or even go up and down stairs very fast.
Candy: Oh! So can I play basketball with you?
Me: Uh... no. I don't play anymore.

I was also thrown some questions about American politics (Iraq war, Nobel peace prize, loss of the 2016 Olympics) that were hard to answer. Sometimes, though, it wasn't the questions that surprised me so much as their responses to my answers- they asked me to tell them a little about my family and I explained that my parents lived in MN, my brother in IN, my sister in CT, my grandparents in TX, my aunt and uncle in MN, my girl cousin in CA and my boy cousin in ME, and they were totally floored. I mean, when I think about it I suppose it is kind of crazy, but we're all just a flight away from each other, and we get to share holidays and stuff.

I've still got 2 more classes of Ask Me Questions and I'm sure the questions will stay just as good. Tomorrow we're going to try to open bank accounts... yeah, we'll see how that goes. Megan and I are headed to Changsha this weekend, so it would be super helpful to get the account set up so that we can get paid.

As I go to start my second class of the day (ON SATURDAY, curse you China!) I'm feeling tired and a bit crabby to be working. As I start talking I see that a vast majority of the class has a textbook open on their desks and are reading a dialogue or something.

It is *extremely* common for students to do, well, whatever the heck they want to during class. Sometimes I've fought with them about it, but it can be an exhausting proposition to get 50 people doing what you're asking them to, especially when they would rather be doing homework for another class.

Since it's Saturday, and it's just after lunch, I decide it's not worth me wrestling with so many of the students. I explain to them what I had prepared for class, but that I notice lots of them have a textbook out and maybe there's something more important to them that we work on. The following is how I described it in a chat to Megan:

[4:22:03 PM] LB: I decide I'm not in a fighting mood, and that if they need to memorize it or something we may as well just read it outloud
[4:22:09 PM] LB: you know, oral english or whatever
[4:22:29 PM] LB: I try to ask what it is they're all looking at and they tell me it's a textbook
[4:22:45 PM] LB: I explain that I understand that but I'm wondering why they're looking at it
[4:22:52 PM] LB: they look guilty and start to put them away
[4:23:34 PM] LB: I say no no no, I'm not trying to get you in trouble, I just thought maybe we could use this time to get you prepared; do you have to memorize that or something?
[4:23:40 PM] LB: blank stares from the audience
[4:23:54 PM] LB: I try another route of getting explanation and get more blank stares
[4:24:05 PM] LB: so I switch to "what class is the textbook for"
[4:24:11 PM] LB: they say oral english
[4:24:25 PM] LB: confused, I say "you have more than 1 oral english class?"
[4:24:30 PM] LB: I get confused looks
[4:24:42 PM] LB: I realize that the textbook is the book FOR MY CLASS

So, it turns out at least one of my classes has a textbook. Did anyone tell me this? No. Did they, in fact, at the beginning of the year tell me that my classes would not have textbooks*? Yes.

In other news, the freshmen are adorable. They're super excited to be in class, and keep clapping when I enter rooms. (I appreciate the former, but not so much the latter.) In choosing English names the list was highly biased towards names of my friends; unfortunately, many of my college friends' nicknames would not have passed as proper English names so I had to leave them out. The school is now running around with Ronnies and Allies and Chriss and Gordons and Mauras and Tonys and even a Jersey! We'll see what names the next week's classes pick.

The schedule is still up in the air... and by up in the air, I mean pretty much unacceptable to me but pretty much set in stone to the English department. I'm sure that will mean adventures in the future!

*I'm probably being unfair here, since they were talking about the Juniors I was teaching. But really, did they think the whole "btw, your classes have a textbook now" was unnecessary information?!

Well for not feeling like I've been up to too much I've been busy:

• Class starts again tomorrow! With the freshmen and everything... we'll see how that goes.
• Emily (other American teacher), Megan and I took the "ferry" to the "temple/island", which will have pictures go up soon
• Confirmed that jiachang dofu (homestyle tofu) is going to be a good bet in food places where I can't point at what I want
• Went out to dinner with some Administrator types, who were oh so important and needed to arrive late and leave early
• Had my first KTV experience- KTV is the local karaoke chain, aka what people around here do for fun
• Made granola! I get to pretend like I'm eating cereal :)
• Began formatting plans with Megan to make a trip to Changsha (capital of Hunan) mostly with the intent of visiting the grocery stores there (word on the internet says there will be cheese! and cereal! be still my heart!)
• Killed two bugs in my kitchen of a variety I had not yet seen, prompting me to give a deep bleaching/scrubbing to everything
• ATE BURRITOS FOR DINNER. Megan can make tortillas, I made salsa, we had odd chinese beans and eggs and cilantro and it was phenomenal.
• Taken down several bottles of beer. It may be a little generous to call it beer, but hey, they're trying.
• I suppose "Celebrated the mid-autumn festival" goes on here since I never wrote about it... I still intend to.

For now the second half of Terminator 2 is waiting for me; what if John Conner *actually* gets killed this time?!

Second playdate with Xu Shaolin: similarly epic to the first one.

Although this time Megan was a ninja and managed to pay the bill, and I got one of the taxi rides and the random drink (raisins, peanuts, gelatin substance, red beans and milk tea... pretty good, all things considered). Our Friend only managed to catch the first taxi ride (where Megan and I were separated from Shaolin and the driver by metal bars) and the bag of tofu snack (which was very nearly bag of tofu snack plus duck neck... I dropped my politeness and tried to be clear that I had no desire for the neck. yes, I tried it. I am quite certain that a bag of duck neck was not on my WANT list).

I think my favorite part was when Shaolin was extolling the virtues of the tea we were drinking: it is very good for that she says while pointing at my mouth. Feeling horrified that I must have something stuck in my teeth I run my tongue over them to find nothing obvious, so I try again. Still nothing.

She points again and says that maybe you get that from eating spicy foods, the tea is good to help. I realize that I've got a big ol' pimple right near the corner of my mouth- I don't know if I should be relieved that I do not, in fact, have something awful stuck in my teeth or if I should be mortified at her choice of conversation topic. I just end up laughing, as I do so frequently in these situations, because really, is there any point in getting upset?

As Megan so aptly put it, I threw her under the bus later in the evening- Shaolin has linked arms with her* and I immediately go into evade mode so as to not be the next link in the chain. This seems to set off our Friend's awkward topic button, so we start talking about how yellow my hair is, how white my skin is and how freakishly tall I am. I seize on the freakishly tall part and explain that since I'm so tall I don't really like standing very close to shorter people because it makes me feel uncomfortable (HINT HINT WE SHOULDN'T TRY TO LINK ARMS) but isn't it wonderful that you and Megan are the same height (this would be the throwing of Megan under the bus).

Things sort of evened out later when Megan managed to escape and go back home while I was taken back to her office. The office was full of people (presumably teachers) and they all tried to give me their chairs. I mean, honestly! I don't look outwardly like I am damaged, and you people are old! and doing work! I butcher no, please, you sit down and am met with the traditional oh your Chinese is so good! that any laowai receives upon uttering *anything* in Chinese. Shortly thereafter there is a power outage, which is met with much rejoicing from the students in the upper floors of the building (I'll get to them in a second). For me it apparently means that Shaolin, Uncle Wang (not really an uncle, just an awkward term of endearment for her boss) and I sit down for an extended chat on the politics of the relationship between the US and China.

Uncle Wang was an English major back in the day, so occasionally he'll speak directly to me, and occasionally I can understand the Chinese he's speaking to Shaolin. Shaolin acts as quasi translator (inevitably the other person will say something and I'll hear her telling them she won't say that to me... I never manage to hear what they said in the first place, but it does make me curious what topics Shaolin deems off-limits). I eavesdrop on the Chinese and contribute my thoughts in  85% English 15% Chinese. I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to be saying, though: how do you respond to China has many poor people. America doesn't have poor people. I mean, I don't want to say no, China doesn't have poor people, because there are a lot of people and they are far and away being left behind as a matter of policy. But come on, America doesn't have poor people? I mean, I like to think that a vast majority of our poor are substantially better off than China's, but at what point do you declare a level of poverty to be acceptable? Not suffering from malnutrition? Only being in unstable housing 30% of the time? Employed but so far below the "poverty line" that it doesn't even really matter?

Sigh, anyway, it was not a super productive discussion, but it was a discussion nonetheless. It's nice to be able to listen to non-hengyang hua (the accent people around here have) and actually be understood when I speak. Oh, and Uncle Wang wants to go out for dinner. And I may have pinky-swore to visit Shaolin's hometown with her. Can these invitations be declined? I've not yet found a way.

About the students: I'm not super clear on exactly how all this works, but for at least some portion of the school there is a mandatory study session from, like, 7pm to 9pm. Putting this in perspective: we're on one of the two holidays these kids get and they're still required to go. Mental note: do not be a university student in China. They are therefore understandably excited by a power outage: they get to leave! and do whatever the heck they want to! SUCH FREEDOM!


Sorry this turned out so long... I got a little carried away in the China vs US section. Plus, I totally do not have yellow hair. (For the record, I don't even have blond hair- it's light brown, people! Visit Minnesota, you'll see people who have blond hair. I am not one of them.)


*Physical contact between members of the same sex is extremely common around here- girls are always holding their friends' hands and so do the fellows. Given the general feeling towards homosexuality I find the whole thing very interesting.

Things I ought to do:

• Write emails (sorry! I'm not ignoring you!)
• Explain about the Mid-Autumn Festival/Mooncakes/Lanterns!
• Mop the floor

What I am going to do:
Share my excitement at something totally not exciting! I was headed out of my apartment today (remember, 3rd floor), and got down to the 2nd floor and realized I had moved at a high rate of speed! Like, for two months now I've been taking each stair as it comes, concentrating on not falling over or overextending my knee or anything. But today instinct kicked in! or something! because instead of left-right-left-right I went leftright-leftright-leftright (you know how you sort of bounce down the stairs? it was like that).

I was so excited! I'm not making any crazy promises (like continued fast movement), but I think I'm finally starting to see some results from my silly exercises! :D