Random Facts About China Part 2

Yes, another list.

10. Green Oranges.  During the summer, the only oranges you can find are green.  Orange oranges have now come in, but for a while it looked like you could only buy limes.  If I only could have been so lucky, they don't have limes in China. 

9. All of China turns their heat on on November 15.  There is no heat in my building until then.  I could use it now....

8.  There are no personal ovens in China.  People don't bake things.  There are bakeries, but no one bakes cakes or baked goods on their own.  I have seen one oven in China and it was in a foreigner's appartment.  There are toaster ovens, but they just aren't the same...

7. There are also no dryers.  Everyone line dries their clothes.  In the dorms there are lines outsidein the hallway and on the roof and they are always lined with clothes.  I wonder how they get their clothes to dry in the winter when it's snowing, maybe they just hang everything up inside where it's warmer.

6. Pretty much every phone in China is a pay-as-you-go phone.  I don't think I have met anyone here with a phone plan.  There are no hidden fees or over usage penalties, when you run out of minutes on your phone, it stops working.  I kind of like that.  But I found out that I couldn't put money on my phone in a different provience, I couldn't put money on my phone in Beijing because I had a Zheng Zhou area code.  But aside from that I like my plan-free existence.

5. My campus plays music or talk radio in the morning in the dorms to make sure everyone is up.  For example, this morning I awoke at 7 to "In the Arms of an Angel" by Sarah Mclaughlan.  Some times it is the national anthem, or a woman talking in Chinese.  Ole said he's heard a woman speaking in English and it's the worst because her acccent is not very good and you know that most of the students can't understand what she's saying anyway.  Might as well put on some Lady Gaga or "My Heart Will Go On" or something.

4.  I think the most popular American movie in China is Titanic.  Almost everyone has seen it.  Everyone can sing "My Heart Will Go On." 

3. There are not take out boxes in China, expect at foreign food resteraunts in big cities like Beijing.  Everyone takes their food to go in a double layered plastic bag.  Sitting in Italian Square at lunch or dinner time you can always watch students walking by their their bags of noodles or egg and tomato with rice, or dumplings, or whatever.  When Dad was here, he couldn't get over 'food in a bag'.

2.  The Chinese language doesn't have 'he' or 'she' differentiation.  So my students often use the wrong gender pronoun when talking about other people.  So when I talk to my students I need to keep track of the original name of the person and ignore the pronouns after that.

1. There are no movie rental store here.  I really miss walking into Video Isle on Queen Anne and browsing through all the movies and renting one.  Here there are some DVD stores but you just buy them, and granted it's for about a $1 but there is something I miss about renting.  Or maybe it was just the popcorn I got from Video Isle.  All of the popcorn here is sweet.

Culture Week

There is a Sias tradition called Culture Week.  All of the foreign teachers do a presentation each day of the week on different regions. Except for Monday, which is China day and the whole school goes crazy and Chinese.

We split into groups based on regions and I chose the day Latin/South America and Africa.  There is also Asia Day, Europe Day, and North America and Austrailia Day. 

Culture week is awesome, but also infamous.  It is certainly a high stress week for everyone and for some more than others.  Each groups has many big tasks they have to accomplish, and no one really knows if it's going to all come together until five mintues before show time.  It actually reminds me of all the Girl Scout camps I did, only on some serious steroids and minus all the little girls running around.

Each group has two parts: day time booths and a night time performance.  Our booths look pretty awesome, there are a lot of informational boards about different countries and cultural traditions.  We are also going to hand out food samples and mini passports to get stamped with some different countries' stamps.  We have a huge grass hut that people last year made, as well as a huge velvet (don't ask me why) crocodile and anaconda.  Vernon and Ashley also repainted these huge murals of a hippo, zebra, giraffe and water buffalo.  Needless to say, Italian Square looks pretty bomb.

Jess dressed up as an African lady (hiding her blonde hair of course) and was outside for basically the entire afternoon.  She estimates that she has at least one thousand pictures of her now on Chinese cameras and phones.  I love the little girl frowning at me in the picture.

We served some sort of orange drink (I've forgotten the name already), which tasted pretty good. 

We also had a soccer shoot out, which was crazy difficult (for me, anyway).  You had to move the ball through the cones and then hit the smilie face.  I couldn't get enough lift to actually hit the smilie face, but they gave me a peice of candy anway.  (Holly and Danielle, you would have been pro).  Side note: I ironed and hung all of those latin American flags you see in the background hanging off of the balcony.

This was really cute, we had a huge sandbox and toys in front of our Carribean Islands poster board and all the little babies came to play in it.  They are SO adorable. 

I don't think I could find a better example or picture of split pants if I tried.  I feel like I talk about split pants and people can't really imagine what that would even look like, it's so far against our culture and sense of hygine.  However, every baby looks like this and all of them pee on the street.  And you thought that cats peeing in a sandbox was bad, it only gets worse with a baby.... (Note: this baby didn't actually pee in the sandbox but it could have and that is my point.)

Here is our velvet crocodile. There was also a pink dophin (apparently they are only found in the amazon) but it was in really rough shape so we decided not to use him this year.

Our grass hut was a big hit, and now I wonder how many Chinese people it can fit.  It always had a lot of people in it hanging out the sides for pictures.

I love this painting of the Mayan ruins, the bottom three steps are 3D so you can take a picture on them. 

We also had pinatas that we had students hit at every hour.  This one was decorated as Sponge Bob Square Pants (I have no idea why) but there were also traditional style ones too.  I watched this pinata get taken down by really enthusiastic Chinese students, after the first couple solid whacks one of the taller boys actually grabbed hold of it and tore it in half.  It was really effective.

Faith (in the plaid) and Jess decided to compete in soccer and it was really close.  Though, Jess did have the handicap of being in a dress and in cowboy boots but she did pretty awesome.

I don't have any pictures from the night performance (since I was in it) and I'll post some as soon as I get them.  In brief, there was a lot of latin style dancing, soccer, a fashion show, and boxing.

I will post another section about this, probably, but I want to get this one up.  Check out my facebook if you want to see me as Hermione Granger with Harry Potter.

October Holiday: Beijing part 2

Ironically, my favorite thing about Beijing is not Chinese.  When I was visiting the Bell Tower I stumbled across this little American style coffee shop that looks like it dropped out of Seattle.  It has a courtyard with tables and chairs in the sunshine with a little dog running around people's feet.  The whole place had the cozy but run down feel of my favorite coffee shops like Fremont Coffee Company or Cafe Ladro.  Inside had these huge posters of old movies and bookshelves filled with old books (all in Chinese, unfortunately for me).  There was this cute little white kitten that sat on my lap for a while before jumping out the open window.

I have really been enjoying the expatriot life but I do miss living in Seattle pretty much every day. It was really good for my soul to drink hot coffee in the hot sun and pretend like I was back at FCC during finals.  Plus the cat and dog were super cute and I got some cuddle time.

The day after the coffee shop I went on a tour of the traditional historical sights of China.  First was the Summer Palace.  I met some people from Spokane to hang out with, which was awesome.

The Forbidden City was also a zoo, most of the reason why I went with a tour was because I didn't want to stand in line for 3 hours to get in, which is what would have happened had I gone on my own.

There were a lot of Chinese tour groups because it was the National Holiday and we followed this really cute group of students in their uniforms.  Chinese kids are funny and are just like American kids on tour, not paying too much attention.

I went to this place that my students all called 'snack street' and I can't remember it's real name.  However, it has two blocks of crazy things to eat on a stick.  I went with two of my new friends from Spokane who kept my company on the Forbidden City tour.  We ate some normal stuff, like pork filled buns, dumplings and chicken on a stick, as well as some pumpkin cakes which are pretty good (but better and cheaper at Sias).  This picture has some of the weirder stuff like sea stars, sea snake (ate it!), shark (ate that too!), sea urchins, silk worms, scorpions, octopus, sea horses, ostrich, deer, whole pigeons, chicken hearts, intestines, tofu and the like.

I took my dad to snack street as the first thing off the airplane.  Half way through I realized that maybe that was a pretty intense 'welcome to China' but he handled it pretty well.  We did find some pretty good kung pao chicken at resteraunt near by.

Dad and I climbed the Great Wall too, but he has the pictures from that, so maybe that will be a later post or a facebook only deal.  When I say climbed, I mean CLIMBED.  Now we are both Real Men.  Or at least that's what my students said to my dad when we talked about climbing the Great Wall and I didn't wan to be left out.  Saying that I'm now a Real Woman doesn't quite feel the same.  (Don't get angry with me, feminist friends!!)

And of course I made plenty of new friends during my time in Beijing, especially the ugly stone dragons that ward off evil spirits. They are just so ugly they're cute!!

October Holiday: Beijing part 1

My dad come to visit me during the National (October) holiday, which was super awesome.  I traveled from Zheng Zhou to Beijing by myself to meet him and them bring him back to school.  Dad actaully ended up being a couple days late, so I tooled around Beijing by myself, eating as much foreign food and cheese as I could.  (Hello Starbucks and a real latte!!!!)

The first day I was there I walked around Tianamen Square and people watched.  It never ceases to amaze me that Chinese people do things differently than Americans.  Obviously I know this to be true, but seeing it can be a totally different thing.  Of course, I made a list.

6.  Pop a squat.  Chinese people don't sit on the ground.  The ground is gross, I have said this many times.  So, the Chinese have developed a way to sit without touching the ground.  They squat with their feet flat on the ground.  Its pretty amazing.  Ive really only ever seen little kids do it in America, it requires being pretty skinny and small boned, something Americans don't always have.  This position is also required for the use of a squatty potty, and I am getting better at it.  But I still don't find it restful.

5. Umbrellas in the Sun.  Contrary to America's obession with being tan, Chinese women are obsessed with being pale.  On sunny days there are just as many umbrellas and parasols as if it's raining.  They don't understand the concept of sun bathing or tanning (Christina, don't come to China) and they often put bleach or some sort of lightening agent in lotion or soap to make your skin whiter.  Hence why I brought lotion from home.

4. Kids in Split Pants.  I may have mentioned this already, but kids pee on the street and little kids don't wear diapers, they wear crotchless pants.  It's always funny to see a kid in his or her parent's arm with their little bare butt hanging over the side of their arm.  Parents must get peed on all the time, though I have never seen it happen.  They do have a particular way to hold their peeing baby so they don't get splashed on.  When Dad and I were in Xi'an we took the bus to our hotel and the baby next to us started peeing on the floor of the bus.  Of the BUS! Dad nearly got off, and I am so jaded that I hardly even noticed untill the little stream of pee threatened my shoes.  Needless to say, most of my shoes are not coming back to America and are not allowed in my house.

3. Picture taking.  Chinese people, like Japanese people, are intense about their photo poses.  There is always a peace/victory sign involved, usually on both hands.  They also need to stand right next to whatever it is they are taking and point to it.  They also don't wait for you to finish your picture before walking in front of your camera.  I have had my picture taken by many people, some with me and some from afar.  My friend Jess with blonde hair attracts more attention than I do, which I'm kind of grateful for.  Though I do get asked if my hair curls naurally pretty often.

2. Purse Holding.  When couples go shopping or out together, the man always carries his woman's purse.  For extended periods of time.  Even if it's frilly and pink.  I think it's a way for him to stake his claim.  But men in the US would never get caught dead holding a woman's purse for more than 2 seconds.  For the most part.  That's something that I appreciate about Chinese culture: men are not threatened by things like holding purses or other things that would be stereotypically 'gay' in the US.  Of course it can go a little too far, like pop stars in pleather playing sparkly guitars (yes, it IS too far, Jess).  It does through off my gaydar but I don't mind.

1.  Matching Couple T-Shirts.  I have mentioned this in one of my early posts about campus, but my favorite thing that I have seen here have been couple t-shirts.  Chinese valentines day was right before I moved here so I saw a lot at the end of August, but I did find a few in Tiananmen Square.  There appears to be a rule that couple t-shirts cannot be innocuous.  They need to be a bright color (mostly purple or yellow and ocassionally pink!) and very distinctive.  I took this picture of the first couple after seeing two other couples with matching shirts and being too afraid to take their picture.  I shouldn't have been shy, I think they like the attention more than I do (which isn't too hard).  I found the second at snack street (more about that later) and asked if I could take their picture.  They got one with me too, so I guess it was a fair exchange.

The next day I went to go see the pandas at the zoo.  Needless it say it was a zoo with all the people there (get it? yeah? yeah?... it was a zoo at the zoo...?  I hear you laughing Holly Allan).  But seriously, it was crazy.  Expecially in front of the pandas.  Below is a picture of the area when you first get into the zoo and it was packed like that as far I could see over them. I fought the valient fight to get in to see the pandas and the big ones were boring.  They just slept while a thousand people took their pictures.

However, the baby pandas were freaking ADORABLE, I wanted to take one home in a basket.  They had just gotten fed so they were chowing down on their bamboo leaves and rolling all over themselves while doing it.  These were the pandas who were from Sichuan where the earthquake hit before the Olympics.

This post is turning into a beast, so I'm going to leave you with one final thought before taking a break.  That thought is: PANDA HATS.  They are amazing and I bought three.  I first saw this girl wearing one at the summer palace and I HAD to take a picture with her.  It turned out she spoke pretty good English and she told me that they were selling them all over Beijing.  I found one not ten minutes later and picked two up for 30 RMB (less than $5 for both) and wore it all day.  Amazing.  I still have it and I wore it to my first couple classes after the trip and my students thought it was hilarious and crazy that their teacher would wear such a cute panda hat to class.  It has come in handy when we sit on the roof to talk and drink beer.  Very warm and fuzzy.

61st Anniversary of the Founding of the PRC Banquet

So, Jess and I along with Jon, Jacob, Becca and Sammy went to a banquet in Zheng Zhou to celebrate the founding of the People's Republic of China 61 years ago.  I let my class go a little early so we could leave at 5.15 and so I had to teach for four hours in my banquet clothes, hair and make up. 

We got there and it was in a really nice hotel with marble everywhere.  Dinner was upstairs and we were some of the first ones to arrive.  Our early arrival was partly due to the fact that we were able to go through a checkpoint on the freeway where police men were diveriting traffic to a detour and our official banquet invitation got us through on the main road.

We sat down with Jess, Jacob and Sammy out our table as well as Julian who works in the Sias office with Becca.  There were also five Chinese people at our table, one we talked to was a lawyer and his daughter lives in San Fransisco.

The food:
First round of 'cold' dishes:
1. Jellyfish (ate it!)
2. Duck (ate it) with an awesome brown sauce
3. Tofu noodles (ate it)
4. A black fungus that is everywhere in China. (have eaten it before, will not do so again)
5. Veggies: lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions (yay tomatoes!)
6. Sliced cooked beef heart (ate it!)
7. Little whole shrimps in a spicy rub (ate it) with their little black eyes looking at you as you eat them whole.

'Hot' dishes:
1. Roasted chainsaw chicken (when they cut up with chicken into pieces without removing the bones first)
2. Chicken soup
3. Noodles
4. Fried rice (the best!)
5. Shanghai Greens
6. Fried lamb
7. Some weird potato and green pepper dish
8. Something else I didn't recognize but had mushrooms in it.
9. Sweet red bean soup (which was pretty awesome)

Dessert:
1.Coconut mochi balls (pounded rice cakes) with seseme on the inside.
2. Fruit (watermelon, cantelope, dragon fruit)
3. Baijou.  This is infamous in China, it's rice wine that's like 40-60% proof. It can really mess you up if you drink a whole bunch at a time, but they serve little baby shots of it as an after-dinner digestive helper.

Before dinner started there were a few speeches about how much China has improved since the PRC was established and how we need to follow in the steps of Deng Xiao Ping (not the Chairman!) and how Henan is a central part of this process.  We toasted lots and lots of people, us foreigners making a special point to speak with all the other foreigners in the room (for moral support being in a country where we don't understand the language or the food).

We met some folks who were the foreign teachers at Zheng Zhou University and there are only 6 of them.  It looks like they all get along, but I can't imagine having my community that small and personalities that don't get along.  It certainly makes me glad I'm at Sias with the 120 teachers we have. 

We also met a guy named Carl who teaches at a primary school here, he and his wife and their four children have lived here for three years.  I actually ran into him a couple days later at Home Depot in ZZ when I was there on a shopping trip.  Apparently he has a motorcycle that he's been working on.

I've decided that I do like going to banquets.  It gives me something to do and try interesting food (some of it good, some of it not).  There certainly are some down sides to banqueting, like Chinese people choosing your food that ends up with things like jellyfish and tofu ten different ways in weird sauces.  But at this point the pros outweigh the cons and I'm not jaded about stuff like that.

I have a whole bunch of posts coming from my vacation, I just need time to write them!!

Random Facts About China Part One

So, having lived here for six weeks (and also from visiting before), I have been gathering interesting random facts about China and Chinese culture.  As you probably can tell, I'm a big list person, so I thought I would start one.

1.China is on one time zone.  If you look at the outline of the time zone that China is a part of, you will see the typical strip of land, with the outline of China in the middle.  Everyone is on Beijing time, which makes it weird for people in the West, who should be three or four hours different.

2.  China doesn't follow daylight savings.  Our afternoon classes have been bumped up a half hour to let people get home before dark (at 5.30 during December and Janurary.

3.  Chinese medicine is based on a totally diferent system than Western medicine.  The whole internal temperature liked to spiritual energy thing.  Apparently a lot of it really works. 

4.  Chinese people sleep on wood boxes, for the most part.  Or with a slim, hard foam pad.  I have two slim, hard foam pads.  I am on the hunt for a nice foam pad.

5.  Chinese people tend to wear the same outfit for a couple weeks in a row.  They will wash it at night, but wear the same thing.  This is less true on the college campus, and the weather has been changing so people have putting on warmer clothes.

6.  It's rude here to talk with your arms crossed.  I do this when I teach, so maybe I should cut it out.

7. Weekends are not as reverent as they are in the States.  It's common to work on the weekends and there are very few 'weekend warriors."

8. Chinese women don't shave their armpits or their legs. 

9.  The 'comfortable' air temperature for houses and airplanes is ten degrees higher than the comfortable air temperature in the States. 

10.  Whenever the foreigners are playing sports, we draw a crowd.  We played a few rounds of volleyball and we had at least 20-30 people and children watching us play.  They just had an hour or two to stop and watch us play.  We played kickball afterwards in a field nearby and the same thing happened: 15 people showed us to watch us play.  It was almost like they texted their friends and said that some laowai (foriegners) were playing a weird sport and you should come and watch.  This happened in Tai'an as well, anytime we played games with the kids outside, we drew a crowd lined up along the fence.

This is good for now, I'll write more at a later date.  They will probably come in 10 list installments as I encounter them.

Yellow River Trip

One of the trips that Sias provides for its teachers is going on a hovercraft on the Yellow River and spending time in the park near by.  While the trip on the river wasn't terribly awesome, I did get to ride a horse and be in a hovercraft.  We got some pretty awesome pictures in the park.

This is a pretty awesome picture of Jon, who is a sophmore English teacher and coordinator of all the foreign teacher activites.  He went with us to the banquet (which will be my next post).

The Yellow River is filled with silt and it was also an especially rainy day that Saturday, so things were pretty muddy.  The hovercraft was pretty awesome and glided over all the mud and water no problem.  I think it was the first time I had ever been in one.  The tour guide said that having lots of Yellow river mud on your shoes meant that you would be prosperous.  My muddy boots are still in my room, I haven't cleaned them yet.  Those two facts are unrelated.

Halfway through the trip was a camp with all of these horses that you could ride for ten kuai.  They looked pretty healthy (not like other places I've seen) and it was pretty fun.  The woman wouldn't let me have control of the reigns, though.  She thought it was tood muddy and I might do something stupid.  I actually had worn my cowboy boots that day, so I was super prepared for horseback riding.

There was a lady selling pomegranates as well and they were pretty awesome.  It reminded me of the time we made pomegranate jelly out of all those ones sent by Nanny Gomez with Danielle.

After the ride was the park, so we spent two hours wandering around.  It began to drizzle halfway through so I ended up taking a nap on the bus.  But they did have these cool bell things that didn't actually make noise.

J.I. (one of the foreign students who lives in Peter Hall cause his parents work at Sias) taught Nick some break dancing moves.  Well, maybe one.  I just happened to get it on camera.

There is this huge statue of two of the early Chinese emperors that were built in the 1980s as a tourist spot, but it's pretty cool to to look at.  It makes for a nice park, and an awesome thing to take pictures with.  Erin did a great job of lining us up.

I just need a beard to match.  I already have the pensive look down.

There were a lot of rock faces that were fun to climb.  J.I. ripped a hole in the crotch of his pants because they were too tight and David hurt his heel jumping down from one of the higher rocks.  It does provide some cool shots.

All in all, it was a good day.  I was super exhausted afterwards, though.The rock climbing channeled my inner child (and a wayward youth spent climbing trees).

Things you shouldn't do with chopsticks

The first time I ever went to China, we were coached in Chopstick edicit.  If you have a bowl of rice, don't stick your chopsticks in it, that's what Chinese people do when they leave rice for their ancestors.  Don't use them as drumsticks, especially at a banquet.  Don't let the tips touch the table, always keep them on your plate or your bowl.  Never stick them anywhere inappropriate, the like.

Wellllll....  sometimes it's too much fun to resist.

Aaron and Winston are culture partners and because Winston and Jessica (my culture partner) are dating, we go on double dates.  Or whatever it is when only two out of the four people are dating.  A four wheeled date?  Half a double date?

This is Sarah, who is the teacher of the culture student program, who is now teaching sophmores that the culture program is done for the summer.  She's doing 'two fingers,' a ninja sign that the culture students made up when playing our favorite game called Ninjia Star.  It's like Big Booty only with ninjia signs.  It's pretty awesome.

This is Eileen doing wolverine, our shout out to Hugh Jackman in Ninjia Star.

Either a bumblebee or a new creature from the Star Trek universe.  (I had been watching some Star Trek movies before this dinner.)

I'm going to say this picture is the most attractive one of me, ever.  This also got the most laughs out of the culture students.  Erin is practicing her vampire fangs because she gets to play Bella in the upcoming Twilight skit for Culture Week.  And for those of you who know Erin (hi Erin's mom!), it's really ironic because we all hate Twilight with a fiery passion.  The fire of a thousand suns.  But they are doing a parody, so I guess that makes up for it.  A little bit.  Matt Hux is going to be Edward (hi Matt's mom!).  I can't wait to see it.

Faith jumped in on this action too, as a pretty convincing walrus.  An interesting note: that's Aaron in the yellow shirt before he shaved his head.  Good before and after of him in this blog.

There will more more, in the future, but I thought I would post these now.  I don't think they have been a major fau-paux (is that how you spell that word?) and I have been on my best behavior at the banquet I've been to. 

We just had our opening ceremony at Sias, and there was a banquet with the bigwigs of the university before hand.  Some of the foriegn teachers needed to go, so Jess and I volunteered.  It was a great idea, because there was a four course meal.  First was salmon and bacon with a quasi Ceasar Salad with REAL olive oil!!!  Next was a great tomato soup with cheesy garlic bread.  Then there was chicken and mashed potatoes and tiramisu for dessert!  And Jess and I got all dolled up to go, which was half of the fun part.

We have both volunteered to go to a banquet on Wednesday in Zhengzhou of university leaders and the govenor of Henan provience.  I have a feeling that will be more of a traditional chinese banquet (hello fish eyes and chicken feet) but it will still be pretty fun.  My parents (and Jess's (hi Jess's mom!)) taught me how to be polite and smooze, so why not practice and get some good food in the process?  I'll let you know how it goes.

Info Cards

So, I had all of my students fill out "Student Info Cards" so I can keep them straight and contact them if I need something.  Some of the students wrote me a note at the bottom.  Here are my favorites:

"I fancy perfection and pursue eternal happiness.  Perfect fantasy..."  Allen

"Hope Every class Happy!"  Heather (and every other chinese student says "I hope happy every day!")

"By the way, I like your hairstyle, like waves."  Maple

"Opportunities are not wait!"  Angel

"I hope I can learn how to write in English from you.  Esp, how to write the beauty essay."  Clark

"I like English firstly.  Then I like doing sports.  You are perfect."  George

"Hold fast to your dream
for if dreams die/go
life is like a broken-winged bird/barren field
that can never fly/frozen with snow."  Alexander

"In our life, we always meet some troubles, but there is a sentence that encourages me so much.  'Its like a web, sometimes.  You make it, you wait.  And something always comes.'" Lasia (girl)

"Yes, we can!!"  Cenny (girl)

"I believe I can fly." Karsa (guy)

"Do what I like, like what I do.  Interest is the best teacher."  Andy

"I hope u can find ur Mr. Right as soon as possible.  Good luck! (heart) Expect we can be good friends."  Cecilia

"I am a sincere boy."  Fisher

I also have a pretty awesome from my friend Erin's class, from one of her low level athletes.  Green 1 is her husband, Seth.  "Green 1 is very strong.  You would be fatter."  I think this is my favorite one.

It is interesting to note that in Chinese culture, cliches are encouraged and relied upon heavily.  Anything that is a collective saying or phrase is considered to have more weight than something you could make up on your own.  This idea is one we talk about in writing class to help them write in a western style.  I taught them the word cliche and what it meant after they all wrote cliches on their note cards.

I also asked my students to tell me a little about themselves and I got some interesting self assessments.

"I am an outgoing girl and willing to try my best to learn English Writing well!"  Brittany

"I am an easygoing girl.  I am patient.  I love smile."  Doris

"I'm not so confident and easy to be nervous.  I hope I can come over these."  Emily

"I'm bright and I like communicating with others."  Grace

"I am an outgoing girl.  I think my shortage is I am a little lazy sometimes, I will do my best to make full use of time."  Jessica

"I don't like talking.  I am a little shy."  John

"Hi Lane, I'm a diligent and honest girl and I love to spend time with dear family and friends.  However, there is also a self-esteem in my heart and it makes me a little ambitious and independent."  Joyce
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"I want to be a perfect man.  So I will try my best."  David

"I am lovely.  I like smiling.  Be kind and hope make more friends!"  King (girl)

"I am patient and careful.  I would try my best to do things well.  I love dancing.  I hope I can be confident and brave."  Alexis

"I want to be braver!"  Tammy

I think students spend a lot of time describing themselves, or being told about different types of people or virtues of what people should be like.  Something about the whole thing seems very cookie cutter and Chinese, but it's hard for me to articulate it (obviously).  It makes me want to sit in on their high school English classes to get a feel for where some of what they say comes from.

Chinese English is definately different than American English.  Its weird.  And makes for a good blog post.

Mid-Autumn Festival

So, we didn't have school on Wednesday because of the holdiay called Mid-Autumn Festival, which is a traditional Chinese holiday.  We ate a lot of these things called moon cakes, which are flaky pastry filled with different insides like peanuts, dates, red bean paste, egg, meat, etc.  I liked the peanut and red bean ones fine, but the other ones were kinda gross.

I'm not really sure exactly what the MidAutumn Festival is about, but I've heard two different legends so far.  Both have lovers that have been seperated and celebrating the moon reunites them.  I think.

We decided to go with the cultural students out to hot pot, which is my favorite type of Chinese food.  Its kind of like fondue, only with soup instead of cheese and everything gets cooked in the pot right in front of you.



There is the spicy side and the nonspicy side, and I have started embracing the spicy side.  They also provide you with some good dipping sauces, one being really spicy peppers and the other is a peanut and sesame sauce which is awesome.  There is a gas flame underneath the pot that keeps it bubbling and everything cooks pretty quickly. 

This is some of the stuff we put in the pot: sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, noodles, 3 kinds of tofu, meat, mushrooms, veggies, everything.  It's pretty awesome.

This is half our group, it was so big that we had to take up two tables.  From left to right:

Wayne, Neil, Faith, Jess, Sammi, Jacob, Jessica, Me, Eileen, Enoch's arms.

A couple of guys (Aaron and Neil) have now shaved their heads, which has been very surprising to some of the Chinese students.  I was thinking that maybe I could be next...  well, maybe not.  My hair has been pretty fantastic since I've been here so I'll keep my curls.

After toasting the moon, a group of us headed to one of the nearby amusement park to wander around.  I shot at baloons with a rifle bb gun and we rode a couple of really sketchy rides.  Again, most of those rides would be illegal in the states or condemned.  They are building a new one that looks pretty nice, maybe it will be done before the weather gets really bad.  I do have some good pictures, but that can be another post.

I'm now completely over my cold and back in action for most things.

All of the freshman teachers are now coming back from summer vacation and so I have a whole new host of people that I need to meet and remember the names of.  Many of them are returning teachers but a couple of them are new.  New people mean new personalities and so it will take another month before things really settle.  I'm always excited about new people, so hopefully some of them are fun to hang out with.

Hack, Cough

My body doesn't like moving to China.  Once I'm here awhile it doesn't mind, but the moving part is hard.

So needless to say, I got a cold the second day I moved here.  I recovered in a normal fashion, but it came back two weeks later as a sinus infection.

Luckily it wasn't bad enough to go to the doctor, one of people in charge of the foreign teachers had antibiotics that I could take. I wasn't the only person to come down with it, Erin and David also got sick.  Erin and I watched five movies over two days and filled up three garbage bags of kleenex. 

What to do when you are sick in China:
1. Drink lots of hot water.  Really really hot.
2.Turn off your AC
3.Get lots of rest
4. Go to the doctor and get an IV (no matter what your illness is)
5. Drink medicine tea by the bucket.

This is the medicine looks like this.

Well, okay, it's actually 999 medicine, but it took me a while to figure that out with the Chinese.  It looks like little molasses granules that disolve in water.  You are supposed to only add a little water and drink it like a shot of espresso.  It tastes okay but after five times it gets old.

There was something interesting about the medicine teas, though.  There are two types to treat the two ways the Chinese classify colds.  They determine your type of cold by your body temperature: either you have a 'hot' flu or a 'cold' flu.  I'm not really sure how the whole thing works, but it does.

I'm still blowing my nose, but I'm getting over it.  I hope this doesn't become a regualr occurence.

Vroom Vroom

One of my favorite things about living here are the electric bikes.  They are EVERYWHERE.  Instead of having a car, most people have electric bike and can fit all three or four members of their family on one.

This is a great example, even if its on a regular bicycle.  Chinese kids can sleep ANYWHERE.

So, I've been out on an electric bike twice now, once to go shopping downtown and once to ride through the country side.  Jess went with me both times, and the ride out to the country also included my Culture partner Jessica, some other culture students: Winston, Lisa, Faith and Aaron who is Winston's American culture partner.  We spent maybe an hour riding bikes and it was awesome!

Going through the countryside was really fun, even if it was pretty dusty.  Xin Zheng is a country town, so there was a lot of corn and something that is related to lotus root but not quite (Jessica didn't have an english translation for it but it grows everywhere).  Its super flat here too, so people have done this with regular bikes and its a nice ride.  Not like biking in Seattle.  Definately reminds me of Pennsylvania.

And always, the local livestock chowing down by the side of the road.  Maybe this is the cow that I get my raw milk from!

All in all, the whole thing is pretty awesome.  The rules of the road are pretty simple: 

1. Get out of the bigger trucks' way. 

2. Learn to love your horn. 

3. Sticking to the side of the road is optional. 

4. Driving the right way on the road is optional. 

5. Have a will ready.

6. What's a helmet?

7. Be fearless and it will be more fun.

Before my mother has a heart attack, its not too dangerous.  I never once thought I would actually die.  If you come and visit me (anyone), we will do this.  I would go riding every day if I could.  And the total cost to rent one of these puppies for an hour or two: 3 RMB.  $0.40  Yes, please!