Oh yeah...I've also learned two things.
Number one: If you are carrying white flowers, people give you funny looks because that is the color for funerals.
Number two: If you smile at people on the street, as I always do, they think you are either trying to cheat them or you are crazy. Obviously my Chinese is not good enough to cheat anyone, so several people in Anshun--probably pretty darn close to the whole town, actually--think I'm totally nuts. Which might not be totally inaccurate.
Also on a random note, this is the poorest part of the poorest province in China. And I love it! I love the simple way of life (usually). The hustle and bustle of the big cities overwhelms me. This is the most ethnically diverse province also, with poor Mandarin and many dialects. But the people are some of the sweetest that I've met in China. Even in Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou province, people are rude to foreigners, but here, people try their best to help you. My Father knew what he was doing putting me here, and it helps me to see that there is a plan.
I've been a blogging slacker, so get yourself a drink and a comfy chair because this is gonna be a long one.
This has been the week of Band-Aids for Liz and me. On Monday, Liz was standing on her coffee table to change a light bulb and the glass broke. I got a phone call that went like this: "Uh, Sara, this is Liz...I was standing on my coffee table and the glass broke. My foot is cut, could you come over and help me?" So I went over and cleaned her foot and bandaged it, swept up glass, and cleaned blood spots off her floor. I was Florence Nightengale to her...white girl with a sliced foot. On Friday, Liz and I had an open house for some students (more on that later) and I was cutting about five million tomatoes (or thirty) and I sliced my finger, so it was her turn to be Florence. She fixed me up quite nicely with a Batman Band-Aid.
We also went to get facials on Monday with our friend Joanie. This was absolutely fabulous and a little comical at times. You lay on the table (we were all in the same room which was comforting) and they tucked us in with blankets and basically spend the next hour and a half rubbing creams and lotions (at least I think that's what it was) into our faces and giving us hand massages. The one part where I had to try really hard not to laugh was a mask. I think it was seaweed, but I'm not sure. At any rate, it was cold and slimy. They'd drape a piece on your forehead and smoosh it around til it covered everything, then a piece on your cheek and it was smooshed around, then your chin, etc. Sometimes it's just better not to know what's going on your face, but it left us glowing and refreshed :)
On Friday, Liz and I taught class from 8-10 and then went straight to the market and then went straight to her house and cooked all afternoon for our open house. We made chicken quesadillas, chili, and chips and salsa. This is WAY more work than in America. We had to make the tortillas, corn chips, and salsa, and buy dried beans and cook them for the chili. But...our food was amazing! And our students had a great time and so did we, so life's good. I'll post pictures of our amazing culinary skills soon :) I taught some of the girls to play Go Fish and I heard about their boyfriends, which was hysterical. A few of our students are taking us out for a "special Anshun snack" and shopping and dinner tomorrow afternoon, so we are way excited! NO IDEA what this snack is. We tried asking them to no avail. It went like this: "What's in this snack?" "It's a snack." "Yes I know, but is there rice in it? What is it?" "Snack. S-N-A-C-K." "We know what snack means, but what is the snack made out of?" "Uh...we don't know." Who knows what we're in for, but it should be fun.
During the party, some of our students gave me a name. It was quite a humorous process. They'd talk in Chinese and then we'd hear no no, not that, and then they'd all vote on something. My name is Shang Guan Yu Er which means dignity/rich/jade/decorum. They told me I could walk around and tell people that I was wealthy and beautiful. Liz's name is something something Mei Ling, and her full name means East/Orient/beautiful/smart.
The freshmen start tomorrow, which means that I will be picking up 5 extra classes. Ahh! Tomorrow morning, I get to name the 3-year freshmen, so that'll be fun. After this week, we have National Holiday, so we have the first week of October off to relax, shop, eat...whatever.
Please be talking to our Father about things here. I can't explain what is going on, but there are a lot of threats and stuff between the Company and the Communist party. We joke about it, but it's serious. Our students are caught in the middle. But my Father knows what to do, so it'll be alright. More later on how our adventure into town with the girls goes!
Well it's been another strange day here in China. This morning, I went to the market, but I couldn't find a cucumber, so I went to the small market behind the school in the villages. Apparently they don't actually have a market on Sundays, so I walked back. On my way back, two guys playing pool said hello, so I said hello back. Depending on my mood, I sometimes answer and sometimes keep walking, but it was a good day so I was nice. They motioned me up. It turns out that they wanted me to play pool with them. Okay, I can't even play pool in English, much less Chinese. I spent a lot of time looking pretty confused, and I finally hit the ball. It sort of drifted to the middle of the table. By that time, five more men in suits had come in to watch the show, and I decided that I didn't want to be Exhibit A so I went home.
Later, I began making garlic potato soup for dinner. I was proud of myself for starting it early so I won't be stressed when it's 5:45 and I only have 15 minutes to clean everything and finish up dinner before the girls get here. I cut the vegetables, sauteed the onions and garlic, added the liquid and started boiling the potatoes. I turned the burner down low and went into the study. Gradually, I began to notice that something smelled. And it didn't smell like garlic or onions or potatoes. It smelled like...burning. I jumped up and ran into the kitchen and discovered that the soup was fine. Yes, the soup was fine. The pot, on the other hand, was not. Despite the fact that the flame was nowhere near the handles, they freakin melted! Who puts plastic handles that can melt on a pot that is obviously intended for cooking?! I transferred the pot to my electric burner, which is right by my gas stove, so let's hope that nothing sparks and blows up my entire kitchen. So much for that pot...
As I was filling up a bucket, because you always keep a bucket of water around for the days when the water is off, a little worm came out of the faucet. And I thought, Oh, so this is why we don't drink the water.
I think I just had the most worthless Saturday of my entire life. It was fabulous. I got up and talked to Laura for a bit, then the maintenance staff came to drill another hole in my wall for the pipe on my gas tank to connect to the stove. Oh! I didn't turn the gas tank off after I was done cooking! I'll be right back. Okay, disaster averted, I didn't blow up. Anyway, then I spent quite awhile trying to figure out what to make for dinner tomorrow night (it's my night to cook). Apparently, most recipes require either an oven, cheese, or ingredients that are not available to us. After conquering my recipe dilemma, I made lunch, watched a movie, took a nap, talked to Nick, read, and stared off into space. I finally got out of my pajamas around 7:30 and went to the post office to see if my package is here yet (it's not). I don't think I possibly could have been less productive. It's a good thing the freshmen start soon...maybe then I will get into gear.
It's really weird to be living on campus as a professor. It's difficult to figure out how to be an authority figure because I'm the same age or younger as many of my students. It's hard to know how to balance being a teacher who needs to be a professional with the fact that I see my students when I am running around campus in jeans and a t-shirt during my time off. Remember how you learned about role conflict in Sociology? I'm experiencing it! Chinese university is much different from American university. We don't have offices, so students come to see us in our apartments. The same student you fail for cheating on the exam may eat dinner with you or sell you your 5-gallon jug of water or invite you to her home for the National holiday.
Maybe this will become easier once I start feeling like a teacher instead of a student. I have to remember to keep some degree of separation. Even though I am living on campus just a few buildings away from my students, I can't be best friends with them. If I invite a few of them out for dinner, the others will assume that I am showing them special favor and I'll give them the questions on the test and grade them more easily. But it's also important to develop relationships with my students. I can't ignore them on campus, and I need to make sure that I am open to them. This growing up business is hard!
On a lighter note, my front windows face a boys' dorm. This has given me a few chuckles over the last few weeks. I'll have to take a picture and post it. The ends of each floor are their bathrooms, and they aren't enclosed. There are just iron bars. It's not the whole bathroom, I don't think--just the place where they brush their teeth and do their laundry, at least as far as I can tell. Last week, I heard a guy singing at the top of his lungs. Opera. Then, the other day, I saw a guy running around in his underwear! Ahh! It's not like I stand at the window and try to peer into the boys' dorm. It's just kind of unavoidable because it's right in front of my face. At least he was wearing underwear...it could've been worse.
Who in the world let me pack my own suitcases?! I usually do a reasonably good job of packing. In fact, I usually do a pretty darn good job. But this time...oh boy. I somehow managed to escape with no long sleeved shirts, only 2 pairs of dress pants, three pairs of jeans (one of which I no longer need to unbutton to get off), no dress shoes, not that many pairs of socks, five shirts, and one sweatshirt. The good news is that I remembered underwear.
In other news, my electricity was off all day yesterday for the third time this week. This time it was because the waterfall festival is this weekend and they were checking all of the wires in the city, or something like that. It's usually off during daylight so it's not that big of a deal, but I didn't teach yesterday and it gets boring! They also didn't hook up my gas yesterday which means that I only have an electric burner, so I spent a lot of time being hungry, not that it's much of a change from my usual state. I read a lot and napped, which was probably good for me, but I was sure singing the hallelujahs when the lights came back on.
I have finally posted some pictures of my apartment and views of campus. To see them, go to kodakgallery.com. The login email address is slushmuffin@hotmail.com and the password is sararenee. I'll post more later of campus and around town. Enjoy!
As promised, here is a description of our death-defying bike ride and my cockroach adventures.
Last Sunday, Kris told us it'd be easier to ride bikes into town than take the bus. Like idiots, we believed her. She neglected to mention that she is like super hero mountain biking woman. The ride into town wasn't so bad, except for the traffic. In this city, you drive on whichever side of the road you want, in whichever lane you want. Sometimes you don't drive in a lane at all, and sometimes you drive in two or three lanes at the same time. There are cars and buses and taxis and bikes and small children and dogs and people hauling carts and pedestrians in the street all the time. And the rule for crossing the street is that you cross one lane at a time, and you have to keep walking because people drive like you are going to keep walking, so if you stop, you'll get hit.
It's much harder to be the person trying to steer around all of these wackos crossing the street than it is to be the wacko crossing the street. We had several close encounters with buses and taxis. Then we had to wheel our bikes through the outdoor market, which was an adventure in itself.
We survived the market and put our frozen chicken breasts and vegetables and spices in our backpacks and headed home. The ride home is uphill. For someone not used to riding bikes (aka Liz and me), this is rather difficult. Halfway back, we decided to walk before we passed out and fell off our bikes. We caught up with Kris at the corner store right by the school and stopped for popsicles. We then rode our bikes up the road and to the gate at the school. I think I know how Lance Armstrong feels when he sees the finish line at the Tour de France. It was one of the most victorious moments of my life. We put the bikes away and I hauled my very sore behind up 106 steps and flopped on the couch for half an hour before I remembered that the chicken was still in my backpack. Oops. My rear end has recovered, and I have vowed to never ride a bike again.
As for my cockroach issue...shortly after I got here, I'd see a cockroach in the back hallway where half of my kitchen and my bathroom are. There is a door, so I figured that I'd just shut the door and leave it alone and it'd leave me alone. I only ever saw one at a time, so I thought it was the same one who came to visit me.
Well, one night it was heading through the door toward the living room so I slammed it shut. It crawled up onto the door handle. I waited for awhile, and prayed for awhile, and it didn't move, so I hit the door right next to it with a chopstick. It still didn't move, so I crawled through my little decorative windows that connect the part of my kitchen with the refrigerator to the part with the stove and sink.
Later, I had to go to the bathroom and I noticed that the window had swung open. I went to shut it and the roach fell off onto my arm and then onto the floor! Of course I screamed. Then I sprayed it with hairspray until it was paralyzed, and I went to the bathroom. Upon coming out of the bathroom, I noticed that it was nowhere in sight. The darn things are indestructible!
The next night, I found one on top of my bed! This is when I decided that the roaches had to die. I hairsprayed it enough so that it held still, and I swept it up into my dustpan and threw it out the back window. Then I saw one in my study the next night, so I squashed it with my shoe and threw it out the window. I probably keep hitting the same poor guy with dead cockroaches, but I always look first and I never see anyone down there, so I hope I just hit pavement.
Then there was a baby cockroach by the hole in my floor. I squashed it and threw it out the window. That was my breaking point. I went to the campus store and bought Raid and sprayed around all of my baseboards, windows, drains, and holes in the tile. When I started to feel a little faint, I realized that perhaps spraying an entire apartment at the same time is not the wisest idea.
However, I have not seen another roach, so keep your fingers crossed! Furthermore, I find dead bugs everywhere now. Spiders, rolly poleys, bees, flies...I killed 'em all. That's what they get for messing with me.
The good thing about China is that life is entertaining ALL the time. Let's begin with yesterday's trip to the market. I went with Liz. Kris was sick, so we navigated Anshun by ourselves, which actually went pretty well. When we were walking through the Wonka (the grocery store), I brushed against a pot that was sitting precariously on the shelf. It fell off and the glass lid shattered. We decided we should get out of that department ASAP. Our brilliant plan was foiled when a little Chinese lady chased us down and grabbed me. She started jabbering in Chinese, so I told her I don't understand. So she kept talking. And I kept saying I didn't understand. The end of the story is that I bought a pot now with no lid, but whatever. Pots are good. They kindly gave me the rim and the knob that were all that remained of the broken lid. I was like well thank you, this will be very helpful.
Anyway, the electricity went out yesterday. It was only out for a few hours, and it came back on while Liz and I were eating dinner at her house. This morning, it went out again while I was in the shower. I had to leave to teach, and then I came back and took a nap. By 5:00, the electricity was still off, so I called Liz and discovered that their electricity had never gone out.
So I called Charlie, the Foreign Affairs Officer. I call him when I need gas, when my pipes are leaking, when there are Chinese people at my door and I can't understand them, when I need the heater hung in my shower, when I need Caller ID put on my phone, and when the electricity goes out. He's kind of a one-stop solution to everything. I had three questions for Charlie: why my electricity was out, when I could get gas for my stove, and when the heater could be mounted on my bathroom wall. I was expecting the conversation to be relatively easy. Well...it could've been worse. It went something like this:
-"Hi Charlie, this is Sara. I have a few questions. My electricity is out."
-"When did it go out?"
-"8:30 this morning."
-"Oh okay, I will talk to the manager of general affairs. What is your next question?"
-"I need gas for my stove."
-"Ok, I will call staff as soon as possible. The cell phone connection is bad. Let me call you back in a few minutes. No wait, not a few minutes, a few seconds."
(Phone rings six seconds later)
-"Hello Sara, this is Charlie. What are your other questions?"
-"I need the heater hung up in my bathroom."
-"You have no electricity."
-"Yes I know, but I need the heater to be hung up."
-"The heater will not work with no electricity."
-"Yes I know, but the heater has to hang on my bathroom wall."
-"I will call the staff to see about your electricity and the gas will come tomorrow."
-"Okay Charlie, thank you. Bye."
(Phone rings 2 minutes later)
-"Sara this is Charlie. When will you be in your flat?"
-"Well I am going to Liz's house for dinner in 15 minutes. Then I will be back at 7."
-"Ok wait there because the staff is coming to check your electricity."
-"The staff is coming right now? Before dinner?"
-"Yes, if they are fast it will be 10 minutes. Maybe not longer than 20 minutes. This is very serious. You have no electricity."
-"Yes, it is serious. I will wait here."
-"Okay it is serious problem. At night it gets dark."
-"Yes it does. I will wait here. Thank you."
-"Don't you think it is a serious problem?"
-"Yes Charlie. I will wait here for the staff."
Anyway, the staff came and jabbered at me in Chinese. The end of the story is that my electricity works and they are coming tomorrow to hook up a gas tank for my stove. More later on trying to explain to my class what a postcard is.
After spraying around all the baseboards and windows and drains in my house, I have not seen a (live) cockroach for almost a week!
Have you ever wondered what it feels like to carry ten pounds of cheese around a city of 300,000 people for a grand total of two taxi rides, five bus rides, and three hours' worth of walking? I could tell you. I could also tell you what it's like shopping in a Chinese Walmart and how it feels being one of the few foreigners in Guizhou province. I know what it's like to have the little kid behind you in line throw up, and how many times you get bitten by bugs at a lake, and what it's like to use a squatty potty. I am intimately acquainted with the feeling of being lost in China while you are carrying a backpack full of canned goods, a coat, a purse, and two grocery bags. I also know what it's like to walk through the middle of military training...twice.
I learned all of these things during our weekend in Guiyang. Yes, I am tired. Yes, my body aches. And yes, it was one of the funniest experiences I think I've ever had.
The weekend began after Liz and I finished teaching at 10:00 Friday morning. We caught the bus with Kris into Guiyang, a two hour ride, and then we ate lunch before going to Walmart. Walmart has a few things that we cannot get in Anshun such as cheese, American spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, tuna, baked beans, butter, ham, bread, sunscreen, cream cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise, and canned soup. Since it takes two hours and 25 yuan to get to Guiyang, we only go every couple of months, which means that we need to stock up at Walmart. You find yourself evaluating whether or not you want something badly enough to carry it. Even if you take a taxi to Susie and Kara's school where we were staying, you have a 20-minute walk up a pretty steep hill. This explains several of my aches and pains.
At the end of the Walmart extravaganza, the little kid behind me started throwing up. It appeared to be all beans. I have no idea how a child of that size ate so many beans, but they closed the line so I moved to another line. We finally got out of Walmart and decided that we should go to the cheese street (not its actual name). I sat on the cement with our three backpacks and seven grocery bags while Liz and Kris went on a quest for the medium-grade mozzerella. It's not all that great, but we couldn't justify paying 400 yuan ($50) for high quality cheddar. Anyway, the natives apparently really think it's thrilling to see a foreign girl with a ridiculous amount of stuff sitting on the sidewalk, and I started to attract a crowd. Pretty soon, I had a crowd of 20 people all just kind of looking at me. But hey, I just gave two dozen people a story to tell at parties for the next five years.
Thankfully, Liz and Kris returned soon and we took a taxi to Susie and Kara's school. Their campus is much bigger than ours, so when we called to tell them where to meet us, they didn't know where to go. We walked in what we thought must be the right direction. We walked around the track, by the basketball courts with the male military training (where we got a chorus of 50 "hello's"), through the basketball courts with the female military training (where we got a few more "hello's"), and stopped at the sidewalk. After speaking to Susie and Kara, who still had no idea where we were, we decided to find the pond because there is only one pond on campus. The pond was the opposite direction from the way we went and up several hills. After an hour of wandering around, we made it to Kara's apartment and collapsed. Then we had to go to Rebecca's for dinner, so we dropped our stuff and flew out the door. We had a really great curry dinner, and then we waited for the bus until we figured out that it had stopped running. Another bus ran half an hour later, so we hurried to the next bus stop a few blocks away and made the very last bus. We then had to run up the hill so that we could get into the school before the gate closed at 11:30. Once the gate closes, you have to climb the fence, and the fences are dang high so we were really happy that we made it.
Saturday morning was overcast and in the mid-50's, so we decided to do the only logical thing and go swimming in the lake. It was absolutely the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The water was close to 80 degrees. We rented a boat and paddled out into the middle and jumped off. We swam for half an hour or so and then decided to head back because we were meeting some other teammates for dinner. It was too cold to paddle back, so we grabbed the rope and swam the whole way back pulling the boat. It wasn't as difficult as it sounds, but it was a long swim--15 or 20 laps. Oh yeah, I almost forgot--while we were swimming around (before we started pulling the boat), a motorboat full of Chinese people drove by us and videotaped us.
After we got dressed, I had the privilege of using a squatty potty. This might be easy if you are a boy, but since I've never been a boy, it was kind of an art form. You have to make sure to keep your balance because, well, it's just gross down there, and you have to make sure you lean forward enough. I know you don't want all the gory details, but you will need to know this in the event that you, too, must use a squatty potty. Things were going well until my chapstick fell out of my pocket onto the ground. I couldn't bring myself to pick it up. That stuff goes on your mouth! I decided to sacrifice it to the squatty potty gods. It lived a good life.
Saturday night, we ate dinner and had a ULS meeting. Today (Sunday), we went to fellowship and then ate lunch at Pizza Hut (!) before heading back home. It is so good to be home in our quiet little town. We took a taxi after we got off the bus, and as Kris said, "You know you are in Anshun when you drive on whichever side of the road you want." Thank goodness I don't have to teach tomorrow! We are heading to town after Liz is done teaching at noon to go to the market and pay our phone bills. I promise more on the roach problem (which may be conquered), the bike ride, and the lake at Anshun. Right now, I am going to hit the sack. 'Night!
Oh yeah, one more thing...when we were taking the taxi from Walmart to the school, we were stopped at a light next to a bus. A little boy who was probably 10 was hanging out the window staring at us, and when the light turned green, he yelled "I love you!" Maybe you had to be there...it was funny.
I have been in China for almost two whole weeks now. Somehow, I have managed to survive! Everyday life is exhausting. It takes an incredible amount of energy to stay alive. One of the hardest things to do is to feed myself. All food is fresh, which means trips to the market every couple of days. There aren't ovens or microwaves or frozen food, American conveniences to which I have become accustomed. Lately, I have been eating a lot of instant oatmeal and Chinese Ramen noodles :)
However, in spite of the fact that at the end of the day I am ready to collapse, this is a beautiful country and I love it (usually). The people in this town have very generous, kind spirits. They'll do anything they can to help you, even though we can only communicate in sign language and my 20 words of Chinese. Tonight, I went with Liz and Kris (the two other American teachers from my organization) to a student's house for dinner. She and her classmate made us chicken, dumplings, pumpkin porridge, and fruit salad. Then she played the pi pa (I have no idea how you spell that). It's a traditional Chinese string instrument. We had an amazing time with them. Liz and I managed to avoid eating the chicken's head, which is a tradition for foreigners in China for the first time. That was a relief.
Tomorrow, Kris and Liz and I are headed to Guiyang for the weekend to visit our teammates there. There is a married couple, Matthew and April, and two single women, Susie and Kara. We get to go to Walmart and I might buy an oven! More on that later. Also more later on my Tour d'Anshun (aka the bike ride of death) and the cockroach epidemic.
