You know you're in China...

Let me say this. This following post is 100% plagiarized from a foreign teacher that was stationed at our school a couple years ago. However, it was FAR too clever, and DEAD ON for me to pass up showing to everyone back home. The words belong to Diana Dove, whom I've never actually met, but I'm trying to get a hold of. Her old blog: "Inner Mongolian Brog"

I tweaked a few of these, and omitted a couple, and added a couple to more fit our slightly different (emphasis on slightly) experience over here in Tongliao. Please. Enjoy. And learn about our lives.

You might be in China if...

• you forget what clean smells like.
• you barely flinch when you see a small child emptying his bowels in the street.
• a cup of coffee costs more than ten times a bottle of beer.
• you spend less than 5RMB on a fully satisfying lunch, but might end up eating at a table with 4 strangers.
• you carry a supply of TP with you everywhere you go.
• you know how to use a squatter.
• you know what a squatter is.
• grown men and women often say hello to you, and when you reply they run away giggling.
• you can't decide if you love or hate the country you're living in.
• you see nothing wrong with standing on a white stripe in the middle of a highway while cars whiz past you at 90kph.
• it seems completely normal that some guy on a tricycle wants to buy your garbage.
• you don't blink an eye when a complete stranger wants to take a photo of you with his family.
• you use Kleenex for table napkins.
• you drink warm sodas and find them refreshing.
• you buy a movie that hasn't been released theatrically yet at home...
• when you can get ANYTHING to eat on a stick.
• when you are constantly asked if you think simple foods and beverages are delicious. "This is the best boiled water ever!" "fantastic seeds!"
• you take it in stride when you are offered beer/baijiu at lunch before going back to work.
• you can play charades so well that it is often not necessary to talk (due to lack of chinese when you arrive)
• an entire class looks at you with a blank face when you ask them to try and discover something on their own, rather than you just telling them the answer.
• you make a scheduled trip to KFC weekly to pretend like you're in America.
  
• you have learned to enjoy being stared at.
• almost anything can be "fixed"
• you teach your body to accept 'Nescafe instant coffee packs' as real coffee, when you know that it's not.
  
• when you go shopping for clothes or shoes you often find that they don't have what you want in a size that will fit your big foreign frame. Instead they offer you something bigger and uglier and think it's a fair compromise.
• you have ten different responses to the question, "Do you like China?"
• you point out foreigners to your Chinese friends even though you're foreign yourself.
• SARS doesn't worry you; 4% chance of death is considerably lower than eating the food, breathing the air, riding a bicycle or listening to bad KTV.
• you don't have any idea what something is, but you'll eat it anyway.
• if you just ate and liked it, you don't ask what it is.
• you completely ignore most people who say hello to you.
• you see a woman with dyed hair and try to figure out of she's Chinese or foreign by walking fast to catch up.
• you know what it is and you eat it anyway.
• you convince yourself that it doesn't matter how dirty the cooks' hands are, cooking will fix it.
• you are becoming proficient in 4 other languages: Mandarin, local dialect, Chinglish, and gibberish.
• if there are only 4 screaming children running around the classroom, you consider it a good primary class.
• if you're only mocked in public 4 times, you consider it a good day.
• you love tofu because there's nothing to spit out and it doesn't have any taste.
• you know exactly what CS is. (Diana's note: CS is Counter Strike - the dumbest computer game every teenage boy here is obsessed with)
• smoking does less harm to your lungs than breathing.
• you call polluted water and preservatives wine.
• living in a 'clean' city means living in one where you won't mutate. At least not immediately.
• you point over your back with your thumb when using the past tense.
• you've learned that it's okay to be 3 days/weeks late for appointments because everyone else is.
• every village is different from the rest of China but all foreigners are the same.
• everyone wants to be your friend - all you have to do is teach them English for free.
• everyone wants to teach you Chinese by speaking to you in English.
• you tell people you don't understand, so they write it for you - in Chinese.
• you love and hate children at the same time. (Amen. - Ricky)
  
• you walk into a bar on Friday night at 11.00pm and you are the only one there.
• you start thinking instant coffee tastes pretty good.
• no one cares if you wear the same clothes all month.
• absolutely everything that can possibly be eaten is in some way good for your health.
• KTV becomes interesting.
• warm beer becomes drinkable.
• apples are the size of pumpkins.
• only five minutes of prep time for a unannounced class no longer fazes you.
• you actually believe you're here to teach English.
• you plan to ask students questions they must form their own answers to and you bring reading material along to occupy your time during the long silence that fills the period between you asking the question and the first hand that tenatively rises.
• you no longer expect the truth.

From me:

• you expect to be a dignitary at any Chinese sponsored event you attend.
• when someone unexpected or unknown comes your way, your first reaction is to calm everyone down by saying, "We can just call Gaowei."
• your new favorite phrase to tell friends when saying goodbye is 'oh, hey, happy everyday!'
• you consider the covered rice restaurant owner's baby a part of your family.
• you eat on snack street's 'noodle place' often enough to say, "Oh hey - there's more peanuts in the soup today! Yes!"
• you say 'dui' to anything a local asks you because it is your go-to Mandarin response. (Dui means 'correct').
• you've attempted to teach every class that the word 'movie' is actually prounounced the way it is spelled, rather than 'MOOOIEE", and have slapped your forehead every time you walk into class and they say the same damn thing over and over.
• when going out to dinner, going to KTV, or going to the one western bar in town have become your singular trifecta of evening choices every weekend.
• you begin saying 'hallloooo' exactly like your students, unconsciously, in response to your students' saying 'halllloooo' to you.
• if making rice for breakfast isn't 'a big deal'.
• if every mid-way to expensive store you walk by has music blaring so loudly (outside and in) that you immediately think it is a disco, but are mystified to learn that it sells leathers jackets.

More to come, I'm quite sure.
-Ricky

Checkin' in.

Just a general little listing of whats going on in my life right now! Let's see here..

- The new western style gym called "MIO" is going great. Getting to know some of the trainers there, and working through the language barrier. Johnathen is a good guy and a good trainer.. same with Robert. Mico is a muscle head, and Ricky (yeah, he took my name for his English name, haha) is a quiet fella, but a nice guy. Apple is the only girl trainer I know there. She seems nice!
- I'm getting WAY better at cooking rice. My fried rice with onions, peppers and potatoes is turning into one of my favorite little dishes to make myself for lunch. I'm working my way up to eggs and meat. We'll see what happens.
- Chinese lessons are progressing, and my Chinese has advanced from 'God awful', to 'Almost intelligible.' That's a strong step up the wrung for me. I can at least talk to taxi drivers (most of the time) and purchase basically anything I need in China. I've just about mastered the numbers in China.. so my negotiation skills at markets is spiking. Good news.
- We have a lot of down time. What have I been doing with this time, you ask? Great question. Well, we watch an ungodly amount of movies and tv series (which you can buy dirt cheap bootleg versions of at any local supermarket).. I recently got a hold of a big book of crossword puzzles that has been occupying some time... OH, and my mother just sent me Harry Potter: 1 and 2. I can't WAIT to start reading the series. Mostly because I've been showing Harry Potter to a few of my Grade 2 classes, and it's piqued my interest in the book! I'm currently chugging through 'The Count of Monte Cristo'.. once I'm done, my odyssey into Harry's world will begin.
- I've been teaching my students in Grade 1 about good/bad manners in America/China, lately. It's pretty fun. However, the lesson usually ends prematurely, so I'm forced to think of something to do in order to kill time in class. My favorite thing to do lately with 'em is to play games. The two big ones I play are 'Champion', and 'Whispers'. Champion is pretty standard. I ask for two students to come up the front of class and have them sit back to back in chairs, then write a 'topic' up on the board... like 'Animals'. They then have to say an Animal name (in English) back and forth until one can't think of one. Fortunately, I allow the rest of the class to help out their classmates with thinking of another thing in the category. I figure it's win-win, since 1. the kids get to help their friends (Chinese kids are SO supportive of their friends) and 2. everyone in the class is shouting English words, exactly what I'm trying to get them to do. Suckers. Whispers is a classic version of 'telephone'. I say a sentence to one kid, and they say it to the kid behind them, etc. til the last one in the row tells ME what I said. Whatever rows get it correct, get a point. Whichever row (I have like 60 kids in a class) has the most correct at the end of class, wins! It sounds great in theory, but in actuality, these Chinese kids are TRICKY. They write down the sentence, pass it around, tell everyone what it is, run from their seat to tell the kid at the end, etc. It's pretty wild. At least they're speaking English!
- Grade 2 is finishing up Harry Potter. The movie was too long for class. It has taken up way too much of my class time. My bad.
- We got invited to another English competition at the University! This time it was ingrained into preforming English, Russian, or Japanese musical pieces in front of the student body. It was SO fun... plus I got to be a judge for it! So many good songs. My two favorites were 'By the Rivers of Babylon', and 'Bayou'. Good old American songs.
- My mom sent me already cooked Bacon. She is a Goddess. Love you mommy.
- I'm currently on the prowl for a Santa costume to wear to class/to the big Christmas eve party that our school throws at a big hotel every year here in Tongliao. Christmas is KIND OF celebrated over here in China. It's mostly a commercial holiday, which makes sense. They sell Christmas stuff everywhere, and play some Christmas-y tunes at the local Supermarkets. Apparently it's tradition in China to give your good friends Apples on Christmas, since Apples mean 'Peace' or, 'Everything goes well', in China. I better buy some soon.
- I just turned 23. Gross.
- I still really miss everyone at home. Especially during the Holidays. Much love.
- We just had a lovely dinner with Honey and Ned and Mandy (from the Tongliao University!). It was an excellent 'American Dinner' of 'Hamburgers', 'Fries', 'Cole Slaw', tomatoes and Rice. Very nice.
- Oh, we just finished most of our decorating for Christmas! The foreign teachers from last year left us a Christmas tree and a host of decorations (Thanks so much you guys, we love ya!) that we've splayed across the Third floor apartment! It looks so homey and like Christmas. I've also downloaded one metric ton of Christmas tunes to listen to - and have had them on full blast, non stop since December 1. Oh baby, if I can't take China home, I'll take home to China!!
- David recently broke 2000 points on 'Landlord', a big time QQ game (QQ is like the Chinese version of AIM). It was a big day. I'm proud of him.
- It's absurdly cold in Tongliao right now. Right now: -1 degrees. Yikes.
- Our big trip coming up in January is currently in the planning process. When more information comes up, I'll alert the presses.
- I CAN'T WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS!!

That'll do for now. Peace, love and tie-dye.

Ricky

The Chinese Wedding.

So, there have been a few things happening in the past weeks that I've unfortunately neglected to mention in my little electronic journal (not diary) here. I'll try to catch myself up here.

Oh, and something of note. My general lack of pictures on my blog right now were due to a malfunctioning camera. I haven't been able to properly take any pictures lately, and thus the problem. However, I think I've fixed it - so prepare for a new load of Christmas shots in the coming entries! Huzzah!

But I digress. Reaching back a few weeks - we (Myself, Katie, Mike and Neha) were lucky enough to be invited by Cindy, a teacher in the North Campus high school where I work, to attend her wedding ceremony! We were all extremely excited for the chance to experience a wedding here in China, and jumped at the opportunity. However, weddings over here are WAY different than anything you might find back home. I'll do my best to explain the whole ordeal. Oh, and the best part is that she asked us to sing at her wedding - a reprisal of 'My Love' by the ever-popular (at least in China) Irish boy band 'Westlife'.

To begin.. the Chinese have a kind of siesta-like period of the day in which they get time to return to their home, have something to eat, and usually take a nap. For us at school, it lasts from 11:30 until 2:30. Everyone gets these three hours off to do whatever they like. I usually take the time to grab some lunch and go to the gym, as I hate napping. But for most over here, the nap is essential. Especially for the Chinese students who have class from 6am-10pm every day. God bless 'em.

That said, entire wedding was held during this lunch-siesta time of the day on a Friday, so that any co-workers of Cindy or her husband wanted to attend - they would certainly have the time. To preface a lot of this.. it was what may be considered a 'typical Chinese wedding'.. so most of the things I write about are common to all of the weddings that happen over here. So.. we leave at lunch, and end up at a nearby Hotel (a very nice one, might I add) where we, and the rest of the faculty body attending the wedding got off of the bus that shuttled us from the school to the wedding. The whole thing was held in a large function room of the hotel. Inside, we were greeted by Cindy and her Husband, both dressed up in wonderfully beautiful wedding dress. Cindy in a white gown, and her husband (who works for the military) in an all white military officers suit. They stood at the entrance of the hotel and greeted everyone individually. We then made our way into the hotel proper, and into the function room. It was extravagantly decorated with every wedding decoration and garnish you could possibly think of. But the coup de grace, in my opinion, were the lavishly photoshopped photos of the bride and the groom in a MYRIAD of different costumes, poses and scenes depicting how much they love each other and how important the marriage is! My favorite picture: The groom exploding out of the Statue of Liberty's torch while looking tough, arms folded. Priceless.

Another side note: There is a HUGE industry in China for wedding pictures. The Chinese 'Steps to Marriage' go as follows:
1. Decide to get married. Fill out the proper government paperwork.
2. Get a ton of immaculately cheesy / but completely endearing wedding photos taken.
3. Have the ACTUAL wedding ceremony, usually months later.
4. Enjoy life together!
The wedding pictures are a huge part of the marriage process, and actually look like they're a lot of fun. The wedding couple will take a whole day usually, and go to a photo place where they will go through a host of costume changes and scenery changes, taking pictures with each other and alone. It's kind of magical, in a way, I suppose!

Anyhow. We sat down at a big, typical dinner table (the kind with the lazy susan in the middle), because, naturally, at the wedding itself, they serve lunch... and a ton of booze. Yup. Right in the middle of the day, a work day nevertheless, everyone is basically required to take shots in honor of the bride and groom. It was hilarious. China does things right. There is also a host, who MC's the entire wedding, that the Bride and Groom will purchase for the occasion. They fellow MC'ing Cindy's wedding was great. He was enthusiastic, spoke well (I think) and wore a wonderful, sequin-suit that had 'asian game show host' written all over it. He was great. He announced many things we didn't understand, then introduced Cindy, who strode down the center of the room in her wedding gown. (It is also customary to change dresses a few times during the wedding ceremony. The more dresses, the more wealthy you are, I think.) She had a little Q&A in front of everyone with the host - apparently it was funny, due to the crowd's laughter. Then suddenly, the groom was announced! He appeared from nowhere with a microphone and a bouquet of beautiful roses, dropped down to a knee, and sang his wife a very heartfelt song right there in front of everyone. It was really heartwarming! Afterwards, there were a bunch of little games and ceremonies that the Bride and the Groom took part in. A few of them were, for example.. Having each spouse's mother and father come on stage, and having them take shots of Bai-jiu together... pouring wine into the top of a series of little wine glasses and having it cascade down into a final glass of wine for drinking... and then, the singing. About 4-5 people (close friends of the happy couple) got up on stage individually, and sang songs to them! Unfortunately, we were slated to do this first. We had no idea what was going on.. and basically we got on stage, the HUGE wedding crowd clapped, and the music started. So we sang! Our pep talk before starting: "The song is in English... They're Chinese. They can't understand what we sing even if we screw up. GO!" All in all, even if we were horrible... Cindy was so grateful to have us sing her a song at her wedding. Plus, I thought it was pretty fun, haha.

During most of the song-singing, lunch was served in between shots of Bai-jiu and something that tasted like grape coolaid with booze in it, that the couple's parents were bringing around from table to table. After lunch.. the whole thing was essentially over - and everyone left the wedding! It ended so abruptly, that we weren't quite sure what to do. Most wedding parties at home in America last for the entire night.. so we were a little perplexed as to what our next move would be, cordially... since we were half in the bag at noon. The girls went shopping. I took a nap.

Just another standard day in China.

Thanksgiving?

Since Meg and Christina have been gone on Vacation, and were gone for Thanksgiving... the four of us had a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner. In other words:

We took a few handfuls of coupons to KFC and bought as much fast food as we shove in our faces.

This includes, 1 bucket of legs, 3 sandwiches, 2 pop corn chickens, 4 ice creams, one small corn on the cob, 2 cups of mashed potatoes, another serving of wings, and 4 bags of fries.

It was a meal fit for a king. Or.. maybe a meal fit for four American kids stuck in China on Thanksgiving. Happy belated Turkey day!

THANKFULLY, we will be having a REAL Thanksgiving meal tomorrow night! My mother has graciously sent me a TON of Thanksgiving supplies ready to cook for a wonderful Thanksgiving Feast!!! (Thanks Mom, I love you SO MUCH!)



I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes! I MISS EVERYONE!!!

PS: Things I am Thankful For.
- My Mom and Dad and Sister. Love you all.
- My Sister again. Her love keeps my sane.
- All my friends at home in the States - miss you guys so much. Seriously.
- My students here in China. They are all so wonderful. God, I love those kids.
- Everyone that we work with here at #1 School. David, Honey and Mr. Zheng at the top of the list, of course. Thank you all so much.
- The other 5 PC kids I'm here with. Katie, Christina, Meg, Neha, and Mike. Love you guys. :)
- The recently revamped 'Die Hard Room' I just heard about back at Rocksteady. Good work.

Much love, everyone! Can't wait for Christmas!!!
-Ricky

Tomstone and the 'Crazy English Cup!'

A few days ago, Christina and Meg were invited by their School (South Campus) to come be judges at an English Speaking competition down at the Tongliao University. Naturally, everyone else from American wanted to tag along for the ride to see them judge, and to check out what the competition would be like!

It was all run by a Chinese English Teacher named Tomstone (whose English is undeniably great), and it was named the 'Crazy English Cup'. It wasn't all too Crazy, but it WAS very exciting, informative, and inspiring to watch. 12 Chinese students from the university participated - each of them hailing from different departments of study at the university, but each having a certain penache for English speaking. They were asked to give an opening speech, then were asked two questions from the panel of judges, then were given a random topic to give an impromptu speech about. It was EXTREMELY inspiring to watch these young men and women from the university perform in front of a large audience of their peers and teachers.

Note: The Judges panel consisted of seven people. Two Chinese English Professors from the university (Tomstone was one of them), a Chinese English Teacher from the #1 School named Marsha (she is our good friend here in Tongliao), Meg and Christina, and two other Americans that are living in Tongliao! Their names are Mandy and Ned, and are a young girl and older fellow from New Mexico. They are both teaching English at the university, and are extremely kind and happy people to be around. We have had lunch with them once since meeting them, and hopefully will meet up with them again soon!

The students giving speeches exhibited a strong ability to speak English quite fluently, and spoke on the topic 'Who Am I' quite frequently in their opening speeches. I wish I had brought with me something to write with, as I would have taken notes of their beautiful words. As I sat in my seat I realized that these students are only a year younger than me, or more likely, my age, and have already come close to mastering two languages on top of studying into a field of their interest at their university, and are only now beginning their adult life. I too am doing quite a similar thing - but I am doing it in their country. It was a humbling experience. I was blown away with the studious strength and power in the students answers and speeches. It made me want to study my Chinese harder, and drive myself to achieve my goals, and such. Indeed, these are somewhat cliche things to wish for, but the ideas struck me, and I'm happy they did. My direction is still a bit askew, but at least my driving force has had a bit of a kick start.

Alas, I digress on my story! The competition went swimmingly, and a young girl named 'Amy' was crowned the victor of the cup. And rightfully so. Her English was absolutely superb, and she deserved the win. Her preparation seemed the best, although I am quite sure that all the students who participated in the English Competition worked VERY hard to be a part of the entire experience. If I were their teacher, I would be proud beyond words.

Xi'an - Part II

SO - we woke up in Xi'an, and had perhaps the most scrumptrilescent (that one's for Sully if you ever read this) breakfast I've had in China. The hostel sells 'The American Breakfast'. Two eggs, Sausage, Bacon, Toast, Butter, served with an extra helping of love. It was mouth watering, lemme tell ya. After breakfast (with the Spanish gals), we had to unfortunately say goodbye to them, as their trip was taking them off to Shanghai for their next stop. I hope we see all of them again someday, or sooner! They were fabulous people.

So today we took our trip to see the Terracotta warriors. We took a Chinese Tour Bus (which was ridiculously cheap) to get ourselves to the dig-site. We paid our tourist fee...

NOTE: BRING A COLLEGE ID TO ANY TOURIST AREA IN CHINA. YOU WILL SAVE MONEY ON TICKETS!

... and headed on in. There are 3 pits of statue warriors, covered in and STILL being unearthed and studied to this day. They say it will take a few more decades for them to fully understand the entire site. However, what they have on display currently is enough to blow your mind. The statues are extremely solemn and awe inspiring. The sheer number of them.. and how they were meant to be BURIED and NEVER found by any man is truly amazing. This was all done in name of one man, an Emperor. They respected and worshiped this one man enough to create a vast army of stone soldiers to carry him into the afterworld, and for the living world to never lay eyes upon. That, to me, is poetic and stunning. Unfortunately though, much like the Forbidden City, the tourism factory that the place had become put me off a bit. I was expecting something life changing, and I was confronted by Tour Guides and merchants trying to squeeze as much money out of the ancient culture found here. A bit off putting - but if I concentrated enough, I felt I was able to understand and get myself in the right state of mind to enjoy the old statues and their meaning.

After many pictures (my camera died here. Bummer) and long walks, we made our way out of the dig site and headed through the small merchant zone where they tried to sell you souvenirs like crazy. We bypassed them quickly and sat in a little square for a bit. I saw a couple of locals playing Badminton nearby, and walked over to watch them. They asked me if I wanted to play, I said absolutely, and found myself sweating profusely over a game of Badminton with a Chinese local in Xi'an after about 15-20 minutes of play. They asked the regular questions - where are you from? What do you do? How old are you? But mainly, they were just happy to see someone who wanted to have a little fun, I think. It was somewhat heartwarming to know that people are still people no matter where you go. Be it America, China, or anywhere else - I could barely speak with these folks, but they greeted me with warm smiles and the want to connect for a minute, even if it was over a silly little game with rackets and a 'birdie'. I loved it. It was a blast. I thanked them, shook hands, and we jumped back on our bus back to the city.

Back in Xi'an, Katie and I decided we wanted to go check out the Oldest Tea House in Xi'an, down near the Muslim quarter of town. Mike and Neha stayed in the Hostel to relax. We also called up Caitlin (Katie's randomly realized friend from high school) and met her for the Tea Ceremony we were to partake in at the Tea House.

Side Note: While waiting for Caitlin near the Muslim quarter (and in front of the Drum tower) we met 3 young girls from the Xi'an University. They were English students and had many questions for us. They were VERY kind and happy to speak with us, and we were happy to chat with them! We seem to get this basically everywhere we go in China. People love to practice their English with native English speakers. It's kind of nice, I think.

At the Tea House, we paid a very small fee, and were brought into the Tea room in the house. Two women that spoke standard English helped us in and made us comfortable. One of them was the Tea Master (or Mistress, I guess) that made us about 4-5 different types of tea to try out and enjoy. She also gave each one a bit of history and explained why people drink that specific type of tea - for example, The Lychee Concubine Tea was for ladies, and meant to improve the skin and wet the lungs.. whatever that means. It was actually very nice, and the whole experience was definitely worthwhile and interesting. We then were given a tour of the old house - which was around 400 years old - and housed an art studio, shadow puppet theatre, several small homes, a paper cutting art studio, and a small, gorgeous garden.

After saying goodbye to our Tour Guide and the old house - we got back to the hostel and made more friends! A young man named Ferdinand from Germany, an English gent named Louie, two guys from D.C. who are teaching in Korea and were on holiday and vacationing in China. All good kids! Anywho - our friend making led us to making plans to go out in Xi'an to another hostel to meet more foreigners! We were in a city where foreigners seem to thrive, so why not meet a few more? We got to the other hostel, where the bar was much more suited to host larger parties and had some solid music going. We made friends with LOTS of kids there - including Al - a guy from Vermont (UVM), Muhammad - an American teacher traveling around,
Joe - an American kid who was studying Taoism/Buddhism in Xi'an, and a host of other characters we spent the night with! After a failed attempt at a disco, a trip to the night food vendors, and getting back to the hostel bar - we called it a night and headed home to our little hostel near the Bell tower downtown.

We woke up and had breakfast with Caitlin, Joe and Ferdinand, and relaxed quite steadily inside our hostel, chatting, enjoying each others company, and talking about the night before. The Hostel's 'living room', I guess you could call it, is extremely comfortable. It has couches, a pool table, Fooseball, computers with internet, all kinds of drinks and food, etc. So it turned into a good place to hang out. Also, the walls of the Hostel (like many others, I've found) are littered with words, sayings and drawn pictures from travelers that have stayed at the hostel in the past. It is mesmerizing to begin reading all the things people have left on the walls of the hostel as their mark, and of course we had to leave our own little mark. Or a few.

Note: I saw Zach Zimmerman's name splayed across the wall on the second floor of our hostel. I went into convulsions and wrote my name next to his, as well as '603 Forever'. Go New Hampshire. Go PC.

We wrote Providence College a few times, our names, a little story.. AND, we noticed that the Spanish gals drew three cute little impressions of themselves on the wall near the pool table in the back - so obviously we had to draw ourselves in right next to them! I named the artwork, "Xi'an - the city of Friends". I think it was fitting! After doodling a bit, it was time for the four of us to get onto our train back to Beijing, and then later, the train back to Tongliao. It was a bittersweet leave we took from our happy little home we found in Xi'an. We bid Joe and Ferdinand goodbye, and Caitlin came to see us off at the Train station. Very sweet of her indeed. The train back was again a sleeper into Beijing - so we woke up in the morning, In Beijing! How convenient the train system works here. A train cab can act as BOTH a form of transportation, AND a hideously uncomfortable hotel room! What luck!

At any rate, we made it to Beijing - and decided to spend the day (we had until 5pm or so to kill, as that's when the train to Tongliao leaves) exploring the Temple of Heaven in the center of Beijing. We walked there. Oh, and on the way, I bought this flour-wrap-egg-sauce-crunchy-cilantro-onion-thing.. that was maybe the most delectable street food I've had since entering China. Cheers, Beijing! Anyway - we made it to the Temple, to find that it is actually a MASSIVE park that houses a few monuments and the temple inside of it. The attractions inside include the Temple of Heaven (for making sacrifices to the heavens, duh) the Temple of Good Harvest (for making sacrifices to the gods for a good harvest), The Garden of 100 Flowers (which were all dead - wrong time of the year!), The Echo Wall (which you can talk into at one point, and someone can hear you from the other side of the wall, like, WAY far away), and this big Mound that is supposedly extremely important. Alas, we're not quite sure why. At any rate, everything inside the park was beautiful and captivating to visit and tour around. But the REAL attraction of this place was DEFINITELY the throngs and throngs of old timers hanging out in the park! There were HUNDREDS of them doing activities from Ribbon dancing, playing cards, playing 'Chinese Hackey Sack', learning to ballroom dance, doing Tai-Chi, Playing Tennis, Singing Karaoke, chatting with friends, learning to play instruments together, singing sheet music and BEYOND. It was enthralling! And actually kind of nice. Everything the older folks were doing is 'for exercise and health' - and they all seemed pretty happy to be out and about! If that's how the Chinese retire - count me in when I get that old!

After our Temple of Heaven Park adventure, we made our way back to the Train station and hopped on our final train home to Tongliao. A wonderful trip we had in only so many days. I'd never trade it in for anything, or change anything about it. Well, except that I DID miss our friends back in Tongliao very dearly. It was wonderful to come home and see them.

Ah, traveling. I think that it may be my new passion in life. I guess I'll just have to see where it takes me! (Pun intended).

Xi'an - WAY past due. Part 1.

This post is SO past due, it's actually funny. Well, not really. I apologize for being so absentminded and tardy in my duties of recording my travels. Alas - here it is. Hope it makes sense.

So there we stood, happy to be on vacation, train tickets in hand, ready to board the train to Beijing. Armed with a backpack a piece, a few phrase books, and the heads on our shoulders - we were ready to brave the land of China by ourselves. Hoo boy. Oh, and I'll have to note.. the trip was attended by only four out of our troupe of six. The other two ladies (Meg and Christina) unfortunately had to work during our vacation due to the fact that the South campus (where they work) has a slightly different schedule than ours on the North Campus. Alas.

We boarded the train in Tongliao at about 8:30 in the morning after stopping by a small market to grab a few munchies for the 12 hour ride to Beijing. We mostly hung out and read books on the train - it was comfortable. I also met a young girl on the train named Emma who was from Tongliao, but lives in Beijing as a Perfume saleswoman. She was practicing her English, and asked me to help her out! Good thing too - we made friends and she managed to help show us where to get off the train, and where to go to leave the station. So we got off in the big city of Beijing with its flashin' lights.. and were greeted by a taxi driver who TOTALLY tried to screw us out of way too much money. So, we decided to walk through Beijing by ourselves at around 10 at night. Suprisingly, it's an EXTREMELY safe city to walk through. However, when you don't know where you're going - it can seem really big. Ultimately, however, we found our first hostel there thanks to the help of a fellow named 'Nina' we met on the street who could speak a little English. However, the hostel we arrived at cost a bit too much for the one night we wanted to stay. So, we called up my very close, good friend Steve who happened to be visiting Beijing on Holiday as WELL and asked where he was staying.

Quick side note: The friends and coincidences on this trip are absurdly wonderful and quite plentiful. Keep an eye out for the connections and stories littered throughout this entry!

So, we took a quick taxi ride to Steve's hostel, which was fantastically receptive, and much cheaper (thank god). I was so happy to see Steven and meet the guys he met over his trip (an Israeli man named Asiz , a guy from the Netherlands named JJ, and a fellow teacher of Steve's named Cy). Oh, and I forgot to mention. Steve has been teaching English to high school students in a city named Zhengzhou, near Xi'an, where we were ultimately taking our trip! Small world, huh. Anyhow, we settled into the Hostel and decided to have a night out in Beijing! I can now happily say I went bar hopping in Beijing. Good story.

The next morning we took a taxi ride and a stroll through Tiananmen Square - finding ourselves standing in front of the Forbidden City, and a massive picture of Chairman Mao. We went into the city (for the second time, mind you - the first being when we had just arrived in China!) and went straight for the ticket office to get us into the Forbidden city proper. On our way in, an English speaking woman asked us for directions where to buy tickets for the palace and what she should say. Since we were still quite awestruck by any foreigners we could find, we immediately loved her and invited her to travel with us for a bit as we toured the city. Her name was Anna Maria, an Italian ESL teacher living in Australia who spoke fluent English and Italian. She spoke zero Chinese, so we actually helped her out a bit in this regard. It felt weird to be teaching someone Chinese rather than English!

The Forbidden City and the Palace were breathtakingly beautiful. It is so huge and so ancient.. but unfortunately due to the high amounts of tourists - it has become something more of a tourist trap full of salespeople and ticket offices, rather than a beautiful monument to China's past, as I wish it was. However, I still found it captivating to imagine it in it's heyday, full of soldiers, ambassadors, the Emperor, officials, and the whole shebang. It is actually quite hard to explain in pictures and words. It is the sort of place you need to visit yourself in order to understand it's measure and history. Sorry for not being able to do it proper justice! After seeing all of the main palaces, we branched out into the East section of the 'city', and explored a few of its catacombs which included beautiful gardens, jewelry and art history displays, a theatre, and a wonderful stile of 'the 9 dragons'. Quite impressive to say the least.

After our long tour, our short stop in Beijing needed to come to an abrupt end as we had to make it to the Train station for our next stop: Xi'an. We left Anna Maria and strode out looking for the Train station. We ultimately took a Taxi - thank God, otherwise we would have gone to the wrong Train station in Beijing! There are 3 main train stations that go North, South and West. Who knew? Anywho, we made it on time and got into our second sleeper train to Xi'an at around 6pm. It shot us straight to Xi'an as we slept!

We woke up around 6am or so and walked out into the misty city of Xi'an. We immediately spotted a McDonalds and practically ran towards it. After a solid McDonalds breakfast, we noticed a few foreign girls across the restaurant, and flocked to them. They were three girls from Spain traveling in China for holiday named Judy, Leta and Rosa. They turned into some of our best friends of our traveling! We exchanged some information and gave them the name and number of our hostel - and said goodbye for the moment. We then decided to walk through the city to find our hostel as it would give us a better idea of how to get around - plus, Xi'an is a beautiful old city and has plenty to look at. Oh, also - right when we walked out from the Train station, the city is dauntingly solemn and beautiful to look at. Xi'an is still surrounded by it's ancient city walls from the days of the Chinese Empire - massive stone blocks rising what seemed like 30 or 40 yards into the sky. Anywho, we strode through the city in the morning watching it come to life (and getting stalked by some creepy fella for a few blocks who we think was crazy and intrigued by the foreigners walking around his home.. luckily we were able to shake him) and made it to 'The Bell Tower' in the very center of town. It is a beautiful old building right in the middle of a hustling-bustling city blending modern and ancient china in a rather shockingly accurate way. We took the tour later - the Bell ceremony was awesome!

Our Hostel was in sight of the Bell tower - so we bee-lined for the place. We checked in, got our room, and plopped down for a minute. THEN WE ENJOYED HOT SHOWERS. YES SIR. HOT SHOWERS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WEEKS. It was lovely, to say the least. After showering and eating something quickly, we noticed that the Spanish girls we had met checked into the room down the hall from us! They were on their way to see the Terracotta warriors during the day - and we were going to see those guys tomorrow, so we parted ways again, but promised to meet up for dinner, sightseeing and drinks.

Oh, I completely forgot to mention WHY we wanted to go to Xi'an. Xi'an, besides being a kick ass city for tourists and Foreigners to visit, is steeped with history and culture of ancient and modern China. It also houses nearby the dig-site for the Terracotta Warriors unearthed in the 1970's. They are really unbelieveable. More about them soon. Promise.

So after recharging the batteries with a good shower - we headed into Xi'an to give ourselves a little walking tour. We hit the Bell Tower, then the Drum tower (sister towers somewhat close to each other that show off some of the city's Muslim heritage), then found ourway into the Muslim market in Xi'an.

Markets in China are unreal. You can literally buy ANYTHING you can think of. For dirt cheap. You just need to know how to bargain, and speak a little Chinese. For example: Many market stall owners will yell out things like "pretty lady, handsome man, come buy this! Only 50! No? Only 25!", etc, etc. If something catches your eye or you want to buy it, seem somewhat interested in something. Ask one question about it. Then pretend like you don't care about it and walk away. The owner will usually grab your arm and ask you for a price. You ask them. They say a number. You say: "WAY TOO EXPENSIVE!" and walk away again. They grab you. You offer 25% of what they charged, and work from there. It's REALLY fun to bargain. Luckily, I budgeted myself so I couldn't buy too many souvenirs, otherwise I would have been there all day.

After the Muslim Market, we walked through the Southern gate of the city and found our way to the Xi'an Museum and 'Little Goose Pagoda'. The Museum was great, and the Pagoda was beautiful in it's historical significance. Plus, we climbed up the 12 floors of it and got a wonderful view of the city from the top!

After leaving the Pagoda on our way back towards our hostel (we were getting tired) we met someone by COMPLETE coincidence. Katie, a good friend of mine teaching with me, noticed another foreign girl walking along the street we were walking along.. stopped in her tracks, and yelled, "SHUT... UP." The other girl followed suit immediately. The 'other foreign girl' turned out to be Caitlin, a good friend of Katie's in High school who has been teaching English in China for the past year in a city named Shenyang, which sits a short 6 hours by train south of Tongliao! SMALL WORLD, HUH?! After much screaming, laughing and talking - information got sorted and we decided to meet up on the next day, after we got some sight seeing taken care of. That said - we parted and made our way back to our hostel.

On the way back, we decided to grab dinner at a Dumpling joint near where we were staying. Simply because of the name. It was, and I quote: "The Legendary DeFa Chang Restaurant is Renowned for its Superior Delicious Dumplings". That is it's NAME. Hilarious. The dumplings were okay. Not really superior. But I was hungry all the same.

We hung out in the hostel (which also operates as a restaurant and a bar to travelers) until the Spanish girls showed up after their adventures with the Terracotta warriors - and decided to make moves towards finding a 'water, music and light show' that we had heard about near the 'Big Goose Pagoda' in the city. Luckily, we had only seen the Little Goose. The big guy was still waiting for us. We took a bus to the pagoda and caught the show which was very entertaining and exciting to be a part of. It kind of reminded me of Fantasia - water and music and all. I'm sure we were more entertaining to watch for the locals, though. They were mesmerized by 3 Spanish women and 4 American kids hanging out and dancing all together to the water light show. From the Big Goose Pagoda, we made way back to the bus, back into the city, and walked our little legs right up to the first Disco Club we could find. We found one. It was called 'Club Loco'. It was... Awesome.

The place was full of swinging lights, bartenders flipping bottles, Chinese patrons, dice games, and LIVE music. The Chinese seem to have a grand fascination with live music, and it will be at literally any bar you go to. I think it's great. At any rate, the drinks were ridiculously expensive so I could only really afford one. HOWEVER, a Chinese gentleman sitting near to us was so tickled that a big group of foreigners were hanging out at his bar, that he bought us all a round or two of beer! What a guy! The live music was mostly perpetrated by this guy who looked like Rufio from 'Hook', and was wearing a shirt, I shit you not, with "I'M FUCKING AWESOME" plastered across it's breast. What a gentleman. He was actually a great entertainer. His voice was great, and he knew how to hold a crowd. He also sang "It's my life" by Bon Jovi to us for being English Speakers. All the words were wrong, but it was still awesome nevertheless. And he had a bodyguard. Oh, China.

Also, we met 3 kids at the bar who were also English teachers in China who were ALL FROM AMERICA! What are the odds! Sean, Jeff and Angelo. Good guys. Plus, they knew one of the owners of the bar, who graciously bought us our drinks for the rest of the evening. Much dancing, singing and good times ensued, including a Cha-cha or two from the Spanish gals! That will bring us to the conclusion of night two... and the conclusion of this post. I have a lot more to write, but it might get too boring to throw it all into one post. Thus, I shall begin another. HERE GOES!

(To Be Continued..)

HALLOWEEN and a ton of other things!

Okay, let me begin by saying Halloween virtually does not exist in China. Now, imagine you are one of six American's in a sea of Chinese people who want to know ANYTHING about this somewhat silly holiday everyone over in the U.S. of A. celebrates on October 31st. Ready, set, go. That's what our life was for the past two weeks.

But it went surprisingly well! I took this past week as an opportunity to flex my creative Halloween muscles, that I work out so happily every year. I managed to don a new costume every day this past week in an attempt to educate a few people on how ridiculous or typical it is for the American community to dress up as things that frighten or makes us laugh on Halloween. I also wore my costumes to class, to show the kids. They ate it up. Day 1, I was a Basketball Player (everyone in china is obsessed with the NBA.. notably the Houston Rockets due to Yao Ming being their star player), day 2 I was a pirate (that actually took some explaining, but I managed to stumble upon the phrase 'Captain Jack Sparrow!' to explain. Anything commercial helps explain the American experience around here, I've noticed) day 3 I made a skeleton mask, and day 4 I had off. At school, and in my classes, I celebrated Halloween in a few different ways. I managed to find copies of 'The Monster Mash', 'Toccata and Fugue in G' (that creepy organ blasting, vampire-y song), 'Thriller', and half of the soundtrack from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' that I played throughout class as background music. I explained 'Trick or Treat' quite carefully - grabbed a costume and a bag - and went from student to student asking for a Trick or Treat quite politely! I was responded to by laughter or a pen/book/piece of fruit getting tossed into my trick or treating bag. Hilarious. From there, I went on to draw pictures of Zombies, Vampires, Skeletons, Pumpkins (and explaining a pumpkin's journey from Pumpkin proper to Jack-o-Lantern, of course), Ghosts, Goblins, Witches and Mummies. I even managed to explain the idea of Frankenstein's monster. Don't ask how. From there, I had my eager students grab a piece of paper and frantically draw themselves a little Halloween Mask so everyone could have a shot at the holiday! If they could wear the mask correctly and manage to eek out 'Trick or Treat?' (which sounded much more like 'Tricko'tick!') I'd reward them with putting their hand into my magic Hurley Backpack full of chinese candy (treats!) and rocks/paper spiders/instructions to say difficult words (tricks!). They got a kick out of it, and so did I!! However, for the rest of the week whenever I saw any of my students in passing they would swarm me yelling 'TRICKO'TICK, TRICKO'TICK, RAI-KEE!". Oh, yes, they call me Rai-kee. It's easier to say than Ricky, I suppose. I find it rather endearing. Love that kids.

Anywho, come Friday the 31st - Halloween! - I had no classes until the afternoon. So I decided to go and help Neha run her 'English Salon' for her Kindergarten babies that day. It included teaching a few grades of little kids some spooky halloween English words, making adoreable little masks, and then parading the kids throughout the school from grade to grade as a unit - getting to each classroom and screaming TRICKORTREAT! at the top of their lungs, for a little piece of candy. It was unbelieveably cute. The funny thing is, the Kindergarteners (much like ours over in America) learn everything through repetition and sound. Therefore, when taught 'Trick or Treat' will inevitably get them candy - they simply repeat the phrase over and over until they get said candy. It was a riot. Oh, and I dressed up for that too.

After the Salon and an afternoon class, we began to plot and plan for Saturday night - our big Halloween party. As it seems, it is tradition for the Foreign teachers at Tongliao #1 to plan parties periodically throughout the year for holidays and events, while inviting the teachers we work with, and their families. Hearing that made me ecstatic. I love meeting people, and I love parties! What a killer combo! So anyway, my mother, God bless her, sent us a package FULL of halloween decorations for us to spread generously throughout our apartment, and we did! We managed to grab a bunch of party snacks (and beer, of course) for the party.. and even put together a little 'Haunted House' in a room we don't use, for the children of teachers to go into to scare 'em a bit on Halloween! We did the traditional 'bowls of guts, eyeballs and brains' made by noodles, grapes and other gross stuff, respectively. It was a big success. Oddly enough, flip cup and 7, 11, doubles was a hue hit with the little kids too. All played with water, of course. The party was VERY well attended, and turned out to be a huge hit with everyone who made it. I think we had a pretty good time, too. I dressed up as a Professional Ping-Pong player. I think it was appropriate.

So that was more or less our Halloween experience in China. It was just as good.. maybe even better than many Halloween's in the past. God I'm happy to be out here. Oh, and Sunday night Michael and I got invited to go to a 'Guys night' with David, Mr. Zheng (our boss), Steven (administrative assistant at school), and Sam (one of our drivers) at a traditional Mongolian restaurant. We went. We drank Bai-jiu. We had a blast. Then Mike and I woke up the next morning and thought we were dying. Mongolian food is great goin' down, but once it's inside you.. you're in trouble. I'll leave it at that. Either way - it was a night to sketch down into the records books, for sure.

OH! And one last thing. Sorry for making this such a ridiculously long post. I've been shirking my posting duties, and desperately need to make up for it. We made our way, this past weekend, to a park in the middle of Tongliao that was actually quite beautiful. It's nothing like parks in the states, though. In the middle of the park was a free zoo (which was extremely depressing. It was in a horrible state, and the animals seemed emaciated and cooped up. I will probably return to this thought and belabor it at some point.. but this post is getting long as it is), and also a small carnival complete with bumper cars, a haunted house, and a giant Ferris Wheel! We actually braved the rickety Ferris Wheel to get a wonderful view of the city from up high, then strolled into the haunted house thinking 'how scary could a Chinese haunted house be?? Pleeease.' Well let me tell ya. It was FRIGGIN horrifying. The pictures don't do it justice, trust me. Near the park is a quaint little pond that you can paddle around it (although it's getting pretty cold around here) as well as a Buddhist temple right outside of it. I want to visit it to see what it is like, never being in one, but perhaps I'll go another day.

Other Updates:
- New gym in town. We all signed up. Only 999 yuan for the whole year. Good deal. Can't wait to use it.
- David's Birthday is TOMORROW! (November 7). We all pitched in and bought him a killer gift, hope he likes it. Dinner at 'The Big Hot Pot Place' tomorrow night!
- Honey's Birthday is 7 days later! BIG THINGS HAPPENIN'.
- We just bought train tickets to Beijing for Saturday. We'll be travelin' down there and getting into the city around 7pm. From there we may stay in Beijing for a few days, or head down to Xi'an to see the sights. We have a short holiday (although Meg and Christina can't come.. they have different schedules. Bummer) and we want to take advantage of it! I'll let ya know how it goes, to be sure.
- I successfully explained the full plot of Romeo and Juliet to my high school class yesterday. It was nuts.
- We started Chinese classes with Judy (a Primary school teacher who ROCKS) last week! It's slow goin', but a hoot. Wo ai ni, baba, mama, meimei!!
- I MISS EVERYONE. SEND ME EMAILS OR MESSAGES!!!

Teaching - More than just Teaching.

Teaching English is an Adventure. A new one every day. Sorry I've been laxidasical in producing a new post - but I've been quite busy! Over the past two and a half weeks or so, we have been spending much of our time getting into something of an actual rhythm here at school. I have been teaching High School Grade 1 and 2 (which is proportionate to Freshmen and Sophomores in High School back home) - which comes out to about 16 classes full of 40-50 Chinese teenage adolescents. Who are for the most part... awesome. Having never been a teacher before in my life (obviously) this entire 'teaching' thing was weighing on my mind pretty heavily, as I'm sure it has been on the rest of the foreign teachers minds. But after my first week of classes, my mind was put at ease. The students are so unbelievably eager to learn ANYTHING from me, that it is almost silly to be a part of. They clap at anything entertaining you do (which I apparently do quite a bit - I get a lot of claps). They ask every question they can figure out how to form in English. They want to be your best friend.

That's another thing about the Chinese school system vs. the American school system. In China, the Teacher/Student relationship is much closer than at home. A few students here refer to David, our best friend teacher, as their brother or as family. The teachers will loan the kids money frequently, go out to lunches and dinners with their parents, tutor the students for free, whenever they need it, talk about current events and gossip with them, talk to the students over QQ (which is the Chinese equivalent to AIM), give them their phone numbers, and generally just be THERE for the kids at all times. Which makes absolute sense, considering the teachers life aprox. a quarter mile away from the students - or in the same apartment/dorm buildings. It is kind of heart warming, actually.

This brings to mind an instance the other day. It was my first week of classes, and I was in my office, idling at my desk, when I saw two students come into the office and stand next to Mr. Lee who is one of the Chinese language teachers at school - funny guy, but doesn't speak a lick of English. The students looked at the floor, and Mr. Lee stared at them for a minute or two. Then Mr. Lee began speaking to them slowly and precisely in Chinese about things I couldn't understand. The two students (boys, English names Sweet and Kobe, they are in my Class 5 Group) answered Mr. Lee's questions in short manner - dui.. bushu.. (yes, no), etc. One of them was starting to cry a little by the end of the 30 minutes speech Mr. Lee gave them. I was bewildered as to what was going on, so I asked David after the two boys had been dismissed by Mr. Lee. He said that the two boys were caught swearing during class, and not paying attention to the lesson. He then also went on to explain that Mr. Lee was talking plainly and with great concern for the future of the kids. He was asking questions about why they wanted to ruin what could be a great future for them if they concentrate in school, and why they want to waste their time with the rubbish of curse words while in class. Of course this started to make some sense with me, seeings how the Chinese school system works something akin to this (I think): You go to Middle School, and test out of High School to get to University. If you do very well on the High school exams, you have the chance to go to a good University. If you test out of University and do well on your exams, you can get the chance to get a great job. If you can get a great job, you can get out of China and do whatever you want.. otherwise you're goin' no where fast. Mr. Lee wasn't punishing his students - he was looking out for them. School is something real serious around here, and as much as I have fun and joke around with the students, I want them to have as many opportunities to learn from me as possible. Plus, they really are good kids, at least the ones I've gotten to know somewhat well so far.

I know this is dragging on, but real quick.. My lesson this week is so fun that I need to share. I've been teaching my students MUSIC from AMERICA. They eat it up. I start with Blues, explain it, play Stevie Ray Vaughn, then move on. Country is next, explain, and play 'Sweet Home Alabama' while showing them the words on a Powerpoint. Soulja Boy is next. Yes, I explain Rap. Yes, I do the Soulja Boy dance. Yes, I teach them, and yes we do it as a class. It's a riot. Then Rock a la Van Halen and The Darkness (with a rousing Air guitar solo by yours truly.. I usually drop down to the Jimi Hendrix guitar explosion while on his knees - a clapping worthy performance), the Beatles, Incubus 'Aqueous Transmission' for it's Traditional Chinese instruments in it, then finish off class with Westlife, "My Love". The Chinese have a bizarre fascination with anything Boy Band. We still can't quite figure it out, but they love Backstreet Boys, Westlife, Enrique, etc. Any who, I'm sweating and smiling by the end of every class, and each one has lasted an extra 5 minutes due to a chorus of "TEACHAA, NOOO, STAY!" when the bell rings.

It's a good life, so far. I've taken a short hiatus from picture taking, my apology for that. The only new ones I have are of Neha's little Kindergarten babies playing in a big indoor playground they have. It's adoreable. But I'll save the pictures for another day.

Hope America is having fun with Election Fever!

Shenyang Extravaganza!!

So our trip to Shenyang was phenomenal. It began with a long train ride (that we absolutely lucked on on - as we managed to buy tickets that are hard sitters for the ride, which we never should have got due to the national day travelers) that was just as much part of the journey as anything. We met a family; father, mother and daughter, traveling to Shenyang on vacation just like us. They didn't speak much English, but what we could figure out (and have David translate) was all we needed. We befriended each other, they taught me the number system in China very accurately, found that the young woman (daughter) was a reporter for the Tongliao news station, got invited to the father's hometown some day, exchanged email addresses, then took shots of Bai-joe... ON THE TRAIN to commemorate our new friendship. All in all it was a solid ride.

Once in Shenyang, we were met by one of David's friends from his hometown (Hohhot) that lives right outside Shenyang. He spoke absolutely no English, but he was one of the nicest guys we've met since being in China. He took us out to lunch, cheers'd Katie's Birthday, then found us a nice little hotel that cost aprox. $20 a night to stay at. We then hit the mean streets of Shenyang for the night and found ourselves on this CRAZY central street that has been blocked off for cars, so people could go to all the shops and stores along it. It reminded me a lot of Wangfujing street in Beijing. After checking out some shops, we found a European style restaurant that dealt heavily in pizza, so we obviously had to have dinner there. The night was a success, and we made our way back to our hotel - now visitors of Shenyang.

The next morning we woke up early and made our way to the Imperial Palace of Shenyang. The place was absolutely breathtaking - as many of my experiences in China have already been to date. It is one of the lesser renovated ruins of China, and therefore has a lot of the ancient remnants as close to their original state as possible. The architecture and artwork at and inside the Palace was mind blowing. From the emperor's throne, to the officer's desks of the 8 banners of china, to the back gardens, and to the emperors' and empress' sleeping quarters - the entire trip was a memory I will not soon forget. Everything was so intricately designed, so painstakingly carved and painted that it is almost unfathomable to think that artisans and workers from hundreds and hundreds of years ago, without a breath of the technology we have today, accomplished such beautiful works of art and landscape with nothing but dreams and dilligence. The empire of China is something wonderous to behold, and I need to keep reminding myself that I am in a new part of the world and that it's history seeps back in time so much further than anything I've experienced back at home. It is something awe inspiring and literally jaw dropping. This country is very old, and that makes it intrinsically impressive.

After the seeing the palace in it's entirety - and it's conjoining museum of artifacts - we found a rest at our hotel, then made our way back into downtown Shenyang for some shopping and food. After dinner we walked past the palace (it is closed at night) and ran into a few interesting characters along the way. A couple of them were actually playing a sort of hackey-sack game that I got in on for awhile. I wasn't very good at it, but it was fun! David later told me that the game is very popular amongst the students at school, so maybe I'll have a chance to get better at it. Ultimately, we found ourselves waiting outside this famous concert hall in Shenyang at about 8pm at night, as there is a nightly performance outside of it for the public to view for free! We decided, hell, why not. After waiting about a half hour in a crowd of people waiting for it to begin, I pulled out my phrase book and asked a guy next to us what time it was starting. He said 10pm, so we pulled up a seat on a nearby set of stairs and chatted about our journey into China thus far. It was a nice little moment to reflect on everything we have been doing and going through. The show, when it finally happened, was bizarre. It was like a big Mariachi band behind glass, with this guy dancing behind a donkey that walked around a mill, and a girl dancing behind the guy. It lasted like 15 minutes. And I'll never have those 15 minutes of my life back again. What a shame. All in all, we ended the night there, and hit the hotel.

The next day we spent in Shenyang going back to some shops and streets that had interested us previously, and bought a few trinkets and memories of the city. I got a large poster painting of an ancient chinese warrior guard to put up in our apartment. The legend of the guard is that if you put him up in a home, that evil spirits and bad tidings will not be allowed into your home and life, as he will defend your home from such effects. We then took a pair of taxi's to a chinese super market (always a death defying experience - both the taxi rides and the supermarket) then got ourselves to the train station in the nick of time to catch our train (1:15pm) back to Tongliao. It was a quiet ride home, extremely uncrowded (we bought standing tickets, but got to sit the whole ride due to there being only a few people on the train) and played chinese card games taught by Honey most of the ride back.

After getting off the train, we all headed to this killer dumpling restaurant that one of my student's mother's actually owns. The food was unbelieveable, and the service just as good - and we celebrated Meg's birthday! There was plenty of Pi-joe to go around, and we actually bought her a cake from a wonderful bakery just a few blocks away before getting to the restaurant. In china, they whip up the cake RIGHT in front of you while you wait! It's beautiful to watch. We told David that it was so fun to watch the baker's make the cake right there - and he was shocked to find that they don't, or at least VERY rarely, do that in the states. It was just another happy little note about China, I suppose. After dinner we made our way back to our little apartments and settled back in, knowing we were home.

It was a very strange feeling coming back into Tongliao and calling it 'home'. But it was actually the first time I thought of it as home. Shenyang was a fantastic city to visit, but I feel so much more comfortable here in our little Tongliao. It is less hectic, the people are warmer, and it is familiar already. I'm happy to be here and to call our little city and big school 'home'. Happy indeed.

The Weekend of David and Honey

So David and Honey are our best friends. Literally. Since we've been in China, we spent one day without seeing them at all, and we almost went insane. (We made search parties, scoured the school, sent up flares, the whole bit.) Long story short, we owe them our lives. They help us take care of everything in China. They are our translators, warm friends, cultural aides, brother, sister, father and mother while we're here. Plus, they love to go out on the town. Which makes them cooler than we are, because we can only speak 1 language as of late, and they know two. (Three in david's case, he knows some Japanese). Anyhow. Some of our adventures thus far are worth mentioning. To kick things off, David decided that he wanted to cook for us the night after the sports meeting - so we all piled into David and Honey's quaint little apartment at around 7. We brought the Pi-Joe (beer), and he cooked up a storm. He LOVES potatoes, and that showed in the cooking, but he also made a dish with tomatoes and eggs that was unreal, and now Neha's favorite dish in china. She'll order it wherever we go. Literally. The night was great, we ate a ton, then played a few card games with beer until everyone got too tired to laugh, and hit the bed. The next day, we decided that since David and Honey wanted to cook us a nice Chinese dinner - we would cook them a nice AMERICAN dinner! So after some deliberation and blind luck at the supermarket - we managed to eek out some weird version of french fries (christina chopped the potatoes, boiled oil, and plopped 'em in) which came out damn good, and I tried to cook up hamburgers with some beef - which ended up becoming a new sort of sloppy joe (we had to improvise like crazy) served on potato bread. Not bad! To top it all off we chopped up a watermelon, made some of the easy mac I brought from the US of A, and washed it down with cold beer. They were estastic with the night, and so were we - because it gave us a chance to really give back and show David and Honey how appreciative we are of everything they do for us.

On another night, we went to this muslim restaurant out in Tongliao.. the name escapes me, but it was home to a form of dinner I've never experienced, but can't WAIT to do again. It's calling 'Hot Pot'. Here's how it works: You choose what flavor hot pot you want, which is like a bowl of soup that is heated up to boiling and sits next to your dinner plate. The soup's flavors go from tomato, to curry, and so on. Once heated up, you choose from a large array of raw foods on the round table in front of you.

By the way, the tables in China are awesome. They are round and fit at least 10 people around them, but the kicker is that there is a large glass plate in the middle that all of the food goes on. It works like a giant lazy susan, and rotates to give everyone a shot at each dish, allowing you to make up your own plate of whatever it is you like. I love it. America really needs to invest. But I digress.

You choose raw foods to put into the hot pot to cook for a few minutes, then you take it out, let it cool, and eat it! It's amazing! We had things from noodles, raw veggies, shrimp, chicken, pork, mushrooms, and beyond. It was truly a delectable experience. Plus, David and Honey made it all the more entertaining just by being themselves. They have a wonderful presence about them - very humble, very appreciative, and very welcoming. I wish I could stress more how integral they are to our China experience over the internet, but you really just need to meet them to understand. After our hot pots, we made it over to KTV. KTV is awesome. Period. It is a HUGE chain in China, and are found literally everywhere. KTV = Insane karaoke bar. You get your own room, a waitress to bring you drinks, and a billion songs at your finger tips. It's a riot. We started off singing Backstreet boys, and by the end found ourselves break dancing to Mongolian trance music. Perhaps some stories are to be left unsaid.

Aside from those specific instances, they have literally shown us Tongliao and how to get around the city to everywhere that is important (the malls, supermarkets, snack street and KFC to be specific). They brought us to see the school's South Campus, which is where Meg and Christina will be teaching for the next year. Also, they brought us to this food court across the street from KFC (aka, the center of town) where you charge a little card with money, then pick out whatever food you want from about 8 different little food booths, and they charge the card. The food was great too! Plus they have a wonderful bubble tea shop across from all these food shops which I gave a shot - and it is really quite tasty! Neha loves it too.

After all of these little adventures, David and Honey had to graces and (in my opinion) courage to ask us to join them on a little vacation they were planning! It was to a trip to Shenyang, and large city in China about 6 hours south of Tongliao by train. It is very big and quite Western styled, and has some things Tongliao lacks like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and the Shenyang Imperial Palace: known as the Crown of the Manchu empire. Being absolutely thrilled with the fact that they weren't sick of us and actually wanted us to join them on such a trip, we fullheartedly agreed! The next post will be all about Shenyang!

'Sports Meeting' and Class Selection.

A few things to discuss, here. The first of these things - the Tongliao # 1 Middle School Sports Meeting. It was one of the more impressive things I've ever been spectator of. I took a jog the day before it began, and happened upon Mr. Zheng by accident, and he invited me up to his office. I mentioned that I saw a huge amount of students out on the school track practicing something and he casually mentioned that they were practicing for the opening ceremony of the 'Sports Meeting' they have every year before National Day. I asked if we could attend. He whipped out his cell phone, talked to a couple people, and told us to meet him at 7:45 the next morning at the track. We did. And we were treated like dignitaries by the school, per usual. So this 'sports meeting' is essentially a school-wide Track Meet where anyone who can qualify for a certain track and field event will participate amongst their classmates in their grade. It was outrageously entertaining to watch all the students play so many sports, and actually be amazing at them. The opening ceremonies at the meeting were nothing short of breathtaking. It was a long procession of each grade and each class, followed by a short performance (a dance or concert) from each grade (primary school, high school, kindergarten - SO CUTE - and then the ROTC program). After this, the sports began immediately. They last for two full days, culminating in the teachers sports which were a blast to watch as well. While the competitions are taking place, the rest of the student body (all 3000 some odd kids) sit in the stands of the track and watch their peers in action. I took some time to sit down with a group of Grade 1 High school students (aka, they bombarded me with questions) and ended up singing Dispatch for them. They had no idea what it was, but clapped and cheered afterwards, which is how a lot of the things we do end up getting praised. It's a strange feeling. Alas, after the sports meeting had ended, Mr. Zheng hauled us into his office and told us our official placements for teaching at the school!! I was given.. drumroll:

HIGH SCHOOL GRADES 1 and 2 ON NORTH CAMPUS!

Which is precisely what I wanted. It means I'll be teaching nearly alongside David - and I love that man. I start teaching on Monday. I am all aglow with excitement to teach these kids, mostly for three reasons. David is the first. The second is that I've actually had the opportunity to meet about 3 of the classes I'll be teaching, and they seem like wonderful kids that are extremely eager to learn and be in class with. Third, and most important - is that the kids I will be teaching will have a general ability to speak some english. Of course, the ability level will vary from student to student and class to class - that is to be expected. However, at least some of my students are able to actually hold a conversation with me. I want to get to KNOW these kids in order to teach them. To learn from them is the second reason I'm in the country - the first is to teach. Hopefully I will be able to bear fruit from the relationships I create with the students I will be getting to know for this next year - and only time will tell. But I am extremely optimistic at the moment! Wish me luck. The next few posts will outline some of the things we've been doing up until we begin teaching! Enjoy and comment please!

Day 2 aka, Best day EVER.

Our first full day at Tongliao #1 Middle school was.. awesome. We woke up and played poker with M&M's (a treat we brought with us) until about 10:30am, which is when we all went to go meet David and his class. We were to sit in on class again and watch an actual lesson, then answer a few questions at the end of class. Again, the same enthusiasm, surprise and absolute happiness from the students at seeing us there was unbelieveable. I couldn't stop smiling at them. David is a VERY good teacher - I can't stress this enough. What an amazing person to have as a good friend over here in China. We all love the guy like a brother. Anyway, after his class we had lunch in the school cafeteria with David and his wife, Honey. They were kind enough to offer to take us into town to go shopping for a few necessary items if we wanted to. Having already made some lists up, we gladly agreed. We took a public bus into the city and got off at the Da Jin Qian Jia, or 'big supermarket'. They had all kinds of stuff for dirt cheap. We managed to pick up a kick ass pair of speakers for our room (ipods and such) for 35 yuan. That's.. about Five bucks. We then hit up the actual grocery store and picked up essentials. Toilet paper, juice, towels, shampoo, a soccer ball, some bread and juice.. and let's face it - Pei-joe and Bai-joe. When in China!
After lugging all of our purchases back to campus by taxi (courtesy of David and Honey - seriously, they rock) both of them had to take off to prepare lessons for their night classes, and left us to our own discretion. We decided to take the time to grab the new basketballs and soccer balls we bought at the store and use them on one of the many basketball courts and soccer fields littering the campus. There was a group of students (they had to be.. age 6-10 or so) that were idling around having recess outside where we went to play. Mike, being a tall guy, dunked a basketball to get us warmed up - and by God - you should have seen the kids. They all circled around us.. there were maybe 50 of them and 4 of us. They kept chanting "Hallooo Teachaa!!" And we kept tossing the ball at them, shooting with them, and playing around. Ultimately, I snagged the soccer ball and threw it across the field, and played a big game of keep away with all of them. It was maybe one of the most fun things I've ever done in my life. I was picking the kids up, they were teaching me chinese, I taught them english, they asked all kinds of little questions ("teachaa! can you do this?" Insert cartwheel,handstand, or leap frog here) and were essentially the most adoreable little kids I've ever met. We did this for probably about an hour (including a 4x4 footrace around a small track that one of the little girls orchestrated) until they had to go back to class. It was surreal. I am SO happy to be here and able to take advantage of what the world has to offer, geographically and people-wise.
After this we had dinner by ourselves in the cafeteria with some weird food we've never seen before. Check out the pictures. After dinner, we ran into David and Honey together by chance ( we thought they were going out on a date.. when actually they were going to teach their classes.. the teachers here all work extremely hard day-in and day-out.. it makes me feel guilty to see how hard they work, and to see them so excited for us even though we do half of what they do) and David invited us to go attend ANOTHER of his classes, this time an english class but a different section. We agreed of course, and this time were able to go throughout the class and meet the students individually. They are truly amazing young kids. They had so many questions to ask us that it made my head spin. I got to know a group of young men pretty well - they were all hilarious. We spent about 2 hours in his class (two full periods) talking to his students before we got kicked out. We then came home and played Beiruit. We still think we're college kids.
I love Tongliao #1 middle school so far, and I don't care who knows it.

Day 1

We get into Tongliao, and it is much colder than Beijing (which was basically sweltering), however, we get off the train and IMMEDIATELY something is very obvious. We are definitely foreigners. EVERYONE in the city stares at you. It's not rude or mean - but these people do NOT get foreigners around here for much of anything. What's nice is that they all seem to be (for the most part) happy to have us around. A lot of smiles and "Hallo!"'s come from all over. But mostly, I think they are simply curious. We are the first foreigners many of these locals have ever seen in their lives. It's pretty crazy to consider.
So we get into a bus and get shipped down through downtown Tongliao (which is actually a pretty nice city! It's not entirely clean, but it's definitely developing, and has a decent amount of anything you could need.) Driving in Tongliao is INSANE. There aren't really any rules to it - you just drive as fast as you can, don't break, and beep hard if you're getting close to anyone else. The street is filled with bikes, mopeds, cars and buses. However, I have noticed one thing. The drivers in China are extremely skilled behind the wheel. It seems like absolute craziness, but there is definitely a method to the madness. More on that later.
We pulled into the school (at the west gate, which is near where we live) and checked into our digs. Had some lunch at our school's cafeteria, and was greeted by Mr. Huon (a wicked nice guy) and a few other teachers. After lunch we had some time to get our affairs in order, unpack, get our rooms together, and see where we were living for the next year. David came with us and gave us a big tour of the school, and even introduced us to a few classrooms. The kindergarteners are ABSURDLY cute. The school is actually rather large - bigger than PC, but very very nice. We also met a few teachers along the way. Cindy, Sue, and Honey (David's wife!!) to name a few. They are all so eager to meet us and so welcoming, even though we have literally done nothing to deserve it. It is an extremely humbling experience, to be sure.
After our tour, we relaxed, then had dinner with the dignitaries and administrators of the school. I wore a tie. Mr. Won is the president of the school, and LOVES making toasts. Everyone we had met so far was at dinner with us, and there was TONS of food to go around. Now about those toasts. The chinese have a very particular way of doing these. Everyone is served either a full cup or half cup of Bai-joe, the lethal grain alcohol I was talking about earlier. You are expected to drink AS MUCH or MORE than the person toasting the group. We didn't quite understand this, so were just slugging back our drinks. Mr. Zheng told me 'that it was a good thing. Make Mr. Won very happy'. So I guess getting blitzed at a formal dinner meeting is okay around here? Anywho, each of the school officials made a toast, then Mr. Zheng egged me on to make my own, using David as a translator. I did, and the rest of our American group followed suit. Needless to say, everyone was laughing and slapping backs by the end of the dinner.
Things got interesting after we were home for an hour, ready for bed. David calls us at around 8pm and asks myself and Mike if we would like to come to his night English class. Half in the bag, of course we agreed. I honestly can't explain how excited his high school students were to meet us and have us in their class. David took the class to have his students ask us questions about EVERYTHING. Some of them were very good with English, others had a bit of a difficult time. They asked us to sing american songs - so we sang Backstreet boys. Then one boy asked me to arm wrestle him - we did - I lost. It was a wonderful experience meeting all of the kids - they are fantastic people. I love 'em all already.