Letters from Chengdu

Empty Campus and Career Objective

2012-01-26T21:48:00.001+08:00

I left my college when it was still full of students with only one week left of finals. I returned to a campus where the only people living here are the workers, the people who sweep the grounds, the handy man who fixes anything in a flat, the cafeteria workers, the fruit family. I wonder why they didn't go home for Spring Festival.

Chengdu, a city of millions, feels like a ghost town. It is pretty incredible how empty this place is; although, Auchuan was packed. When I went out to buy food I had to go to Auchuan, a French superstore, because everything around my campus was closed. That place was packed and I had to wait in a long line for 20 minutes to buy a head of cabbage and meatballs. I wanted to buy a bunch of dark green leafy veggies but they were super expensive!!! 5 RMB per jin when in Gansu they cost like 0.8 RMB per jin. I haven't really cooked yet in Chengdu, but after all the wonderful home-cooked meals I have had over the past few weeks, I think buying from the neighborhood farmer's market and cooking would be nice. I bet when school starts I won't be cooking anymore though.

Next semester I will be teaching writing and oral English on two campuses. What a nutty commuting schedule I will have again! Bleh!

I have started applying for jobs. Is it suppose to take a person hours to write a cover letter? I think I am too detail oriented somehow trying to match my skills with the job description. Anyways, if you hear of any openings, let me know.

Here is my career objective:

Utilize my international experience in West Africa and China along with my science and teaching background to work in a multi-cultural environment to support international education and/or development programs through a capacity in administration, program development, evaluation and training.

Any constructive criticism?

A Flow of Thoughts: At my student's home

2012-01-25T15:59:00.001+08:00

1. Loner
I struggle!

a conflict between
my desire
for solitude
and
the known
health benefits
of being social
and having friends

For when I spend
too many hours
in happy isolation
my thoughts
betray me
drowning into
worry and anxiety
but
when I am
surrounded all day
by people whose
language I only
understand 5% of
my heart is somehow
at peace
even as I sit
here writing
alone in bed
before lights out.

2. Spring Festival
In a deserted countryside
factory town
where rain keeps
the fish ponds full,
the banana groves green,
and puddles expanding in the streets,
I spend my time in a row
of cold concrete rooms
each with a door opening into the rain,
a row of sheds next to
a cardboard box factory
empty of workers
on holiday.

A business family
follows their youngest son
who before completing high school
ran from Gansu to the
province of opportunity

A 50 year old father
with dreams of giving
his son
a rich future
lives with
the bare necessities of life
devoid of luxury,
lives in their factory.

In Chengdu,
visiting the home
of a newly married 27 year old teacher
in a newly bought flat
filled with
huge flat screen TVs,
Ikea furniture mixed with
lavish fairytale castle extravagance
a lush show of money
economic prosperity,
it is easy to forget that not
everyone lives that way.

Even a factory owner in the
rumored golden land of Guangzhou
owns only
an old beat up used car,
a tiny TV,
lives in one room with his whole family
a cold concrete floor
devoid of privacy
with a queen sized bed for the parents
and bunks for his son and daughter.
This one room opens into a warehouse
filled with stacks of metal racks
burner grates for gas stoves.

These small factories
are dying becoming
obsolete
replaced by
newer, bigger, hi-tech monsters.

Families visit each other
drinking tea and eating seeds
of all colors
white, green, black, brown.

Mothers prepare at least 3-5 banquets
to feed 10-20 guests at each sitting.
The dishes are meat heavy.
The prosperity of China
is heard with the laughter
mingled with the clacking of Mahjong and chess
pop, pop, pop
attacks of red dynamite
bursting into sporadic explosions.
The prosperity of China
is measured by the
duly noted amount of leftovers
just enough to reveal that the food
was delicious but also too much.
TV is ignored.
Past grievances are put aside for
harmony's sake.
Gifts are given.
Baijiu is drank.
Troubles are forgotten
for at least a few days.

Zhong Shan 1 hour outside of Guangzhou- January 23, 2012

A Flow of Thoughts: The Return to China, Guangzhou

2012-01-25T15:04:00.001+08:00

1. Mad
Mad I was to have someone ask me
to change from an aisle to a window
so two people could sit together,
but actually
Mad I was to be leaving Paris,
but more truthfully
More Mad I was to be returning to China

2. Flight
China Southern tried to copy
Air France's menu
but did a terrible job
except for
the wedge of Camembert
that no one wanted to eat
so I could to my heart's content-
3 wedges happier

The PG movies were old news
mostly for teenagers, kids, and romantics

The hum of the plane was painful
right behind the eye.

Miserable bumpy trip of
dehydration
under
artificial light
that was happily
over quick
coz no matter
how terrible
a 12 hr plane ride is,
it is a million times
better
than a bus.

Then China
welcomed me
with nasty toilets
stopped up with wads of TP
and spittle on the floor and seat

What a jarring wake-up
call not to be in Paris anymore

At least customs were efficient
compared to
baggage claim
of flights from
Vietnam, Paris, L.A.
all at turntable 1
jammed pack with
empty luggage trolleys
not even an inch of space
available for a step near
the edge to drag a bag off.
But after 30 minutes
when my pack finally appeared
the crowd had thinned down.
A poor tiny woman got whacked
when the fast spinning rotation
took my bag from me.

Guangzhou felt deserted
in the aftermath
of the migration to
hometowns for
Spring Festival-
the incredibly super fast high tech metro
near empty at 7 am,
the bus too

The campus devoid
of students
except for the few
stragglers of odd women
nonconforming to the
majority,
labeled weird
for preferring to celebrate
the biggest Chinese holiday
alone
rather than with family.

3. Food
In Paris, I tried to go to
a Vietnamese restaurant
but twice
it was closed
maybe for the
New Year Festival.
In Guangzhou
found plenty of
Vietnamese
rice noodles
fish sauce
veggie rolls
and even
evening dim sum
set up outside like
Chengdu BBQ
right next door
to my hotel
in the countryside
of the foothill
of Baiyuan Mountain.

4. A Gansu Student
It is lovely
to meet up with a former student
who graduated into graduate school
to see her evolution from uninformed
to eyes wide open

University professors
pushing the box of
conformist thinking
to forming well-researched opinions
about
the Community Party
the development of China
the economic state of a developing country
the pros and cons of the residential card

5. Volunteerism
Chinese students at uni
join volunteer clubs where they
clean up the campus
visit the elderly
help with the aftermath of earthquakes
visit orphanages
donate blood
raise money

The Confucius Institutes that
are being formed
to share Chinese culture and language
is another way Chinese citizens volunteer.

Volunteerism is alive in China,
but for the older generation
where security and salary
are a priority
volunteering is not understood.

January 19-20, 2012

Temptation

2012-01-25T14:00:00.001+08:00

Paris was absolutely wonderful. There were streets to explore; parks to sit in; shop windows to browse; museums to visit; films to see; and English bookstores to spend money in. I loved the metro and the bikeable, walkable city. I even liked the late night 8-9 pm dinners which gave a person more hours in a day to enjoy life.

Paris has tempted me back to the west. All the things I cringe about that exist in the USA- car culture, fast food, television, the security of the American dream- were forgotten. Only the lovely things that I miss while living abroad in Africa or China existed while I was on holiday. Yes, I know the honeymoon phase of a vacation, in no way predicts the reality of the future, but at least I caught a bit of the western spirit making me ready to finally leave China.

Eating in Paris

2012-01-13T14:46:00.003+08:00

As a PCV going to the west for home leave is always a treat for the food; although, due to the sparsity of food in Africa home leave from there was much more exciting than from China. Chinese food is just more plentiful in nutrition, veggies, and lovely spices and flavors. Home leave in Paris? My mouth hasn't left food heaven in days and I am never hungry!!! With the heaviness of big chunks of meat and milk products, I probably only need one meal a day, but it seems like three meals a day is pretty important here in Paris even though breakfast is simple and dinner starts at 8 pm or later. I was afraid that I would be starving by that late hour. That was until I realized how filling lunch would be.

One observation I have had whether you are eating at home just with family and invited guests or eating out at a restaurant, there is always a special procedure to the meal. At home in America at least in my family we just put everything on the table and chow down. Here as the meat is finishing its last 10 minutes of oven time, we start with an aperitif of sausage or some meat spread with a knife on bread or radishes or baby tomatoes. Then there could be a salad which could come after the main course. Next there is a meat entree with a vegetable side. Last items are a cheese plate, then dessert, then maybe an after dinner digestif and coffee. There is so much food that after every meal I feel like I will never be able to eat again.

What have I been eating?

Home cooked meals with Mathilde's family

Pâtes aux Cèpes (Mushroom pasta)
Shrimp and zucchini wok and a Galette des Rois
Beef roast with green beans
Chicken with morilles mushrooms then tiramisu
Lamb and potatoes
Pizza made with bread dough bought raw from a bakery
Raw scallops covered with lime and olive oil with artichokes

Restaurants/Out and about

Falafel in the back streets near Rue de Rosiers and the Metro station Pont Marie
Mint tea at la grande mosque
Beef steak and fries with garlic mayo at L'Ecurie in the Latin Quarter around the corner from Le Panthéon
A bakery cheese and ham sandwich eaten in the Luxembourg Park
Cuban tapas, fish, and spinach at Calle 24
African peanut sauce, and plantains at L'Equateur
Cocktails, scallops, and food on a stick amongst the actors at a TV series premiere, "Les Hommes de l'Ombre"
Sushi at Sushi Boubou in the 10th arrondissement

If you are ever in Paris definitely check out L'Ecurie for its lunch plate and the unique ambiance of an old tiny restaurant.

First Impression of Paris

2012-01-10T15:18:00.001+08:00

Paris is fantastique!

I am having an amazing experience- the cheese, the bread, the chunks of meat, the life of drinking mint tea and connecting with friends amongst architecture dating to the 1600's-1900's where mini elevators have been added and bay windows open onto tiny balconies from which the Eiffel Tower can be spotted and quaint narrow Parisian streets with people scurrying from here to there in their dark clothes can be seen down below. Bakeries are on every corner and people even sit at outdoor cafes in the middle of winter. The Metro gets you everywhere. The lines outside of museums are long but move fast. We visited a free exhibit by the artist Sempe who is known for his Paris scenes and covers for the "New Yorker." Theaters are super warm where I had to strip down to my last layer to see A Dangerous Method by Cronenberg. Walks in parks and streets are full of wonderous sights from the river, trees, and statues to the shops, towers, domes, gargoyles and columns, Supper is served late and dinner parties start at 8 pm and go until midnight. What is this lifestyle of rich pleasure? Is it for me?

Last day of the Term

2011-12-31T09:15:00.001+08:00

Saturday is a make-up day so that the college can have a three day weekend of Jan 1-3. We are teaching Jan 3rd's class today. Tuesday is the day I have 6 periods, a long day. I am lucky though coz today is the last day of the term for me. The school asked me to give my finals early, but everyone else has to stay till the 11th of January.

I have about 10 more culture interviews where the students have 10 minutes to

1. Describe a picture

2. Look at two pictures and give their opinion about which one is western and Chinese values.

3. Answer 2 questions about material from the western culture class.

During the other 4 periods, students will watch a movie while I grade their notebooks so I can give them back their notebooks. Why do I not feel guilty about just showing an end of the term movie and not teaching a lesson?

They have already taken their finals and I will teach them again next semester. Why teach a lesson plan that I will need for next semester?
In Gansu I participated in the kung fu P.E. class and the way the teacher administered the exam was to have all the students just sit around while he watched one student do the routine. Having students sit around while I grade their notebooks is somewhat similar but instead of just being bored, they get to watch an English movie.
Watching a movie is like a treat that I want to give to my students for their hardwork this semester.

This semester has had quite a few lows:

1. Commuting

2. Having two campuses

3. Responsibility and stress with the PC support and office position

4. The dark and dreary weather of Chengdu

5. Weariness of teaching for 11 years

It has also had some highs:

1. Biking

2. Food, art, music

3. Attending a couchsurfing event and meeting a bunch of independent young local people

4. The easy to work with school leaders, officials, and counterparts

I need a vacation and what does fate have in store for me?

Paris... then Guangzhou... then back to Chengdu...

Secondary Project Fell into my Lap

2011-12-28T20:26:00.001+08:00

At some schools it is easy.

In a previous post I wrote, "

Foreigner Party

2011-12-24T08:33:00.001+08:00

Yep that was what it was called.

The day before the party, I received a text message from my counterpart saying, "Are you free to attend a meeting hosted by someone in Chengdu? You will represent us there."

"I am free. I can go," I text back.

She sent me the address via email and I would have biked if the rain hadn't been pouring down. One thing I love about living in a new city is the exploring of streets, bus lines, and getting lost but eventually finding my way. The meeting was held in a hotel on a street that I had already walked along during one of my exploratory walks through Chengdu. It was a street full of bright fabric, dance costumes, hostess ball gowns, and ethnic clothes used for performances.

I assumed the meeting was about the safety of foreigners in the city. I remembered that the Lanzhou volunteers had to attend a session with the police on how to be safe in the city. Instead the banner read, Welcome to the 2011 Foreigner Party welcoming us to a room full of balloons and plates filled with sunflower seeds, peanuts, candy, oranges, and cookies.

I arrived early wanting to give myself plenty of time to get lost in case it was a hard to find location. Plus I had 90 listening papers to grade which I graded to Christmas elevator music whose 2 songs ran on repeat. By the time the event started, I had finished about 50% of the work.

The room filled with a small number of about 20 foreigners which was surprising because the city has a TON of foreigners. The party opened with 30 minute of speeches, then two people sang Christmas carols, then we were asked to play games- a balloon race with a partner where you can't use your hands, musical chairs, with your feet pop the balloons that are tied around two people's legs, and organize three people to somehow be on the smallest area of a piece of newspaper. It was a strange surreal atmosphere where as the party progressed the numbers dwindled from 20 to 10 to eventually 5.

People in China love playing these games that I often consider are children's party games. I remember sitting at a Chinese restaurant watching adults play musical chairs and have a watermelon eating contest to receive a free plate of fish or a water bottle.

I did mingle and make small talk learning that many of the foreigners were primary and secondary education teachers and their biggest challenge was classroom management with 60-80 students. Not sure why my college was invited, but I did learn new games that I can use in my classroom or at parties I might help organize in the future. It wasn't a total waste of time.

PCV Living in a Big City

2011-12-22T16:42:00.001+08:00

Here I am a Peace Corps Volunteer living in one of the most populated cities I have ever lived in. Incredible isn't it? Not your mud hut in a village of 300 families.

It is hard to wrap one's head around being a volunteer and living in such a city of luxury. I feel like I am back in Seattle riding buses to music shows, biking to museums, feasting on international food, and sipping coffee in a different tea shop every week. The buses are packed and it is hard to find a seat. You are always standing. The subway with its one single line that runs north and south is way less crowded but more expensive.

At first I had culture shock moving from small town to big city, but I have adapted and now am loving big city life.

Because I am working so much with the PC community, I tend not to have as much energy for my Chinese community. Also because I am only here for one year I have a different mentality towards community integration. I am holding office hours and learning about my students' lives. I am inviting people out to dinner and learning about the lives of Chinese teachers, but I am not really doing the footwork that is necessary to start a secondary project.

If I had been assigned Chengdu for my two years in Peace Corps I would have become more involved. Even though there are foreign teachers in this city making $1000 a month compared to my $220 living allowance, I think as a PCV there is a different mentality when living in the community. As a PCV, I tend to want to integrate, to learn language, to find people to work with, and to start secondary projects. I try to do more than just teach. I am not here for a salary, for hanging out with ex-pats in foreigner dominated venues, but am here for the Chinese experience, for the culture exchange, for the idea of serving a community.

A Chinese American Lost in China

2011-12-11T00:50:00.001+08:00

Tonight I went to a CD, Trail Dust, release party at Machu Piccu owned by Zhou Fei. Living abroad for 6 years in much much smaller communities I haven't been able to go to live shows, so it really is a treat to be able to look at a calendar of events (GoChengdoo) and have a selection of local happenings to pick and choose from.

Back in the states, I would wander Seattle, eat out, drink Earl Grey in coffee shops, attend shows, bike around Lake Washington, and every once in a while meet up with old friends and make new friends.

Returning to a city whose weather reminds me of the dark winters of Seattle, overcast without sunshine, the life here feels somewhat familiar as I wander the city, drink lattes, eat sushi, attend shows, and bike to lakes, yet I feel like a stranger to this city person who feels somewhat familiar but who also feels like something is missing.

I have somehow lost part of my identity. Which part?

Back in Seattle, I felt surrounded by strangers and felt this urge to take part in my own personal social experiment where when riding the bus, I would dare myself to say hello to someone new. Going to a party, I would take a deep breath and give myself a pep talk to start a conversation. I was trying to see if by forcing myself to talk I could turn shyness into something new. I was trying to see if the world was actually a place full of friendly people who all just want to make a connection with another human being.

I have lost my American identity. With students, I am the American teacher. With strangers, I am Chinese.

There are two worlds, the Chinese one and the foreign face one. I wander an in-between world of having an Asian face who can't speak Chinese yet inside know that I am just like the foreigners with non-Asian faces visiting China. With foreigners, I am silenced by the expectation of a language barrier. People won't even say hello unless they know Chinese and I am too afraid to say hello to break that barrier to announce to people that I am American with my accent.

In the Chinese world, people will say something to me in Chinese but if I don't understand their words, they are quickly silenced by their fear of embarrassing one of us because we are having trouble communicating. When I see a bunch of Chinese bikers all wearing the same biking clothes, I am too afraid to approach them to say" Ni hao," even though I know that they would be friendly.

I feel caught in between two worlds. I am Chinese who can't speak fluently. I am American who isn't obviously outwardly American. In a city where foreigners seem to flock together or where Chinese people want to make foreign friends, I am ignored.

The reality though is I am the one who is imprisoning myself in my own solitude of fear unable to break through the wall and say a friendly hello in English or Chinese. I have lost the ability to have a conversation, to reveal little bits and pieces of myself, to tell my story. This part of me has been replaced with teacher mode, the person who can ask questions to get students to speak English. If you're not my student, then using Mandarin I can start a typical Chinese conversation about food and where you are from, but find the conversation to dead end pretty quickly making me wary to even start the conversation. Using English, I have lost the ability to reveal myself replaced with question after question about another culture. If we are both Americans living in China, then I don't know what to talk about, what questions to ask.

I feel socially awkward and lost so then I hide away in silence behind my knitting.

60 km Bike Loop

2011-12-10T13:29:00.001+08:00

Southern Chengdu: 3rd Ring Road next to Ikea to Chenglong Avenue to XingLongquan (25 km) then to Huayuang along Chenghuan Road that turns into Lushan Ave (25 km) back to Ikea (10 km)

The roads were wide and the cars were few. Along this route would you believe that I passed two drive-thru McDonald's?

It was a chilly day to ride but with only 3 top layers, a bandanna to cover my ears, and mittens, I was warm and toasty except for my feet which turned completely numb about halfway through the ride. I'm still trying to thaw out my toes.

Evolution of my Gender Role

2011-11-30T11:47:00.001+08:00

As a kid, I loved playing with baby dolls and taking them out on goat herding outings and picnics. I loved playing with boys racing and beating them as the fastest girl on the playground. I found the physicality of boys rough housing and playing sports more appealing than the girls who would stand around the playground talking and putting on make-up. I dreamed of being physically strong like males yearning for their privileges, and at the time didn't realize that I was already strong in other ways as a natural born leader in academics, extra-curricular activities, and sports. When the high school commencement speech was given by a white male rather than the Asian female valedictorian, gender roles were re-emphasized teaching me that maybe men really did have a higher standing than women.

In my Alabama college with my first boyfriend, I fought gender stereotypes where the male gender role was of a chivalrous nature with the paying of meals, giving of gifts, opening of doors and carrying the weak female across a stream. It was easy to fight these outwardly observable gender roles, but my personal challenge was the inward battle of trying to understand who I was as a female and how I interacted with and related to males. As a people-pleaser I became a 1950's housewife following the male's lead, submitting to his will, ignoring my voice, and changing to try to fit what I perceived was his ideal woman. My true self would remain hidden throughout the relationship until it rebelled so loudly that I would wake up and realize oh... a 1950's housewife isn't me and the relationship would end.

In Seattle a whole new world of gender stereotypes was introduced where not only were there the heterosexual models but also gender benders, androgynous people, femmes, butches, feminine masculinity and more... I cut my hair short in protest of being seen and stereotyped as the exotic, feminine, submissive, Asian flower. I didn't realize though that my body type and Asian features with short hair would lend itself to androgeny and being mistaken as male. The next stage in my gender role evolution was struggling to understand how I may look male but my inner voice and mannerisms were female. I struggled with society's expectation that because I looked male I would act male.

I think it is here living abroad for 6 years that has helped me evolve into a person more comfortable in her own skin, more comfortable with who I am in relation to gender roles. Living amongst traditional cultures where the gender roles are even more defined than in the USA, I have had the privilege of living outside of these gender roles as the honorary foreigner with strange ways and mannerisms. I have been able to define who I am without the influence of American male and female gender roles and because I am not African or Chinese there was little pressure to fit into those traditional roles.

Rather than being defined because of female or male gender roles, it is liberating being able to hear my own voice and to define myself. I can be logical, rational, non-emotional, strong, a leader, a giving caretaker, a listener, an introvert, and a loner without thinking in terms of whether or not these are feminine or masculine characteristics. Even though the world may judge me according to gender roles, by living abroad for 6 years, I have managed to discover and define myself.

How are you doing Jen?

2011-11-16T11:51:00.001+08:00

It has taken several months to adapt to my whacky schedule and I am not even sure if I have adjusted because it is always changing. I wonder how people who have rolling schedules where sometimes they work a night shift and other times work a day shift manage their exhaustion from not having a regular working habit.

Why is my schedule whacky?

Well my teaching schedule is not the same each week. Some weeks I teach 7 classes. Other weeks I teach 5 classes.

My position at the PC office is not the same each week. Some weeks I go in on Mondays. Other weeks I go in on Thursdays. Plus I am available at any other time when I might be needed for example weekends and evenings. I think I probably each month have only one weekend totally free from responsibility.

Otherwise I'm adjusting and am pretty happy.

I enjoy my bike commute.

I enjoy office hours, one on one time with the students.

I enjoy supporting Volunteers and PC staff.

I went on a day trip to an old town and a Great Wall of Chengdu with the tourism students who were practicing being tour guides.

I was requested the day before the actual performance to prepare something for the Freshmen welcome party. My first idea was to teach an English song, but then I remembered that I have been practicing Kungfu for three years. I could do that, so I spent a day and a half reviewing and received cheers at the evening performance full of bubbles and smoke that the President of the school actually attended. It was a semi-big deal.

I am busy.

Any lows?

Sometimes I feel guilty that I choose alone time over putting forth more time and effort towards community integration, language learning and secondary projects, but I try to keep telling myself that I have two jobs, teaching and the PCVL position. I need my alone time too.

Grading mid-terms... I strongly dislike grading.

Legacy of Volunteers

2011-11-16T11:07:00.001+08:00

Usually I hear so many good things about Peace Corps Volunteers. For example, the other day someone told me, "Some people think that a PCV English teacher only helped my English; however, the Volunteer really helped me have the courage and confidence to discover and go after what I really wanted to do in life."

Yesterday one of the English teachers at my college said, "Oh you are a Peace Corps Volunteer?"

"Yes I am."

"When I was in college five years ago, I had a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher. He would always come into class and tell us everything that he hated about China."

My Dorm Life

2011-11-16T11:01:00.001+08:00

Living in a dormitory on the teacher floor where the other floors are used by students is a rare glimpse into the lives of Chinese college students. Every evening Chinese and English pop music blares through the speakers till 9 pm. Then at 7:30 am, music with a fast beat is our morning wake-up call. At 8:10, all of the students stand in formation for their 30 minute morning reading.

Secondary Projects: Love to Hear About Them

2011-11-14T18:46:00.001+08:00

Greetings Volunteers who might read my blog,

If you are doing an awesome secondary project or know of any other Volunteers who've got a cool project, we'd like to continue recognizing projects in the bi-monthly newsletter. I know that everyone has to fill out the vrf; however, it is usually done at the end of the term. The newsletter comes out more frequently. Please send pictures and/or a write-up to your Program Manager or contact me directly. If you aren't into writing, I am actually also looking for people who'd be interested in having a phone interview about their project. Contact me if you'd like to be interviewed.

Be well,

Jen

Women's Issues

2011-11-04T08:23:00.001+08:00

What are the women's issues for American, African, and Chinese women?

Personally, for me as an American woman, the issue is how to define myself as a woman and self-define my role as a woman including how to have a voice to express myself. I have so many choices that are my own. I can have a professional career or be a stay at home mother. I don't have to worry about money because I am confident that I will always have a job to support myself. I can choose to get married or to remain single and can choose for myself who I date and love.

Educated American women have many opportunities and the freedom to make their own choices to create their own futures.

In West Africa, during my two years there I saw so many issues that were fundamental to survival. Education was not equally provided to all genders. By the first year of middle school out of 100 students, only 20 were female. By high school, the number of female students probably dropped to one hand. Health care and health education was an issue. I helped with handing out food to mothers whose babies were under-weight and mal-nourished. Women had little choice in who they would marry and how many children they would have. Women did a majority of the work yet didn't have control of money or have the opportunities to support themselves. In West Africa, the issues for women revolved around how to survive the hardships of poverty while trying to keep their children alive.

In China, I asked my students what are the women's issues for young Chinese women and for older Chinese women. In no order of importance, they listed the following problems:

working towards the position of women becoming more equal to men's
the lack of job experience
domestic violence
health
body image, losing weight, high heel shoes, companies hiring based on height and beauty
can't deal with stress as well as men
can't drink or smoke like men

They said that for older women the issue was the fear of being homeless. If a woman didn't have a responsible child, then she would have to live in a home for the elderly where the conditions were very poor.

I asked Chinese teachers the same question. They listed discrimination in the work place, marriage and mother-in-laws, and domestic violence as issues for women. They further explained that women have a great pressure to marry and have a child. If they don't get married or don't have a child, then society will think something is wrong with them. Marriages often have a lot of conflict because of the family. There is a saying that I have often heard in China, "You are not marrying a man but his family."

In my opinion, Chinese women have more choices than African women but fewer choices than American women. Chinese women are equally educated, have their own careers, and have their own money. They, however, unlike American women have a greater pressure to get married and to have a family. Because of this pressure, Chinese women tend to get married sooner and quicker. They get married to men who might not be their first choice but choose a man whom the family supports. Even with a cheating husband or a bad marriage, Chinese women will stay married for the sake of the children.

Women's issues are different depending on the environment, culture, tradition, and even the laws of the land.

Napping, Laundry, and Dancing

2011-10-29T00:13:00.001+08:00

After four periods of teaching about the government in the U.K. and how to problem solve with friends on a telephone, I sat in a bus with rays of sunshine pouring through, a bus full of people taking naps. Before I knew it, I too woke as we pulled up to the front gate of my city campus.

Been too busy to do laundry...
Am I living the American lifestyle?
Too tired after full days of work to even do laundry?
Of course after a flooding, my washing machine has been broken.
Doing laundry by hand takes extra effort.
Today I finally had an afternoon at home for the repair guy to come and fix the broken hose.

Tried Salsa dancing tonight with students, but realized after
being dipped and twirled and spun and moved all over the room in crazy steps
that they were preparing for a performance.
They weren't just learning Salsa for fun.

Can I survive today?

2011-10-26T16:32:00.001+08:00

How can the quiet sleep of not even being aware of anything be so suddenly and rudely interrupted by lists of things to include in a budget or images of how to arrange text in a newsletter? What does it mean that my brain won't remain sleeping but at 5 in the morning in the darkness before dawn demand that I start thinking?

Neon soaking layers unable to dry in the wet wind of a speedy ride under a dark gray sky
Peeled off to a single layer of skin already dry
Vulnerable to the day's responsibilities waiting in the wings of pre-productivity
Cleansed with a baptism of cup after cup of warm water
Splattered mud mixed with sweat rinsed clean from a bright pink bucket

Wrapped from head to toe
with soft creative colorful creations of
a slouchy hip hat
a maroon triangular bulky gartered scarf
pink and orange fingerless stockinetted gloves and
purple and red striped fitted socks

Head to toe
warmed by colorful uniqueness
knitted with a single strand of yarn
a memory of the pleasure of creating
but
instead stuck
in front of a bright screen
with bullet points
goals
objectives
and outcomes
typing for cold hard cash
when my soul today
really needs
something different

Busy: Work and Flat Tires

2011-10-25T17:41:00.001+08:00

I've been busy. For the past two weekends I have been attending various PC workshops/meetings- Professional Peer Support Network (PPS) and Volunteers Supporting Volunteers (VSV). I got to eat great free food pasta, Turkish, pizza, brownies, cheese, and carrot cake.

On another note, I am thinking I should probably buy a computer.

Why?

Coz with this PCVL position there is a lot of work I could be doing more efficiently if I had a computer to use at home that didn't have outdated software that was all in Chinese. Right now I am just commuting to the office whenever I have free time to finish up work like newsletters or reports. It gets tiring commuting. I could be working from home.

Last week I got up at 5 am to start biking to my other campus at 6 am and lucky for me got a flat tire about 1 mile from the gate of my destination, the countryside campus. It made me feel happy to fix my first flat tire. Would you believe that after years of biking, I have rarely had a flat? Most of my flats were in China and in China there are always people around whom you can pay to fix it. I figured though I had better make sure I actually knew how to fix a flat tire especially if I do a bike trip and get a flat in the middle of nowhere. In theory I knew how but now I know I can at least fix a front tire. The back tire... I think I may need a book to teach me what to do if I have to change that tire.

Gansu and Sichuan Students

2011-10-22T22:16:00.001+08:00

One reason why I choose to stay a fourth year in PC China was to discover if students from different provinces were different.

The Gansu college I taught at was a 4-year school training future teachers in a city with a population of several 100,000. The students were from Gansu, small towns. Their parents were farmers.

The Sichuan college where I am currently teaching is a 3-year vocational school training tourism and business students in a city with a population of 14 million. The students are mostly from Sichuan, smaller towns than Chengdu.

In America there are differences between kids raised in a city compared to those raised in more rural settings. There are differences between kids raised in California compared to those in Alabama. So I expected there to be differences between the students raised in Gansu and Sichuan provinces.

Have I noticed many differences? Not really. There are three major differences though. The Sichuan students have been exposed to more American media like "Gossip Girl" and Lady Gaga. The second difference is many of the students' parents don't live in Sichuan, but are migrant workers. In Gansu, most of the students lived with their parents in Gansu before going off to college. The Sichuan students were raised by their grandparents being forced to stay in the province where they were born. In order to take national exams, their ID cards require them to take the exams in the province the ID card was issued from. The third difference is incredible. Many of the Sichuan students have part-time jobs making 1,000 RMB a month. My living allowance is only a little more at 1,500 RMB. In Gansu, the students were happy making 15-20 RMB/hour, maybe working a few hours per week.

There are many similarities. Students are traditional and feel like they need to be married by 24-25. They are strongly loyal to family. Their English level is similar and they are energetic, motivated, young in maturity and love their English teacher. When asked to make a poster about a geography section of the book, students tended to just re-copy a photograph next to that section of the book instead of reading the text to find words they could draw or use for the poster. When five students were asked to go to the chalkboard and draw the body parts of a monster that their classmates described, the students drew the exact same monster. All five of them had almost the exact same drawing.

The students in Gansu and Sichuan are very similar. The English teachers on the other hand are quite different. The teachers at my Sichuan college are not as traditional as the ones in Gansu. They married later than 24-25. Their English is amazing and they have such a variety of opinions. They are less shy to use their English and many of them have cars!

I have two PC approved beds

2011-10-18T18:00:00.001+08:00

I am super excited. I have two beds.

One bed is in a large empty flat with a kitchen, a shower, a huge living room, a washing machine, a bedroom, and a computer hooked up to the Internet. This flat is in the new business district undergoing construction and is super noisy with big diesel trucks gearing up and down outside my bedroom window at all hours of the night. On an old bike that will hopefully not be stolen, it is about a 40 minute ride 8 km (5 miles) to the PC office where I work once a week during my free time.

The other bed is in a student/teacher dormitory where I have a private room and a squat toilet. The shower is a community shower where I just have to borrow a key from the security guard. I am back to doing laundry in a bucket. This dorm room is about 30 km (18 miles) outside of the city, next to a park with a beautiful stream and fits my desire for countryside living. It is fantastic!!!! If I didn't work in the PC office, I'd permanently move out to the campus where I teach.

I bought an expensive GIANT bike and have been commuting via bike. I LOVE it! I am glad Africa taught me how to tie heavy things to a bike rack. I have to carry school books, reading books, shoes, and clothes between two campuses. Why not have two sets of clothes? Umm... well I am down to very few clothes because I wasn't expecting to stay in China for a 4th year. I took home all of my good clothes and I am a terrible shopper.

It is a quick fast ride, 1 hour and 20 minutes on a 10 lane highway where 4 lanes are devoted to bikes, motorcycles, tractors and buses. The only ugh factor is the air quality.

The Drawback to Electricity

2011-10-16T19:44:00.001+08:00

Electricity is great. The world of night is lit up. People can stay up and live like it is daytime. People can be entertained by moving pictures and noise. Students can do homework and books can be consumed. We can have midnight feasts, do chores, and work till we drop from exhaustion.

In Africa, I learned the delights of sitting outside under the stars creating entertainment with friends and family under the moonlight. I went to bed early and woke up early. I found peace in the immense quiet of a world dead to technology.

At night, my Chinese apartment scares me silly. Would I say that the scorpion carriers and the mice of Africa were bigger and scarier than those in my new Chengdu flat? Humid wetness breeding wildlife- chunky spiders bigger than my hand, cute mice with long tails and plump furry bodies, and cockroaches not quite as gigantic as the ones in Africa. Actually no. It is not the creepy crawlies that scare me.

I am afraid of the light.

I have lived with wildlife for years. I slept outside in Africa and one might assume that by living in a flat, the living things would stay outside. The problem is I am on the first floor and things can climb in through the screenless windows. The only thing that is kept out is a robber, bars too narrow to crawl through.

In Africa, I went to bed early, listening to the mice checking out the shelves for food and fell asleep believing the comforting lie, "The mosquito net would keep out things with legs." I was a peace with the living creatures in Africa.

On the other hand, in China the spiders and mice scare me. In Africa I could pretend that the things unseen did not exist. In China, as I lay in bed reading, I have the opportunity to watch a large spider crawl along the ceiling from one corner to the next hoping that as I fall asleep it won't crawl over my face. As I go to the bathroom, flipping on the light, I try my best to stifle a scream as a mice scurries along the wall to the window praying it won't run over my feet.

In Africa, the creatures didn't exist. In China they do. Electricity feeds light bulbs and I see all that I am living with.

Blog Backlog

2011-10-16T14:54:00.001+08:00

I have just gotten internet and have just recently been able to fix my blogger account to publish via email. Here are a few blogs I meant to publish several weeks ago.

September 7, 2011- Life without Internet

How much time as a PCV in China does Internet occupy one's time? Without access in my flat, I am learning that it probably occupied many hours of my day- writing emails, watching online TV and movies, writing blogs, looking up info, hanging out with the online knitting community. Luckily I quit Facebook several years ago or that probably would have turned my life in the real world into a faint ghost forgotten for an online addiction.

I've still got two weeks before school starts. The freshmen are doing 10 days of military training and I'll be teaching them speaking, listening, and western culture which is mostly a history class. My days are empty.

Okay not really.

Last week was full. There were the last days of PST (pre-service training) and supervisor meetings. All new PCVs moved to a fancy hotel and I used my "perfect" English to sneak into the hotel provided free breakfast buffet pretending to be a roommate of a room that only had one person in it. I ate my fill of fresh fruit, baked beans, and bacon. For some reason I haven't found cheap fruit in this big city and haven't bought any. It seems fruit is double or triple the price of Gansu. My dean says that the cost of living these past few months has really really gone up. I helped my new sitemate buy housewares, a fan, and showed him the free box in the PC office where he got a hot water kettle and plates. I love the free box! I met up with a family of one of my friends in Lanzhou. I got them their return train tickets and they invited me to dinner. It is good to have friends all over China because getting a train ticket for the day you are leaving can be difficult if you don't buy them 10 days early. I had dinner with my Chengdu host family.

So it sounds like I'm busy, but actually there is still a lot of downtime. I've been writing letters and have been reading a book a day which isn't so good since my access to English books is limited. I go on bike rides and found an authentic American bakery, Leanna's in the Tibetan district that has a small library. I sit in Ikea drinking free coffee watching fathers feed their toddlers mashed potatoes and meatballs, see the elderly talking and drinking green tea, see young rich people buy trays of food worth $10 of food, pasta, Salmon, dessert, a drink when I can only afford $1 meals waiting for 2 pm happy hour when I can get a $1 smoked Salmon salad.

Do I miss the Internet? I miss writing daily emails and blogs. I wish I could look up things to do in Chengdu, find the museums and the live music. So yes I do miss Internet. Is the quality of life better without Internet? I think I do pretty well balancing my Internet use with real life. I do hope the school accepts our request for free Internet instead of having to pay for it each month.

September 12, 2011- Good news and Bad news

First the bad news

Each week, I am teaching 16 hours, preparing 5 different oral English lesson plans, commuting 4.5 hours, holding 2-4 hours of office hours, and 2-4 hours of English corner. It is umm.. a heavy load, something that I did not stay a 6th year in Peace Corps for. So I am a bit disappointed and feeling a bit stressed on how to balance teaching with other things that I want to do and learn.

(Several days ago, I negotiated my teaching schedule and the bad news has turned into better news. I will be teaching 10 hours some weeks and 14 hours during other weeks. I only have 3 lesson plans and 4 hours of office hours and English corner. I will be living on the other campus once a week in a dorm room that has a private toilet and a community shower. It is a good compromise and I am learning to accept the idea of being a full time teacher instead of a volunteer working full time in the office.)

Next the good news

I got a beat up ancient heavy bike that hopefully no one will steal. After a couple weeks of getting used to the bike seat, I can say that Chengdu is an awesome biking city! There are wide bicycle and motorcycle lanes throughout the city. There are roundabouts and underpasses where major highways cut through. Also, workers in bright orange uniforms with red flags keep pedestrians from congregating in the bike lanes as walkers wait to cross the street making it easy to ride through intersections. There is a natural flow of the slower vehicles and only a few go the wrong way. Biking in Chengdu for me is actually surprisingly not stressful.

I went to Chengdu's Museum of Contemporary Art and was surprised to find a drive-thru McDonald's across the street. I enjoyed the free entrance fee and the quiet cool open space.

Tasty Bargain in Chengdu

2011-08-28T08:16:00.001+08:00

Ikea has an amazing bargain which I wish I had known about over the past three years. We often have to come to Chengdu for different trainings so knowing about this little gem of a bargain would have been useful.

What is the bargain?

1. If you fill out the paperwork, you can get a free Ikea Family card. With this card, you can receive a FREE bottomless cup of real coffee every day except on weekends.

2. Between 2-5 pm on weekdays Ikea has happy hour where various items are marked at half price. For example, a plate of 10 meatballs, mashed potatoes and gravy usually costs 15 RMB ($2.35), but during happy hour, this wonderful plate of yumminess costs only 7 RMB about the same price as rice covered with a Chinese dish at your local hole in the wall.

3. Ikea has FREE wi-fi.

How does one get to Ikea?

From Sichuan University, take bus 76 going west (away from the university). The closest bus stop is across the street from McDonald's. When the bus has passed through an underpass, you are getting close. Wait one more stop and get off at the supermarket Auchan (full of cheaper western food than Sabrina's). Ikea is behind the Galleria and Auchan.

Take the Metro and get off at the South Railway Station stop.

New Life: Moving to Chengdu

2011-08-24T08:45:00.001+08:00

Moving to Chengdu

I've been a volunteer for five years, so why in the world would I want to remain an additional year? In Chengdu, there are higher playing jobs! Instead of a 1,500 RMB living allowance, having to budget and resist temptation, I could be making 6,000-10,000 RMB living a comfortable life, mixing a local Chinese lifestyle with a Western one. It doesn't make sense to be a PCV for only one year in Chengdu. In my opinion, one year isn't enough time to build community and start secondary projects. The reason I stayed in Peace Corps for one more year was to get exposure to the Peace Corps office and to see how thing are run from a Peace Corps staff's point of view, a type of internship to broaden my skills.

There is a hiccup to my plans though. Originally the PCV leader position was going to be a part-time teaching job then work in the office twice a week. Due to complications, there is no longer a PCVL position and now I have to be a regular PCV with a full time teaching load.

My Host Family

I had a great four day homestay with my Chinese host family. I stayed with a newly wed couple where the wife is a teacher at my new college. We lived in a new flat, beautifully decorated with wood floors in an apartment complex that had an outdoor swimming pool. I slept in the only bedroom while the couple went to the building next door and stayed with the husband's family.

The mother-in-law cooked us three delicious meals. Sichuan food is absolutely amazing! There is such a variety of vegetables and flavor. Plus the father-in-law loves meat.

We drove everywhere, but I kept a mental check on the bus lines so I'd know how to get places on my own. The teacher took me to see Harry Potter in 3D and we drank tea and played Mahjong for a whole afternoon before having hot pot while watching a Sichuan opera show. It was an enjoyable host stay, chill, relaxing, plenty of time for myself, and extremely informative about Chengdu's local customs.

My New Flat

It is HUGE! The living room feels like a classroom that can fit 20 desks except the room is completely empty except for a telephone and a black leather couch. The dining area is empty except for a fridge. The kitchen is well stocked with a microwave, stove, and dish drying machine. The washing machine is high tech. Push one button and it automatically runs through four cycles compared to my old machine which was more manual.

The bedroom has a closet, two desks, and two twin beds and an air conditioner. It is a smaller room than the living room making it easier to cool and to heat. It is where I'll live.

The bathroom has a bathtub and I am not too excited about having to keep the grim clean. The college provided a computer but there is no Internet so it is hard to have an online presence. I am back to handwriting letters and blogs posting them whenever I visit the PC office.

My New Neighborhood

My college is in the middle of office buildings with a few restaurants, the cheap 6 RMB meals mixed with the fancier 30 RMB meals. Then after a 10 minute walk, I am in suburbia America with its Ikea parking lots, Auchan (French supermarket), and an upscale shopping mall with a movie theater whose tickets are 120 RMB, a Subway, KFC, Pizza Hut, a Tex-Mex restaurant, and Starbucks. Then if you continue walking for another 10 minutes, there is a more typical Chinese neighborhood with tea houses, massage places, barber shops, a farmer's market, parks with people dancing, doing Tai Qi, and playing with their grandchildren. Mixed in with this local color is the upscale imported Western food supermarkets of Sabrina's and Carrefour. My old sitemate described it perfectly, "Best of both worlds."

My New Lifestyle

It took a couple of weeks to adjust to the big city, but finally I'm enjoying it! I grab a 6:30 am bus and after 20 minutes arrive at the West gate of Sichuan University and then walk 20 minutes to the office. I work for a day by helping PC staff and by helping with various sessions of PST like a PCV panel or helping the trainees with their semester course plans for the start of school. At around 6 pm I leave the office and head home to crash. Rush hour traffic is heavy but on a bus with AC it isn't too annoying.

It is exciting being in a bigger city, exploring neighborhoods feeling less isolated mentally and physically compared to traditional Gansu. I am excited to explore the things that I've missed for the past 5 years- concerts, shows, films, an international community. Being in a bigger city I am often not initially assumed to be Chinese. During a morning run, I overheard construction workers say, "Hua ren," meaning a person with Chinese heritage but not necessarily a citizen of China. When getting ID photos taken, the photographer asked, "Japanese or Korean?" It is nice to feel part of a more international city that is exposed to diversity.

I am even enjoying the heat of humid Chengdu. It reminds me of Africa as I sleep on a bamboo mat cooler than cotton sheets. Compared to brown Gansu, it reminds me of Alabama, the smell of grass and trees. Having a fridge, a fan, and running water makes life so much more comfortable than living on the dirt porch under a straw roof in Burkina. China makes the heat nostalgic and more bearable.

Processing and Adapting

My initial reaction to Chengdu was culture shock... I left America to live a different lifestyle in a different culture, but in Chengdu I was thrown right back into Western food and stores. After some time, some processing, some psychological adjustment to the idea, my reactions shifted and in the place of resistance, acceptance started slowly forming. I realized that this is where I am stuck, so try to focus on the things I like about the place. Accept the idea that Ikea will be my neighborhood coffee shop instead of resisting and hating the idea.

Am I too flexible? Not having my own values, ideals, and type of lifestyle to hang onto? Maybe after five years abroad, I have learned that the only way to be happy is to adapt and accept whatever I am given. Instead of focusing on the things I don't like, try to find the pleasures in whatever environment I am living.

First Impression of my New Neighborhood

2011-08-06T20:33:00.001+08:00

On an empty Saturday, living in a hotel can be a bit boring, so I decided to scope out my new home.

My university is in a neighborhood of new wide sidewalks and streets, empty of cars and people. The place is like a research park that only fills up from 9-6 pm then becomes a ghostville. Luckily there is a subway entrance right outside of the front gate of the university that will take me to the back alleyways of Chengdu. The area is actually a biking paradise with its wide streets empty of cars. I even bet the countryside is just down the street. Even though I am surrounded by new buildings rather than back alleyways of food, color, and Chinese flavor I am in a place where I will be able to bike and have quick subway access to markets, food and colorful sights that I love.

I feel like my new neighborhood is like Huntsville, AL or Redmond, WA. Who would have thought I'd end up living in a research park in China? At least I'll be able to commute safely to and from the PC office by bike and there's nothing to spend on coz the few places that do exist are too chic.

Chengdu and Thoughts about Homestay

2011-08-06T20:19:00.001+08:00

I have moved to Chengdu, a bustling metropolitan city, big, a place I can't explore by foot in a day, a place whose neighborhoods are as big as my Gansu city. For me Chengdu, has always been a vacation spot, the place you go for Peace Corps trainings, a place where you might spend 10 times more than what you usually spend for a meal since it's a special occasion. You're getting per diem, and it's only a few times a year that your tongue can have the special treat of raw fish, hummus, bacon, and a bottomless cup of Joe.

Now though I've become a resident.

Instead of an African village with once a week transport out on dirt roads or a small Chinese city with a population of over 200,000, I am in a city of millions. I am in a city with a diversity of international food, entertainment, people, and places. There's even rugby; however, unlike Seattle where I had enough to spend freely to feed my desire for film, theater, and food, I now must be careful with my money and resist temptation. Will I have the self-control to face what every volunteer encounters when living in an expensive city?

Cities are exciting and can be cheap. Biking, buses, a subway, and eating out can all be inexpensive. Exploring the streets, and going to free concerts and tiny restaurants will be fun. Finding bike routes out of the city will be great.

Currently I am living in a hotel. My flat isn't ready yet. Monday I will be moving in with a host family for a week just like all the other PC trainees who will be on site visit.

When the idea of having trainees live with host families during site visits was being discussed by the training staff, I would often discuss with other PCVs the pros and cons of having a temporary host family in the city you'd be working in for two years. The biggest disadvantages were

-being used as the foreign face to be shown off to the community
-being requested to teach English
-having a forced relationship in a new community with people whom you might not get along with and who might be hard to avoid
-having work and social boundaries blurred as you might live with a counterpart, a colleague, or a boss

These challenges can be a bit daunting if you haven't figured out how to cope with China yet, like how to tell white lies, how to indirectly say no, how to smile to create harmonious relationships and how to feel at peace with the extremely long social obligations of a single day when you would prefer some privacy and alone time. A homestay though is a perfect opportunity to learn about Chinese culture and the local community. Also, it is a time to grow and evolve into a person who knows how to meet one's own needs and desires as well as learn how to implement boundaries in culturally appropriate ways.

As a veteran volunteer, even though I'm fully aware of all the potential frustrations of living with a host family, I am super excited about living with a Chinese family. Why?

-I can improve my Chinese.
-I can learn about the school, the neighborhood, the people, the pockets of activity and the local customs.
-I can start forming relationships, guanxi, a network of people with whom I can exchange favors.
-I can learn so much by living with a host family like finding the best ways to get my needs and desires met like a new mobile phone number, names of local dishes, a massage place, a place to take martial arts, buy a bike, bus routes, and where to buy yarn.

I like being independent and like feeling successful when I have accomplished something on my own; however, even though I've lived in China for three years and one could assume I can speak a bit of Chinese and can do things by myself, it is still a lot easier and more efficient when community members are helping me. Most of the time people are happy to help. At least in theory, when community members are happy, the whole community benefits from the harmony created by helping each other. (*wink* Theory and practice don't always match. I have had plenty of frustrating moments trying to navigate Chinese culture and relationships while trying to keep the well-being of the community harmonious and peaceful.)

The Net has been Down

2011-07-13T21:36:00.001+08:00

or so I thought...

Tonight I learned that there is a new system. We are suppose to delete the IP address and voila we are automatically online. I spent several days just waiting coz the net often goes offline. I just waited thinking the big mysterious problem with the net would be fixed by the computer people. It never occurred to me that I could fix it myself.

How I have changed living abroad... Instead of feeling like I can control the things in my life, I just wait and wait and wait. Weird. Five years ago, I'd probably have called someone right away if my Internet wasn't working, but now?

I waited for seven days and just by random chance learned how to fix it.

At tonight's going away banquet, I asked the other foreign teachers, "Hey has your net been down?"

They said, "Nah, a teacher came and deleted the IP address. Now it works."

I thought, "Oh."

Now that I have the net back, I'll be offline for a while. Going on vacation. I will be checking out Inner Mongolia.

Two Types of Relationships

2011-07-07T04:11:00.001+08:00

I think I can categorize the types of relationships I have been in into two categories:

The first is relationships where I was the one in love. The second is relationships where I enjoyed having the attention of someone who was in love.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

I like being in love. It feels good and is inspiring, my creativity exploding into artwork, letters, and projects; however, even though I am in love, I've never taken the vow to be with that person wherever they go. I tend to follow my own heart of adventure rather than theirs. Maybe being in love with my own dreams is my priority rather than following a person I'm in love with.

I enjoy having the attention of someone who likes me. It feels good to be liked, makes the missing holes in my self-esteem feel a little less empty. The problem with these types of relationships is I start disliking the person and somehow have less of a tolerance for their imperfections.

There is a third category that is quite common in China, relationships based on responsibility.

In all of my relationships as they become more serious, as the weeks turn into years, my mind does start making lists about compatibility but my relationships are never about responsibility.

Compatibility? Like do we challenge each other with our topics of conversation, do we learn from each other, do we spend money the same way, do we handle conflict in a positive way.

Responsibility? My students often debate whether or not they should marry for love or for responsibility. They come to the conclusion that responsibility is the most important. There is a responsibility toward their parents, having their parents' approval and making their parents happy with grandchildren. For women there is a responsibility to choose someone who will provide a good standard of living so that their future children can have an easy life. A woman searches for a partner with a good job and an already purchased apartment. For a man, he has the responsibility to have a good job and an apartment before searching for a wife.

Two people find each other, look at the stats and boom are married after knowing each other anywhere from 2 months to a year. The people I know who are married got married fast once they determined it was a good responsible match and approved by their parents. They probably will never get divorced because responsibility is the most important even if their mate is cheating on them. It is better and more responsible to be married than single in the eyes of many Chinese women.

A relationship based on responsibility, on children, on having an apartment, and a good job? I don't need these things in a relationship. I depend on myself for my standard of living and lifestyle. I have the freedom and education not to be dependent on a mate. I am lucky.

If I had to choose which category of relationship I would prefer? I think it be great to have a partner whom I am in love with and who likes me back. An added bonus would be that we are compatible in the things we value.

Lazy Days

2011-07-05T08:04:00.001+08:00

Last Friday, I finished with my school duties and finished all of the goodbyes with students. This week they are in the middle of finals too busy to say goodbye so it was good to finish those before their exams. These days though every single day I have been having goodbye lunches and dinners with teachers and leaders.

Through this four week process of saying goodbye to various people by having dinners, picnics, and hikes, I have learned that it isn't really about the goodbye and focusing on the thoughts that we probably will never see each other again, but it is more about spending one last moment with people, cherishing a laugh and a smile, sharing stories and food. We never say goodbye even though it lurks in the shadows. Instead, we are just saying, I like you and want to spend time with you. Thank you for that.

I've been enjoying these lazy days of knitting funky red and purple socks, reading books, watching movies, slapping at mosquitoes, and cooking peach covered yogurt pancakes, using yogurt and baking soda to substitute for baking powder.

What no bike rides? Yeah yeah... I gave my smaller bike to my new sitemate who then let a student borrow it for the summer. Caitlin gave her bike to a teacher, but the teacher has been studying in Xi'an. I borrowed this bike for a year, and it was time to give it back. I am without wheels and instead walked an hour to new campus. I really dislike buses.

My rice bags are packed. I don't like that I have huge bags, more stuff than what I flew with to China, but what can one do? When I came to China three years ago, I brought one fleece. Now I have 2 homemade sweaters and a jacket, and several heavy pants. Plus several Peace Corps books I forgot to return to the office during COS conference.

When am I leaving? No idea! I wanted to leave this weekend or sooner, like I could leave right now. I am finished with my school duties and am packed and ready to go having finished all of my goodbyes. What am I waiting for? The official Chinese paperwork has not been signed nor submitted for my new volunteer position, so I am waiting for that approval before I can go. It sort of feels like standfast in Guinea where I had to bike every day to a radio to find out if we were evacuating. You spend day to day packed and ready to go, but not sure when. Then one day boom, you get the message and it is time to leave.

From the very first Peace Corps country I served in, I have been the learning the lesson that you can't control the events in your life. Instead you just wait patiently and eventually something happens. It all works out in the end.

Sock it to me, China

2011-07-02T11:10:00.001+08:00

If you have been following my blog, then you probably know how much stress, effort, and overtime, we have been putting into moving the Tree House, re-modeling the classroom into a library, and organizing it. Last night guess what I learned....

This summer the Tree House has to be moved again, to a new classroom.

It is unbelievable!!!! All those volunteer hours wasted.

Wednesday Final Finals

2011-06-30T08:07:00.001+08:00

At 2:40 on Wednesday afternoon my two writing classes took their two hour final. At midnight, I was finished with grading, calculating their final scores, writing the key, and filling out the statistic report. I am practically done with my school responsibilities. I just have to turn in all the exams on Friday, get the waiban office to sign some papers, have an English department farewell dinner and then will I be free?

Today we will have a women's group party. I will cook pancakes. Not sure what the students will cook.

A quick word about cheating:

On the national university English exam for all majors which happened a couple of weeks ago, my English students told me a story where an English student wrote an essay for a student who was in the classroom taking the exam. The English major sent the essay via text by cell phone. Cell phone? It is incredible that teachers let students have a cell phone during a national exam. Cell phones have dictionaries and well apparently you can send a full essay via cell phone. It is crazy coz the teacher took the phone away from the student, but then the student begged for it back, "I am a volunteer for the red sports meet. I need my phone." What? Crazy!

In my class I told the students to put their cell phones away. I did NOT want to see a cell phone anywhere near them. One student quickly checked her phone twice claiming that she was only checking the time. I took it away, and she almost cried afraid that I'd fail her thinking that she was cheating. I didn't fail her coz I don't know, maybe she was only checking the time. I just took it away to ease my mind that she couldn't use it anymore to look up anything if that was what she was doing.

During other final exams, I heard that the teachers just left the classroom for an hour or so while the students were taking their exam. Oh well... What can one do?

Goodbye Hike: Picture 3

2011-06-28T20:37:00.001+08:00

We walked down a wide dirt road that was probably used by tractors to transport bricks because towards the end of the hike, we found an abandoned brick factory. At the bottom of the valley a wide stream kept us from hiking further. In this picture, you can see the tall dark green grass that was hiding the two meter wide stream of brown water. Tall grass plus water, I wasn't willing to risk trying to forge this tiny stream with a bunch of students. Snakes like tall grass and water right?

It was a fantastic five hour outing, hiking the dust bowl of Gansu, having a picnic under apricot trees and just chilling in a relaxed way with happy students who were exhausted by the end of an easy but long hike. Plus I was super proud of them as they all collected their trash and hiked it out.

Goodbye Hike: Picture 2

2011-06-28T20:30:00.001+08:00

Here is a picture of the edge of the plateau that took us an hour to walk to. Gansu unlike other areas of China is brown; however, in the summer it does get greener. We don't have waterfalls nor lush dark green wet landscapes. We do have apricot trees growing wild everywhere as the government tries to fight deforestation where the the earth could turn into even a more dry wasteland. It took us forever to hike to the bottom because everyone was stopping to eat sour apricots.

Goodbye hike: Picture 1

2011-06-28T20:23:00.001+08:00

As a person who loves the outdoors, for the past three years, I have explored the countryside and the valleys. My city is on a very large plateau and if you want to get to the edge of it to hike you have to ride a bike for an hour or so. This is why I have never hiked the hills with my students nor started a hiking club because very few of the students have bikes.

The old campus though moved to the new campus which is in the countryside, so several weeks ago, we went on a goodbye hike. About 30 students met at the Tree House and walked on the flat pavement that cuts its way through farmland, wheat growing everywhere. It took us an hour to finally reach an edge of the plateau. It was good to be out under the sunshine and cool breeze. The students were excited to be doing something different.

New Tailor Made Sundress

2011-06-27T21:42:00.001+08:00

Goodbye Picnics

2011-06-27T16:23:00.001+08:00

I've been having a string of goodbye picnics with my freshmen and sophomores. We eat snacks and watermelon. We take pictures, play games, and sing songs. It is a fun uplifting way to say goodbye.

Sunday

2011-06-26T20:35:00.001+08:00

I spent the morning doing laundry and knitting a sock while watching old movies like The Quiller Memorandum. Then I went out to buy a present for a woman who has a painful time during her period. It was a period survival kit. In China, there are interesting rules that surround one's period like no showers, no cold water, no eating cold things. Suggested by the students, we bought a hot water bottle that uses electricity to heat it, special red sugar that is suppose to replenish one's nutrients, medicine stickers that you place on your belly, and pads. We wanted to buy chocolate but students said, "Women don't eat chocolate when they are on their periods." I thought, "What a pity."

Then I showed my sitemate a barber shop that another foreign woman used to frequent. It is a bit scary getting one's hair cut and styled in China if your hair isn't black and thick. The hairstyles are just very different in China than in America. We also tried a new ice cream shop that opened near East Lake Park and painted our fingernails as we waited for french fries and an ice cream platter made to look like a garden.

In the afternoon I watched, The French Connection, which I thought was kind of boring.

In the evening I ventured out into the cold rain to go shopping for dinner. I cooked a delicious cream of leek, potato, and chicken soup. I sometimes forget how good western food is.

It was a real pleasant Sunday. Some days I just need a full day away from students.

Tomorrow there are rumors that because it rained today there will be no class in the morning. Instead of having a goodbye picnic with my morning sophomore students, they will have to re-do the Tai Ji performance to be recorded for TV.

A Saturday

2011-06-25T20:25:00.001+08:00

Today was a lazy Saturday. I went for a 40 minute neck and upper back $4 massage, then picked up my newly tailored made dark blue with white flowers sundress, got a $3 haircut, tried a new noodle restaurant, and watched Avatar for the first time. I liked the first half with the exploration of a world and a new culture. I thought the second half was pretty boring, a stereotypical Hollywood battle. I am though interested in going to our local 3D theater of 20 seats and seeing if they will show it.

In the afternoon I went to the red sports meet rehearsal since it was free to all spectators. Tomorrow people will have to have an expensive ticket. It was boring so I left early. Early meaning I stayed for 2.5 hours but only got to see like the first 15 minutes of the performances before deciding it was too boring. The rehearsal did not start on time nor was it very organized, so there was a lot of waiting. Why was it boring? There was a 100 person choir that was singing but all we could hear was the tape of recorded singers. While they were singing, students arranged themselves into different formations like the map of China or human statues documenting the triumph of Chinese soldiers. Then they started doing a dance that reminded me of the types of Chinese dances seen in the movie Mao's Last Dancer.

Then I stopped at a coffee shop and had three scoops of ice cream before heading to a hot pot restaurant. My sitemate and I spent three hours eating and chatting with two English teachers.

Now it is bedtime.

Another Friday

2011-06-24T20:58:00.001+08:00

Today I was ready for a day mostly alone, alone time to clean up the apartment, pack, get a haircut, watch a movie, read, and write. Instead a student called at 10 am and wanted to have lunch. Then at 3 pm there was a singing competition where each department's students and teachers formed a choir to sing red songs. While sitting on a 2 ft high plastic stool, under an umbrella blocking the bright sun, I listened to ten of the twenty performances awed at the sheer numbers of people singing and watching. Then it was the last night in the Tree House, a sad goodbye to three years of being part of a community that taught me so much about China.

Lately I've been eating the same meal over and over again. Students learned that I like fish so they invite me to goodbye dinners with soups, stews, and plates of boiled, stewed, and fried fish. With my sitemate, we have been eating a lot of hot pot. I love hot pot because I can mix my own sesame dipping sauce at the sauce buffet.

Tonight though we had a very different meal. If we want something new, we usually go to a more expensive Chinese restaurant that has a picture menu. We ordered two dishes. The first one was raw leafy lettuce served with a super yummy peanut sauce that contained thinly sliced red hot chili peppers. The second dish was a variety plate of steamed and boiled vegetables- potatoes, taro, corn, salted peanuts, and edamame.

A Thursday

2011-06-23T23:38:00.001+08:00

Usually I ride my bike to school, but today I took the 7:20 am school bus because I had three large bags of clothes that a student was going to help me find someone to donate them to. Unlike America, in China, people do not like used clothes, so it is a delicate matter on how to get rid of good clothes without throwing them away in the rubbish bin.

Today, surprisingly there wasn't any Tai Qi practice, so at 8 am I listened to 26 freshmen finals, two minute advertising presentations for face cream, bags, bracelets, basketballs, and more.

At 10 am, I had a picnic with my sophomore writing class, a class I have been with for four terms. It was sad and I mistakenly taught a sad song during the picnic. Last semester my juniors loved this song, but umm... teaching it during a goodbye picnic wasn't so smart. The song was "Love is Blue," with the lyrics, "Blue blue, my world is blue. Blue is my world now I'm without you. Gray gray, my life is gray. Cold is my heart since you went away." The picnic was like Halloween where everyone was taking pictures and exchanging snacks filling their goody bags with crackers, marshmallows, cookies, chips, tofu, sunflower seeds, candy, and chewing gum. I bought a watermelon for $3 to feed 30 students.

At 11:45 am, I took my used clothes to a dorm mother who would take my clothes and redistribute them to people who might want them.

At noon, we had a women's club lunch where the student led topic was "Fears plus Mental and Physical Safety."

Then I knit for a while before Tree House opened. Tree House workers mopped and dusted since the Tree House's closing date is tomorrow. A bunch of new students came to check out books for the summer. Students who participated in the photo workshop brought their self-portraits and texts to put into the Tree House yearbook.

The theme of the day was "I don't know."

Do you know when the writing final will be?

I don't know.

Well I hope we learn about it soon coz the students need to know so they can start seriously studying. Their final is tough.

So when can we have the women's club cooking party?

We don't know.

Well what is your schedule like next week?

We don't know. No one has told us yet.

Is the red songs singing performance tomorrow?

Yes.

When?

I don't know. I will text you when the leaders tell me.

Will we have the Tree House meeting tomorrow?

I don't know. Do you have Tai Qi dress rehearsal?

I think so.

When?

I don't know. I will text you when the leaders tell me.

At 6:30 pm, I had a fish dinner with two graduating seniors and their family members who had come to help move them back home.

Unpredictable China 2

2011-06-22T08:19:00.001+08:00

I tried to predict China to control my future, to make a schedule, but China gently slapped me on the wrist and said, "You can't do that."

If you want to know what is going on, you have to ask students a lot of questions to discover any rumors that anyone might have heard. You have to visit the office and teacher lounge to make small talk with office workers and teachers. You have to observe how China works because even though it is unpredictable there is a predictability about the unpredictable or I thought there was.

The English department has been practicing a fan Tai Qi performance for months now and performed it for the sports meet last month. Before the performance, one day of class was canceled for the dress rehearsal. They have a second performance this weekend.

Because I knew about the unpredictability of China, I canceled my 10 minute oral interview final exams. I had no idea when the students would or would not have class. If they missed a day I would have 360 minutes/6 hours/20-30 students to reschedule which would be a nightmare! I changed the final to be a 2 minute performance where each class could be done in two hours.

I assumed that because last time, class was canceled the day before the final performance, that would be how it would work this time. The performance is on Sunday, so I assumed that Friday classes would be canceled. I moved the two Friday finals to earlier in the week. I thought, "Yeah! I predicted unpredictable China."

Nope! I was wrong. This time 4 days of classes have been canceled. Because only two classes have been able to take their finals, I now have to make-up 3 finals. This past Monday we had class. All other days? No class.

China gently reminded me that humans have no control. It is fate's playground.

Unpredictable China

2011-06-21T22:12:00.001+08:00

Yesterday I heard rumors that Tuesday's morning classes had been cancelled because all freshmen and sophomores had to attend the graduation ceremony. I went to the office to verify this rumor, but the office workers just said, "You have class on Tuesday." I felt a sense of relief since I had freshmen oral English final exams on Tuesday.

Today as I was preparing to carry my bike downstairs to ride to new campus in the rain, I got a phone call from the monitor of my Tuesday's class, "Jennifer, we don't have class today. We have to go to a meeting."

"Okay. Well your final will be next Tuesday then."

Americans often feel like we have some control over our lives and futures. We have many choices. After graduating from high school, we can choose our university, then our major, then our career. We can even change careers. We plan and organize weeks in advance and feel certain that very few things will disrupt our schedules. We feel like hard work will lead to the successful realization of dreams and plans.

In China, everything is unpredictable and fate predicts and controls one's life and future. Exam scores dictate your future, dictate if you go to university, which one university might accept you, which major you can try for. Once those things have been set it is nearly impossible to change or to go after your true dreams.

My students have a sense of hopelessness. I don't want to be a teacher, but there is nothing I can do about it. I want to take my final exam today, but I have to go to the graduation ceremony. I don't want to be in the Tai Qi performance but if I don't show up for practice I will be fined money. I want to marry my boyfriend/girlfriend, but I must obey my parents' wishes. The only predictable thing in China is that some outside force will control your plans and future.

Beware of old squatters

2011-06-20T20:45:00.001+08:00

The most obvious thing to watch out for is things in your pocket. When you are using a squat toilet, cell phones, keys, wallets, etc tend to fall out then down into the pit of ick.

The second thing to watch out for is dripping pipes from the squat toilets on the next floor up.

The third thing to watch out for is exploding pipes that spray water everywhere when you hit the flush button. Water gushes out all over your shoes, all over the stalls next to yours, pushing all the human waste out onto the floor. When you flush those, stand back and be ready to jump backwards to avoid the geyser of water and waste coming out at you.

Chinese Red Shirt

2011-06-18T06:48:00.001+08:00

A month ago I had this red shirt tailor made (150 RMB which included the fabric). My co-workers commented that it looks like a shirt for teenagers since it has no sleeves. I was like oh... I guess I need to find something to cover my shoulders when I wear it to school.

There is less pressure saying goodbye to my city since I am moving to Chengdu and am not actually saying goodbye to China. These are not my last meals or my last few moments experiencing Chinese culture. I still have a year to eat Chinese food, to have more clothes made, and to go on more bike rides.

Yesterday I gave away my colorings. Visitors to the Tree House went through the 100 pastel pieces and I signed them along with little notes. It was fun seeing which art pieces the students choose. One student asked, "Why did you color so many?" I said, "It is my hobby."

Also, my gmail account is down. Send email to my yahoo account. Thanks.

Recent Tidbits

2011-06-15T23:58:00.001+08:00

The other day my Freshman oral English class had a picnic. We took pictures and ate snacks. Then they wanted to play games and we played all these games that they would play in elementary and middle school. For example, catch the chicken where a mother hen stands in front of a long line of her baby chicks who are all holding onto each other's waists. Then a hawk tries to tag the chicks while the mother hen tries to prevent it. Or a game where the students stand in a circle on one leg where the other leg is hooked to the leg of the person next to them, their hands on each other's shoulders. They then jump in a motion like a merry go around, round and round and round. Another game was a boat race, where two students face each other and sit on each other's feet while holding hands. Then they race the pairs of people who are also sitting in this position by one student hopping backwards on her butt and the other one hopping forwards.

Yesterday, I was invited to dinner by two sophomores and realized that lately I've only been talking to freshmen. It was refreshing to be able to have a conversation with students who can more easily compared to Grade 1 students express their ideas in English. It made me realize that maybe the reason I've been so tired lately isn't because of all the activities and stress of the Tree House, but because I've been teaching 10 hours a week to Freshmen. Listening to Freshmen as well as non-majors takes a lot of energy and patience.

It has been HOT! I am so lucky to have a fridge filled with cold water and popsicles.

Today, I accidentally walked too close to a woman who rushes around the streets getting into people's faces and yelling at them. As I was heading for the escalator rushing by a bunch of people to go to a hot pot restaurant, she slapped my shoulder and started yelling at me. This isn't the first time I've had a run in with a homeless person. A month ago, this one man while I was riding my bike grabbed my handlebars and wouldn't let go. He demanded that I get off and give him my phone.

I'm burnt out. Today I realized that I am tired of having English conversations always as an English teacher.

Today a student said, "If you fail students, they will hate you, so you better not fail them. Plus if you fail them, the students will also hate me and say bad things to me because they believe that I'm your close friend." I felt like hmm... what kind of psychological warfare is this?

Sacrifice

2011-06-13T22:13:00.001+08:00

Moving to China, people know that they will have to give up stuff, but actually the things you eventually miss are kind of surprising.

The first and most obvious thing that people tend to miss is food, cheese to be more specific.

The longer you live in China, other things start creeping in. Things that you really enjoyed in the states aren't around anymore like art galleries, performances, movie theaters with interesting international and independent films, lectures, concerts, and easily accessible articles about current events. If you love pets, you might start feeling the emptiness of your flat. Due to the high statistics of rabies, PC China policy doesn't allow pets except maybe a cricket.

If you live isolated from a bunch of other foreigners, conversations start becoming monotonous. If in the states you liked to discuss politics, world events, religion or injustices in the world, it is rare to have such conversations. If you are into pop culture or discussing the interesting stories on NPR, well… Chinese pop culture and stories are different, a bit too unrealistically positive for my taste.

If you aren't in your mid-twenties anymore, it is harder to find people your own age to interact with since most of them are too busy with families of their own, or if they are a lot older, they can't speak English. I have only found one older friend who is a divorced woman which means she doesn't have as many family responsibilities anymore. One's social group tends to be young 19-21 year old college students who giggle when you say the word "sexy" or whose answer to the question "who do you want to meet the most in the world" is their mother. You start missing the women from your rugby team or the eccentric artists and friends you know or people who have the freedom to love whomever they want or your boyfriend or girlfriend whom you left at home.

Most of the time though the things you miss won't ever really bother you. You'll be busy exploring the culture, meeting new people, and working. It is just during those low points, maybe during the end of the semester when you're burnt out, that the USA starts sounding like a place you'd rather be. Don't worry! A good vacation during the summer holiday will restore you back into the optimistic American PCV who loves China like a home.

You’re not American

2011-06-12T22:27:00.001+08:00

The second goal of Peace Corps is to promote a better understanding of Americans by host country nationals. What if the host country nationals don't believe you are American?

This is a typical conversation I have with friendly strangers:

"Hello."

"Where are you from?"

"I am American."

"American? But you look Chinese."

"Yes I am Chinese American."

"Oh Chinese American, so you are Chinese."

As an American, I know I am American. I speak American English. I have American mannerisms and values. I have lived in America for most of my life.

Is it my duty as a Peace Corps volunteer, to try my best to convince host country nationals that I am American so that I can promote a better understanding of Americans?

I have had many conversations in my limited Chinese.

"I'm American. I was born in Taiwan but my Chinese parents were too poor. They gave me to American parents."

"Oh. Four parents?"

"Yeah. I was three days old when I was given to my American parents. I don't remember my Chinese parents and can't recognize them."

"Oh… I'm sorry. Do you want to find your Chinese parents?"

"Well, now that I can speak a little bit of Chinese and know more about Chinese culture, it is more of a possibility but still not my priority."

I have had this conversation many times. Did I convince people that I was American? Nah… Americans are white. Everyone else isn't American. It is about definitions and it is difficult to change a belief system. In America, we label people by citizenship and skin color. In China, people label others by skin color.

So we are arguing about different things. Chinese people say, "You look Chinese," while I am saying, "Yes, but I have an American citizenship and am culturally American."

Just by having the conversation people realize that they aren't talking with a local but are talking with someone very different than themselves even though we look alike. It is in a very small way introducing people to Chinese Americans and the diversity of America.

The question though is, "With locals, how hard should we debate whether or not I am American?" Do I want to every single conversation discuss my adoption and try to explain the concept of citizenship and culture? Do I want to become frustrated when we are arguing two different ideas, physical features versus culture/citizenship?

I think in order to stay sane, I pick my fights and try not to let people's non-belief bother or irritate me. It isn't worth the energy. With people who can't understand that I am American, in my heart I agree to disagree. With some, I just say, "I'm Chinese American," and leave the conversation there even though I can see it in their eyes that they don't believe I am American. With others, like students and friends, we explore and have conversations about the various ideas about diversity, stereotypes, and Americans. My students all believe that I am American. I have never had a problem with students not believing me. Sometimes it just takes them time to shift and to open up their understanding of the world.

What are some coping mechanisms for the "You're not American," accusation?

1. Find a Chinese phrase that can be used to explain where you are from, a phrase that you are happy with and that people will somewhat understand.

2. Be content knowing that you are American and don't feel pressured to convince everyone in the whole world that you are. Some people are just stuck in their own belief systems.

3. Remember that the people who interact with you regularly will come to understand that you are American.

Tired

2011-06-12T19:37:00.001+08:00

It is the end of the semester. I have hopefully only 2 weeks left. Next week will be my freshmen oral English finals. I am not sure when the writing final is yet.

I am burnt out.

Today a student, a good friend of mine whom I've never taught but who is graduating and who can honestly open up to me said, "Most of my classmates think foreign teachers teach them nothing because foreigners don't teach knowledge; however, they like foreign teachers because they feel relaxed in foreigners' classrooms."

How not to lose your identity while still respecting the culture

2011-06-11T12:59:00.001+08:00

Actually if you want to know the truth, it is impossible. Living abroad changes people. The ones who change the least are ex-pats who have a lot of money and who tend to form a mini America around them. Peace Corps volunteers though enter a country with open arms and with a desire to integrate into the community. Their mannerisms change. Their values change. Their reactions to situations change, even their language changes. Is there a middle ground? Is there a way to be your American self while also becoming part Chinese?

For the past five years, I have been struggling to find the answer to the question how do I maintain my American identity, while integrating and changing to fit my environment. Have I found an answer? Not really. After three years in China, I kind of hate the person I have become. Well maybe hate is too strong of a word. I sometimes miss the American me. I feel like I have lost much of who I was in America, parts of me that I really like. My American self has been censored so hard that parts of it have disappeared. It has been replaced by a split personality of an American who hates hiding but does so to become the ideal friendly foreigner, never completely Chinese, but also never completely American.

If China is like a parent, and you want to be the good little child who is loved and accepted, you change to respect your parents. You change to fit China's expectations or you become the ugly rebellious American teenager trying to push as many boundaries to become your own independent person. Chinese teenagers often don't rebel and keep their complaints to themselves while secretly wanting a different path. As good children, they follow their parents' expectations.

China is our parent. When we first enter the country, the pressure of responsibility is not heavy. We are like babies exploring the world around us learning how to eat, how to be polite, how to say thank you, but as we graduate from Peace Corps school, we enter the real world. We are thrown into situations that make our American hearts cringe, get angry, frustrated, and isolated but as good little Chinese children, we swallow our reactions and become a responsible Chinese citizen saving face, creating guanxi (a social network of relationships that help each other), accepting Chinese values, and doing our best to create a harmonious society. As months turn into two years, no longer do our American values scream at us in frustration. Like our new found Chinese friends we just accept the world around us and endure it.

After three years in China, I don't try to change the world around me. Instead I change to fit into my community complaining under my breath feeling the hopelessness of the situation, but just accepting that this is the way it works in China. I no longer am an American who feels like I can control my environment and my future. My identity and values have changed. It is the guanxi you have and the people in higher positions who control a person's environment and future. No longer do I expect to know the exact date of finals, the exact date of end of classes. No longer am I surprised when someone tells me that they need this document or these photos immediately. No longer am I shocked when I enter an empty classroom because everyone forgot to tell the foreign teacher that class was cancelled for a school wide event. No longer do I fight cheating or students who lie. No longer do I see the point of failing students since eventually they all pass.

Am I happy that I have changed? The thing is, if you don't change, you will miserable. As a guest in China, is it my role to fight the system? No. I learn to live with it however I can. I also have evolved to be able to explain why people are thinking and doing things in a different way. It becomes easier to accept rather than becoming frustrated and judgmental. Well, actually I probably still become frustrated but have learnt coping mechanisms like how to rant to a compassionate ear and how to let go faster.

Not only do I change, the people I meet and interact with- my students, the leaders, the locals- also change and learn about Americans. Maybe not as much as I learn about the culture I am living in, but they learn what kinds of things make me happy and what kinds of things disappoint me. My students know that I hate it when they plagiarize and cheat and even if they don't stop doing it, they still know that I am unhappy about it. Leaders learn that Americans like knowing in advance as I joke and smile asking every single day, is there a holiday next weekend? Even though they don't know if there is a holiday, they learn that Americans like schedules and being able to plan in advance.

Through our interactions we learn about each other. To have an exchange of cultural differences, I must remain vocal about my values but never demand or force change. When deal breakers arise, I respectfully decline and remove myself from the situation, but it is not my role to force others to change. I am not an ethnocentric volunteer with the attitude- my way or the highway. I remain American by communicating my needs and values, by discussing with understanding local friends my confusion and frustrations, and by asking questions to find ways to interact within the cultural norms to meet my needs.

My biggest challenge is being the ideal foreigner. Just like how our Chinese students hide their boyfriends and girlfriends from their parents because it will be frowned upon, I hide many things from China. China knows me as a friendly, conservative, outgoing, energetic foreign teacher. My students think Lady Gaga is super weird and greatly dislike her. What if my American identity was similar to Lady Gaga's? In order to be accepted and loved, I have to hide her hating every second of it wishing that people could accept me for who I really am. I feel like I am forming false friendships based on only half of my personality, friendships that allow me to explore the culture, but friendships that don't stimulate my other personality, my weirdness and curiosity for unanswerable questions. The question is do I really have to hide the parts of me that I assume wouldn't be accepted by China?

How do I not lose part of my identity while still being accepted and respected by the culture? I have spent five years abroad. What has my overseas experience taught me about this question? Human beings tend to be judgmental. They tend either to accept with respect or outcast by avoidance based on what they believe is a good or a bad person. Also, people are open to learning about different people and are open to accepting differences. There are sometimes characteristics that are deal breakers and other characteristics that may be different from the majority but are still accepted.

In order to be accepted and respected by a culture, I must know the cultural norms, what things are deal breakers and what things even if they are different will be accepted. For example, I have boyish short hair that many Chinese barber shops will refuse to cut because they feel it will not be beautiful. It is not a cultural norm for women my age to have short boyish hair, yet I still wear this hairstyle and have not lost respect. Instead students feel it is cool. My haircut is not a deal breaker, but what if I dyed it pink or blue? I also wear ethnic clothes and pants with Chinese dresses. People find it weird, and students from other departments often stare and giggle under their breaths. I can handle this attention without any problem and therefore still wear the fashion I like. If it started getting on my nerves then maybe I'd go more mainstream because of the peer pressure. There are some characteristics that I hide though because I am not exactly sure if they are deal breakers that would lead to being an outcast. I am not willing to risk losing the respect of my community to reveal all of my identity and so I lose part of my identity by burying it.

In Africa I even lied about my identity, saying that I had a fiancée/husband. I preferred losing my identity as a single independent woman rather than fight off a line of suitors, future husbands. In the heat of the noon sun it was worth sweating buckets to wear a head wrap and dress in long sleeves like a married woman rather than to be harassed by male strangers. I gave up parts of my identity and my freedom to wear whatever I wanted to survive more peacefully and less frustrated in Africa.

Sometimes I feel like I have given up and hidden too much of my identity and feel like it is impossible not to lose oneself when trying to respect the culture. The thing is I have had an extremely successful Peace Corps service teaching, starting and completing projects, learning about culture while teaching about my own and being respected by community members. Finding the best personal compromise, I was able to find a balance between my American identity and the identity I form as I integrate into a community. During times when I feel like I have lost too much of myself, I must remember all that I have gained by being open to change, by evolving into a different identity, and by keeping secrets.

Photo of Tree House

2011-06-10T19:49:00.001+08:00

Here I am in the Tree House before its hours of operation helping a chemistry teacher with a rejected paper that needed major revisions both in English and scientifically. It has been ages since I have read a GC-MS paper along with anti-microbial properties of an oil extracted from a medicinal plant. I was not very happy doing this especially since the English was quite poor! After somewhat fixing the English often having problems deciphering between long forgotten scientific jargon and badly translated Chinese into English, I then had to explain what the editors asked her to improve scientifically. For each thing, she had an excuse why she couldn't do it, so... what could I do? I just said, "Well if you don't address the editors' comments, I doubt it will be published even though you have interesting data that is extremely different from other studies."

So what do you think of the Tree House? Do you think it is a western style or a Chinese style? All of the leaders were quite critical of us painting the shelves black, but I trusted my sitemate. I personally think it looks terrific with black shelves!

If I am going to be in the Tree House during its opening hours of 4:30-6:30, I tend to teach in the morning and then stay at school the rest of the day. I've been lazy and don't want to bike back and forth from old campus to new campus four times a day preferring only two times a day. I eat lunch in the cafeteria, take a nap on the couch, read books, then participate in free talk with visitors to the Tree House. Is it healthy for me? Hmmm... I tend to snack a lot on new campus. They have ice cream and chocolate easily available. Plus when I am feeling drained and tired, I am drinking too much cola. I hate cola, but for some reason I am allowing new campus to drive me to drink it.

Recent Headaches

2011-06-07T20:15:00.001+08:00

Photo taken by Mathilde Verillaud

Life has been busy. I thought life would stop being so busy after the Tree House moved from old campus to new campus, was remodeled, and had its opening ceremony. I thought I would have a nice peaceful month waiting till I moved to Chengdu. Instead of a restful goodbye, one headache after another keeps popping up and bugging me. My life has been stressful.

Headache Number 1

At the Tree House opening ceremony banquet, the dean of the department asked, "Umm.. Jennifer I heard you could play the piano. Could you please play the piano for the Red Sports Meet happening in a month? Our department is singing red songs and needs someone to accompany us."

In China, it is impolite to say "no." It is more polite to make an excuse or to say a white lie.

"Umm.. Well I am really busy. I am moving soon. I have 150 ten minute interviews to give the freshmen oral English class and about 60 five hundred word essays to grade."

"Well, we won't be practicing every day. Only about once a week."

"Oh… well I was hoping to go to Lanzhou for dragon boat festival."

"Oh well you won't have to play the piano then because I have to first teach the teachers the songs."

"Oh… umm… well, I am not very familiar with Chinese songs. I have only played western music and Chinese music has different melodies and rhythms."

"I can help you."

"Okay… umm.. I will see."

I spent the weekend cursing my inability to say "no" in an indirect manner that would get me out of playing the piano.

On Monday, I went to the dean's office and he showed me the songs with the jian pu symbols, no staff with notes, just numbers and numbers underlined to indicate rhythm for only the right hand. It was at that point where I was finally able to escape the obligation to play the piano, "I am not familiar with this type of music and am not so good at improvising my left hand."

Headache Number 2

Even though it was a great honor to be nominated for the Dunhuang Prize, an award for foreigners who are making great contributions in Gansu for teaching, economics, science, etc, it was time consuming because I had to write 1000 words about my contributions. It would have probably been easier if my computer was running efficiently. Instead my computer freezes every other sentence.

Headache Number 3

A leader of the department asked me to write 15 lesson plans on American and British literature using four books for a summer school course for middle school teachers. When was it due? Less than 24 hours! Why didn't I say no? Because I knew it was impossible for him to read four books, to decide which 15 stories to teach, and to write questions for each of them in 24 hours. I had already taught the course and could do it. He had two other courses he had to prepare for the next day. Even though I couldn't use my own lesson plans but had to make new ones that consisted of 5-10 questions per story, I could still do it much faster than he could. I felt obligated to do it because he had nominated me for the Dunhuang Prize and that is kind of how Guanxi works. You rub my back and I rub yours.

It was NOT fun! Plus my computer is stupid, so I rode my bike to new campus at 6 am in the morning to use the computers there.

Headache Number 4

Women's club is great. Each of us are preparing a topic for each week and it was my turn to prepare a topic about conflict resolution and active listening to help your friends when they are in trouble. I spent the evening researching the topic, coming up with activities and questions. I decided that as a westerner I couldn't really teach conflict resolution because Chinese people tend to follow the philosophy of conflict avoidance. I did come up with cool activities for active listening though.

The next day, what did I learn? The students are required to practice Tai Qi from 2:30-5:30 every day. What time is Women's Club? 3:30-4:30. Women's Club is cancelled?

Headache Number 5

The students are required to practice Tai Qi from 2:30-5:30 every day for a month. They are required to miss class. In order to get through the 150 students, I had scheduled two weeks of oral interviews starting at 8 am till 4:30 pm. All interviews had to be cancelled and I had to think up a new way to give final exams.

Headache Number 6

Paperwork. Whenever you leave site, there is a lot of Peace Corps paperwork: a site guide, a volunteer reporting form, a description of service form, and paperwork that the people at your school have to fill out.

Headache Number 7

This past weekend was a three day weekend, Dragon Boat Festival. I was going to Lanzhou. I got a call the night before leaving, "Your writing final exam is due on Monday." In order not to have to work on the weekend, at 9 pm, I worked on the final exam on my stupid computer where 30 minutes of work takes about 2 hours because the computer freezes every other sentence.

Medicine for Headaches

Except for the 8 hour one way trip by bus, Lanzhou was super relaxing. I visited M. who was a perfect hostess. I ate real milk ice cream covered with real chocolate, a Magnum bar. I hiked a dusty mountain and had a picnic with yummy sandwiches covered in lemon mayo, cheese, and sausage. We took hilarious pictures. I watched a French comedy.

I went swimming and learned how to do the butterfly then ate a baguette full of cheese. There were two swimming pools. One was shallow enough that almost all adults could stand comfortably. The other swimming pool was much deeper and wasn't shallow enough to stand in. If you wanted to swim in that one, you had to pay for a 30 minute exam in order to swim it. I also got to wear a swim cap for the first time. That was fun.

I spoke French. I ate chicken wings, then bacon and cheese pasta and watched a hilarious movie called Rubber about a tire that kills people.

Headache Number 8

I don't know how to say goodbye and feel stressed about it.

New Tailor Made Dress

2011-05-29T20:00:00.001+08:00

I had this qi pao made for the opening ceremony; however, was unable to wear it because I had another costume to wear. I still haven't really gotten over my African modesty and like keeping my knees and legs covered. I want to get some summer pants made. What color pants would match this dress?

Martial Arts Performance

2011-05-29T19:54:00.001+08:00

I was going to perform in the front, but the students walked onto the stage too close to the stairs so there was no room for me. Can you find me?

Tree House Opening

2011-05-29T19:48:00.001+08:00

The five days before the opening ceremony for the Tree House was stressful! We had to paint three HUGE advertisement boards. One board was ruined by drizzle. The other lost all of its paint because it cracked and fell off. We had to re-do that board. Then every night there were rehearsals, Tai Ji, singing, and planning of the games. Plus the Tree House was open which meant that we had a FULL house of new visitors. The check-out computer kept cutting off because people would form a Chinese line around the computer table and knock the cords loose.

Thursday arrived and with my stage fright and anxiety I woke up at 3 am to download the martial arts music we would need for the performance. 4:30 pm was when the ceremony was suppose to begin. There was a nervous empty lull before the storm.

After lunch we learned that ALL English majors had a mandatory class meeting from 2:30 to who knows when. What? What about our workers who were suppose to get the tables and water balloons ready for the ceremony?

At 3:45 our Tree House workers started showing up and then the craziness began. We had to setup the tables and squeeze in rehearsals of how to march onto and off the stage for the singing and the martial arts demonstration. Singing students forgot their white chorus shirts and others forgot their Tai Ji outfits for the martial arts performance. No one had ladders to hang the red banner above the stage and they had to stack chairs on top of tables. The sound guys arrived and they couldn't figure out how to get power to the system because it was the first time our department ever hosted an event outside the building. I accidentally broke a mic holder and people were trying to tape it together. Then I was told that they couldn't play an mp3 player and needed a CD, so we had no music for the performances and musical chairs. It was amazing that at 4:30 all of the problems had been solved and we started on time. I don't get it. It is incredible how it all just works out.

There were thankfully only three speeches, one from the vice-president, one from the Peace Corps program manager of Gansu, and one from Aftan. I grinned as the students' mouths dropped open and cheered when she started speaking Chinese. The singing of Tree House songs by workers and the playing of the Gu Zheng by Aftan were well received. Students and teachers felt really proud that Aftan could play a traditional Chinese instrument. Then about 15 students along with Aftan performed Tai Ji flipping open their red fans in thundering precision.

As I walked onto the stage, the students cheered. I love the feeling of being in the zone where you don't know what your body really is doing. It is on automatic mode. Students complimented my Kung fu, "It was perfect and so strong." They were amazed that us foreign visitors could do so many Chinese things that they can't.

For the last performance, the students played musical chairs. The losers had to pop balloons that contained questions about the Tree House. Participants won a free Tree House coffee ticket. The last two games were cancelled due to weather. As soon as we had cut the ribbon, a freak thunderstorm and dust storm hit. It was a 5 minute shower ending in a rainbow. After a tour of the Tree House, we went to a fancy three hour banquet where the automatically rotating lazy susan had a fountain and a garden in the middle of it.

Tree House Ad Board

2011-05-29T19:33:00.001+08:00

Last weekend the Tree House workers spent their time painting three ad boards. The new campus is full of ad boards so if you want to get noticed, they have to be big and eye-catching.

Busy Weekend

2011-05-23T06:29:00.001+08:00

On the weekends there are no classes, so then why in the world did I have long working days this past weekend, arriving at school at 8 am and going home by 7 pm? Thursday is the new Tree House's Grand Opening.

On Saturday morning, we had a two hour meeting with the managers to plan the activities for the opening and to plan the Saturday worker training. The Tree House has improved some of its rules and policies which the new workers had to learn. Then in the afternoon we had a 2 hour worker meeting where students were divided into several groups: decorate ad board groups, advertise the Tree House in front of the cafeteria groups, Tai Ji performance group, singing group, clean up the Tree House group, plan the games for the opening ceremony group, and decorate the blackboard group. Then we had an hour training about worker responsibilities, how to greet new visitors, how to use the computer to check out materials, and Tree House rules like no food on the sofa. The meeting did not end there because the workers decided to stay and work on their advertising boards. These boards are HUGE! They put on the first coat of paint.

On Sunday, at 8 am the workers were back and spent ALL day writing, drawing, painting, and pasting pictures onto three HUGE bulletin boards that will be placed around campus to advertise the new Tree House. Then at 6 pm there was singing practice.

This week is going to be busy because not only have classes resumed but every day we have to advertise the Tree House in front of the cafeteria, as well as practice singing and Tai Ji and Kung fu and plan the games for the opening ceremony.

Friday and Saturday will hopefully be days of rest before it all starts again on Sunday, Women's Club and Yearbook Committee.

Thank goodness a 3 day weekend is coming soon for Dragon Boat Festival.

Joking Culture

2011-05-19T21:19:00.001+08:00

As I continue investigating the fat jokes that my female students tend to make with their closest friends, I am seeing a trend that most students don't think this is rude where these types of jokes in the students' minds are actually an indication that they are really intimate friends. I have come to the realization that the topic I should be investigating is the differences between the joking cultures of China and America; however, I have been away from America for too many years and have forgotten what do people in America joke about with their friends? I do know that my friends never made jokes about my weight, about my clothes, about my ethnicity.

Could you help me out and remind me what do Americans joke about with their closest friends?

Americans make jokes about sport teams. They make politically incorrect jokes. What else?

Chinese Women: Survey on Beauty and Fat

2011-05-19T16:15:00.001+08:00

Many of us foreign teachers have noticed that our female students tend to tease each other about being fat. In America it is super rude and impolite to call your friends fat, so I've been wondering what do Chinese women think about the word fat since they use it with their friends? In China does the fat teasing hurt women's self-esteem and body image and if so in what ways?

Ultimately I am trying to answer the questions: Is there a cultural difference surrounding the word fat between the west and China such that we are reacting to it and using it differently? Or are we all regardless of culture subconsciously reacting to the word fat the same way?

I interviewed 33 female freshmen and sophomore English majors, ages ranging from 19-21.

Question 1: Is it impolite or polite to jokingly call your close, good friends fat? Why?

50 % said, "It is impolite."

50 % said, "It is polite."

· Not many girls like being called fat.

· People will feel embarrassed.

· People should use the word strong, not fat.

· It is a natural body and such bodies shouldn't be criticized.

· It is unfriendly.

· It will make people feel angry.

· It causes people to have no confidence to live anymore.

· When it is with your close friend, they know each other and have a good understanding.

· Playing jokes with friends is okay and it is important to tell the truth to friends.

· It creates a happy atmosphere.

· It creates a friendly kind atmosphere that is honest with true things.

· Friendly joking is okay.

· With your friends, they won't be angry.

Question 2: How do women feel when they are jokingly called fat by their friends?

Positive Feelings	Negative Feelings
They feel healthy and strong. Suitable fat is good. They feel that they have enough power to do what they want. They feel healthy. They don't care because it is between close friends. They feel that their friends care about them because they are urging them to change and lose weight. They don't mind because everyone has their own styles.	They feel shy, disappointed, embarrassed, angry, very terrible, sad, and feel like they must lose weight to avoid jokes.

Question 3: Do you want to go on a diet?

Yes	No
58 %	42 %

Question 4: When you are alone in a room looking into a mirror, what is your personal opinion about yourself, do you think you are beautiful? Why? (Ignore China's culture of being modest. Don't think nali nali. Don't think about your friends' and family's opinions.)

52 % Felt they were beautiful	48 % Did not feel that they were beautiful
I am beautiful because I'm an outgoing girl who has many friends. I have long hair and am confident. I have a quiet personality and am shy. I am unique and am comfortable with myself.	I am not beautiful because my brother says that I am ugly. My parents say that I am fat. I am too fat and short. My eyes are too small. My skin is too black. I have bad behaviors. I have no confidence. I am too thin. I don't have any special clothes, looks, or characteristics. I am a common girl.

Question 5: Other than being teased about being fat, what other things do friends joke about?

Friends joke about everything from clothes, hairstyles, body, teeth, height, eyes to whether or not I have a boyfriend, how many children I'll have, and what my future career will be.

Discussion and Conclusion: After talking with 33 Chinese women about beauty and fat, I feel like women in the west and women in China are both struggling with their body images. Very few of my female students said that they weren't beautiful because they were fat, yet a majority of them wanted to go on a diet. In America, the diet culture is huge. The word fat in both cultures have a negative connotation and is considered to be rude except amongst my students where half believe it is rude and the other half believe it is friendly if the word fat is jokingly used amongst their close friends. In terms of beauty, my female students are concerned about their small eyes, short heights, and black skin. American women are also concerned about their bodies but just with different parts.

In conclusion, the word fat is used differently in American and Chinese culture where in America we rarely use the word fat to joke with our friends; whereas, in China amongst best friends it is okay. In both cultures, as women struggle with their own body images the word fat is most likely subconsciously affecting both American and Chinese women in similar ways.

A two week pause from teaching and I was called fat

2011-05-18T23:23:00.001+08:00

My 10 hours of freshmen oral English was replaced with two weeks of all day military training. Dressed in their camouflaged uniforms and hats, all the freshmen of the university practiced marching around the playground. They also learned Kung Fu combat.

Because of the remodeling, the Tree House has also had a major pause. We recently finished with the paint job and the organization of the books and furniture; however, all the workers have been dead beat tired. They have been either in military training and/or Tai Chi practice. All of the English department freshmen and sophomore females were required to be in the 32nd University Sports Meet Opening Ceremony. They have including my sitemate been practicing 4-6 hours a day, so we the PCVs offered to open the Tree House one hour a night from 6:30-7:30.

Classes were cancelled for the sports meet which is a 3-day competition for all of the teachers and students of the university. Each person can volunteer to participate in various events from track and field to fun events like the three legged race or the slowest bicyclist. The participating teachers of the School of Foreign Language were given off-white baseball caps, bright neon pink polo shirts, and dark blue pants. For the opening ceremony, all of the departments dressed in their new clothes fashion from white blouses and black skirts, to red ties and black pants marched in ordered formation into the stadium shouting slogans about health and physical fitness.

I've never had the opportunity to participate in track and field events and was excited to volunteer to do the 100 meter dash; however, there was a mix up and I ended up having to do the long jump. I have NEVER done the long jump except during middle school at the French school while living in China. I had a crash course. Run fast. Touch the white line but don't touch the colored line and snap your body or something. People tried to demonstrate but I didn't really get the snapping of the body to fly forward into the sand pit. It didn't matter. Out of the 6 women, I was still able to get first place with a measly short distance of 3.2 meters.

A leader of the PE department who was watching, who took my picture, and who congratulated me on my win, with a smile jokingly asked why I was so fat and maybe I should stop eating so much. This was kind of coincidental because recently amongst the China PCV community there has been a dialogue about the frequency of students calling each other fat and how this is detrimental to women's self-esteem and body image. I kind of wonder though, are we as westerners judging the word fat through a western lens, our own value system? Is the word fat a universally across all cultures, a negative, self-esteem and body image damaging word? Are our Chinese students hearing the word fat the same way as we women from the west hear it? Are our Chinese students reacting the same way we from the west would react if we were called fat? Being called fat is such an impolite insult in the west and hurts us to our core. Polite people in the west just don't call each other fat. So then if we in the west and people in China react and view the word the same way then why do Chinese people call their best friends fat, their grand-daughters and their daughters fat, complete strangers fat?

Is there a cultural difference surrounding the word fat between the west and China such that we are reacting to it and using it differently? Or are we all regardless of culture subconsciously reacting to the word fat the same way?

old Dog, new Trick

2011-05-16T15:50:00.001+08:00

As many years as I have been riding a bike, I have never been able to ride without holding onto the handlebars. It's kind of like how I never learned how to roller skate backwards. I've always felt jealous of those bikers who can pedal, holding an energy bar in one hand and a water bottle in the other. Guess what I can do now. It's weird. How can during one day it be impossible to ride without losing my balance and then the next day I can throw my hands up into the sky look upward and pedal without holding on, a new found freedom, giddy joy washing over my body as it does a new trick?

Independent and alone vs Social Painting

2011-05-11T12:04:00.001+08:00

If I were to paint a classroom, I would use a paintbrush to do all the edges, then use a roller. I would start in one corner and work in a systematic way around the room. If there were many workers, I would have the people who were painting the edges start first. They would go around the room and the people with the rollers would follow them. Edging is faster than painting a full wall. Once the edging was done, I'd have them change their paintbrushes to rollers and start at the opposite end of the room working their way around the room in the opposite direction in a systematic way to meet in the middle with the other rollers.

My students tend to start working in a systematic way but then will skip large sections of the wall to follow their friends. If their friend is painting the edges, then they will paint the wall near their friend then move to the next area where their friend is edging. Once their friend is finished edging they will just start to repaint the walls near their friends who are resting. There were huge areas of wall that hadn't been painted yet because they skipped sections to catch up with their friends who were edging. The students weren't aware of it preferring to stay close to their friends and just repaint the wet painted wall.

If I had realized this earlier I would have placed the resting friends along the parts of the wall that hadn't been painted yet. I unwisely asked students to paint the part of the wall that hadn't been painted; however, they'd start but somehow migrate back towards their friends without ever finishing the unpainted section of wall.

Robbed

2011-05-11T07:57:00.001+08:00

Thieves in China I would assume are different than thieves in West Africa.

Last night I arrived home to a burglarized apartment. My bedroom had been turned upside down with the bedsheets all askew, the Peace Corps medical kit dumped out, my journal open and on the floor, my nightstand and cabinets gone through. In the guest room, a suitcase full of free items for students had been dumped out and six used watches which were donated by an ex living in the USA for the reading competition were on the bed. In the living room, drawers were open. In the kitchen, the mosquito screen was in the sink and there was a tiny hole punched into the kitchen window, just enough to push the latch open, making it the entry way of the thief to my second floor flat.

What would a thief in Africa steal? Any and all electronics as well as money

What did a thief in China steal?

The thief was looking for money, but unlike in Africa I do not hide cash around the house. There are banks everywhere in China. In Africa, I went to the bank so rarely that it was best to withdraw as much money as possible and hide it around the house recording the hiding places in code in a little book so that I wouldn't forget where I hid it.

The thief found no money coz there was no money in my flat except for a little blue purse full of 30 American dollars on the coffee table that the thief overlooked.

Did the thief touch my ipod, the desktop computer, my CD player, the DVD player, the watches? Nope. What about my passport or American credit card? Nope.

So what did the robber steal? He/She got my small camera and found two rings that I had sitting in a drawer. One was a steel one. The other was a custom handmade white gold decorative band, a gift. That particular ring has had the worst luck. The first time I lost it was while washing my hands in Africa. It slipped off and went down the pit latrine. My ex made me another one and umm... here in China, it got stolen.

The university called the local city police who came to visit and wrote up a report. They took pictures and had a kit to dust for fingerprints. They found sole marks upon the white window still They asked me questions and I had to put a red inked fingerprint over each of the written parts of the report. The most unique question was "Have any of your knives been moved?"

The burglar picked the wrong flat. I find it pretty incredible that out of all of my possessions there was so little that a Chinese thief would want. Should I feel offended that the thief didn't want any of my stuff?

Is it weird that I feel a sense of satisfaction that I own nothing that causes me to feel grief if I lose it? I have never wanted to live to own possessions and have never wanted to feel attached to material things such that I would feel pain and anger if I lost them. Why don't I get angry or emotional over these kinds of things? Why am I so laissez-faire?

"Laissez faire et laissez passer." -Colbert-LeGendre

("Let do and let pass.")

Life goes on...

Today's Tidbits

2011-05-09T21:59:00.001+08:00

Last week, I was a bit apprehensive and tired with the new commute and long days, but now I like commuting to the new campus by bike. The new campus is cool. Why?

1. The cafeteria has a great selection of food that is new and not boring. Today I had candied potatoes. Yummy!

2. The Tree House is awesome! With the new furniture I have great desks to do work on. I have bookshelves full of books to read. Today I read the Peace Corps culture book and realized that even after 5 years abroad I still have a lot to learn about the inner workings of different cultures. The new couch with pillows is extremely comfortable and it is just a pleasant atmosphere when there is good music playing from the donated speakers.

Today it was raining so I rode to campus under a poncho holding an umbrella. That was fun. I've never ridden a bike holding an umbrella before. The big puddles that don't drain though are a pain because cars splash water all over drenching me. I was totally culturally inappropriate today wearing plastic house slippers all over campus as well as to teach in. My shoes and socks were soaked. I figured it was better to buy some cheap plastic shoes to keep my feet dry. I got laughed at though so maybe it wasn't a wise choice. I think I lost a few notches of respect by non-majors.

I even don't mind leaving at 9 am and getting home at 8 pm. It is funny how easy it is to adapt to new daily habits.

Moving to...

2011-05-08T07:53:00.001+08:00

Some of my more dedicated readers and friends may be wondering about the PCVL position that I blogged about a week or two ago. I just recently heard that PC Washington approved my 30 days of special home leave so I accepted the position and will be a PCV for a sixth year in Chengdu, a huge city.

I haven't blogged about it because well... it hasn't really felt real yet. I am still digesting the idea of being a volunteer in a new position in a new city for a 4th year in China. Not sure how I feel about it. I've been too busy to really process it. More later once I figure it all out.

Differences in Painting in China versus the USA

2011-05-07T20:26:00.001+08:00

Brushes are cheap. The shops say, "Throw away the brushes." We don't have cleaning supplies to clean the paint off the brushes nor special soap to get the paint off your hands.

The paint shops had no shallow flat pans for the rollers. They suggested just dunk the rollers into the buckets coz the buckets are big enough. Imagine that! Dunking rollers into paint and then dripping it along the floor to the place you want to paint. MESS!!!!

We can't find a tall ladder for you. Here is a step stool or pile up classroom desks to paint. Pile up desks? Oh my gosh! The compromise I could find was to use the step stool to climb up on a metal bookshelf to paint the walls near the ceiling.

Paint over the cracked and moldy old paint.

Painting the New Tree House

2011-05-07T20:17:00.001+08:00

The university is quite proud of the Tree House English Library and
Community Center. Before old campus even moved to new campus, leaders
made a guarantee that the Tree House would also move and move it did.
While I was at COS conference, my sitemate, the Tree House volunteers,
and the students of the English department moved all the furniture and
all the books into a full size classroom on the first floor of the
School of Foreign Languages. The President of the university came to
visit and said, "Write up a furniture budget and make the Tree House a
comfortable place with a western style."

We wrote up a 10,000 RMB (1,500 USD) proposed furniture and paint
budget where a couch was the most expensive item 4,000 RMB. 10,000
RMB is a lot of money in China. I only get as a PCV about 16,800 RMB
(2,500 USD) per YEAR so 10,000 is a HUGE chunk of money. We also
submitted a proposed cheaper budget of 3,000 RMB itemizing all the
same but lower quality furniture. Surprisingly on Thursday the Tree
House was granted 10,000 RMB and the leaders wanted it all ready by
Monday!

Monday!!!!

I have become a Job Site Supervisor, not only dealing with writing
budgets, dealing with leaders, having meetings with different
departments, meeting deadlines, buying materials all over town via
bus, bike, and taxi but also supervising student volunteers who want
to help as well as doing the work myself. In two days, the department
wanted the Tree House painted so we could move in the new furniture.
When it takes 4 hours to purchase paint because we are traveling by
bike, bus, foot, and taxi, a paint job is not an easy task especially
in China where there are language barriers and different standards and
ways of doing things.

The year between graduation and shipping off for Peace Corps Africa, I
spent a couple of months doing odd jobs working with my dad. He
remodels houses and builds duplexes, a hobby during retirement. I
also worked as a temp worker on different construction sites getting
up at 3:30 am to make it to the temp agency to stand in line with a
bunch of men for the daily jobs. I like working with my body and
hands. I like the fatigue of a full day of physical labor. I do not
like the combination of physical and mental stress.

Supervisors and job site managers in construction often talk about how
difficult it is to find good workers. They love me because I do a
good job without having to be told what to do and during the temp work
I got a taste of what it feels like to be a manager. My boss would
leave me in charge of the other temp workers. That was a challenge
because the other temp workers didn't like their work nor did they
want to be there. Their philosophy was work as slow as possible so
that there would be a job tomorrow. I decided even though I like
construction labor, supervising wasn't really for me; however, because
of my work ethic and ability to lead I naturally get placed into
supervising positions. If I worked in construction, it would be
difficult to escape such responsibilities.

In Peace Corps especially Peace Corps China it never occurred to me
that I would be supervising a paint job and have to make decisions
about how to paint. Currently the room's walls are full of peeling
paint and water damage. To do a quality job, we would need to scrape
the old paint off, sand the walls and re-plaster the areas with mold
and water damage; however, the leaders say that there is no time.
Just paint over it. My sitemate and I shake our heads in disbelief
and remark, "In China buildings are built in a day and torn down the
next to build a new one." Our philosophies are just different and we
must put aside our western ways of thinking to do the job the Chinese
way. The leaders did say that in two years, they will repaint the
Tree House properly.

Not only is the paint job too big for just two people it needs to be
done in two days; therefore, my sitemate and I needed to supervise a
team of volunteers. Painting can be extremely messy. Good painters
leave no mess. Inexperienced student workers umm… put too much paint
on the brushes and rollers, leave massive puddles and drip marks
everywhere. They put down wet brushes in the dirt, on newly painted
shelves and other furniture. They wear new looking clothes.

Yesterday was the first day on the job site and I was a bad
supervisor. I hate being a micro manager, but with inexperienced
helpers I have to become a better teacher. Instead of assuming and
expecting good work, I have to teach those skills. Hopefully I will
learn how to be a better supervisor and the students will learn how to
be neater painters.

Today we finished painting the bookshelves black and the walls green.
It looks fantastic! I am proud to say I was a much better supervisor.
Before anyone started painting I made three rules: 1. Do not make a
mess. 2. Do not put too much paint on the brush. 3. If you see wet
paint NOT on the walls, clean it up. This time instead of actually
doing the work, I just walked around helping people, telling them what
to do and shouting, "Mess," which would have a student come running to
clean up the wet paint.

My sitemate went to buy furniture with a 5 person delegation from the
English department. It took them a long time because everything had
to be bargained for. Funny- getting quotes, then writing a budget and
then bargaining? Not sure how all that works.

Tomorrow morning the books will be moved to the newly painted
bookshelves and the furniture will arrive. Next things for the Tree
House to plan? An opening ceremony, an American wedding, game night,
yearbook and photo club, teacher night, a broadcast, and activities
for different departments when they come to visit.

This blog is dedicated to my DAD who has helped me become the
construction worker I am today resulting in the success of leading
along with my sitemate our first construction project whose volunteer
workers from six different departments were also amazing!

Would you eat hee haw?

2011-05-04T14:14:00.001+08:00

A new restaurant has opened next to the front gate. It is a clean place serving meat sandwiches, soups, steamed stuffed bread and plates of thinly sliced red meat. Covering the walls are large signs giving the history of the food along with pictures of herds of donkeys.

The place was packed and I sat down with a couple who were enjoying their meal and ordered what they ordered, a soup and baozi, stuffed steam bread. I choose the cheapest meat baozi coz the donkey stuffed one was too expensive. I have no idea what kind of meat was in that bread. It wasn't one of the main meat groups fish, beef, chicken, or pork, nor was it donkey.

I lost my appetite after drinking half the soup. The soup was really strong. Strong soup means strong parts of an animal. This soup was definitely made up of donkey ear cartilage, stomach lining, and when I pulled out dark gray skin covered with black bristles, I stopped slurping the soup and gently put my spoon down.

Donkey meat sandwiches are delicious and I will try theirs next time. This time though I just ordered some of their delicious bread, went home, and covered it with strawberry jam for dessert.

New Commute

2011-04-26T22:19:00.001+08:00

When I first arrived at my college, the leaders said, "The old campus will move to the new campus because our school has been sold to a middle school."

Seniors said, "Oh they've been saying that since I was a freshman."

The first year went by, then the second, and finally in the last semester of my third year, I no longer see students on my campus. Everyone is in the countryside, 5 kilometers away, in a dust bowl surrounded by farmland.

There is a public bus that stops running at 7 pm. There is a school bus that shuttles teachers to and from their flats to their classrooms 4 times a day. The last two buses from new campus back to the living quarters are at 5:40 pm and 9:30 pm.

Because of the inconvenient bus schedule, I am biking to and from campus every day sometimes twice a day. Some days like on Monday I will leave my home at 7:10 am, arrive at 7:30, have 4 hours of morning class, eat lunch, hang out in the Tree House, have 2 hours of class, then head home arriving around 5 pm.

If the Tree House English Community Center had been open on Monday, I would have stayed till 7 pm on new campus. Unfortunately all freshmen and sophomores from all departments are rehearsing performances from 4:30-6 pm which means the Tree House workers are busy. The new hours of the Tree House are 6:30-7:30 pm. I need to bike home before dark which makes the new hours a bit difficult.

The commute is physically easy: 20 minutes down the incline pushed by the wind then 30 minutes back home pedaling up the 5% grade against the wind, eating dust, and closing my eyes as the air becomes full of particles.

Psychologically the commute is stressful. It is a new lifestyle. Instead of leaving my house five minutes before class, I am leaving 30-40 minutes early. I am spending more time away from my flat than in my flat. I am spending more time surrounded by students, having lunch with students, having dinner with students, resting with students between classes as they visit the Tree House whenever the door is open.

It just takes some adjustment. I remember the first few months at site in Africa feeling the emptiness of having nothing to do. Leaving the fast pace of America where you do a million things in one day in order to feel like you have done something, I had to adjust to the slower pace of a new lifestyle. I learned how to feel a sense of accomplishment if I was able to do instead of 20 things in one day to do one thing per day like sweeping and mopping the floor. I am once again faced with a change in pace, a change in lifestyle. It is exciting, a bit stressful, and tiring as I have to adjust to my new commute. I have faith though that soon I will be feeling at peace again.

3rd COS Conference

2011-04-23T14:43:00.001+08:00

COS (close of service) conferences in my opinion have never been a carefree easy-going time in my life. They are full of paperwork, medical exams, language exams, lists of things to do. They keep your head busy trying to figure out what to do about the future, reflecting about the past and talking in group therapy sessions about re-integrating into the US of A as well as feeling the weight that this might be the last time we see our fellow PCVs.

Even though I wasn't being evacuated out of Guinea with 105 other volunteers, this 3rd conference in China was also stressful. It was like my COS conference in Burkina were I was the odd man out, the transfer from a different African country into a country full of close-knit volunteers who survived PST (pre-service training) together. The China group wasn't as close though since there were several training sites so even amongst the 40 some volunteers they didn't really all know each other. I wasn't a complete stranger having actually formed a few casual and close ties in Gansu over the past year.

Why was this year's COS conference stressful?

1. It is overwhelming reflecting about the past two years, three years, five years of service. How does one make a 2 minute sound byte about this amazing experience that caused so much growth as a person? How does one answer the following questions with a minute to think about it?

An attitude or value that I held before I left home, but now reject is...

An idea about human nature that I now understand more thoroughly and deeply is...

Through this experience one of the most important things I discovered about myself was...

One of the most important things I discovered about people whose backgrounds are different from mine was...

A minute to try to come up with an answer is wow pretty overwhelming. The thoughts and emotions that explode as you reflect, yep emotional overload.

2. The future... Many PCVs go back to school, grad school, law school, massage school. Out of the group they feel the least pressure other than feeling a bit worried about finding housing and making sure all their school paperwork is in order as well as feeling a bit anxious about whether or not spending two years in a slower paced culture will be detrimental to their re-integration into the faster school pace of the USA. Others return to retired life and a few of us have to enter the job market. Hearing the horror stories of RPCVs (returned PCVs) spending months looking for jobs having to work the minimum wage ones to keep themselves fed is disheartening especially since even today 6 months after COSing they still haven't found anything.

For me it was especially stressful because I have applied for the Chengdu PCV leader position. PC China would love for me to accept this position; however, I have decided to accept only if I get an airplane ticket home for a 30 day special leave. Being a volunteer for a sixth year would not be worth the money, but would be worth the vacation days.

I value time off which America doesn't value as much. America tends to value high salaries and not amazing 1-2 month vacation benefits. Who gets to decide if I will be given 30 days special leave? PC Washington, its budget and its policies for extending volunteers. So at COS conference as everyone was talking about their future plans, I sat sitting on a fence going through the motions of a COSing volunteer. In reality, my head was in mental uncertainty- will I be in Chengdu for another year or will I be back in the USA?

Stress turned into Hope

There was a career panel made up of RPCVs and one of them gave me a lot of hope. He was a PCV in Nepal and spent a year and half looking for a job when he returned to the states. Before joining PC as a volunteer, he had graduated with a masters in engineering and no longer wanted to do engineering. PC helped him change careers from science to international work.

Hearing his story gave me hope about my future.

His advice: When you get back to the states, enjoy your family, but don't get stuck on the couch. Leave the place of comfort and take a calculated risk by moving to a new place which will force you to figure out what you want.

Where am I thinking about going if I don't get the PCVL position in Chengdu?

New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, or Washington D.C.

Babies

2011-04-09T06:39:00.001+08:00

In my freshmen oral English class, we have been practicing using different occupation vocabulary and argument skills by doing an activity called Save Humanity: Going to Mars. There is an epidemic on earth and the last healthy survivors are in the classroom. We built a rocket and have to choose seven people to go to Mars to save humanity.

The students always pick the surgeon, the scientist, the engineer, and the construction worker. They also never pick all males or all females. There are always at least two females where one is in her late twenties and the other is 40 years old.

After each group decides on their seven people, I always ask, "So how many babies will your seven people be able to have to help humans survive for the next generation?"

Students reply, "One baby."

Some will be braver and will reply with a larger number, "Five babies."

Even the group who picked four females to go to mars only replied, "Eight babies."

Rarely do they say twenty or more babies where a female could have a baby every 1-2 years.

I tell the students, "With so few babies, when the older generation dies, there will be fewer people than you started with. Plus if you only have one baby how will that baby have more children?"

I then ask, "At what age will a woman not be able to have babies anymore?"

I get answers all over the map, "35 years old! 40! 45! 65!"

In my mind, I am thinking, "Wow...Interesting."

Haka Statue in China

2011-04-08T12:12:00.001+08:00

Photograph taken by M. Verillaud

I have always admired the Maori haka from New Zealand which I first encountered watching the All Blacks Rugby team. Doesn't this statue in China remind you of the haka?

3 Day Weekend: Meiji Shan

2011-04-08T09:57:00.001+08:00

Photograph taken by M. Verillaud

I went to Tianshui, met a fellow PCV M. who traveled from Lanzhou and crashed with a welcoming PCV, L. who bought a humongous chunk of beef. She had a grill on her balcony and I spent an hour using paper and small green sticks trying to light big chunks of black coal. Fanning the smokey fumes my knitted red sweater has a new perfume that I am not sure will ever come out.

One thing I have learned during my life abroad, persistence and patience often leads to success. Don't give up even if you have very little expertise in lighting fires. You know the theory so just do it. Don't give up if your eyes are crying from smoke and you feel your confidence dying as the freakin chunks of coal won't light into hot white embers. The challenge of starting a fire teaches new skills and no I haven't changed the world, but as a PCV we redefine success. Et voila I started a fire and felt the sparks of happiness about that tiny accomplishment. Success! We had yummy grilled steaks.

I love steak! I do not like Chinese western restaurants' imitation of steak and have stopped ordering them so having a thick slab of grilled beef was heaven. Plus L. also made a wonderful eggplant coconut curry served along with Korean kimchi bought from Xian.

Travel tips: Meiji Shan

1. Tianshui has two cities. The train station is in one of them. Then if you want to go to the main city, take bus 6 (3 RMB) from the train station. It is about a 30 minute ride through the countryside to the main city.

2. If you are traveling to and from Lanzhou, train tickets are sometimes hard to get, but there are MANY buses to and from Tianshui, a bit more expensive than a train ticket but more comfortable. Train or bus, both are about 4 hours. There are buses in front of the train station as well as buses at the long distance bus station in the main city.

3. In front of the train station, there are buses to Meiji Shan, 5 RMB (bus 34 or other random buses whose money collectors will just shout Meiji Shan). It is about a 30-40 minute ride.

4. Tickets are 70 RMB unless you are a student. Then it is half price. If you have a group of 10 people, then the ticket will be 62 RMB. If you don't want to walk up to the mountain you can take a shuttle for 8-10 RMB. The walk is about 30 minutes up an easy incline along a concrete road.

5. If you have free time, you can spend a day hiking and exploring the surrounding hills.

Exhaustion

2011-04-02T07:06:00.001+08:00

I have been teaching non-stop for two weeks and today, Saturday will be my last fours hours of teaching before a three day weekend for the Tomb Sweeping Holiday.

I am teaching non-stop because not only do I have 4 hours of class per day, I also am interviewing my seventy Grade 2 writing students, 3-4 hours each day where each student receives 20-30 minutes of instruction. Their national English exam is coming up and each of them have different problems with punctuation, grammar, organization/structure, or ability to express complex ideas. I function better on a one on one level. There is a sense of great accomplishment when helping the students with their own particular weaknesses and praising their strengths, but it is an exhausting job. Usually I am pretty good at finding the best way to be a good teacher without putting in overtime. This semester though... I don't know what happened. Sometimes I care too much.

Teaching non-stop for two weeks? What about the weekend? Don't you get a break?

Last weekend for a Peace Corps Project Design and Management Workshop, five us, three student Treehouse managers and two volunteers went to Chengdu for two nights. Chengdu is FAR! It is a 22 hour trip by bus then train, but because PC didn't want us to miss class, they flew us. It was still a LONG trip. 4 hours by taxi and an hour flight plus all the in between time of waiting for take off and navigating a large city to arrive at your final destination. We left at 8 am and arrived at 5:30 pm just in time for dinner. Four out of the five us are prone to motion sickness. Travel is not especially fun for us.

This trip was productive because we worked on two projects, Operation Treehouse and a women's club. The Treehouse English Resource and Community Center is well established. What can we improve? In two weeks, we are abandoning the old campus moving to the newly constructed new campus. Instead of only having 5 departments nearby, we will now have 15 departments. There be a whole new community that the Treehouse will hopefully find ways to meet the English learning needs of.

The weekend was exhausting. First we were being urged to have an American work ethic where from 9-5 pm we spend every minute trying to accomplish something with only an hour lunch instead of the Chinese 2.5 hour break. Second, because we brought students, we were on full English teacher mode helping them understand English, pushing them to communicate their ideas, and giving them confidence to present. They were afraid that if they spoke English in front of the group, they would embarrass us and their teachers would lose face. Little did they know that the more they talked, presented their their own ideas and showed how invested they were in the project, the better it made us look. It was no longer only a Peace Corps volunteer's project, but a collaborative effort that was working towards being self-sustainable.

The third reason why the weekend was exhausting was because after work, we had to be good Chinese hosts and keep everyone happy by keeping them busy and entertained having non-stop conversations, eating hot pot, shopping, and sight seeing. I am a person who NEEDS alone time, but in China often the only moments to be alone are when you say good night and go to bed. I did get a nice chunk of alone time while sitting on a warm grounded plane in Chengdu for 1.5 hours before flying back to Xian.

It was a productive weekend and I am glad I went even though I am tired and have caught a cold. The students appreciated the opportunity to make the Treehouse better and to improve their English as well as experience American culture.

Next bit of news which is also leading to my exhaustion is I am considering staying for a sixth year as a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader. It is a new position in China and mainly involves supporting volunteers as well as Peace Corps staff. I have been a teacher for five years. I have adapted and integrated into three different communities. It would be interesting to shift from being a volunteer who has survived five years of challenges to using my experience to help other volunteers problem solve and meet their own goals while living in China.

Any thoughts, comments, advice about this upcoming decision?

Artwork upon my Wall

2011-03-24T16:24:00.001+08:00

Do artists hang their artwork all over their house, covering their walls with the things they create? Is it self-centered to hang your own artwork all over your house? I do it because by staring at the various creations, I problem solve the mistakes then am inspired to do another one differently.

I sort of feel like I am going a bit insane as I spend hours trying to cover my living room wall with color.

Over half of these colorings, the trees and colorful rice paddies, are inspired by photographs by M. Verillaud during her travels in Shanghai, Suzhou and Yunnan.

Artwork: Color upon a Wall

2011-03-24T16:08:00.001+08:00

Do artists hang their artwork all over their house, covering their walls with the things they create? Is it self-centered to hang your own artwork all over your own house? I do it because by staring at the various creations, I problem solve the mistakes then am inspired to do another one differently.

I sort of feel like I am going a bit insane as I spend hours trying to cover my living room wall with color.

Over half of these colorings, the trees and colorful rice paddies, are inspired by photographs by M. Verillaud during her travels in Shanghai, Suzhou and Yunnan.

Leaders Urge me to get Married

2011-03-22T08:24:00.001+08:00

Every culture has its socially accepted small talk topics of conversation. In the USA, we tend to discuss the weather. In China, polite small talk questions that Americans often feel are too personal are asked by complete strangers on the train.

How old are you?

What is your job and what is your salary?

Are you married?

Do you have children?

How much did your cell phone cost?

In China I have had several conversations with male leaders telling me that I should get married soon. I can't tell if this topic of conversation is socially accepted small talk or is a type of patriarchy of father knows best; however, it does reflect Chinese values where a woman's social position is directly related to her marriage status. With my female teacher colleagues, I have not felt the pressure to find a husband nor is marriage or finding a boyfriend a typical topic of conversation. My curious students who have few unmarried female role models often ask, "When are you getting married or why aren't you married? Don't you want children?"

At official banquets that are usually made up of male leaders where token Chinese female guests are rarely seen, my younger fellow volunteers often get teased with "We'll help you find a Chinese boyfriend," which receives a polite smile and a joking reply, "I'm too tall for Chinese men." Are the dating habits and future wedding goals of a female colleague a socially accepted topic of small talk? In America we would never discuss this with the dean of a department and if given dating or marriage advice by our boss we would think how inappropriate.

Every Monday afternoon, during the 10 minute break, I sit in the teacher's lounge and practice my Chinese. There are only two of us, my Kung Fu teacher from last semester and me. He is in his late 50's and is the dean of the P.E. department. Can you guess what we talk about? Somehow the conversation moves towards marriage and boyfriends.

He says, "You should get married."

I reply, "All the men in our city who are older than me are already married with children, and if there was a single male I doubt he would want a wife who has a PhD in chemistry."

"Yeah yeah," he nods in agreement. "That is true. There is a woman in the P.E. department who is 30 years old and has a PhD. It is not impossible but hard for her to find a husband. Maybe in a bigger city you can find a husband."

(I have spoken to many Chinese women who fear getting higher degrees because it will make them less desirable and make it harder for them to find a husband.)

We have this conversation every Monday. Maybe it is a socially accepted topic of conversation in Chinese, but then with a different dean I also have had long English conversations about the pros and cons of finding a Chinese husband versus an American one. He sits me down regularly and tells me that my next priority after Peace Corps should be finding a husband. "You're not getting any younger," he says. "Women's biological clocks are ticking. You want children right?"

I don't think in this instance it is just polite small talk. It is more of fatherly advice where he is concerned and knows what is best for my future.

I wonder, "Why is it the male leaders who are putting pressure on me to get married?" I find it curious that it isn't women who are pressuring me. I would have first assumed that peer pressure would come from one's female peers. Instead, it seems like the pressure is coming from the patriarch. Why does it matter so much to male leaders whether or not I get married? Are unmarried women somehow a threat or abnormal? Is it seen as the male's duty to make sure there is harmonic balance in society where all females become wives?

I am probably reading too much into these finding a husband conversations with men who are twice my age; however, by observing Chinese culture where a person's marriage status has turned into a socially acceptable small talk type of conversation where instead of having conversations about my thoughts and opinions, we are having conversations about finding a husband, we can see that as a female I am reduced to the status of single or married. This shows how important one's marriage status is to one's gender identity in China receiving more respect married rather than as a spinster. This seemingly innocent socially acceptable topic of conversation about finding a husband reflects Chinese values where having a family is extremely important.

Tidbits of a Life before COS

2011-03-17T21:53:00.001+08:00

There are only four months left of my last semester of Peace Corps and it feels like I can hardly breathe because I am so busy. Every weekend there is something going on and if there is something official going on, I have to dig into the bureaucracy to get everything signed and approved. It means less time with the students and more time sitting in people's offices explaining and waiting for decisions to be made.

Next weekend my sitemate, three students, and I will be flying to Chengdu for a workshop about secondary projects. It will be the first time our students have ever flown. It is perfect timing too because the Tree House English Resource Center will be moving to new campus mid April. This means that instead of being on a campus with only 2,000 students, there will be 8,000 students hopefully all wanting to learn English. The Tree House needs to prepare for an influx of new participants.

Then in mid April, actually during the week when the Tree House will be moved to new campus, I have a close of service (COS) conference along with COS medical. How many COS conferences have I been to? One in Guinea; although, that COS conference lasted like a month so I'd count that one twice. One in Burkina Faso and soon, one in China.

I have been enjoying teaching Sophomore writing and Freshmen oral English. It is nice having 30 students in one classroom instead of 60. It's a more personal type of teaching. I can talk to each student and correct their writing.

I also need to start applying for jobs; although, there are a ton of Tree House activities that we haven't even started yet because of all these big events as well as the near future closing of the Tree House to prepare for the move. It will be a big transitional semester. Maybe Tree House activities will be put on a backburner as we prepare for a grand opening on new campus. Maybe I need to stop with the secondary projects and focus on my own future back in America.

Site Exchange

2011-03-14T07:22:00.001+08:00

I don't think many volunteers in PC China do site exchanges; therefore, I just want to give an example of our recent site exchange. Maybe other volunteers might also try to grab the opportunity and do their own exchange.

1. What are your specific goals for requesting a site exchange trip?

Goal 1: Students and staff of my university will have the opportunity

l To see how students at a different university are using English to describe photographs about China by attending a photo show of the Gongda English Photo Club

l To listen to a lecture given by a visiting PCV, M., about self-portraits as well as watch a documentary about children taking photographs about their daily lives

l To use cameras provided by the Gongda English Photo Club to take their own photos about a particular theme as well as write about the photographs in English

Goal 2: Tree House participants who are interested in working on a Tree House yearbook will learn about photography and about writing about photographs so that they can use the knowledge to create their own yearbook.

Goal 3: Students of the Gongda English Photo Club will have the opportunity to discuss our students' photographs and writing.

2. What do you plan to do and what organization and/or people do you plan to visit?

Date	Time	Event
March 10		Travel to my site (6-8 hours by bus)
March 11	12:30-4:30 pm 4:30-9 pm	Photo show 1.5 hour lecture and movie
March 12	9am- 5 pm	Students will borrow cameras to take photos
March 13		Travel back to M.'s site (6-8 hours by bus)

Later during the semester, after the film has been developed, students who took photographs will gather together to write about their photographs and then publish a book of their photographs and English writings.

Success: About 300 students, teachers, and community members participated in this event. The photo show was probably one of the first public English language and art displays my university has ever hosted which in my opinion is super cool. Living in China, how often have I been given the opportunity to attend an art show?

Impatient

2011-03-08T20:08:00.001+08:00

Growing up, my parents always told me, "Jennifer you need to learn to be more patient." My Galatians bear, a Christian toy my parents sold to bookstores, had patience on its belly. Patience was a virtue I had to grow into.

In graduate school, I asked many questions but for some reason never had the patience to hear the full answers. I tended to listen to a 10 second sound byte and then ask another question, then another, and another. People lost patience with my inability to listen because I was always jumping from topic to topic, never actually seeming to want to know the answer.

In Africa and China, I have a LOT of patience. Time is not money living abroad. I can sit for 6 hours in a hot bush taxi going at 50 km/hr stopping every 10 km trying to go a distance of 100 km. I can sit for hours on a curb waiting for the bus to fill every seat or to be repaired. I can sit sleeping at a border waiting for it to open. I can stand in enormous lines and can wait for meetings that never start on time. Shopping is never efficient, and I can spend hours walking to and from the market trying to buy vegetables. I can sit for a day in silence with community members at funerals, weddings, ceremonies, and festivals. I can work on a project that in America would take one week but takes more than 3 months in Africa or China. I can listen to broken English for hours on end and can spend lengths of time trying to communicate in Chinese.

Tonight at the Tree House for Women's Day, the students were trying to find the best word to describe me. They decided, "Jennifer is patient."

Funny that they would vote for that adjective because today was one instant when I was totally impatient.

I do not have patience for the amount of time it takes to get my haircut. It takes FOREVER! I hate it. Barbers in China are meticulous and spend an hour cutting my hair, using scissors, electric razors, then a blow dryer. My head is like a landscape sculpture where each leaf needs to be in the right place. Instead of being like Edward Scissorhands who is done in seconds, they spend so much time shaping my hair, cutting individual strands that are sticking out. For $3 that includes a washing, I don't understand why they would spend an hour cutting my hair. I do like the haircut though. It's my usual cut of long bangs, short sides and back. Was it worth my time to sit in a barber's chair for what felt like all day? Not really!

Knitting: Red Raglan

2011-03-06T11:14:00.001+08:00

This sweater, a free Ravelry download, Simple Summer Tweed Top Down V-neck by Heidi Kirramaier, has been a pain in the butt. Using 2 mm needles I started it at the end of December 2010 and have just finished it. Lots of mistakes, kind of lopsided and terrible gauge problems. Many of the people who knit this sweater commented that the pattern was for a big loose sweater with lots of ease. Afraid of knitting a sloppy sweater that looks like a bag, I accidentally knit a sweater that is too tight. Hopefully it will stretch out?

Attacked

2011-03-01T16:22:00.001+08:00

Mobsters and gangsters give the advice, "Don't sit with your back to the door. Be aware of your surroundings." In westerns, with a bunch of cowboys playing poker, the smart ones sit with their backs against the corner walls.

At my favorite backgate noodle place, I shall warn you, "Do not sit with your back towards the door."

The restaurant is a small closet of a space that is usually full of about fifteen people. It is a hole in a wall where I only point to the picture of my favorite long noodles covered with pork, bok choy, white beans, and red hot chili peppers. I am afraid to actually say the name of the dish because it sounds too much like toilet noodles, and I am not confident with my tones and pronunciation. I don't want to accidentally order toilet noodles. It might be kind of impolite.

As I was writing in my journal waiting for a small bowl of lunch, I was suddenly attacked. A little four year old boy, son of one of the waitresses, snuck up on me, cocked his tiny arm, and threw the hardest punch he could. The woman behind me gasped as she saw this preschooler hit a customer. I am short, so bam right into the ribs. It was a hard punch, but I'm a tough cookie and can take harder. I ignored it thinking he was just looking for attention. After a minute, he snuck up again and wham, another punch right to the ribs. I ignored it again.

After living in Africa and dealing with rock throwing kids, chanting kid mobs, kids who will run alongside your bike for five minutes, kids who will sit outside your gate for hours staring and taunting you, I have a high tolerance for behavior that is different than what I am accustomed to. I find the best coping method is to ignore it or tell the older sibling what their younger sibling is doing.

My noodles arrived, and as I was staring out the large window, the kid appeared. He pulled down his pants, and instead of turning towards the street, he turned towards his older sister who was talking on her cell and proceeded to pee on her shoes.

Artwork: Tree

2011-03-01T05:16:00.001+08:00

I identify with trees and just absolutely love them. They are curvy and sexy, and feel grounded, stable, and everlasting. Even the wimpiest trees feel like they'll be there forever. Within a tree, I see the stillness and peace of living off the earth only needing a few necessities to just exist within time. I enjoy their shadows against concrete and brick walls, reminders of the moving sun. I see the loneliness and emptiness within the starkness of a tree in winter as the seasons continue to cycle through another year reminding me of my mortality. Trees feed my imagination where aliens and fantastical creatures look like they could just climb out of the ground and walk upon their roots, tall and proud. Sometimes I wish I could be a tree, but instead I just draw and color them.

New Artwork

2011-02-28T23:55:00.001+08:00

Stainglass Tree and Rainbow Rice Paddies

Yes I know. I haven't been blogging, but not much has been happening. I did not think a post about my observation of how students staple papers differently than my method would be that interesting. (BTW, I put a staple in the top left hand corner. Students tend to put staples either in the top middle or top right hand corner of the paper.)

My Mistake

2011-02-25T12:48:00.000+08:00

I have finished my first week of classes and made a mistake.

The lesson plan for both the writing course and the freshmen oral English course revolved around Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). I mistakenly forgot that not everyone in China celebrates Spring Festival. There are ethnic minorities like the Hui people who practice Islam who don't celebrate this festival along with the majority of Han people. My lesson plan was not culturally sensitive to the minority students in my class.

Teacher Mode Burn Out

2011-02-23T20:40:00.001+08:00

Whenever I leave the flat, I am almost always in teacher mode. I go to class. I go to the Tree House. I advise clubs. Students want more of my time. They want me to start cooking club, knitting club, and writing club. They want to spend as much time as they can with me. They want to be my friend. The boundaries between my personal life and my work life blur. In China I don't have a personal life except when I am alone in my flat. I am always in teacher mode, the conservative teacher who tries to get students to use their English to communicate with me. They want to be my friend, but it is a one way street. Can they really be my friend, a friend who listens to me, who challenges my thoughts, who understands me, who wouldn't judge me if I revealed all to them? In China, I no longer have a personal life with actual friends. My "friends," the people I socialize with, eat out with, do things with are my students.

In Alabama, I rarely felt like I had community. In Seattle, I finally found people I connected with, could talk with, could be social with, a community I felt like I belonged to, a community that understood me and didn't judge me. This community was different from my work place. It was my private personal life a community of friends where I could be me, reveal my thoughts and questions, do activities I like to do.

I am burnt out. I have run out of energy to be the super social nice teacher friend. Instead I feel myself running away unable to keep up the friendly persona that the students so love. Now I am starting to gain the label of strict instead of easy going teacher who we all love and can talk to. I am tired. My mood has changed. I feel like a therapist who is always listening to other people's problems and then they themselves now need their own therapist to talk to, but in China who can I talk to?

Eggs on a Stick

2011-02-21T09:29:00.001+08:00

Eggs on a stick are a common street food except in my city, so traveling and getting to eat these tasty treats was great. Whose eggs do you think are tiny enough to put on a stick? The shells of the eggs have lots of dark brown spots.

Today is the first day of my last semester as a teacher in Peace Corps. For five years I've been a teacher and I am feeling AAAHHH... Can't believe that for the past five years I've been working as a teacher. I spent five years being a chemistry graduate student, then looked for something new to do. I've spent five years working as an English, physics, chemistry, and math teacher and have no idea what my next adventure will be, hopefully something new. People go to school, get a degree then spend years working in one field researcher, teacher, engineer, worker in non-profits. What happens to us who don't follow that path, who skip around going from one field to another? Am I shooting myself in the foot by jumping around not settling into one career?

Dog Fighting

2011-02-20T08:03:00.001+08:00

At one of the parks I visited during spring festival there were performances. There was a kung fu demonstration by men in their 60's. There was a play about a drunken kung fu master where the actors lip synched their lines played over a loud speaker. There was an arena with some type of animal show. Would you believe that they actually had dog fighting and I am assuming cock fighting too since there were roosters in cages? The dogs were muzzled as they fought. It was disturbing.

Anyone know what kind of animal this is in the animal show?

Spring Festival

2011-02-19T05:36:00.000+08:00

On Chinese New Year's Eve, we hung red posters on the doorways of family. We made jiaozi (pork dumplings) and stayed up till midnight to set off fireworks from the balcony. While watching the New Year's Eve performance online, my friends played cards while I knitted.

On New Year's day we visited a temple. It was the first time I had ever visited a live temple, a temple that actually had people praying at it. It was so smokey from the incense I could hardly breathe and I was "afraid" of getting separated from my friends. I didn't have a cell phone on me and well, we all "look alike." There wasn't a tall foreigner who stuck out, easy to find.

Then we visited two parks for the rest of the day until the evening. Kaifeng is known for its lakes. The first park had a lake full of pedal boats, a man made mountain with a waterfall, and lots of humans posing as ancient statues scattered around the park. I would not want the job as a statue in China. People get really close, almost touch you, throw things at you and have no respect for space. All of the human statues had their eyes tightly shut.

The next park was a playground for kids and adults. They had military obstacle courses everywhere as well as a huge playground that even adults could play on. I was afraid of the deteroriating two story rope walls and tire walls, ladders and wooden fortresses made of rotting wood. There was a spinning swing set merry go around where you use a crank to make it go. As the adults sitting in the swings laughed while their male friend made the swing go round and round faster and faster, I cringed as I watched a toddler fall out of the seat and get hit in the head with a metal chair. This playground was a law suit waiting to happen, but then I remembered it was China so...

Back at Site

2011-02-18T10:04:00.001+08:00

After traveling to Lanzhou to visit a friend, Kaifeng to celebrate Chinese New Year's, then Chengdu for in service Peace Corps training I am back at site. Classes, freshmen oral English and sophomore writing, start on Monday.

So much has happened over these past few weeks, I don't exactly know where to begin.

If I still have a Chinese visa after COS (close of service), then I've got at least one week planned for a bike trip using Kaifeng in Henan province as my hub. I will buy a $200 bike, leave my stuff at my friend's flat, and go from there. If anyone is interested in biking China, let me know. This will likely happen July/August, rainy season. But oh well...

Spending Spring Festival (Chinese New Years) with friends was like getting a taste of what my life would have been like if I hadn't been adopted into an American family. Instead of being raised in the Christian religion, I would likely be a subconscious thinker and follower of Confucius, Buddhist, and Taoist ideas with a bit of superstition mixed in. Instead of being a person who needs and wants alone time, I would have become a person who wants social time whether it is just sitting with people or actually engaging people almost every minute of the day.

Family opinion and advice are extremely influential upon a person. People keep secrets to try to prevent this influence so that they can lead their own lives. I have heard several stories of husband and wives not telling their families that they got divorced keeping this secret for years while still pretending to be married during the holiday times. Why? So that they can make their own decisions about their future instead of facing the criticism and pressure to get married again as soon as possible.

Jumping

2011-01-26T07:19:00.001+08:00

My friend, M. is compiling a lifetime collection of jumping pictures in every city that she visits and since I was traveling with her I got into the habit of taking photographs of jumping pictures and jumping as well. While in Pingyao after an hours bike ride and arriving to a particularly uninteresting deserted temple except for the gatekeeper, I decided to have some fun and try to capture a jump using the self-timer; however, most of the pictures were badly timed. Since I tend to travel alone, maybe I should compile a lifetime collection of about to jump pictures or already landed jumping pictures.

In the previous post, "What is the man doing?" he is popping popcorn. Can you see in the back of the picture the cobs of corn?

What is the man doing?

2011-01-25T14:52:00.001+08:00

The picture has several clues. What is he selling? I bought some.

Pingyao

2011-01-24T20:24:00.001+08:00

If you have ever seen a Chinese Kung Fu movie, then you'll have an idea what this city is like. It is a walled city with stone houses, stone walkways, and inner courtyards surrounded by different doorways into different buildings. During my stay, it was a city empty of visitors, but had a tourist infrastructure where each guesthouse and hostel advertised using English. Coffee with real coffee beans and names of local delicacies were painted on the windows. Many of the houses were museums and there was an underground castle that you could visit. Instead of paying $40 to visit the sites, I opted for the $1.50/day bike rentals.

When I travel, I like to feel the climate, taste the air, feel the ground beneath me, and witness real life. I biked 6 km to a nearby Taoist temple with an old farming village nearby. The next day I biked 12 km to another Taoist temple. The landscape was brown and flat with grey, bleak trees scattered amongst the fields. The sky was white with fumes from rubber factories. The weather was warmer than Harbin but still I couldn't feel my toes after biking for an hour.

I wasn't in some isolated little village, but in what felt like a pretty developed small Chinese town that had a train station. The day I arrived there was no water to take a shower. The next night there was no electricity. Maybe the city is just undergoing a lot of construction which causes water and electricity to be cut.

The street food was terrible, a type of thick rubbery noodle with soy sauce and vinegar as the flavoring. The stir fried veggies from the hostel were mushy and bleh. There has only been one other place in China that I wasn't too keen on the food. In Western Sichuan in the Tibetan plateau where food was hard to grow and hard to transport in, the local delicacies were not especially tasty. The only food that was good in Pingyao were the $0.30 BBQ meat sticks.

Even though it may not sound like it, I actually enjoyed staying in Pingyao. It was nice to have time to write letters, to walk around, to bike around, to have some time alone in the quiet of my thoughts. It wasn't a crowded city so that was nice vacation from the huge population of China. I also liked that I could walk 20 minutes from the hostel to the train station.

Walking Around Beijing

2011-01-23T17:27:00.001+08:00

Beijing felt like an international metropolitan city. The people were fashionable. The W.C.'s were clean, free, and had toilet paper. The coffees and fruit smoothies were delicious. There was a smorgasbord of international cuisine. There were skateboarders and teenagers practicing hip hop dance in the park. The subway was modern and there were electric buses. With only a short glimpse, I felt there was a different feel to Beijing compared to other big Chinese cities I have visited. It even crossed my mind that maybe finding a job in Beijing would be cool. I probably should have stayed a few days to get a better feel for the city.

Beijing Brunch

2011-01-22T11:44:00.001+08:00

After skiing, M. and I parted ways. She flew back to her Gansu home via Beijing. From Chung Chun to Beijing, I got a standing ticket for the twelve hour trip through the night. I boarded the train and settled into a corner of the ice box with white metal frosted walls, sitting on my pack in the smoking area between train cars. The conductor came through, yelled at me in incomprehensible Chinese, and pushed me into the heated train car with seats.

There were many open seats. Passengers were spread out sleeping on the three seat benches. I found an empty seat, asked if I could sit down even though I only had a standing ticket then was bombarded with questions. Where are you from? Where are you going? What are you doing in China? How much money do you make? It was 10 pm and I was tired, but by being polite, one woman who was getting off at the next stop gave me her three seats and motioned me to lie down, pretend to sleep and not let anyone take the seats.

If there were so many empty seats, why did the ticket office sell me a standing ticket? Apparently the train sells seats only once between the starting destination and the final destination. When people get off at stops between these two points, those seats become free for anyone. I wonder how the train makes money this way. Wouldn't it be more profitable to re-sell the seat once they become unoccupied? I guess selling standing tickets is a way to re-sell the seat except standing tickets are cheaper. It is kind of like a lottery. Some trains are so full no seats ever open up and people are standing and sitting in the aisles, on the sinks, in the smoking sections, finding any empty space to occupy. I was lucky. My train had many passengers who had already disembarked and I could sleep soundly curled up on three seats.

I arrived in Beijing at 10 am and immediately went to the ticket hall. Strangely the lines were short. I handed the seller a piece of paper with three destinations: Inner Mongolia, Xian, or Pingyao which is a stop between Xian and Beijing. During high travel season, ie. the Chinese New Year, train tickets are hard to purchase. I was going to let the fate of being able to buy a train ticket dictate where I would go next. Pingyao won with a seat ticket for midnight.

I had twelve hours to chill in Beijing and decided to head to a hostel to see if I could get a cheap shower and a place to store my pack. The outdoor single file lines to buy a subway ticket were LONG, but moved quickly since the fare was only 2 RMB ($0.30) to every destination. Then I had to move to the entry way into the actual subway which was blocked by a mass of people all crowding to put their bags through the one security machine before entering the turnstiles to go underground. My initial reaction to Beijing was, ugh... too many people, too many lines, not very convenient.

My second reaction was Wow! The subway is amazing. Once you get access to it, it is easy, fast, not crowded, a great way to travel.

The hostel wanted to charge me $10 to take a shower and to store my pack. I was like no way! Beds usually cost half that price and you stay the night. I decided to hike around and just carry my backpack.

First stop, brunch, sweet snacks made out of dates, potatoes, sweet potates, figs, rice, wheat, peanuts...

Winter Sports

2011-01-21T08:49:00.001+08:00

The last time I was in Harbin I remember unsuccessfully trying to ice skate using old worn out skates. This time I worked up a sweat at the ice festival riding around on frozen water on a bicycle sled and a chair with bottom runners that by using wooden poles with a metal pick you can push yourself around on the ice. I was much better moving fast on the chair using upper body strength compared to the bicycle sled losing a race to my speedy pedaling travel companion.

It took three hours by plane to get to Harbin from Xian, but instead of paying another $130 to return by plane, I decided to travel my way back via train and bus, 42 hours of being on a moving hostel, sleeping in seats, drinking hot water, using W.C.'s that spill out onto the tracks, and unable to see out the frosted windows. For only a cheap $60 that included two nights in a hostel, I was able to return to site spending most nights on the train, only two nights in a hostel and stopped at three cities breaking up the long ride back. It only took me 8 days to return home.

The first stop was Chang Bai Shan, a nature reserve with a snow covered inactive volcano. We stayed with M.'s student's family whose hospitality was overly generous. The father cooked us a 9 pm dinner of dumplings, fungus, and other small dishes with blueberry juice and every morning the father was in the kitchen cooking a six course breakfast.

The highlight of the whole trip was getting to go skiing for FREE! The extended family work on the mountain and got us free tickets to access the volcano and free ski rentals and tickets. I have only been skiing twice because it is an expensive sport in Washington, so I was somewhat excited about getting the chance to ski again. I was a little afraid though that it wouldn't be fun because I felt that starting at square one is a cold place to begin.

It was FANTASTIC. Muscle memory is an amazing thing. Even though I hadn't been on skis since I was 24 or so, I was able to pizza wedge my way down, making comfortable turns on the long easy narrow slopes empty of people. On a particularly narrow and steep part for this beginner, I wiped out four times into the sides of the run, unpacked snow, soft to fall into, difficult to climb out of. I think playing rugby for a few years made me less afraid of falling compared to the first time I tried skiing.

It was a new ski resort and had no ski lifts, so we had to hike up the mountain carrying our skis and poles. Just kidding... Actually we rode on speedy snowmobiles up the mountain to the start of the run, got wind burn, and had to rub snow on our faces until we could no longer feel our fingers.

After skiing, we ate a fifteen course banquet with about fifteen family members at a fantastic restaurant. There were at least eight different dishes of mushrooms and fungus all picked from the mountain.

The last morning, we explored the small mountain town whose vendors set up outside boxes of frozen fish, dried tea, and hanging frozen skinned dogs.

M. also wrote a post about this part of the trip.

Harbin

2011-01-20T19:24:00.001+08:00

When I was twelve or thirteen, my family took a trip to Harbin. I don't remember it very well except wanting to slide down the ice slides, enjoying frozen red fruit covered in caramelized sugar on a stick, and buying an imitation animal fur scarf where the fox's mouth opened to bite its tail enclosing one's neck in furry softness.

The only reason I returned to the frozen city of -30 degrees Celsius was to visit a student who was doing post graduate studies in Harbin; however, unfortunately the day I arrived she had a surprise interview in Beijing so we were unable to meet up. I did have fun though and wasn't cold. The indoor heating in Harbin is intense. Plus I had plenty of knitted layers, excellent thermal shirts, and a borrowed heavy jacket. Plus I wisely invested in the cheapest bulky long underwear pants that made me feel like a fat Chinese toddler who can't bend its knees and has to walk like a zombie.

The reasons I live in other countries are to experience a new culture, to explore human behavior, and to learn about myself. The reasons I travel are to chill in a new place, to walk around, to eat food, and to escape from the monotonous habits of site. I usually don't like to spend money to see things like museums, buildings, temples, etc, so Harbin was the first city where I felt like an actual money-paying tourist. I visited the Disney themed ice sculptures, watched an acrobatic show on ice skates (my new dream is to be learn how to do aerial silk) and was driven around in a bus with bars on the windows in a Jurassic Park like compound that was a tiger reserve with many herds of 10-20 tigers. The tourists on the bus paid for frozen chickens and live birds to be thrown out of an SUV to feed the huge magnificent animals. No one was willing to pay the $285 for a live cow.

What made Harbin awesome and easy to brave the cold was that my travel companion, M. knew people in the city. This led to being driven around in a car and to eating amazing food! We had homemade ice cream, a Chinese speciality in a Russian cafe. We ate flat breads similar to tortillas stuffed with pork, eggs, garlic, and crunchy peppers. I ate what I thought were frozen mini green crab apples covered with caramelized sugar on a stick which turned out to be green tomatoes. We had Russian cream soup, pork covered with egg, and pirozhki.

Home

2011-01-20T18:05:00.001+08:00

I am home. It is good to be back home, a place that is warm, quiet, that doesn't move and has great showers. I have been on a lot of adventures and have a lot of blogs to write so stay tuned.