Chinese Women: Survey on Beauty and Fat

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

• 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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.