I knew I would have plenty of material for a Christmas blog and I do.
I realize that I haven't written very much about the students here, but I've got some good stuff to write about them. There were two, student-thrown Christmas parties here. One party was thrown by Dave and Lucia's students and another was thrown by my students. I seem to be somewhat famous on this campus because the students of Lucia's and Dave's classes readily included me in their Christmas show; songs dances, and giving of candy. And apples. I still don't understand why, but these kids always associate Christmas with the giving of apples. Interesting. So I sat in on a Christmas Eve show that I hadn't even been told about beforehand, but the kids certainly knew about it and they had fully prepared for our arrival. Seeing as I don't even teach these particular kids, I was kind of flattered by the fact that they included me. Dave played a Tom Petty song and before I knew it, the kids were asking me to sing something. I'm pretty sure that I gave those kids the most rockin' acapella version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" they've ever heard. When I left stage, a laughing boy asked me, "Are you always crazy? Even in America?" I immediately said, "Yes."
On Christmas day, I went to the party thrown by my students. This party was specifically targeted at me and no other teacher. There were probably 50ish kids there singing songs, dancing onstage, reading poetry, and giving me candy, giving me candy, giving me candy, giving me candy, giving me candy, givi... One girl had written me a letter all about how she wanted me to have a nice Christmas in China and that she knew I missed my family and my home. I couldn't help myself, even though I knew it would completely embarass her, I had to walk up onstage and give her a hug. Again, I sang "Ruldolph" but this time I did the silly version with the various shoutouts: "Like a lightbulb!" and "...with glee. Yipee!" But I changed, "...like Monopoly!" to ,"...like Mah-jong!" and ,"...like George Washington!" became, "...like Michael Jackson!" The kids love to hear me screw up my Chinese and apparently my mispronunciation of Mah-jong was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.
There was also a nice Christmas Eve dinner that was arranged for the school teachers. The food was amazing and I actually drank baiju. A lot of baiju. Henry seemed impressed by the amount of baiju that I drank. The fact is that I despise the stuff, but with it being Christmas and all, I just figured 'What the hell." Baiju is super strong stuff, I think this particular brew was something like 35% alcohol or more. I don't know. What I do know is that Henry, along with most of the other baiju drinkers at the table were absolutely sloshed within a short period of time. Baiju is strong stuff but I'm no lightweight with it. I'm certainly not immune to its effects but it takes more than a few small cups of it to mess me up. I left that table with my manly reputation fully intact and slight buzzing in my head.
I went straight to the Mah-jong table, where I found Lucia and Dave, along with my new buddy, Wu. Wu is also an English teacher at the school. He had gotten himself pretty well messed up on baiju and was talking to me about how people in China genuinely fear their government. My brother John has suggested that I write a book about China and sometimes that really seems like a great idea. Everything here is sooooooooooo different! Although I've always thought that if I attempted to get my writing published it would probably be some kind of fiction story, I can't deny the fact that there is interesting nonfiction for me to write about around every corner over here. There's so much that world just doesn't know about China and this small city has me completely engulfed in its culture.
Anyways, Mah-jong. I've been learning the game slowly and just when I think I understand the rules I realize that I don't know a damn thing. I thought a I had a fantastic hand when another teacher, her English name is Cherry, laughingly informed me that I had, "...no chance to win." I thought it was hilarious, so I just began randomly taking blocks and throwing blocks away without concern, each time stating the fact that I had no chance to win. I wasn't palying for money so it was no big deal to me. As a matter of fact, I found it incredibly funny. I'm sure the baiju was helping with my mood. A quick note on Mah-jong: The female English teachers play this game like pirates. They're fucking ruthless! I will never play them for money. I wouldn't stand a chance. And when the school principal, Mr. Wang, learned that we were not playing for money, he laughingly got up and walked away from the table. Shortly after the game, I learned that Ms. Fu had driven Henry home because he was too drunk to walk. I laughed like crazy! I should mention that, lately, I have been on good terms with Henry. I have mentally accepted the fact that he is a problem-causing moron but not a bad person. I think I can maintain a way of laughing at him without actually offending him.
On Christmas Day Eve or the Eve of Christmas Day, whatever, I met a few friends a went to do some Christmas partying. I'll introduce the perpetrators: First there's Tan Yen, blog followers know all about her. There's my new friend, Joy She's a local college student. There's my coworker/new friend Wu, who I previously mentioned. And last, there is Tan Yen's friend, Liao Long Liu. I've met her a few times and have so far managed not to refer to her as, Dragon Lady. I haven't dared to, despite the fact that it wouldn't really be an insult to her. After all, Dragon Lady, is essentially what Liao Long Liu means.
We went to a bar called Pink. I will never let Tan Yen choose the bar we go to ever again.
This was only my second time in a Kaili bar. My first time was a couple of months ago when I walked alone into a joint called the 99 only to find it filled to the brim with middle-aged dudes, not a female in sight, who looked like that they had all just swiped their time cards at the construction site HQ. I didn't stay long.
Pink was another story altogether. Perhaps another entity entirely. Chinese pop music was blasting its bass line loud enough to trigger a seismograph and this place was full. I mean FULL! There are plenty of things that I dislike about China, plenty of things that I do like, a few things that I downright hate, and some stuff that I just plain love. China always seems to have crowds and my reaction to the crowds around here lies squarely between dislike & hate. But, it was Christmas. Christmas is party time. We went in, me guarding my wallet the whole time, and sat down. I'm fully aware that, as a foreigner here, I'm often targeted as a bank and pick pockets would love to mark the foreign sucker. So far so good.
I was happily surprised to learn that Pink had Budweiser. Wu had ordered a bunch of it for us and I think he did it because he thought I'd like it. I did. I would've preferred Guinness or Shipyard, but I guess those just weren't options. It was fun, despite the crowd. I had made a very conscious decision to be happy at Christmas. Homesickness is a very real threat, but I was operating on the belief that I could be happy if I wanted to. I was right about that. We talked, drank, and I laughed about the Chinese pop music that I neither liked nor understood. As a kid who was raised on rock, I pretty much consider pop music evil, no matter where I am, but in this city I've got a feeling that I'll never find a place playing Metallica or Bon Jovi. The pop music played for about half an hour and then it started to get weird.
There has only been one other time in which I've been to a bar with a drag queen and that was in Provincetown Massachussets and let's face it, that's the kind of place a person can expect to see a drag queen. I'd been mentally prepared for that one. But two days ago, there I was just out for a few beers with my buddies and this elegantly dressed drag queen walks out on stage and starts singing these high pitched and highly annoying songs that, in some skewed way, were probably mean to be romantic. I simply don't like drag queens and I said as much to Wu who felt the need to say, "Don't worry, Robert. This is not a gay place." He's funny. A short time later, I told him that that was the first time I had ever been to a bar where the only people who were dancing on the tables were men. Again, Wu said, "It's ok. This is not a gay place."
What kind of place was it? Judging by the music selection, I have no idea. First they were playing nothing but Chinese pop, then the drag queen sang annoying high pitched love songs for a while, then a rapper came onstage. I don't generally consider myself a fan of rap. Most often I just find rap uninteresting, but once in a while I'll hear some I like. Although I had no idea what this guy was singing, he was good. I really liked the rapper. Then the Chinese pop returned and spent the rest of the night making people dance to it. Its spell was only broken one last time. I was drinking, listening, drinking, listening, and before I knew it the abundant laser lights shooting all over the room turned green and I heard...I couldn't believe it...electric guitar. And I liked it! Then the drums came. Rockin! And sudennly, the ground shook, lightning thundered from the sky, and German heavy metal began pouring out of the speakers. People continued dancing as if nothing had changed. The world of Pink had just gone from Chinese mass produced pop crap to German metal that spits in the face of Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and other the other musicians that the kids here love so much. It was hilarious.
Ultimately, Christmas was a great time! I had a lot of fun. It was very weird but I will certainly never forget it. My Chinese friends are wonderful people and they did their best to make my Christmas special. I'll write agian soon. There's still so much to say.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
This Blog Will Be Longer Than One of Those Chinese Dragons in a Parade
I have no idea of why I do this, but I always manage to do the same thing. I wait a ridiculously long time between blogs and when I finally get back to it, I have soooooo much material to write that I have try to juggle memories and anecdotes while keeping it all straight in my head and trying not to bore the 3 or 4 people who are actually reading. Sometimes I wonder, do I write this more for the readers or more for my own therapeutic reasons? Expect complete randomness in this blog, my mind has been all over the place recently.
My last blog was a decidedly negative one. My day at Shaogaoshan was a fairly bad experience and I think it showed through pretty clearly in my writing. I make no effort whatsoever to color any of my experiences in these blogs; if my experience was a bad one I will make it as clear as possible in my writing. And of course, if the experience was positive then you will be able to tell because of all the fluffy bunnies and ice cream drops that are scattered around the words on your monitor. I'll start this blog by addressing what is, quite possibly, the biggest issue for me over here. My own temper.
In these past 3 months, I can recall 4 times when I have lost my temper, 2 have ocurred since the writing of my last blog. One of them happenned on the day that I finally got Henry to buy a heater for my apartment. Keep in mind that part of my contract states that the school will provide an apartment for me. They have provided things such as a microwave, TV, and so forth. They did not, however, provide any heat source and Kaili is becoming fairly cold. When a New Hampshire boy says it's cold, it's cold. So that day in the store when Henry insisted that the reason why I was cold had to do with my choice of clothing and not to do with the apartment just set me off. I shouted at him right there in public. Must've been a quite a scene for the locals of this small city to see a big angry white man shouting at the little confused looking Chinese man he came in with. A couple weeks later, I lost my temper with one of my students. I had tried nearly every trick in my book to get this student to listen to me when I was talking, to stop talking while I was teaching, to participate in class, e.g. Nothing had been working for me. But none of this excuses the volume of my voice when I shouted, "Get out!" and kicked him out of my class one night. A better teacher than myself would have come up with a more effective mode of discipline. Maybe one of the requirements of the world's 'Top' teachers is sainthood. If that's the case then I don't qualify. Later, I found out that this boy I shouted at was actually
a girl and although that probably shouldn't make a difference, to me it did. One of her friends found her crying in the hallway after class. That's the worst I've felt in a very long time. I totally lost my cool that night. By the way, the kid's English name is, Brian. I had no idea.
I've been playing with some thoughts about how I can deal with my own temper and besides: Jack Johnson Therapy, long walks, excercise, reading, writing, drawing, studying Chinese, and numerous other ideas, I have decided that what I really need is a change of mindset. I think I've been taking all the errors people make, all the rudeness I've encountered, and general frustrations too seriously. If I can treat it all with the humor that I know I have inside me then I think I can make my remaining 7 months in this country temper tantrum free. For example, I have decided not to take Henry seriously when he feels the need to keep tabs on me by consistently asking me, "Where are you going?" From now on, his question will be answer with responses such as, "A block past Maple." Or, "Your house, because that's where the party is." One day, when I'm in a particularly devious mood, I will get a piece of paper and a pen and draw a map that will show Henry exactly how, "I will take the No. 9 bus to the town square at which I will hop off at the corner of Elm and Main St. I will then go into 7-11 for a slushy and run on over to the corner, you know the area near the big brick building that overlooks 95 and Route 3?" Answers like this will be fun for me and will completely confuse Henry. And if, repeat, if, he has a single brain cell floating around somewhere in that box on top of his neck, he will eventually realize that I have no intention of answering his question seriously ever again. I hope this kind of thinking helps me calm myself down. It's the best idea I've got.
One of my worst fears came true a few weeks ago. My friend Liana was shipped off to work in her company's other school, far west of Kaili. She has no way of knowing when or if she will be able to return to Kaili. Also, my buddy Long Tso recently told me that he will be back in England by the beginning of January. Two more friends that I have to say goodbye to.
Thanksgiving was a very simple time for me, but it was fun. I spent the night playing pool with Long Tso. I don't think he realized this, but he actually gave me a kind of Thanksgiving gift by showing me that Kaili had a pool hall. I love pool. I'm not saying that I'm good at it, I'm just saying that I enjoy the game. We played 8 games and tied 4-4. Before he leaves for England, we have to schedule, "The Ultimate Pool Game of Death" to see who is the pool champion. I was shocked to learn that this pool hall didn't have beer. It just felt wrong to be holding a pool cue in my right hand while my left was holding a plastic bottle of cold tea. Long Tso actually made a special effort to ask the man at the desk if I could bring in some beer the next time I came. It's a Green Light. The "Ultimate Pool Game of Death" will be accompanied by my little buddy, Tsingtao.
I've made a few new friends. My ingenious plan to hang out with college students has been working perfectly. I met a college student named Simon who seems like a really nice guy. He pals around with a guy named, Sirvir. I swear, that's the guy's English name. He said it was the name of a god or something. One of my Kaili college student friend's has become my Chinese teacher. Her name is Maggie and she's awesome. She's a P.E. major who likes to regale me with stories about the hardships of her Ping-Pong class. I find these stories incredibly entertaining and besides being a great friend she is also helping me learn Chinese much more quickly than I was previously. She has a very quiet friend named Mei Hua (May Flower). These two are always together and they're a fun pair to hang out with. There are also two Americans I've met recently. Andy and Jon are a couple of Peace Corps volunteers who teach English at Kaili University. They're both really cool guys and I intend to hang out with them more in the future. Jon is from Philadelphia and Andy is from, I can't believe it, Brookline Mass.
Staring. People stare at me ALOT. Most of the time I just take it as a given thing, but there are certain times when it becomes more interesting than usual. Like the day when the man walking next to me wouldn't stop staring as we proceed down the sidewalk. I was not in the mood to put up with it, so I stared a wide-eyed stare right back at him. He was so shocked that he nearly knocked over the little girl in front of him. Don't worry, she was ok. There was also the day that I nearly killed a man just by walking into the gym. He was running high-speed on the treadmill, saw me walk in, and stared for a second too long. Whoosh! There he goes off the end of the treadmill. He was ok, but things like this make me think that I have a certain kind of potentially dangerous magic in my foreign eyes. I need to be careful of who I make eye contact with. Part of my new philosophy of calming myself down involves, quite literally, an eye for an eye. I used to just put up with the staring when it annoyed me, but now I stare back. It works.
Touching. I didn't really think that the Chinese would be big on physical contact, but at least some of them are. Unfortunately for me, a lot of them seem to be dudes. There was the time I went to the bathroom in the bar in Nanchang. I'm doing my thing at the urinal when a guy walks up behind me and starts rubbing my shoulders. Creepy as hell. I'm preparing to turn around to see what the hell is going on, when I realize that this is the same guy who was standing at the bathroom doorway. This man is the bathroom attendant. Massaging a guy's shoulders while he takes a piss is actually part of this man's job. I decided to finish my business as calmly as possible and get it over with. After I'd washed my hands I saw this man standing by the door with a tray laden with money. Shit. I had to pay this guy for his creepy, little, unasked for massage.
When I go to get my haircut, I have the wonderful option of getting a massage first. It's great. But the last time I went weirded me out a little. Make any comment you want to make, but I did not want the dude with Flock of Seagulls hairdo giving me a massage, or any other dude for that matter. Liana was right next to me and as I sat there trying to remember the word for "Woman" Liana read my mind, or more likely, my face, and told the employees to find me a female masseuse. Just a sidenote, I see a lot of guys over here with hairstyles that would probably get them their asses kicked in any New England trucker bar.
This would be a good time to take a 5 minute break. Get a drink, stretch, and if you want to read about my recent trip to Guiyang then come on back to the blog.
I felt like taking a break from Kaili for a short while so I hopped on the bus and took the 3 hour ride to Guiyang, which is the closest thing that anyone could call a big city. One of the first things I saw in Guiyang was a WalMart Supercenter. I laughed my ass off. Temptation got the better of me and I just had to go in and see. It was a zoo! All hopes I had of searching the store for cheese were swept away by the fact that I didn't want to spend a quarter of my weekend in those Disneyesque lines. I also found a giant statue of Mao and eventually, PIZZA HUT! The waitress was either impressed or horrified by the fact that I tackled a large pizza all by my lonsome, I'm not sure which. And I don't care. All that matters is, I got cheese and a lot of it.
I found an English bookstore and loaded up on novels which made my backpack twice as heavy, but I was too happy to care. I've been itching for more books for a long time.
Still in Guiyang, I woke up on my second day to track down a movie theater in which I would, hopefully, find Harry Potter. I found a couple theaters that were playing Chinese movies but was having no luck with Harry. What I did find was a very excitable group of teenage girls who thought that I was just the best thing they'd ever seen. I took advantage of my undeserved fame to ask these girls if they knew where I could find a theater showing HP. They knew. Yeaaahhhhh! The most excitable of these girls, Lunyi or Lyn, or something like that, translated the cinema employee's Chinese for me and told me, 2:10. Great. That gave me plenty of time to explore before the movie. I said goodbye to my crazy teenybopper fans and walked off to find coffee. 10:30 AM. The sign said "Coffee and Cappuccino." I walked in and was immediately told that they were not open yet. And why would they be? Who in their right mind would ever want a cappuccino before 11:00 AM? I walked on to a place called "Time Coffee." Not "Coffee Time." "Time Coffee." All I wanted was to sit on my ass, drink coffee and read my new Stephen King book. What I got was a very excited, somewhat scary lady who spoke very fast Chinese and told me that they did not have coffee. And why would they? The place only had the word "Coffee" in the title. I ordered a Sprite and sat down to read. She sat down across from me and began speedily talking to me. I tried to focus on my book, but to no avail. She would not be ignored. 10 minutes later I found myself in the most confusing "conversation" of my entire life with her, a cook, and one of the cleaning ladies. They were all talking very fast Chinese and although I never reverted to English (it wouldn't have done me any good) I couldn't help but to repeat things like, "I don't understand." And, "I don't know." At one point, she began asking me if I had any American money with me. I said no. I said no again. Again. I said "No," in just about every way I could possibly think of, but she was not getting the picture. As a matter of fact, she was becoming louder and more insistent as she went on. It was becoming a bit scary, so I quickly paid my tab and walked out. And besides, it was 1:00. Almost time for Harry. After some quick noodles, I went to the theater as excited as excited could be. I quickly spoke to the man at the cinema door and walked away, sad faced, one minute later. It seemed that my hyper-active little fans had failed to translate one little word: Mingtian. Tomorrow. Sorry Rob. No Harry Potter for you.
Before getting on the bus back to Kaili, I managed to find a cool little cafe where I got a passable latte. One of my goals while in Guiyang was to meet some other foreigners and although they were both busy, therefore I did not want to bother them, I did see 2 other round-eyes in this cafe. It's a nice place. I will go back there: for the atmosphere, for the round-eyes, and even for the coffee. I will go back to Guiyang. It's a nice break from the small city of Kaili. Although I know I wouldn't be happy living in a city of that size, I like having the option of hanging out in Guiyang once in a while.
I have a lot of time off in February. Right now the leading vacation options are, hanging out in Chonqing with Tan Yen and Wudan or going to Chengdu to try some real Sichuan food with my friend XiaoLi. Tan Yen says that Chonqing has the most beautiful girls in China. Long Tso says, no, that place is Chengdu. I might just have to go to both.
Now it's time for me to wait another ridiculously long time before writing again. If you read this far, then you're a real trooper. Wan an.
My last blog was a decidedly negative one. My day at Shaogaoshan was a fairly bad experience and I think it showed through pretty clearly in my writing. I make no effort whatsoever to color any of my experiences in these blogs; if my experience was a bad one I will make it as clear as possible in my writing. And of course, if the experience was positive then you will be able to tell because of all the fluffy bunnies and ice cream drops that are scattered around the words on your monitor. I'll start this blog by addressing what is, quite possibly, the biggest issue for me over here. My own temper.
In these past 3 months, I can recall 4 times when I have lost my temper, 2 have ocurred since the writing of my last blog. One of them happenned on the day that I finally got Henry to buy a heater for my apartment. Keep in mind that part of my contract states that the school will provide an apartment for me. They have provided things such as a microwave, TV, and so forth. They did not, however, provide any heat source and Kaili is becoming fairly cold. When a New Hampshire boy says it's cold, it's cold. So that day in the store when Henry insisted that the reason why I was cold had to do with my choice of clothing and not to do with the apartment just set me off. I shouted at him right there in public. Must've been a quite a scene for the locals of this small city to see a big angry white man shouting at the little confused looking Chinese man he came in with. A couple weeks later, I lost my temper with one of my students. I had tried nearly every trick in my book to get this student to listen to me when I was talking, to stop talking while I was teaching, to participate in class, e.g. Nothing had been working for me. But none of this excuses the volume of my voice when I shouted, "Get out!" and kicked him out of my class one night. A better teacher than myself would have come up with a more effective mode of discipline. Maybe one of the requirements of the world's 'Top' teachers is sainthood. If that's the case then I don't qualify. Later, I found out that this boy I shouted at was actually
a girl and although that probably shouldn't make a difference, to me it did. One of her friends found her crying in the hallway after class. That's the worst I've felt in a very long time. I totally lost my cool that night. By the way, the kid's English name is, Brian. I had no idea.
I've been playing with some thoughts about how I can deal with my own temper and besides: Jack Johnson Therapy, long walks, excercise, reading, writing, drawing, studying Chinese, and numerous other ideas, I have decided that what I really need is a change of mindset. I think I've been taking all the errors people make, all the rudeness I've encountered, and general frustrations too seriously. If I can treat it all with the humor that I know I have inside me then I think I can make my remaining 7 months in this country temper tantrum free. For example, I have decided not to take Henry seriously when he feels the need to keep tabs on me by consistently asking me, "Where are you going?" From now on, his question will be answer with responses such as, "A block past Maple." Or, "Your house, because that's where the party is." One day, when I'm in a particularly devious mood, I will get a piece of paper and a pen and draw a map that will show Henry exactly how, "I will take the No. 9 bus to the town square at which I will hop off at the corner of Elm and Main St. I will then go into 7-11 for a slushy and run on over to the corner, you know the area near the big brick building that overlooks 95 and Route 3?" Answers like this will be fun for me and will completely confuse Henry. And if, repeat, if, he has a single brain cell floating around somewhere in that box on top of his neck, he will eventually realize that I have no intention of answering his question seriously ever again. I hope this kind of thinking helps me calm myself down. It's the best idea I've got.
One of my worst fears came true a few weeks ago. My friend Liana was shipped off to work in her company's other school, far west of Kaili. She has no way of knowing when or if she will be able to return to Kaili. Also, my buddy Long Tso recently told me that he will be back in England by the beginning of January. Two more friends that I have to say goodbye to.
Thanksgiving was a very simple time for me, but it was fun. I spent the night playing pool with Long Tso. I don't think he realized this, but he actually gave me a kind of Thanksgiving gift by showing me that Kaili had a pool hall. I love pool. I'm not saying that I'm good at it, I'm just saying that I enjoy the game. We played 8 games and tied 4-4. Before he leaves for England, we have to schedule, "The Ultimate Pool Game of Death" to see who is the pool champion. I was shocked to learn that this pool hall didn't have beer. It just felt wrong to be holding a pool cue in my right hand while my left was holding a plastic bottle of cold tea. Long Tso actually made a special effort to ask the man at the desk if I could bring in some beer the next time I came. It's a Green Light. The "Ultimate Pool Game of Death" will be accompanied by my little buddy, Tsingtao.
I've made a few new friends. My ingenious plan to hang out with college students has been working perfectly. I met a college student named Simon who seems like a really nice guy. He pals around with a guy named, Sirvir. I swear, that's the guy's English name. He said it was the name of a god or something. One of my Kaili college student friend's has become my Chinese teacher. Her name is Maggie and she's awesome. She's a P.E. major who likes to regale me with stories about the hardships of her Ping-Pong class. I find these stories incredibly entertaining and besides being a great friend she is also helping me learn Chinese much more quickly than I was previously. She has a very quiet friend named Mei Hua (May Flower). These two are always together and they're a fun pair to hang out with. There are also two Americans I've met recently. Andy and Jon are a couple of Peace Corps volunteers who teach English at Kaili University. They're both really cool guys and I intend to hang out with them more in the future. Jon is from Philadelphia and Andy is from, I can't believe it, Brookline Mass.
Staring. People stare at me ALOT. Most of the time I just take it as a given thing, but there are certain times when it becomes more interesting than usual. Like the day when the man walking next to me wouldn't stop staring as we proceed down the sidewalk. I was not in the mood to put up with it, so I stared a wide-eyed stare right back at him. He was so shocked that he nearly knocked over the little girl in front of him. Don't worry, she was ok. There was also the day that I nearly killed a man just by walking into the gym. He was running high-speed on the treadmill, saw me walk in, and stared for a second too long. Whoosh! There he goes off the end of the treadmill. He was ok, but things like this make me think that I have a certain kind of potentially dangerous magic in my foreign eyes. I need to be careful of who I make eye contact with. Part of my new philosophy of calming myself down involves, quite literally, an eye for an eye. I used to just put up with the staring when it annoyed me, but now I stare back. It works.
Touching. I didn't really think that the Chinese would be big on physical contact, but at least some of them are. Unfortunately for me, a lot of them seem to be dudes. There was the time I went to the bathroom in the bar in Nanchang. I'm doing my thing at the urinal when a guy walks up behind me and starts rubbing my shoulders. Creepy as hell. I'm preparing to turn around to see what the hell is going on, when I realize that this is the same guy who was standing at the bathroom doorway. This man is the bathroom attendant. Massaging a guy's shoulders while he takes a piss is actually part of this man's job. I decided to finish my business as calmly as possible and get it over with. After I'd washed my hands I saw this man standing by the door with a tray laden with money. Shit. I had to pay this guy for his creepy, little, unasked for massage.
When I go to get my haircut, I have the wonderful option of getting a massage first. It's great. But the last time I went weirded me out a little. Make any comment you want to make, but I did not want the dude with Flock of Seagulls hairdo giving me a massage, or any other dude for that matter. Liana was right next to me and as I sat there trying to remember the word for "Woman" Liana read my mind, or more likely, my face, and told the employees to find me a female masseuse. Just a sidenote, I see a lot of guys over here with hairstyles that would probably get them their asses kicked in any New England trucker bar.
This would be a good time to take a 5 minute break. Get a drink, stretch, and if you want to read about my recent trip to Guiyang then come on back to the blog.
I felt like taking a break from Kaili for a short while so I hopped on the bus and took the 3 hour ride to Guiyang, which is the closest thing that anyone could call a big city. One of the first things I saw in Guiyang was a WalMart Supercenter. I laughed my ass off. Temptation got the better of me and I just had to go in and see. It was a zoo! All hopes I had of searching the store for cheese were swept away by the fact that I didn't want to spend a quarter of my weekend in those Disneyesque lines. I also found a giant statue of Mao and eventually, PIZZA HUT! The waitress was either impressed or horrified by the fact that I tackled a large pizza all by my lonsome, I'm not sure which. And I don't care. All that matters is, I got cheese and a lot of it.
I found an English bookstore and loaded up on novels which made my backpack twice as heavy, but I was too happy to care. I've been itching for more books for a long time.
Still in Guiyang, I woke up on my second day to track down a movie theater in which I would, hopefully, find Harry Potter. I found a couple theaters that were playing Chinese movies but was having no luck with Harry. What I did find was a very excitable group of teenage girls who thought that I was just the best thing they'd ever seen. I took advantage of my undeserved fame to ask these girls if they knew where I could find a theater showing HP. They knew. Yeaaahhhhh! The most excitable of these girls, Lunyi or Lyn, or something like that, translated the cinema employee's Chinese for me and told me, 2:10. Great. That gave me plenty of time to explore before the movie. I said goodbye to my crazy teenybopper fans and walked off to find coffee. 10:30 AM. The sign said "Coffee and Cappuccino." I walked in and was immediately told that they were not open yet. And why would they be? Who in their right mind would ever want a cappuccino before 11:00 AM? I walked on to a place called "Time Coffee." Not "Coffee Time." "Time Coffee." All I wanted was to sit on my ass, drink coffee and read my new Stephen King book. What I got was a very excited, somewhat scary lady who spoke very fast Chinese and told me that they did not have coffee. And why would they? The place only had the word "Coffee" in the title. I ordered a Sprite and sat down to read. She sat down across from me and began speedily talking to me. I tried to focus on my book, but to no avail. She would not be ignored. 10 minutes later I found myself in the most confusing "conversation" of my entire life with her, a cook, and one of the cleaning ladies. They were all talking very fast Chinese and although I never reverted to English (it wouldn't have done me any good) I couldn't help but to repeat things like, "I don't understand." And, "I don't know." At one point, she began asking me if I had any American money with me. I said no. I said no again. Again. I said "No," in just about every way I could possibly think of, but she was not getting the picture. As a matter of fact, she was becoming louder and more insistent as she went on. It was becoming a bit scary, so I quickly paid my tab and walked out. And besides, it was 1:00. Almost time for Harry. After some quick noodles, I went to the theater as excited as excited could be. I quickly spoke to the man at the cinema door and walked away, sad faced, one minute later. It seemed that my hyper-active little fans had failed to translate one little word: Mingtian. Tomorrow. Sorry Rob. No Harry Potter for you.
Before getting on the bus back to Kaili, I managed to find a cool little cafe where I got a passable latte. One of my goals while in Guiyang was to meet some other foreigners and although they were both busy, therefore I did not want to bother them, I did see 2 other round-eyes in this cafe. It's a nice place. I will go back there: for the atmosphere, for the round-eyes, and even for the coffee. I will go back to Guiyang. It's a nice break from the small city of Kaili. Although I know I wouldn't be happy living in a city of that size, I like having the option of hanging out in Guiyang once in a while.
I have a lot of time off in February. Right now the leading vacation options are, hanging out in Chonqing with Tan Yen and Wudan or going to Chengdu to try some real Sichuan food with my friend XiaoLi. Tan Yen says that Chonqing has the most beautiful girls in China. Long Tso says, no, that place is Chengdu. I might just have to go to both.
Now it's time for me to wait another ridiculously long time before writing again. If you read this far, then you're a real trooper. Wan an.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Shaogaoshan
We climbed a mountain near the school yesterday. By we, I mean myself, Ms. Fu, some guy whose name I can't remember, and a guy named Zhang. Zhang appears to be Ms. Fu's main squeeze. We walked to the mountain and I was glad to learn that there actually was a decent sized climbing mountain within walking distance.
By the way, my Chinese name is Yangshan. The name was given to me by Henry, of all people. We had been having lunch with the Yang family who kindly lent me the use of their last name. Then Henry told them about how much I love to talk about the mountains near Kaili. The word for mountain is, shan. So: Yangshan. Yang Mountain, that's my name.
The mountain we climbed yesterday was called Shaogaoshan, Little High Mountain. It's a decent size and I've been mentally referring to it as the Kaili version of Mount Monadnock. But sometimes I think that if China were a pitcher it would throw nothing but curveballs. I knew something would be off when we climbed the mountain, I just didn't know what it would be. I get that feeling a lot over here. That feeling that tells me, "Things are not going to turn out the way you would usually think they would, Rob. There will be something strange or skewed about what happens." Shaogaoshan was yet another mountain with a stone staircase going all the way up and down it. It's a gorgeous place, but where I come from MOUNTAINS DON'T HAVE STAIRS!
Anyway, it was a pretty climb as well as pretty foggy climb. There was a restaraunt about one third of the way up and I tried some Chinese porridge, basically chicken and rice soup. After a while, we returned to climbing and I started to worry about Ms. Fu. She hadn't eaten anything, hadn't drunk any water, and really did not seem to be in climbing shape. It was almost like being back in my Environmental Education job again. I would offer her water, she's say no. I'd ask her if she wanted to rest, and of course, she'd say no. Maybe she was embarassed, but mountains have a way of kicking peoples' asses when their unprepared so I kept my eye on her. It was a little bit being back in Nature's Classroom or W. Alton Jones, but with a significantly older student.
I took some photos on the way back down, the fog had finally lifted. There hadn't really been a view on top, just a television station tower and some funny ladies dancing. On the way down, we ran into one of Zhang's friends who happenned to know about a Miao village that was on the mountain. We decided to eat lunch there.
Picture this: a small Asian village right out of a post card, but don't forget about the big basket ball court that's smack in the middle of it. We entered the village and walked into a small room that seemed like it was a room in someone's house. We met two more people there. One of them was a random man who was never introduced to me and I didn't bother to introduce myself because that would've required going within 5 feet of him. He smelled like a mix of hot tar, fish, and 10,000 year old sweat. Best description I can give. The other person was a Miao woman who was clearly the cook.
Now I find myself in a room full of people that I have difficulty communicating and some who really don't seem to want to communicatewith me. I'm told that I was an important guest there and yet I kind of got the feeling that it leaned toward sideshow freak at some times and not so much important guest. Everybody's chatting away in speedy Chinese and it dawned on me that even though this was an interesting experience, I didn't really care for the people around me. Other than Ms. Fu, I really had no interest in knowing these loud people were mispronouncing my name (either Robaht or Roberta) in their sentences and then not bothering to tell me what they were saying about me. Ms. Fu translated once in a while and I appreciated that, but I mentally tuned myself out after a little while. I started thinking, "I could've gone back to the university today. Could've had lunch with Tan Yen and met some more college kids." But, I was in a Miao village and that was pretty cool, so I tried to dwell on that thought.
I spent most of my time there watching the two funny dogs that kept wandering in and out of the house. I liked the dogs more than the majority of the people there. We were eating in the common public Chinese style, which puts everybody circled around one table with a bunch of different dishes on it. You reach onto the table with your chopsticks and grab what you want. I've always had very unsteady hands, so this kind of eating makes my hand tremor very obvious when I have to reach for my food. It's usually not a big deal. I'm fully capable of using chopsticks, it's just not pretty when I do. But sometimes, I think it gives people an impression of weakness or nervousness and when you can't communicate with the people around you how do you tell them what the situation really is?
Hospitality in China is funny to me. At the dinner table, I mean. It's very common for a person to pick up food from the serving bowl and drop into my bowl, whether I ask for it or not. This is a way of treating me like a guest and introducing me to new foods, I understand that. But, I'm a temperamental American and sometimes I can't help but thinking things like, "Get your damn chopsticks away from bowl." Or ,"Did you think I was lying when I said I wasn't hungry anymore? Stop giving me food that I never asked for!" And of course, Dum Dum Dum, baiju. It's the most revolting form of rice wine I've ever had and I'm a man who has experienced Sake in Japan (ok) and Souju in South Korea (yuck). People shove baiju at me every time there's some kind of public meal. I hate the stuff, but of course, the important guest/ sideshow freak has to drink it. To refuse is to insult to person in their home. I drank this crap until I discovered that the house also had beer. I've on decent terms with Chinese beer so I opted for that instead. But this particular brew was, seriously, a lot closer to seltzer water than anything I'd call beer. It was still better than the baiju, but yuck.
So now I'm in a situation in which people keep toasting, over and over again. I've got one drink that sucks and one that sucks even more. Sudennly Ms. Fu translates for me that the men are worried that I will not be able to finish my bottle of beer. I'm not sure, but I've gotten the impression that you're somehow considered unmanly here if you don't finish your whole beer. How do explain that the reason you haven't fisnihed the entire bottle has nothing to do with your worth as a man and only the fact that the beer is awful? Fortunately, I didn't give a rat's ass what these men considered manly, so I called it quits on both the beer and the baiju.
We left the village and it was beautiful and sunny outside. I took a few photos and promised myself that I'd return to Shaogaoshan, alone. We caught a bus and while we were on it Ms. Fu told me that she was getting off at a market and Zhang would go with me. It wasn't until after she left the bus that I realized what this meant. This guy Zhang was supposed to babysit the helpless American who couldn't possibly find his way around this tiny city without a chaperone. I had had enough bullshit for one day, so I slipped off of the bus at an easily recognizable landmark and decided to walk home. The plan was to slip out when Zhang was trapped in the throng of people on the bus. I didn't really care for the guy anyway, so there was no guilt when I just hopped off the bus without saying goodbye.
Since coming to China, there have been two times when I'd say that I have officially lost my temper. One of them was in my fourth week here. The other was yesterday.
One day Henry took myself, Dave, and Lucia to buy bikes. This man just complicates everything and what should have been a one hour excursion of choose your bike and ride it home turned into a three hour ordeal of ,"Yes, Rucia. This is same bike you want." Lucia: "No, Henry. Look at the picture. It's not even the same model." Henry: "But Rucia..." You get the picture. So by the time we returned to the school I was in no mood to put up with any bullshit. I went to lock up my bike. I remembered that I used to lock up my old bike with a chain lock that would weave through the bike's frame as well as the tire, so I tried to do that. The chain lock was very short so it proved to be a hassle. Without a word, Henry reaches over and grabs the chain lock out of my hand. I couldn't of stopped myself if I'd tried. I said, "Let go!" In a voice that told Henry I was in the mood to tear out his throat. He backed off, looking like a deer in headlights. That made some sadistic part of my mind very happy.
Yesterday, I left the bus to escape my unecessary and unwanted babysitter, Zhang. I went walking down a road I knew and turned right to check out an interesting place called, The Miao Theme Hotel. It was nice. Lots of great carvings. I was admiring the artwork, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I knew who it was before I turned. There was Zhang. Immediately, I knew what had happenned after I left the bus. This son of a bitch had pushed his way out of the crowded bus, onto the sidewalk, and chased me down, because his hubby Ms. Fu thought I needed a babysitter. Never mind that the fact that I've been here 3 months and this is a small city. Never mind the fact that I'm a 33 year old man. Never mind the fact that I have already done a significant amount of traveling on my own. Zhang asked me, "What are you doing?" I launched a therapeautic, "I'M WALKING!" at him and walked away at a pace that obviously said, 'Don't follow me.'
I suppose I've been dwelling quite a bit on the negative in this blog, but this is the stuff I needed to write, if only for my own peace of mind. The good and bad really come entwined over here and I have no idea how to seperate them.
By the way, my Chinese name is Yangshan. The name was given to me by Henry, of all people. We had been having lunch with the Yang family who kindly lent me the use of their last name. Then Henry told them about how much I love to talk about the mountains near Kaili. The word for mountain is, shan. So: Yangshan. Yang Mountain, that's my name.
The mountain we climbed yesterday was called Shaogaoshan, Little High Mountain. It's a decent size and I've been mentally referring to it as the Kaili version of Mount Monadnock. But sometimes I think that if China were a pitcher it would throw nothing but curveballs. I knew something would be off when we climbed the mountain, I just didn't know what it would be. I get that feeling a lot over here. That feeling that tells me, "Things are not going to turn out the way you would usually think they would, Rob. There will be something strange or skewed about what happens." Shaogaoshan was yet another mountain with a stone staircase going all the way up and down it. It's a gorgeous place, but where I come from MOUNTAINS DON'T HAVE STAIRS!
Anyway, it was a pretty climb as well as pretty foggy climb. There was a restaraunt about one third of the way up and I tried some Chinese porridge, basically chicken and rice soup. After a while, we returned to climbing and I started to worry about Ms. Fu. She hadn't eaten anything, hadn't drunk any water, and really did not seem to be in climbing shape. It was almost like being back in my Environmental Education job again. I would offer her water, she's say no. I'd ask her if she wanted to rest, and of course, she'd say no. Maybe she was embarassed, but mountains have a way of kicking peoples' asses when their unprepared so I kept my eye on her. It was a little bit being back in Nature's Classroom or W. Alton Jones, but with a significantly older student.
I took some photos on the way back down, the fog had finally lifted. There hadn't really been a view on top, just a television station tower and some funny ladies dancing. On the way down, we ran into one of Zhang's friends who happenned to know about a Miao village that was on the mountain. We decided to eat lunch there.
Picture this: a small Asian village right out of a post card, but don't forget about the big basket ball court that's smack in the middle of it. We entered the village and walked into a small room that seemed like it was a room in someone's house. We met two more people there. One of them was a random man who was never introduced to me and I didn't bother to introduce myself because that would've required going within 5 feet of him. He smelled like a mix of hot tar, fish, and 10,000 year old sweat. Best description I can give. The other person was a Miao woman who was clearly the cook.
Now I find myself in a room full of people that I have difficulty communicating and some who really don't seem to want to communicatewith me. I'm told that I was an important guest there and yet I kind of got the feeling that it leaned toward sideshow freak at some times and not so much important guest. Everybody's chatting away in speedy Chinese and it dawned on me that even though this was an interesting experience, I didn't really care for the people around me. Other than Ms. Fu, I really had no interest in knowing these loud people were mispronouncing my name (either Robaht or Roberta) in their sentences and then not bothering to tell me what they were saying about me. Ms. Fu translated once in a while and I appreciated that, but I mentally tuned myself out after a little while. I started thinking, "I could've gone back to the university today. Could've had lunch with Tan Yen and met some more college kids." But, I was in a Miao village and that was pretty cool, so I tried to dwell on that thought.
I spent most of my time there watching the two funny dogs that kept wandering in and out of the house. I liked the dogs more than the majority of the people there. We were eating in the common public Chinese style, which puts everybody circled around one table with a bunch of different dishes on it. You reach onto the table with your chopsticks and grab what you want. I've always had very unsteady hands, so this kind of eating makes my hand tremor very obvious when I have to reach for my food. It's usually not a big deal. I'm fully capable of using chopsticks, it's just not pretty when I do. But sometimes, I think it gives people an impression of weakness or nervousness and when you can't communicate with the people around you how do you tell them what the situation really is?
Hospitality in China is funny to me. At the dinner table, I mean. It's very common for a person to pick up food from the serving bowl and drop into my bowl, whether I ask for it or not. This is a way of treating me like a guest and introducing me to new foods, I understand that. But, I'm a temperamental American and sometimes I can't help but thinking things like, "Get your damn chopsticks away from bowl." Or ,"Did you think I was lying when I said I wasn't hungry anymore? Stop giving me food that I never asked for!" And of course, Dum Dum Dum, baiju. It's the most revolting form of rice wine I've ever had and I'm a man who has experienced Sake in Japan (ok) and Souju in South Korea (yuck). People shove baiju at me every time there's some kind of public meal. I hate the stuff, but of course, the important guest/ sideshow freak has to drink it. To refuse is to insult to person in their home. I drank this crap until I discovered that the house also had beer. I've on decent terms with Chinese beer so I opted for that instead. But this particular brew was, seriously, a lot closer to seltzer water than anything I'd call beer. It was still better than the baiju, but yuck.
So now I'm in a situation in which people keep toasting, over and over again. I've got one drink that sucks and one that sucks even more. Sudennly Ms. Fu translates for me that the men are worried that I will not be able to finish my bottle of beer. I'm not sure, but I've gotten the impression that you're somehow considered unmanly here if you don't finish your whole beer. How do explain that the reason you haven't fisnihed the entire bottle has nothing to do with your worth as a man and only the fact that the beer is awful? Fortunately, I didn't give a rat's ass what these men considered manly, so I called it quits on both the beer and the baiju.
We left the village and it was beautiful and sunny outside. I took a few photos and promised myself that I'd return to Shaogaoshan, alone. We caught a bus and while we were on it Ms. Fu told me that she was getting off at a market and Zhang would go with me. It wasn't until after she left the bus that I realized what this meant. This guy Zhang was supposed to babysit the helpless American who couldn't possibly find his way around this tiny city without a chaperone. I had had enough bullshit for one day, so I slipped off of the bus at an easily recognizable landmark and decided to walk home. The plan was to slip out when Zhang was trapped in the throng of people on the bus. I didn't really care for the guy anyway, so there was no guilt when I just hopped off the bus without saying goodbye.
Since coming to China, there have been two times when I'd say that I have officially lost my temper. One of them was in my fourth week here. The other was yesterday.
One day Henry took myself, Dave, and Lucia to buy bikes. This man just complicates everything and what should have been a one hour excursion of choose your bike and ride it home turned into a three hour ordeal of ,"Yes, Rucia. This is same bike you want." Lucia: "No, Henry. Look at the picture. It's not even the same model." Henry: "But Rucia..." You get the picture. So by the time we returned to the school I was in no mood to put up with any bullshit. I went to lock up my bike. I remembered that I used to lock up my old bike with a chain lock that would weave through the bike's frame as well as the tire, so I tried to do that. The chain lock was very short so it proved to be a hassle. Without a word, Henry reaches over and grabs the chain lock out of my hand. I couldn't of stopped myself if I'd tried. I said, "Let go!" In a voice that told Henry I was in the mood to tear out his throat. He backed off, looking like a deer in headlights. That made some sadistic part of my mind very happy.
Yesterday, I left the bus to escape my unecessary and unwanted babysitter, Zhang. I went walking down a road I knew and turned right to check out an interesting place called, The Miao Theme Hotel. It was nice. Lots of great carvings. I was admiring the artwork, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I knew who it was before I turned. There was Zhang. Immediately, I knew what had happenned after I left the bus. This son of a bitch had pushed his way out of the crowded bus, onto the sidewalk, and chased me down, because his hubby Ms. Fu thought I needed a babysitter. Never mind that the fact that I've been here 3 months and this is a small city. Never mind the fact that I'm a 33 year old man. Never mind the fact that I have already done a significant amount of traveling on my own. Zhang asked me, "What are you doing?" I launched a therapeautic, "I'M WALKING!" at him and walked away at a pace that obviously said, 'Don't follow me.'
I suppose I've been dwelling quite a bit on the negative in this blog, but this is the stuff I needed to write, if only for my own peace of mind. The good and bad really come entwined over here and I have no idea how to seperate them.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Nanchang & Stuff
I recently had 9 days off, so naturally I wasted two of those days doing absolutely nothing, then I went to see my friend in Nanchang. I saw my friend Amanda at her teaching post, Jiangxi Normal University. If there's an "Abnormal" university then I have no idea where it is. Anyways, I spent about three days there and it was pretty cool.
It was a big university, well outside of the main city. I often commented to people there that the entire downtown area of Kaili could fit into the university campus and that was not an exaggeration. This school was kind of like a town all its own. There were many other foreign teachers over there and it was great to have some other, not-so-Chinese, folks to hang out with. But my favorite thing about my trip was simply having the chance to hang out with the college kids. My middle school students are great, but there was a fun dynamic with the Jiangxi University kids that just isn't present with the younger kids. And plus, you can't drink with middle school kids. Speaking of drinking, hehehe, yeah. It happenned. Somebody managed to find Johnnie Walker in China and we downed about 5,000 bottles of it in a Nanchang bar. I met my future wife there. In other words, a very very inebriated college girl surprise-attack kissed me. It was nice, just a bit shocking. And I can't forget about the next day when we got pizza. That's right, I ate pizza! Very small pizza, but it qualified. The first thing I told Amanda when I arrived in Nanchang was, "You're not in China. You're in Chinatown." I said that because I'd been amazed by all the McDonalds and KFCs and WalMarts, and all the western things I'd seen on my way there. Kaili has none of that stuff. But Nanchang had Pizza Hut. Gotta love the Hut.
Murphy's Law was waiting for me as soon as I had the silly idea of returning to Kaili. I had problems with the bus, problems with the plane, problems with the other bus. If I could kill the Nanchang-Guiyang public transportation system, I would stab it and then twist the knife, but only after I doused the blade with rat poison.
Since my return, things have been pretty smooth here in Kaili. The big issue right now is heat. These apartments are not only completely lacking heat, they actually seem to trap cold within their walls. It's often warmer outside than inside my apartment. It's good to be a New Hampshire boy on cold nights here, because I'm naturally built for the cold, but I did get myself a little room heater to help out. I've mentioned to my boss that I need a "real" heater, because I only expect it to get colder as winter comes in. Let's see how many months it takes my boss get to moving on that. I'll probably have to blatantly "remind" her, but if I do I think I'll actually get the heater. My coworker, Dave (the Irishman), is skinny as a rail and has already gotten very sick from the cold apartments here. I've been ok so far, but I don't plan to take any chances.
I came back from Nanchang with two specific goals in mind. 1. Make friends with university students. 2. Explore the nearby city of Guiyang and try to find some other foreigners there. Before my trip to Nanchang, I had just discovered the Kaili University. It's a nice school, if a bit small. I went there today and made myself two new friends within five minutes. Not bad, eh. So, the college friend buddy making plan is in effect right now and I'll put the foreigner finding plan into action as soon as I have an idea about where to look for round-eyes in Guiyang.
Today was kind of a crazy day. I got a call last night from a man named Mr. Yang. Yang is like Smith over. Everybody and their mother is named Yang. In other words, I had no idea who this guy was. He invited me a nearby city and did not tell me why. I said no while I wondered how the hell he got my number. I told him that I was going to the university today. He asked me who I was going with. I said ,"Tan Yen." Then he told me he would call, Tan Yen. Either he didn't understand what I'd said or he was outright ignoring it. Again, I said that I was going to university and told him that was no reason for him to bother Tan Yen. He sounded dissappointed and hung. I wondered what the fuck had just happenned. Later, Tan Yen called me and said that this mysterious Mr. Yang had called her and asked her to cancel her university trip with me. She asked me if I wanted to go with Mr. Yang instead, but I told her that I didn't even know the guy. Mr. Yang called me again this morning, right after I woke up. He asked to change my plans today. I said ,"No" as solidly as I could without putting any vehemence in it. I eventually found out that the mysterious Mr. Yang was one of the English teachers here at the school and that I'd given him my number at a teacher's dinner last month. The word "friend" gets tossed around a lot over here. I met this man once for a short period of time, was stupid enough to give him my phone number and now he thinks that we're such great "friends" that I couldn't possibly want to do anything other than go to some random town with him. Sometimes I get extremely fed up with people trying to make my weekend schedule for me without even considering the possibility that I might NOT want to do what they have in mind.
Around 5 today, I got a call from a person I actually did know. Ms. Cheng. Most of the time, she's just kind of a funny little chatterbox, but this phone call was just crazy: "Robert, are you home? We go to dinner now."
Me: "I'm not hungry. I just ate."
Cheng: "Ok. We go. I meet you at the school gate."
Me: "No, Miss Cheng, I'm not hungry. I already ate dinner."
Cheng: "Yes. Now. Now. Now."
Me: "Ms. Cheng." (starting to boil)
Cheng: "Oh. You ate...." (it finally dawns on her.)
This is another example of the way in which people around here sometimes try to shove their events in my face without even considering the possibility of my saying no. They simply don't offer a choice, so I interject my own. There's a big difference between being flexible and open to culture and letting people boss you around and walk all over you. Guess what Ms. Cheng, if the American doesn't want to go to dinner with you and your friends ,"Now. Now. Now." he's not going to fucking go! Crazy!
Ms. Fu said that she's going to take me to a mountain to go climbing tomorrow. I'm somewhat excited, but my expectations are not high. The last "mountain" that my friends took me to "climb" around here had stairs all the way up and down. I expect to see a great view on the summit tomorrow but I also expect to be somehow unsatisfied by the climb. I've been spoiled by the Appalachians. We're leaving early tomorrow, which may be a good sign or may be no sign at all, so I'm going to bed. Good night.
It was a big university, well outside of the main city. I often commented to people there that the entire downtown area of Kaili could fit into the university campus and that was not an exaggeration. This school was kind of like a town all its own. There were many other foreign teachers over there and it was great to have some other, not-so-Chinese, folks to hang out with. But my favorite thing about my trip was simply having the chance to hang out with the college kids. My middle school students are great, but there was a fun dynamic with the Jiangxi University kids that just isn't present with the younger kids. And plus, you can't drink with middle school kids. Speaking of drinking, hehehe, yeah. It happenned. Somebody managed to find Johnnie Walker in China and we downed about 5,000 bottles of it in a Nanchang bar. I met my future wife there. In other words, a very very inebriated college girl surprise-attack kissed me. It was nice, just a bit shocking. And I can't forget about the next day when we got pizza. That's right, I ate pizza! Very small pizza, but it qualified. The first thing I told Amanda when I arrived in Nanchang was, "You're not in China. You're in Chinatown." I said that because I'd been amazed by all the McDonalds and KFCs and WalMarts, and all the western things I'd seen on my way there. Kaili has none of that stuff. But Nanchang had Pizza Hut. Gotta love the Hut.
Murphy's Law was waiting for me as soon as I had the silly idea of returning to Kaili. I had problems with the bus, problems with the plane, problems with the other bus. If I could kill the Nanchang-Guiyang public transportation system, I would stab it and then twist the knife, but only after I doused the blade with rat poison.
Since my return, things have been pretty smooth here in Kaili. The big issue right now is heat. These apartments are not only completely lacking heat, they actually seem to trap cold within their walls. It's often warmer outside than inside my apartment. It's good to be a New Hampshire boy on cold nights here, because I'm naturally built for the cold, but I did get myself a little room heater to help out. I've mentioned to my boss that I need a "real" heater, because I only expect it to get colder as winter comes in. Let's see how many months it takes my boss get to moving on that. I'll probably have to blatantly "remind" her, but if I do I think I'll actually get the heater. My coworker, Dave (the Irishman), is skinny as a rail and has already gotten very sick from the cold apartments here. I've been ok so far, but I don't plan to take any chances.
I came back from Nanchang with two specific goals in mind. 1. Make friends with university students. 2. Explore the nearby city of Guiyang and try to find some other foreigners there. Before my trip to Nanchang, I had just discovered the Kaili University. It's a nice school, if a bit small. I went there today and made myself two new friends within five minutes. Not bad, eh. So, the college friend buddy making plan is in effect right now and I'll put the foreigner finding plan into action as soon as I have an idea about where to look for round-eyes in Guiyang.
Today was kind of a crazy day. I got a call last night from a man named Mr. Yang. Yang is like Smith over. Everybody and their mother is named Yang. In other words, I had no idea who this guy was. He invited me a nearby city and did not tell me why. I said no while I wondered how the hell he got my number. I told him that I was going to the university today. He asked me who I was going with. I said ,"Tan Yen." Then he told me he would call, Tan Yen. Either he didn't understand what I'd said or he was outright ignoring it. Again, I said that I was going to university and told him that was no reason for him to bother Tan Yen. He sounded dissappointed and hung. I wondered what the fuck had just happenned. Later, Tan Yen called me and said that this mysterious Mr. Yang had called her and asked her to cancel her university trip with me. She asked me if I wanted to go with Mr. Yang instead, but I told her that I didn't even know the guy. Mr. Yang called me again this morning, right after I woke up. He asked to change my plans today. I said ,"No" as solidly as I could without putting any vehemence in it. I eventually found out that the mysterious Mr. Yang was one of the English teachers here at the school and that I'd given him my number at a teacher's dinner last month. The word "friend" gets tossed around a lot over here. I met this man once for a short period of time, was stupid enough to give him my phone number and now he thinks that we're such great "friends" that I couldn't possibly want to do anything other than go to some random town with him. Sometimes I get extremely fed up with people trying to make my weekend schedule for me without even considering the possibility that I might NOT want to do what they have in mind.
Around 5 today, I got a call from a person I actually did know. Ms. Cheng. Most of the time, she's just kind of a funny little chatterbox, but this phone call was just crazy: "Robert, are you home? We go to dinner now."
Me: "I'm not hungry. I just ate."
Cheng: "Ok. We go. I meet you at the school gate."
Me: "No, Miss Cheng, I'm not hungry. I already ate dinner."
Cheng: "Yes. Now. Now. Now."
Me: "Ms. Cheng." (starting to boil)
Cheng: "Oh. You ate...." (it finally dawns on her.)
This is another example of the way in which people around here sometimes try to shove their events in my face without even considering the possibility of my saying no. They simply don't offer a choice, so I interject my own. There's a big difference between being flexible and open to culture and letting people boss you around and walk all over you. Guess what Ms. Cheng, if the American doesn't want to go to dinner with you and your friends ,"Now. Now. Now." he's not going to fucking go! Crazy!
Ms. Fu said that she's going to take me to a mountain to go climbing tomorrow. I'm somewhat excited, but my expectations are not high. The last "mountain" that my friends took me to "climb" around here had stairs all the way up and down. I expect to see a great view on the summit tomorrow but I also expect to be somehow unsatisfied by the climb. I've been spoiled by the Appalachians. We're leaving early tomorrow, which may be a good sign or may be no sign at all, so I'm going to bed. Good night.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Halloween
No costumes today. No kids coming to the door saying "Trick or Treat." Homesickness likes to creep up on me once in a while. Fall is my favorite time of year back in New England and the hardest time to 'not be there', in New England, in the USA, is right about now. The funny thing is that China has so many great qualities to it that homesickness never really sticks around too long. It doesn't seem to be capable of anything more than the occassional bother. My friends, primarily Liana (who I've finally discovered is actually named Jiao Wun Wun), Tan Yen, and Long Tso, are a constant reminder that I'm in the place that they're from and since they are fascinating people it follows that their homeland is also fascinating. Another reminder is the mountains right outside of town. They're like no other mountains I've ever seen and a simple look at them makes homesickness take a backseat for a while. I expect Christmas to be even tougher than this, but something tells me I can deal with that when it comes. I didn't come to China to whine about how much I miss pizza and blonde girls. I'll head back to the states someday. The big question in my mind right now is, "Will I want to stay there when I do return?" The honest answer is, "I don't know."
China has an amazing ability to piss me off one second and then make me smile the next. People I don't know ask me for my phone number and it becomes annoying. Little kids wave at me and it makes me laugh. Kids are shocked when they find out that I'm not very good at basketball. Adults seem impressed when I say that I'm not cold in this weather. I see homeless animals all over and it makes me angry. People want to meet me just because I'm white and it's a good/bad experience depending on my current mood.
I'm planning a trip. My class schedule seems to be in a constant state of change, it just won't sit still. One week I'll be working my full contract load of classes and then all of a sudden, like this week, my boss will tell me I have 7 days off. I might head to the city of Nanchang to see a friend or I might head to Changsha. It's high time that I explore more than just Kaili. Xijiang and Zenhyuan were nice cities but I didn't spend too much time in either one. So, my current goal is to get my ass out and about so I can really see the country. Maybe I'll avoid the tourist traps. Maybe I won't even bother with things like the Great Wall or the Terra Cotta warriors. Maybe I'll just go where the locals go. Go to the places that small town NH boys never hear about.
A few comments on my schedule. It changes every few weeks and I can't get a straight answer as to why this happens. Mistakes are a regular thing when it comes to schedule making and it's honestly not my fault. I don't make my own schecdule. I receive schedules from Henry and Ms. Fu. I find, all too often, that some kind of unexplained change has happenned. A class has been moved to a new time or a new day and it sure as hell wasn't on the slip of paper that was given to me. Or maybe Ms. Fu said that I did not have class on Wednsday when she actually meant that I did have class on Wednsday. Stuff like that. My work schedule is actually pretty easy but all the changes and the lack of people informing me about the changes can be pretty damn aggravating sometimes. However, I worked a lot harder than this back in the states and that helps to keep it all in perpective. As long my pay continues to arrive in full and on time, I can deal with nonsense like that.
Language. Chinese is hard and the fact that Kaili really doesn't have any classes for foreigners who want to learn Chinese makes it even harder. And although I don't have a 'real' teacher, I do have three good Chinese friends who take it upon themselves to help me learn whenever they can. I think I'm at a level where my Chinese is just basic enough that I can feel relatively comfortable taking a solo trip to just about anywhere in the country in order to mispronounce the names of food in a restaraunt or stare in blank ignorance of the question that the lady at the train station asks me. In other words, I expect plenty of errors, misunderstandings, and complications but I expect to find ways of working out those errors, misunderstandings, and complications.
Happy Halloween! My night will include a half-full bag of peppermint patties, thanks Heather, and possibly a dinner with Dave and Lucia. Most of my other friends are currently out of town for work, so it's possible that tonight will end up being a bit more quiet than I'd like for Halloween. But, I don't intend to let things stay that way. I intend to plan my trip. I intend to explore. Maybe tonight will turn out to be quiet but tomorrow won't.
China has an amazing ability to piss me off one second and then make me smile the next. People I don't know ask me for my phone number and it becomes annoying. Little kids wave at me and it makes me laugh. Kids are shocked when they find out that I'm not very good at basketball. Adults seem impressed when I say that I'm not cold in this weather. I see homeless animals all over and it makes me angry. People want to meet me just because I'm white and it's a good/bad experience depending on my current mood.
I'm planning a trip. My class schedule seems to be in a constant state of change, it just won't sit still. One week I'll be working my full contract load of classes and then all of a sudden, like this week, my boss will tell me I have 7 days off. I might head to the city of Nanchang to see a friend or I might head to Changsha. It's high time that I explore more than just Kaili. Xijiang and Zenhyuan were nice cities but I didn't spend too much time in either one. So, my current goal is to get my ass out and about so I can really see the country. Maybe I'll avoid the tourist traps. Maybe I won't even bother with things like the Great Wall or the Terra Cotta warriors. Maybe I'll just go where the locals go. Go to the places that small town NH boys never hear about.
A few comments on my schedule. It changes every few weeks and I can't get a straight answer as to why this happens. Mistakes are a regular thing when it comes to schedule making and it's honestly not my fault. I don't make my own schecdule. I receive schedules from Henry and Ms. Fu. I find, all too often, that some kind of unexplained change has happenned. A class has been moved to a new time or a new day and it sure as hell wasn't on the slip of paper that was given to me. Or maybe Ms. Fu said that I did not have class on Wednsday when she actually meant that I did have class on Wednsday. Stuff like that. My work schedule is actually pretty easy but all the changes and the lack of people informing me about the changes can be pretty damn aggravating sometimes. However, I worked a lot harder than this back in the states and that helps to keep it all in perpective. As long my pay continues to arrive in full and on time, I can deal with nonsense like that.
Language. Chinese is hard and the fact that Kaili really doesn't have any classes for foreigners who want to learn Chinese makes it even harder. And although I don't have a 'real' teacher, I do have three good Chinese friends who take it upon themselves to help me learn whenever they can. I think I'm at a level where my Chinese is just basic enough that I can feel relatively comfortable taking a solo trip to just about anywhere in the country in order to mispronounce the names of food in a restaraunt or stare in blank ignorance of the question that the lady at the train station asks me. In other words, I expect plenty of errors, misunderstandings, and complications but I expect to find ways of working out those errors, misunderstandings, and complications.
Happy Halloween! My night will include a half-full bag of peppermint patties, thanks Heather, and possibly a dinner with Dave and Lucia. Most of my other friends are currently out of town for work, so it's possible that tonight will end up being a bit more quiet than I'd like for Halloween. But, I don't intend to let things stay that way. I intend to plan my trip. I intend to explore. Maybe tonight will turn out to be quiet but tomorrow won't.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Cast of Characters
I want to focus this blog on the "characters" in my regular everyday life here. I use the term "character" loosely because I'm using it as a term for, people, animals, and the city of Kaili.
Kaili itself is a small city, however there are a lot of people in it. It's pretty small by Chinese standards, but there are times when it feels very crowded to me. I had expected something smaller, probably because it had been described to me as a small town. I've spent a lot of time in small towns. I know what small towns are. This is no small town. Kaili is a small city. There are plenty of buildings, markets, shops, stores, restaraunts, and conveniences, nearby. This is not a cowtown, but a short walk south, west, or north, makes you forget that there is any sizeable town in the area. Out there it all becomes mountainous farmland and small houses with rice paddies behind them. Some of the best moments I've had in this city are the ones where I'm simply walking and looking at the world around me. Overall, I'm happy with my placement here. A larger city would've probably driven me crazy by now. There is almost nothing western in Kaili. I've found some Dove chocolate and there's a buffet restaraunt that serves what the menu refers to as pizza. The menu calls it "pizza" but I don't. I'm still getting use to life here but it has enough good parts to make life pretty good.
Now the people. I'll start at the bottom:
The bottom is named Henry. Many Chinese people introduce themselves to me by English names. Sometimes that can be a problem when I don't know a person's "real" name, so I try to encourage people to tell me their Chinese names. Mr. Tang introduced himself as Henry and, for some reason, will not tell me his Chinese name. Henry is not a bad man. He's a relatively nice person, but if you've ever worked with a cowrorker who is completely incompetent and a terrible communicator then you've worked with a Henry. Most of the major problems and inconveniences that have befallen me since coming to Kaili can be traced back to Henry. I'm not blaming him for every problem, that wouldn't be fair. But, I can blame him for a lot. There have been too many times where he would simply refuse to answer my questions, not give me necessary information, or not give me the information until 2 seconds before I need it. I do not think the problem is the language barrier. I think it's Henry's poor work ethics. If he didn't have a wife and kids, I might complain to the boss. So would Dave (I'll mention him soon). Henry causes a lot of problems but I still don't "hate" the guy. I don't want him to be fired. I just can't stand being around him. Yeah, I know. Sometimes I can be a real jerk.
King. I wrote about him in my previous blog. He was the guy I met during the debacle that I think of as "The Great Pig Dick Incident of 2010." I refer to him as my "friend." Quotation marks are necessary. I don't do this because of what I ate. I simply don't consider him a real friend because I barely know him. I met him once and we kind of got along but he kept putting his arm around me, I told him to stop doing that, then he proceeded to get drunk and do it again. I played the role of the friendly foreigner who just went along with everything. Drink baiju? Sure. It tastes like ass but ok. More chicken. Sure. Don't mind the fact that I just told you that I'm full and I know you understood me. I know. I can be a real jerk sometimes, but I just don't want to be friends with people who annoy me. I better move on to people I actually like.
Long Tso. This is my friend from Zenhyuan. I spent 2 days in his hometown. He's good guy and loves to talk. It doesn't matter whether he's speaking English, Mandarin, or Miao. He never shuts up. It's mildly annoying but it's also a topic of funny conversations between myself and Long Tso's other friends. He's going to go study in England soon, which is a bummer for me. My friend is leaving, but he loves it over there and I hope he has a good time.
Ms. Fu. This is my boss. She always has a rather bassett houndish look on her face. Droopy and sad. I consider myself lucky to have her as a boss, because although there have been a few miscommunications between us and despite the fact that the language barrier rears its ugly head in many of our conversations, I find that she makes efforts to communicate well with me (unlike like some people who's names I won't mention. Cough *Henry*). Ms. Fu really seems to happy with my work and I'm very glad to see that, not just because it means I can keep my job but just because she's a nice lady.
Dave and Lucia. They are my two fellow expatriot teachers here in Kaili. Many times, it seems like we're the only foreigners in this entire city. Dave and Lucia are a married couple. He's Irish and she's Uruguayan. People always assume that we're all best buddies, but the fact is that we haven't really spent a lot of time together. But, we have hung out a few times and I get along with them very well. Dave and I currently on a mission to find dark beer in China and neither one of us has succeeded yet. I plan to spend more time with them in the future. It's nice to talk to people who are experiencing the same kinds of things that I am.
Liana. I don't know her Chinese name yet. Liana works in the school office but she doesn't work for the school. All I know is that she works for an organization that places her at the school, where she works to secure visas for Chinese students who go to study overseas. Part of her job is helping out the foreign teachers at the school with, whatever. That means she has been a major help to me, Dave, and Lucia. I consider Liana a good friend of mine. She's a nice lady and we've had coffee together a few times. Unfortunately, her job is such that she could potentially be shipped off to another school at a moment's notice. I'm trying not to think about the possiblity that I might have to say goodbye to another friend.
Wudan. I mentioned Wudan in my second blog. She was my first real Chinese friend. During my first two weeks here in Kail, Wudan was my helper, my Chinese teacher, and my friend. Her presence was absolutely invaluable to me. After two weeks, I learned that her boss had given her some of ridiculous ultimatum that she just couldn't accept. She had therefore quit her job. This meant that she had to leave her company apartment in Kaili and return home to Changshan. This sucked for me. Two weeks in Kaili and suddennly my best friend was leaving town. I keep in touch with Wudan and I hope to go see her someday. Liana is her replacement.
Tan Yen. Tan Yen is in my photos. There is a reason why I'm writing about her last. She's quite possibly my best friend here and we're kind of in the same situation. We both had to say goodbye our friend Wudan and we're both worried that our friends Long Tso and Liana might be leaving soon as well. Tan Yen and I stick together. She helps me with Chinese and I help her with English. She's the kind of person I want to hug every time I see her. This is not a romantic thing, she's just freakin' adorable that's all.
I'm done with people:
The dog. There's a dog that loves to follow me whenever I go to my apartment. It lives in my building, somewhere near Dave and Lucia. I'm glad the dog has a home but it's filthy and I admit that I'm afraid to pet it. But the dog is friendly I always get a kick out of it following me. The thing that bothers me the most about life here in Kaili is the number of homeless animals I see here. This dog seems to be doing relatively ok. I hope it stays that way.
Steve. Steve is a gecko that occassionally shares my apartment with me. I haven't seen him for a while but he used to show up a lot during the summer.The first time I saw him I kind of freaked out a little, but only a little. After all, he wasn't some kind of horror movie spider or brightly colored multi-fanged snake. He's just a gecko hanging out on the wall. I soon learned a little lesson in Chinese Apartment Ecology 101: The presence of a small gecko population can nearly eliminate the presence of any mosquito population in the immediate area. Steve and his brethren are welcome here any time.
So that's my "character" list for now. I'm going to go wander for a while.
Kaili itself is a small city, however there are a lot of people in it. It's pretty small by Chinese standards, but there are times when it feels very crowded to me. I had expected something smaller, probably because it had been described to me as a small town. I've spent a lot of time in small towns. I know what small towns are. This is no small town. Kaili is a small city. There are plenty of buildings, markets, shops, stores, restaraunts, and conveniences, nearby. This is not a cowtown, but a short walk south, west, or north, makes you forget that there is any sizeable town in the area. Out there it all becomes mountainous farmland and small houses with rice paddies behind them. Some of the best moments I've had in this city are the ones where I'm simply walking and looking at the world around me. Overall, I'm happy with my placement here. A larger city would've probably driven me crazy by now. There is almost nothing western in Kaili. I've found some Dove chocolate and there's a buffet restaraunt that serves what the menu refers to as pizza. The menu calls it "pizza" but I don't. I'm still getting use to life here but it has enough good parts to make life pretty good.
Now the people. I'll start at the bottom:
The bottom is named Henry. Many Chinese people introduce themselves to me by English names. Sometimes that can be a problem when I don't know a person's "real" name, so I try to encourage people to tell me their Chinese names. Mr. Tang introduced himself as Henry and, for some reason, will not tell me his Chinese name. Henry is not a bad man. He's a relatively nice person, but if you've ever worked with a cowrorker who is completely incompetent and a terrible communicator then you've worked with a Henry. Most of the major problems and inconveniences that have befallen me since coming to Kaili can be traced back to Henry. I'm not blaming him for every problem, that wouldn't be fair. But, I can blame him for a lot. There have been too many times where he would simply refuse to answer my questions, not give me necessary information, or not give me the information until 2 seconds before I need it. I do not think the problem is the language barrier. I think it's Henry's poor work ethics. If he didn't have a wife and kids, I might complain to the boss. So would Dave (I'll mention him soon). Henry causes a lot of problems but I still don't "hate" the guy. I don't want him to be fired. I just can't stand being around him. Yeah, I know. Sometimes I can be a real jerk.
King. I wrote about him in my previous blog. He was the guy I met during the debacle that I think of as "The Great Pig Dick Incident of 2010." I refer to him as my "friend." Quotation marks are necessary. I don't do this because of what I ate. I simply don't consider him a real friend because I barely know him. I met him once and we kind of got along but he kept putting his arm around me, I told him to stop doing that, then he proceeded to get drunk and do it again. I played the role of the friendly foreigner who just went along with everything. Drink baiju? Sure. It tastes like ass but ok. More chicken. Sure. Don't mind the fact that I just told you that I'm full and I know you understood me. I know. I can be a real jerk sometimes, but I just don't want to be friends with people who annoy me. I better move on to people I actually like.
Long Tso. This is my friend from Zenhyuan. I spent 2 days in his hometown. He's good guy and loves to talk. It doesn't matter whether he's speaking English, Mandarin, or Miao. He never shuts up. It's mildly annoying but it's also a topic of funny conversations between myself and Long Tso's other friends. He's going to go study in England soon, which is a bummer for me. My friend is leaving, but he loves it over there and I hope he has a good time.
Ms. Fu. This is my boss. She always has a rather bassett houndish look on her face. Droopy and sad. I consider myself lucky to have her as a boss, because although there have been a few miscommunications between us and despite the fact that the language barrier rears its ugly head in many of our conversations, I find that she makes efforts to communicate well with me (unlike like some people who's names I won't mention. Cough *Henry*). Ms. Fu really seems to happy with my work and I'm very glad to see that, not just because it means I can keep my job but just because she's a nice lady.
Dave and Lucia. They are my two fellow expatriot teachers here in Kaili. Many times, it seems like we're the only foreigners in this entire city. Dave and Lucia are a married couple. He's Irish and she's Uruguayan. People always assume that we're all best buddies, but the fact is that we haven't really spent a lot of time together. But, we have hung out a few times and I get along with them very well. Dave and I currently on a mission to find dark beer in China and neither one of us has succeeded yet. I plan to spend more time with them in the future. It's nice to talk to people who are experiencing the same kinds of things that I am.
Liana. I don't know her Chinese name yet. Liana works in the school office but she doesn't work for the school. All I know is that she works for an organization that places her at the school, where she works to secure visas for Chinese students who go to study overseas. Part of her job is helping out the foreign teachers at the school with, whatever. That means she has been a major help to me, Dave, and Lucia. I consider Liana a good friend of mine. She's a nice lady and we've had coffee together a few times. Unfortunately, her job is such that she could potentially be shipped off to another school at a moment's notice. I'm trying not to think about the possiblity that I might have to say goodbye to another friend.
Wudan. I mentioned Wudan in my second blog. She was my first real Chinese friend. During my first two weeks here in Kail, Wudan was my helper, my Chinese teacher, and my friend. Her presence was absolutely invaluable to me. After two weeks, I learned that her boss had given her some of ridiculous ultimatum that she just couldn't accept. She had therefore quit her job. This meant that she had to leave her company apartment in Kaili and return home to Changshan. This sucked for me. Two weeks in Kaili and suddennly my best friend was leaving town. I keep in touch with Wudan and I hope to go see her someday. Liana is her replacement.
Tan Yen. Tan Yen is in my photos. There is a reason why I'm writing about her last. She's quite possibly my best friend here and we're kind of in the same situation. We both had to say goodbye our friend Wudan and we're both worried that our friends Long Tso and Liana might be leaving soon as well. Tan Yen and I stick together. She helps me with Chinese and I help her with English. She's the kind of person I want to hug every time I see her. This is not a romantic thing, she's just freakin' adorable that's all.
I'm done with people:
The dog. There's a dog that loves to follow me whenever I go to my apartment. It lives in my building, somewhere near Dave and Lucia. I'm glad the dog has a home but it's filthy and I admit that I'm afraid to pet it. But the dog is friendly I always get a kick out of it following me. The thing that bothers me the most about life here in Kaili is the number of homeless animals I see here. This dog seems to be doing relatively ok. I hope it stays that way.
Steve. Steve is a gecko that occassionally shares my apartment with me. I haven't seen him for a while but he used to show up a lot during the summer.The first time I saw him I kind of freaked out a little, but only a little. After all, he wasn't some kind of horror movie spider or brightly colored multi-fanged snake. He's just a gecko hanging out on the wall. I soon learned a little lesson in Chinese Apartment Ecology 101: The presence of a small gecko population can nearly eliminate the presence of any mosquito population in the immediate area. Steve and his brethren are welcome here any time.
So that's my "character" list for now. I'm going to go wander for a while.
Poor old men, fake phone numbers, pig dick, e.g.
Stuff that happenned.
There was the day when I was crossing the street from the town market as an old man walked behind me. This city has ridiculous traffic and it seems that the only rule of the road is "If you're driving something that has wheels you can do any damn thing you want." So I guess the driver wasn't technically breaking any rules when he slammed into the old man with the car going close to 10mph. The old man rolled off the hood of the car and fell. There were many people watching and many others near the man, but I was the only one who made any immediate attempt to help the poor guy. I'm not trying to paint a picture of myself as better than the people who were around me. If anything, I was pissed off at the people around me. No one was doing anything. No one was trying to help. It made me angry. I offered the man my hand, hoping that he would understand what I was doing. He stared at me like I was some kind of old horror movie monster come to life. Finally, the driver came out of the car and helped the old man up. They were speaking Chinese and I couldn't understand a word. What else could I do? I backed off to the sidewalk and watched, very curiously, to see what would happen next. They talked. The old man seemed to assure the driver that he was ok. There was no exchange of addresses or phone numbers. No one called the cops or the ambulance. In the end, all that happenned was that the old man walked away and the driver got back in his car. This was my first week in Kaili. I thought "Where the fuck am I?"
As I was walking home, a car stopped beside me. A man I didn't recognize climbed out and walked over to me. He didn't speak English and my Chinese was about as minimal as minimal could be. He wanted something, some kind of information, but I had no idea what it was. After a few minutes of listening intently to his rapid fire speaking and trying out my vast arsenal of Chinese phrases (maybe 20 max.) I was finally able to understand the word "dien hwa." "Phone." He wanted my phone number. I'm not in the habit of giving my phone number to people I don't know even when I can communicate with them. On one hand, I knew that I didn't want to give him my number but on the other hand, I didn't want to be rude about it. I probably should've just told him I didn't understand and walked away, but I didn't. I thought about a college friend of mine. She was a beautiful girl who used to get hit on on a regular basis. I remember laughing one day when I realized that she had given an extra annoying guy a fake phone number. On this day, I stole her idea. I gave this strange man a fake phone number. Now some poor schmuck in Hunan is probably going to get a call from this random guy.
My "friend" King invited to me a restaraunt that served traditional Miao food. I was excited. I'm very interested in the fact that, in this part of China, I'm not just experiencing China but I'm actually experiencing Chinese ethnic minority culture. Many Chinese people don't even get a chance to try food like this. For the most part the food was good. There was a central pot on the middle of our round table. Two of my friends were with me and there was King and his friend. I reached into the pot and grabbed something that looked like a slim-jim. I remember it being very difficult to chew. When King told me what it was I thought he was joking. A few minutes later I thought, "Why would he be joking? I'm in China. This is Miao food. For all I know he was completely serious." He was. At this point, my stomach told me that I had two options: 1) spew it all back out over the floor regardless of whether or not I made it to the bathroom in time or 2) drown it. Chinese beer bottles are big and I drank mine like a fish. Other interesting food experiences I've had here have involved bee larvae and grasshoppers, but I knew what those were before eating them.
A girl who couldn't have been more than 12 years old or so walked up to me and said, in perfectly understandable English, "I want to sleep with you." The great thing about being a foreigner is that I can always use the old foreigner standby sentence. When you can't think of anything else to say or if you want to discourage a person from talking to you, you say, "I don't understand." That was all I could think of to say to her. The situation was too creepy for any other response. It worked and she left. I usually encourage these kids when they're speaking English, but not this time.
There's too much to write in one blog, too many crazy/interesting things that have happenned. I realize that quite a few of these anecdotes here are a bit on the negative side, but they're just things that have stuck out in my mind. There are good things too and I will write about them. Catching up on 2 months worth of cultural misunderstandings, language barrier problems, and crazy memories is not easy. I'll keep working on it.
There was the day when I was crossing the street from the town market as an old man walked behind me. This city has ridiculous traffic and it seems that the only rule of the road is "If you're driving something that has wheels you can do any damn thing you want." So I guess the driver wasn't technically breaking any rules when he slammed into the old man with the car going close to 10mph. The old man rolled off the hood of the car and fell. There were many people watching and many others near the man, but I was the only one who made any immediate attempt to help the poor guy. I'm not trying to paint a picture of myself as better than the people who were around me. If anything, I was pissed off at the people around me. No one was doing anything. No one was trying to help. It made me angry. I offered the man my hand, hoping that he would understand what I was doing. He stared at me like I was some kind of old horror movie monster come to life. Finally, the driver came out of the car and helped the old man up. They were speaking Chinese and I couldn't understand a word. What else could I do? I backed off to the sidewalk and watched, very curiously, to see what would happen next. They talked. The old man seemed to assure the driver that he was ok. There was no exchange of addresses or phone numbers. No one called the cops or the ambulance. In the end, all that happenned was that the old man walked away and the driver got back in his car. This was my first week in Kaili. I thought "Where the fuck am I?"
As I was walking home, a car stopped beside me. A man I didn't recognize climbed out and walked over to me. He didn't speak English and my Chinese was about as minimal as minimal could be. He wanted something, some kind of information, but I had no idea what it was. After a few minutes of listening intently to his rapid fire speaking and trying out my vast arsenal of Chinese phrases (maybe 20 max.) I was finally able to understand the word "dien hwa." "Phone." He wanted my phone number. I'm not in the habit of giving my phone number to people I don't know even when I can communicate with them. On one hand, I knew that I didn't want to give him my number but on the other hand, I didn't want to be rude about it. I probably should've just told him I didn't understand and walked away, but I didn't. I thought about a college friend of mine. She was a beautiful girl who used to get hit on on a regular basis. I remember laughing one day when I realized that she had given an extra annoying guy a fake phone number. On this day, I stole her idea. I gave this strange man a fake phone number. Now some poor schmuck in Hunan is probably going to get a call from this random guy.
My "friend" King invited to me a restaraunt that served traditional Miao food. I was excited. I'm very interested in the fact that, in this part of China, I'm not just experiencing China but I'm actually experiencing Chinese ethnic minority culture. Many Chinese people don't even get a chance to try food like this. For the most part the food was good. There was a central pot on the middle of our round table. Two of my friends were with me and there was King and his friend. I reached into the pot and grabbed something that looked like a slim-jim. I remember it being very difficult to chew. When King told me what it was I thought he was joking. A few minutes later I thought, "Why would he be joking? I'm in China. This is Miao food. For all I know he was completely serious." He was. At this point, my stomach told me that I had two options: 1) spew it all back out over the floor regardless of whether or not I made it to the bathroom in time or 2) drown it. Chinese beer bottles are big and I drank mine like a fish. Other interesting food experiences I've had here have involved bee larvae and grasshoppers, but I knew what those were before eating them.
A girl who couldn't have been more than 12 years old or so walked up to me and said, in perfectly understandable English, "I want to sleep with you." The great thing about being a foreigner is that I can always use the old foreigner standby sentence. When you can't think of anything else to say or if you want to discourage a person from talking to you, you say, "I don't understand." That was all I could think of to say to her. The situation was too creepy for any other response. It worked and she left. I usually encourage these kids when they're speaking English, but not this time.
There's too much to write in one blog, too many crazy/interesting things that have happenned. I realize that quite a few of these anecdotes here are a bit on the negative side, but they're just things that have stuck out in my mind. There are good things too and I will write about them. Catching up on 2 months worth of cultural misunderstandings, language barrier problems, and crazy memories is not easy. I'll keep working on it.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Still Random
So, Shanghai. I don't plan to spend much time writing about my experiences in Shanghai because, so far, it really seems to be the least relevant part of my travel here and I'm not a big city person anyway. And Shanghai is freakin' big!
There were approximately 30 of us in the training, mostly Americans, but not all. We had daily Chinese classes in the morning, plus discussions and lectures with experienced teachers in the afternoons. The training was laid back and helpful. We also got to travel around Shanghai and see touristy places such as The Expo and The Bund. The Expo was a kind of showcase for countries from all around the world. Each country had its own pavilion and inside the pavilions were pictures, films, artwork, whatever the people of that country had chosen to represent themselves with. The Czech pavilion was covered in hockey pucks. The Irish pavilion showed a lot of films of famous Irish actors and singers. Each pavilion was different. I found the idea of The Expo interesting, but honestly, I didn't like it. It was unbelievably crowded and hotter than hell that day.
Our trainers took us to some excellent Shanghai restaraunts and that was undoubtedly my favorite part of the training. I often say that I didn't like Shanghai, but if I have anything good to say about it, it's this, "Shanghai is full of great food."
So overall, the training orientation seemed like a mix of learning about what we were in store for and being a Shanghai tourist. My favorite part was meeting all the other people who, like me, had been crazy enough to come to China and try their hands at English as a Second Language teaching. I met a lot of really cool people, but we only had about 6 days together and it just seemed impossible to get to know everyone within that timeframe. I made a few close friends there and quite a few acquaintances, some of whom I'm still in touch with. I have, unfortunately, not been in contact with others. I'm working to change that.
While I was in Shanghai I remember feeling like I was in some kind of a Limbo. I certainly wasn't in the states, but I certainly wasn't in my small Chinese city in which I'd spend the next year. I'm glad that I've experienced Shanghai for a short time and maybe someday I'll write more about it, but now I want to leave Shanghai and move on to the city where I've begun to develop a nice little life for myself.
Kaili.
Kaili is too small to have an airport. The closest airport is in Guiyang which is the closest "big city." Pint sized compared to Shanghai. I got off the plane and was immediately greeted by a smiling Chinese girl with glasses. This was Wudan. She introduced herself by her English name, Tina, and then took me to the airport KFC. Yes, they have Kentucky Fried Chicken in China. At least, they have it in the "big cities." I reiterate, the first thing that happenned in Guiyang was that a pretty smiling girl bought me fried chicken. I was in a good mood.
The drive to Kaili took about 3 hours. Wudan's friends drove us there. I asked a few questions, but after a while it appeared obvious to me that she was tired. I found out later about her chaotic work schedule. She fell asleep and that was fine with me. I didn't need conversation. All I needed was to continue looking out the windows at the amazing mountainscapes outside. I'm from a mountainous state and I love mountains but these aint exactly the Appalachians. They have a whole different appearance to them. Not like any mountains I've seen before. The closest thing I can compare them to are the fjords of southern Norway, but they don't have the great outcrops of rocks that the fjords have and these mountains aren't as rounded off. Most of them are fairly small, heavily ferned and bushed, with very steep slopes. It' fairly common to see a rather impoverished looking house on the side or base of a mountain around here. And if you see the house there, look for the rice paddy. It's never far away.
So now I'm officially in Kaili. Good. I made it. Again. So I'll let the suspense build for a while and go watch TV. I'll write again soon. Good night.
There were approximately 30 of us in the training, mostly Americans, but not all. We had daily Chinese classes in the morning, plus discussions and lectures with experienced teachers in the afternoons. The training was laid back and helpful. We also got to travel around Shanghai and see touristy places such as The Expo and The Bund. The Expo was a kind of showcase for countries from all around the world. Each country had its own pavilion and inside the pavilions were pictures, films, artwork, whatever the people of that country had chosen to represent themselves with. The Czech pavilion was covered in hockey pucks. The Irish pavilion showed a lot of films of famous Irish actors and singers. Each pavilion was different. I found the idea of The Expo interesting, but honestly, I didn't like it. It was unbelievably crowded and hotter than hell that day.
Our trainers took us to some excellent Shanghai restaraunts and that was undoubtedly my favorite part of the training. I often say that I didn't like Shanghai, but if I have anything good to say about it, it's this, "Shanghai is full of great food."
So overall, the training orientation seemed like a mix of learning about what we were in store for and being a Shanghai tourist. My favorite part was meeting all the other people who, like me, had been crazy enough to come to China and try their hands at English as a Second Language teaching. I met a lot of really cool people, but we only had about 6 days together and it just seemed impossible to get to know everyone within that timeframe. I made a few close friends there and quite a few acquaintances, some of whom I'm still in touch with. I have, unfortunately, not been in contact with others. I'm working to change that.
While I was in Shanghai I remember feeling like I was in some kind of a Limbo. I certainly wasn't in the states, but I certainly wasn't in my small Chinese city in which I'd spend the next year. I'm glad that I've experienced Shanghai for a short time and maybe someday I'll write more about it, but now I want to leave Shanghai and move on to the city where I've begun to develop a nice little life for myself.
Kaili.
Kaili is too small to have an airport. The closest airport is in Guiyang which is the closest "big city." Pint sized compared to Shanghai. I got off the plane and was immediately greeted by a smiling Chinese girl with glasses. This was Wudan. She introduced herself by her English name, Tina, and then took me to the airport KFC. Yes, they have Kentucky Fried Chicken in China. At least, they have it in the "big cities." I reiterate, the first thing that happenned in Guiyang was that a pretty smiling girl bought me fried chicken. I was in a good mood.
The drive to Kaili took about 3 hours. Wudan's friends drove us there. I asked a few questions, but after a while it appeared obvious to me that she was tired. I found out later about her chaotic work schedule. She fell asleep and that was fine with me. I didn't need conversation. All I needed was to continue looking out the windows at the amazing mountainscapes outside. I'm from a mountainous state and I love mountains but these aint exactly the Appalachians. They have a whole different appearance to them. Not like any mountains I've seen before. The closest thing I can compare them to are the fjords of southern Norway, but they don't have the great outcrops of rocks that the fjords have and these mountains aren't as rounded off. Most of them are fairly small, heavily ferned and bushed, with very steep slopes. It' fairly common to see a rather impoverished looking house on the side or base of a mountain around here. And if you see the house there, look for the rice paddy. It's never far away.
So now I'm officially in Kaili. Good. I made it. Again. So I'll let the suspense build for a while and go watch TV. I'll write again soon. Good night.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Whirlwind of ideas and thoughts
I am by no means an organized person, so if this blog turns into a mish-mash of words that don't make any more sense than an upside-down dada painting, then I apologize. Right now I'm sitting here with a Rush song playing on Pandora and one thought running through my head: "I'm in China, having all kinds of interesting experiences that most small town American boys never get to have and I enjoy writing. So, why haven't I written a blog yet?"
Well, here it is. I'm just about 2 months into my 10 month long adventure in this country, so my first few blogs will probably end up being a series of flashbacks and opinions about things that have happenned in these past two months.
Let me mention that even though I will be writing about the things that bother me along with the good stuff, I am, ultimately, enjoying my experience here.
I suppose the beginning is probably a good place to...umm...begin. That means Shanghai. No. It means New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Hampshire again, Boston, and then Shanghai. All the while with my brain telling me two very different things: "This could be a very stupid idea, Rob. Remember what happenned in Korea?" and "Don't be a coward, Rob. You want to do something with your life, don't you? Find a career? This might be it." I should mention that I attempted teaching English in South Korea back in 2005. It was hellish. I will definitely be comparing my experience here with my experiences there. I don't like admitting that my negative experience in Korea has left me with a sense of paranoia and with some trust issues, however I feel that those things may be useful to me. No one's going to screw me over this time. I'm too ready. I'm en guarde. Maybe it's paranoia but it's a kind of healthy paranoia. If my boss is going to try to cheat me out of my money and then fire me when I demand my check, leaving me jobless and homeless in the middle of Asia (exactly what happenned in Korea), I'll see it coming 10 miles away. I have no reason to believe that that will happen here, my situation here doesn't have that ominous feeling to it. But, it's hard to relax when you've experienced corruption from an employer.
I found myself strangely relaxed on the plainride to China. I guess that I had set myself mentally. I'd had plenty of time to think about what would happen if I chose not to try. I'd probably have continued on in the field of Environmental Education in some capacity. A nice field of work, but nothing I've ever wanted to make a career out of. After nearly 5 years of taking kids on hikes and saying things like "This is called an American Toad and it's skin has a poisonu.....Billy stop throwing sticks!" I just had to move on.
So, Shanghai. Dragging all of your bags through a Chinese airport and then onto a ridiculously crowded Shanghai train, riding nearly all the way across the city, and then carrying your bags for approximately half a mile is akin to the feeling of running up and down Mount Monadnock a few times. I don't recommend it. I finally got to the hotel where I'd start training only to find that they did not have a room for me. I ended up sharing a suite room with one of the other English teachers, a guy named Tom. Tom and I each got a free night's stay because of that and it was no big deal because we had a good time hanging out and drinking baiju (Chinese rice wine. ) I will write about baiju again and if I could put a vomiting emoticon next to the word, I would.
After two days of wandering my immediate area in Shanghai, the other trainees began to arrive. This is where I'll stop for now because it's kind of like a chapter break, but mostly because I enjoy eating even more than I enjoy writing. I'll blog more for sure. This is fun. I'll dose up on rice noodles and red pepper, work out, catch up on the last episode of "House", and come back to the computer either tonight or tomorrow. Like the Dave Mathew's Band song, "So much to say. So much to say."
Well, here it is. I'm just about 2 months into my 10 month long adventure in this country, so my first few blogs will probably end up being a series of flashbacks and opinions about things that have happenned in these past two months.
Let me mention that even though I will be writing about the things that bother me along with the good stuff, I am, ultimately, enjoying my experience here.
I suppose the beginning is probably a good place to...umm...begin. That means Shanghai. No. It means New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Hampshire again, Boston, and then Shanghai. All the while with my brain telling me two very different things: "This could be a very stupid idea, Rob. Remember what happenned in Korea?" and "Don't be a coward, Rob. You want to do something with your life, don't you? Find a career? This might be it." I should mention that I attempted teaching English in South Korea back in 2005. It was hellish. I will definitely be comparing my experience here with my experiences there. I don't like admitting that my negative experience in Korea has left me with a sense of paranoia and with some trust issues, however I feel that those things may be useful to me. No one's going to screw me over this time. I'm too ready. I'm en guarde. Maybe it's paranoia but it's a kind of healthy paranoia. If my boss is going to try to cheat me out of my money and then fire me when I demand my check, leaving me jobless and homeless in the middle of Asia (exactly what happenned in Korea), I'll see it coming 10 miles away. I have no reason to believe that that will happen here, my situation here doesn't have that ominous feeling to it. But, it's hard to relax when you've experienced corruption from an employer.
I found myself strangely relaxed on the plainride to China. I guess that I had set myself mentally. I'd had plenty of time to think about what would happen if I chose not to try. I'd probably have continued on in the field of Environmental Education in some capacity. A nice field of work, but nothing I've ever wanted to make a career out of. After nearly 5 years of taking kids on hikes and saying things like "This is called an American Toad and it's skin has a poisonu.....Billy stop throwing sticks!" I just had to move on.
So, Shanghai. Dragging all of your bags through a Chinese airport and then onto a ridiculously crowded Shanghai train, riding nearly all the way across the city, and then carrying your bags for approximately half a mile is akin to the feeling of running up and down Mount Monadnock a few times. I don't recommend it. I finally got to the hotel where I'd start training only to find that they did not have a room for me. I ended up sharing a suite room with one of the other English teachers, a guy named Tom. Tom and I each got a free night's stay because of that and it was no big deal because we had a good time hanging out and drinking baiju (Chinese rice wine. ) I will write about baiju again and if I could put a vomiting emoticon next to the word, I would.
After two days of wandering my immediate area in Shanghai, the other trainees began to arrive. This is where I'll stop for now because it's kind of like a chapter break, but mostly because I enjoy eating even more than I enjoy writing. I'll blog more for sure. This is fun. I'll dose up on rice noodles and red pepper, work out, catch up on the last episode of "House", and come back to the computer either tonight or tomorrow. Like the Dave Mathew's Band song, "So much to say. So much to say."
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