September 11, 2009 -- Teachers Day, New Bicycle

Wow, I had no idea it was September 11th until I looked at the date to write this entry. I’ve just finished my first week of classes and things are going pretty well so far. Yesterday was “Teacher’s Day” so I got a lot of messages from students and a gift from one of my classes. The international office is pretty nice to us- we got a huge bouquet of flowers and 200RMB as a gift. That evening, there was a presentation to teachers who were voted as being the best by students last year followed by a choral singing competition. Very elaborate and most of the songs had the word “red” in the song- as the highly anticipated 60 year anniversary of the PRC is coming at the end of this month.

This week, I also got the internet again (although it has been pretty intermittent for the past day.. L). This opens up the possibility of starting my job search for this coming spring. I’m hoping for a multinational company where my Chinese skills will be put to good use, but we’ll see what I find. I think for now my approach will be more a matter of applying to lots and lots of jobs and then seeing where I hear things back.

I am now the proud owner of a “Shanghai Forever” bicycle. It is black with a little basket in the front (sadly, no bell though). I think all the new foreign teachers also have a bicycle now too. We are going to start a biker gang this weekend cruising around Lin’an. Or at least looking for some black spray paint- I’m hoping to spruce up the railing on my porch.

The evenings are starting to get cooler, thankfully. It was actually cool enough in the evening that I had to *gasp* wear pants to bed. Morten and I have started a semi-vigorous exercise routine with weight lifting every other day in the teachers’ free gym and running at 6AM on the days we don’t lift. I think the exercise will help clear my head and make me feel better all around. Morten was also going to inquire about potential tai chi classes which I think would be an amazing way to start my morning. Because I am a traditional old Chinese man.

September 6, 2009

Finally back in Lin’an after a week up in Beijing. The new couple is very friendly and Morten has a slightly more British accent than the last time I talked to him. Last night, Morten and I went to a little restaurant outside of campus. They are completely re-doing the street and apparently replacing the piles of trash that used to rim the school with new businesses to cater to the students. The waitress was so nice, and wrote us a little note in Chinese next to our bill welcoming us to China. The bill was 21RMB, but she refused to take the extra one yuan and said 20 was enough. Then on the way back, an old blue truck was driving up the tiny road that half of is currently a large trench was honking at students to get out of the way. Morten, seemingly, picked the wrong side of the road and afterwards a really annoying, loud boy kept making fun of Morten for not understanding what the driver was saying. As per usual, I came up with a mean comeback about an hour after the event.

The living conditions in my apartment have taken a turn for the better (except for the current lack of internet access). I now have (drum roll) my own water cooler! So I don’t need to buy bottles of water all the time/boil water to drink! It also has a hot water setting! So I can get hot water for tea right out of the tap in the morning. Additionally, with absolutely no notice ahead of time, a carpet man came in to cover my bare, concrete floor, with this linoleum cover that looks like a hard wood floor. Well, the pattern looks like wood, my floor looks like shiny linoleum with a wood design. It’s pretty corny, but it does look nice to have something covering the floor beside the rug I bought. It also inspired me to slightly rearrange my apartment- now my music stand is up so maybe I will be more inspired to practice the ol’ fiddle.

I’m pretty bummed about the lack of internet though- it makes me feel really cut off and disconnected. I keep having bad dreams- that I try to pet my dog but then realize I can’t because she is on the other side of a skype conversation. Or someone close to me has died but I can’t make it to the funeral because I’m so far away… I think all this would be better if I had internet/a way to contact the US at any time. Then I could also start applying for jobs for this spring.

It’s horribly hot here, but last night it was cool enough I didn’t need to run the a/c and there was a nice breeze going through the apartment. Tomorrow I am going bicycle shopping with my Chinese teacher. I think that would make my time here more enjoyable as I could be more independent and mobile. I proofread her thesis for her master degree and she was so grateful she said she would tutor me in Chinese this term, even if I can’t make it to the regular classes. I’m planning on taking the HSK (like the TOEFL- it’s a test that will show my proficiency in Chinese) at the end of the term.

August 24, 2009

I write this on my laptop at the Seattle-Tecoma International Airport. It’s been a bit of an adventure getting this far. My journey began around 10:15PM on the 23rd when I went with my mom to Madison to get dropped off at Brandon and Rachel’s so one of them could give me a ride to catch my bus to Chicago O’hare at 2:30AM this morning. Unfortunately, we did not make it to the union on time – and after trying to catch the bus at the park and ride on the southeast side of town, arrived right when the bus was pulling back on to the highway. Which meant we tailgated the bus all the way to Janesville where I was able to hop on! What a stressful start to my journey back to China!

The flight here was uneventful, sat next to a very friendly woman from Memphis who was involved in Hay sales. Napped a bit. Got a nice view of Rainer and took a few photos from the plane. Now just waiting a few hours for the flight to Beijing.

Yesterday, I went to the steam and gas show back in Baraboo and was considering buying an American flag for decoration back in my apartment in China. Now, I’ve been reading quite a bit about globalization and the economy since I’ve been back… I understand outsourcing and how this can be “beneficial” by giving consumer lower prices. I get it.. But I refuse to buy a Chinese made American flag. Especially when you are selling it at $8 at a flea market and refuse to lower the price to $5. C’mon. Not to mention that all the other flags were some variation of a confederate flag. I guess I just felt like these should be the people who cares about the American worker more than anyone. The whole thing just seemed coated in irony, and I’m glad I decided against buying it- I can make my own “American made” American flag out of paper if I am feeling especially patriotic.

Well, I’m surprisingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the amount of sleep I got last night.. so perhaps I’ll read a bit, as long as I’m kicking.

Internet Blocks and Computer Crashes

Some very unsorted photos from July, and apologies and updates to follow:

These are all from a trip to southern China at the beginning of July- this buliding is in Hong Kong

We flew into Hainan (large island, near Vietnam) and after 4 days took a train to Guangzhou (followed by a speed train to Shenzhen/Hong Kong). Hainan isn't connected to the mainland by a bridge of any sort- so this train was actually disconnected and put on a boat and then reassembled on the other side. (15 hours on a hard sleeper- saved a night in a hotel!)

View of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak

At the beach in Sanya (Hainan)

My apologies to the consistant readers of this blog that I have no doubt lost to months of inactivity. Let me make a slew of excuses:

As many of you know, this last spring my laptop was fairly "unhappy". At first, this problem seemed to be resolved by taking the computer to the on-campus computer repair and having the most stereotypically nerdy person I've ever met install a pirated version of Windows XP (thankfully in English) on my computer. After losing EVERYTHING on my computer and learning a valuable lesson about what you should save on your C: Drive (answer: NOTHING. If you just save something automatically in your my documents folder, it will instantly disappear if your computer crashes. Anything you don't want to disappear should go in your DATA drive. Please learn from my mistakes) After attempting to piece together the digital ashes of my life, my computer crashed again 2 to 3 weeks later, exactly when I needed to write reports on all my classes and make spreadsheets of all the grades. Back at the electronics market in Shanghai I found out I needed to replace the hard drive, but due to time restraints left the computer in Shanghai while depending on the kindness of Morten (and his Danish computer "Boris") to slowly complete my paperwork.

In addition to the computer being down (it currently has double the amount of storage, but doesn't have any information on it other than Skype and a pirated version of Microsoft Office Suite... and ~10GB of photos from Yang's computer) the Chinese government also decided to block this blogging website. Then, once classes were done, Yang and I took a trip to southern China to Hainan (tropical island- "Hawaii of China") and Hong Kong/Macau (see above). It was nice to be able to swim in the sea- I'd really hoped to snorkle, but the snorkle we bought wouldn't seal to keep out the water and it was nearly impossible. The only sunblock I could find was "skin whitening sunblock". Still have a strong dislike of seafood in China- not helped by the cute little parrot fish I saw on the menu at the restaurants. Good train ride back to the mainland, Hong Kong was awesome. I went a little crazy at the first convient shop I went in to because they sold English Cosmo magazines and tampons. Many of the buses are double decker and cars drive on the left, seeing as it was a British colony and all. In Hong Kong/Guangzhou they speak Cantonese instead of Mandarin (which I've been learning). They also use traditional Chinese characters when I have been learning simplified. Your average mainland Chinese person can read traditional characters- they just might have trouble writing them. But it was nice to be on even footing with Yang because, like me, he cannot speak Cantonese. He could read, but he ended up having to communicate with people in English :P. There was also a beer festival while we were there (which was probably attended by around 70% white people) but I found the little tequilia bar most enjoyable and showed Yang how to take a tequilia shot of "Crazy Armadillo" tequilia. Nothing too crazy, but it was a great night and we really got to enjoy the view of the city from the harbor. Hong Kong has a lot of topography and reminded me a lot of San Francisco.

I am heading back to China to teach at the university one more term on Monday. To deal with the block, I am going to set up a different blog on another site which I will put a link to on here later this week. Even without switching sites, there are ways to get around the blocks in China- they are just slow and sometimes unreliable. Hopefully switching websites will at least temporarily solve this problem so I can keep this updated more regularly.

Suzhou, with some Hangzhou on the side

The heat has arrived. Well, it arrived and then has temporarily left again with some rain. This weekend the temperature topped off near 100. And oh so humid. The air tasted so thick and horrible, like a physical wall when you walked out from the shade. So, of course we took a hot stuffy bus to Hangzhou. There we finally climbed up this hill (later in the afternoon...) next to West Lake and by this really cool tower. This tower is lit up at night and looks really neat- with the huge sprawling city to the north and east. We could look down on the lake like looking at a map view. Its probably my favorite place in Hangzhou! I went with Yang Yang to the train station, but after saying goodbye I needed to make it to the West bus station to get back to Lin'an- which is on the opposite side of town. And unfortunately, I just missed the last bus that ran between the train station and the bus station. So I needed a cab. A few weeks ago, a cab had tried to charge Morten 100RMB to make this trip. I began to chat with a man who asked where I wanted to go- at first I just wanted to connect with another bus that was still running- but I didn't know what other bus went there. A large group of people suddenly surrounded me, all offering prices to get me to the station. "50RMB" was my first offer. The man was simply opperating an illegal 'taxi' using his moped. "For that vehical?" I asked (the other drivers thought that was pretty funny). "Ok, 30!" (this was all in Chinese by the way :) ). "25RMB. Okay?" I say. For an actual taxi- or a car at least, they offered 40RMB- which would be about right to take a metered taxi. A metered cab would be about 35 maybe. So I took the little moped. He scooted the 20 some km to the other side of town, I practiced my Chinese, made a new friend, and eventually got to the station.
These are some photos from the previous long weekend when we went to Suzhou. This photo is from an extremely crowded, overpriced garden we went to. I felt like this was just made so people could randomly take pictures of themselves in front of various pagodas and rocks... not many cool plants... so many people you needed to wait awhile for people to pass before you could take a photo... not very enjoyable.
Suzhou is a city of canals. Cool canals and little boats that go in them. Most of the buildings follow similar architecture with white sides and black, shingled roofs.
This was also the first time I dared to ride a bicycle in China. Here I am in action! Navigating a narrow alleyway.
While in Suzhou I also "mastered the art" of Chinese calligraphy. Most calligraphy says something profound- like boundless sky (what Yang Yang wrote) or something about harmony.. here I am writing the name of my favorite snack- jiao zi! (dumpling)
Behind me in the canal are lots of boats you can take touring trips on. All the lanters came on when we were walking along this little stretch. Cute shops, tea houses. Foreigners really like this part of town :) English everywhere!
After going to the horribly crowded garden, we ended up here later in the day. This is an ancient part of Suzhou which has some of the remaining original city wall and where some of the government buildings were back in the Wu Dynasty (229-280AD, wikipedia.org). We got to climb that really cool pagoda in the background. The stairs were so steep it was like a tiny ladder and you could hit your head on everything if you didn't look out. Basically, there would be no way people would be allowed to go in something like that in the states and I saw someone fall a few steps while I was there- BUT MAN, that was so cool. They found some kind of ancient artifacts in it maybe 15 years ago. There are also really cool koi in this pond too and not thousands of people getting in the way of the picture. Moral of the story? Don't go to the Humble Administrator's Garden if you happen to be in Suzhou. This place was cheaper and also came with a little boat tour- that unfortunately we didn't have time for. Suzhou is also a sister city with Portland Oregon, and Portland donated this weird wooden structure that is in the gardens here that no one understands but takes their picture next to anyway.

Now that I'm back from the recent, hot, weekend, I've been a little under the weather. Apparently if you go to the doctor for any reason people are assuming you have Swine Flu. I felt a little fevery Monday and didn't go to my Chinese class and today I've had a bit of a cough so I've been drinking lots of orange juice and trying to get more rest. Morten was out a lot this weekend too and he thought he got mild sunstroke, but has been feeling poor this week too. We decided we must have piglet flu because that sounds cuter and our symptoms aren't as severe as swine flu :P.

photos up!

Its been a week since my photoshoot for the fashion and design department. Check it out:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2185579&id=59501215&l=990ac3511f

The head teacher (or at least the one who speaks the most English) said I should consider getting a job with a modeling company in Hangzhou. I still really don't know anything about modeling, but it was good for the self-esteem if nothing else (if I ignore the fact that I am too big for almost all the clothing. yep. I'm okay with that).

yi kuai

Now you too can see the image from the island in Hangzhou's West Lake on the 1 yuan....

springtime ponderings

Its been a pretty intense couple of weeks. I feel like I've been on the edge of getting sick- just overly sleepy all the time- and getting stressed out about what to do after July when my visa expires. The financial crisis doesn't make me overly eager to move back home (although I am VERY excited to see you all). I've considered enrolling in a semester of Chinese classes in Beijing to polish off my Chinese study, seeing as I think my ability will be inadequate in another month's time. Regardless, the future has me pretty worked up right now and I need to come up with plans very soon. This has just meant lots of headaches for me recently. This weekend, Yang Yang and I went to Hangzhou to get away from everything here in Lin'an. The weather was perfect and it still isn't too hot. My stomach was feeling- less than ideal- so instead of trekking up to this super cool tower by bicycle, we decided to take a boat to an island on West Lake. Its a pretty crazy little island - its in the shape of a big circle with four paths crossing the islands to make a cross and pools filling in the rest of the space- the pools were filled with lots of fish including huge koi （怎么大鱼！）(So big fish!- I could understand the people feeding them bread from one of the walkways) Seriously- some of the koi there could probably pose as small dolphins. In the photo above I am sitting near the scene on the back of the 1 yuan bill. I don't know what those concrete things are used for, but they are pretty cool.

Last Wednesday during my night oral English class this guy flew into my classroom through an open window. At first I thought it was a bat. This moth was the size of my hand. My class (and I) were completely entranced by it for 5 minutes or so (or in the case of some of the girls they were screaming and trying to run away from it). Eventually it landed on the floor and I was able to scoop him up and shoo him outside, trying not to damage his wings- even though I wanted to show him to the students. It made me think about how much of China I haven't seen. The crazy animals that live on the other side of the world. The mountains. The smaller villages. How different the people and history and animals all were. And how easily I could hole away in my room and not interact with anything. Sometimes I'm pretty lame.

This coming weekend is a long holiday- Chinese labor day. Closely followed by Youth Day on Monday where everyone under the age of 28 gets a half day off work/school. So, in light of my just-discovered 4-day weekend, I think Yang Yang and I will hop off to Suzhou (yes Mom, this is the city Tara's husband goes to). I would like to do some sketches of some gardens. Suzhou also has a lot of canals- there's a Chinese saying that Hangzhou and Suzhou are like heaven in China... or something like that. Its also very close to Shanghai and I think I can get a direct bus to Lin'an (YAY! Avoiding Hangzhou!).

The other "big" news is that my dream of becoming a Chinese fashion model is again close to becoming a reality. The fashion design department needs a model for their senior class projects SO on Wednesday I will be modelling approximately 80 projects (I.. would like to think that's an exaggeration..) for a booklet they are making to show in different cities and their resumes and blah blah blah. I don't know a thing about modelling and don't normally even like normal photos being taken of me but they promised I would be comfortable and gorgeous and I kind of just zoned out after that. I got to see their workshop a few days ago and it reminded me of that show where the different fashion designers are competing to win some kind of fashion contract.. yeah, that one.
Hmm, maybe I will do some situps instead of going to bed at 8PM....

Yay Spring!

Flowers are blooming, little lizardy things are hopping around, the air is fragrant and warm. This weekend Yang Yang (not pronounced yang- like rang. Its a long a- like in... a pronunciation we don't really use in the midwest... but its a long a) came down from Shanghai and we hiked up to the tower and played some frisbee. Speaking of pronunciation, let me briefly explain some of the trickier spellings in Chinese:

The nearby city of Hangzhou has a "zh". "zh" has a slight j sound- so it is pronounced similar to Hang-joe. Again, this is a long a- they don't pronounce it the nasally way we say "hang" (to hang something on the wall). To say thank you in Chinese you say "xie xie". Here, the x sound like a weak "sh" sound so it is similar to "shay shay" (although a little more sharp). I don't know if this is really beneficial at all.. The "a" issue is also in Shanghai. "ang" is really common, but its all with a long a. So people always pronounce Shanghai wrong at home because they will always say ang like "twang" or "dang"- and the only examples of long a's I can think of are in Chinese...

So, other than the improving weather, I've been super busy, trying to get back in to a running remine, and trying to read more English books to keep my vocabulary from degrading. Currently reading "Tender is the Night". From a bookstore, English books typically run around 100 RMB (15USD). Thankfully, in Shanghai there are people with carts selling pirated copies of books for the low price of 15-20RMB ($2-$3). Horribly illegal- wonderful for my pocketbook. Some of my students have taken interest in running with me- so that would be nice. I'm much more motivated if I have someone else depending on me to run with them.

Time for bed!

Island Adventure

(Eating lasagna and garlic bread in Shanghai before almost missing my train back to Hangzhou this weekend)

Well, its been an exciting few weeks. Very busy. The long-awaited Chinese boyfriend dream has become a reality. The weekends have been full of visitors and adventures with my mid-week crammed with work and prep and Chinese lessons. This past weekend, however, was holiday (tomb-sweeping festival) so the weekend was extra long. I don't have any classes I teach on Friday, so I ducked out of town on Thursday afternoon and hopped the bus to Shanghai. (I love the direct bus....). 3.5 hours later, I was downtown in the Jing'an district and met Yang Yang for dinner. He lives in a part of town that is lined with high-rises and high-end shopping (yeah, Gucci, Prada, ect) but the middle of the blocks have older houses- specifically brick buildings Americans built in the early 1900s. I spent the next day hopping around Shanghai on my own, doing some shopping, drinking over-priced coffee, and reading. I was going to try to make it down to the foreign language bookstore, but I missed my stop and ended up on the other side of the river in PuDong (that's where the famous tower/needle is in Shanghai). As I was about to hop back to the metro, I hear someone yell "Lynn?!". Sure enough, its one of the Indonesian foreign exchange students from my university in Lin'an. I remember being surprised when I would run into someone I knew when I was shopping at the mall in Madison. Shanghai is a city of some 17 MILLION PEOPLE. The odds of randomly meeting someone on the street I know ... well.. I just think its wild.
Saturday morning, Yang Yang and I headed out to Shengsi- an island off the coast of Shanghai. To get there, we first took a bus over a 30km bridge (2nd longest in the world) to an island that has Shanghai's port. This port is the largest one in the world (see above photo). 95% of all of China's exports are shipped by.... ship. It was staggering the amount of goods you would see on one ship. I started to think about how many of my clothes, my belongings I purchased in the states had gone through this port. Probably the vast majority. How much money was invested in one of those big trailers they hoisted onto the freighter. So many goods. So many investments.
The thing about traveling with someone who actually likes to take photos is 1. I actually have photos of me and 2. he actually doesn't have reservations about just taking pictures of Chinese people. So please enjoy all the photos I have this blog, as they were not taken by me. Shengsi is a small island some 15-20 km long and an hour ferry ride from the island with the big port. It has one fairly big city that looks like pretty much any Chinese city, with a lot of fresh sea food everywhere.
The island is also fairly fortified. On the cliffs around the beaches there were lots of little lookouts where gunmen could be stationed. It is one of the closest places in China to Japan, and there is a military base on the eastern part of the island. I actually found this out in a fairly interesting way. We were on a bus to the eastern part of the island to go see some temple, but before we got there we were told to get off the bus. We didn't really understand why, so we kept walking eastward towards the temple even though it was still 2km away. Then, the guy who gave us directions comes running after us, telling Yang Yang that there is a military base there and I'm foreign and can't go there and that he is a police officer. Hmm, awkward. So it put the whole island in this odd light- that if things really went wrong with Taiwan and a war theoretically broke out between China and the US, those little bunkers could theoretically be used to shoot at our boys. What a weird thought. It made me think a lot about perceptions- here I was, trying to learn Chinese, living in China, standing with a Chinese boy. And how odd that would have been so recently in the past. How impossible. In red, communist, China. How a line can't just be marked on the world where people on one side are good and on the other side evil. Because, afterall, we really aren't a world of governments, we're a world of people.
The beaches were very quiet this time of year, and even on beautiful, sunny Sunday, we had the whole beach to ourselves. The last time I'd seen the ocean was this past summer in California when the concept of going to China seemed progressively more certain- but still incredibly fantastic. I don't think my mind can fully comprehend that now I've looked back the other way across the Pacific, an ocean away from home.
Seafood... is definitely not my favorite cusine here in China. This is how shrimp is prepared. And my stomach didn't particularly enjoy it. We definitely appreciate a greater distance between us and the origin of our food in the US. Hopefully I can adapt a little better with time.
These pictures were taken Saturday at the beach, an hour or so before it started raining. This is at the north beach, but the island is so narrow here, the south beach is just a 30 minute walk away.
Is it too stereotypical if I post this photo of him doing a kungfu-like kick? I don't think so.
Well- I can jump about 3inches off the ground by comparison according to this photo...

Good times, good times.

Emilon's Visit

This past week has been very exciting and full of non-stop action. Before I hopped off to Shanghai to meet up with Emily last Friday, I snapped this photo of the flowering tree in front of my new apartment.
Wow, guests are so exciting! Everytime I venture out of Lin'an I can see how much my Chinese has improved- plus impress people who visit. And discover new things- like this microbrewery in Shanghai. I spent two nights in Shanghai and one night in Hangzhou. Emily is on the tail end of a 7 week traveltacular from Thailand to Indonesia finishing with a 12 day stint in China. Right now she is staying with me in Lin'an- I never thought I would be hosting company from abroad! Emily and I worked together this summer in Oregon, she's from California.
Our first night we had a western food binge, basically on my request, but we Chinesesed up soon after that. We went to a dance club that looked like a bomb shelter and had a Japanese DJ spinning tunes. That's where I met the chap in the above picture. He was also headed to Hangzhou the next day, so we took the train together the next day after exchanging numbers that night. Yes, perhaps the dream of a Chinese boyfriend will become a reality. He is conversational in Finnish, traveled to India, likes cheese, and enjoys swimming. More to come later, probably.
This is the view of downtown Shanghai, as per usual these are not in order.
Emily is so pretty, I took many photos of her.

Referencing the previous post, a lot of drama had happend with the foreign teacher and his Chinese gf over my jaunt out of town. Apparently, he spent a fair amount of the weekend at the local police station, big argument, apparently he had "promised to marry her" (again, not sure how that is possibly given the language barrier) and ended up paying her about 12000 RMB or he would've been deported from the country the following day. AH!

Some weird things:

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and tell you a story about one of my coworkers because it all just seems so unbelieveable to me.

So, there's another teacher in my department with a thick european accent dating a Chinese woman who is currently living with him in his flat next door to Morten. This man has been in China a year or two, but speaks no Chinese. He's dating a woman who speaks no English. They seem to have been having quarrels since I moved up, although I don't know how they communicate that. He had to have a student interpret for him how long she was planning on staying. Apparently she wants to get married, but he isn't interested and when she periodically goes in Morten's apartment to check out the carpet, he tries to get her to pronounce his name correctly. So, again from the rumor mill, I guess she has said she will leave his apartment if he gives her 7000RMB (like $1000USD). This just seems like the plot line to so weird sitcom...

Today in class one of my students basically declared his love for me via metaphor. It was so awkward. ugh. Then this weekend I went shopping and wore this shirt that was really baggy around my stomach and two Chinese people asked my friend if I was pregnant. OMG. How embarassing. So, I don't think I am ever wearing this shirt in public again and have also, more aggressively picked up my running regime. Good way to meet random people and get stared at a lot. I rolled out a few miles tonight- the air tastes better out here and the sky is clear. At night I can see as many stars as back home and I even watched a satellite streak across the sky a few nights ago- and I can pick out constellations from my balcony.

Last week I hung out with Lucas, the Spainard. I felt so ignorant about Spain and Spanish history... like I knew their was a civil war and Picassco painted a picture about the bombing of Guernica.. but that was about it. So I read up on the war and the rule of Frederico Franco and the recent transition of the government to a democracy 30 years ago. I didn't realize that their government had actually supported the axis nations in WW2, but remained neutral.

So, things are good- just weird. The weather is really warming up and the flowers in the trees are starting to bloom. I'll take some pictures soon :) Although I'm afraid it quickly will start being TOO hot!

New Apartment!

The last week or so I have been without internet as I was making the big move a mile and a half from the old campus to the outskirts of town at the new campus- aka- where I work. This is a welcomed change- even though I did enjoy being able to walk downtown easily in a half hour, there are still two buses which service the downtown and my apartment is much nicer and its much more convenient for work. Its also kind of nice to know so many more people around- because honestly my students are pretty nice. So, let me take you on a tour of the new digs! Here is the living room/dining room/ kitchen. I elected not to have them bring my tv as I didn't really use it and the only English channel was pretty lame. I bought that sweet red rug last Sunday- there isn't carpet here- but I think that is much better than having a horrible growth of mold under it. The zebra scarf thing was a present from the elementary school children in January- Julia's candle is on my table along with another prized posession- my toaster. Cal- your shirt is currently under that purple glitter globe thing on my windowsill.

This is my little entry way- some day I will put more food in this shelf thing other than rice, I promise.
These are the little guys on the sticker on my washing machine. I see them on a lot of air conditioners too. Well, they sure seem happy anyway.
Yes, you caught that- I have my own washing machine! (bluish thing in foreground) Check out all that counter space by my sink! and cool 2008 themed mirror I picked up this week.
This bed is great. I don't think my other bed was actually a mattress. This on the other hand, is wonderful. Lot more windows. I can see lots of birds on the forested hill right outside my window. The door to the balcony actually makes a tight seal so my room holds heat. YAY!
This last weekend, Myles headed up this party for the students at a bar nearby campus. I wrapped the girl on the left up in toilet paper. The girl on the right is still my student now. Lots of dancing, good times all around.
And other than unpacking my life has been filled with Chinese study. I am teaching 16 hours a week and studying Chinese 14 hours a week- so I am basically a full time student and teacher at the same time. I really hope I don't burn out because I'm learning a lot. On the right side of the page I wrote: Hello! I go to the post office. I'm very busy. Chinese is very difficult. I return to China.

I went for a run yesterday and a random guy started talking to me. He had the standard line- I teach you Chinese, you teach me English. Then he asked for my phone number and I said I didn't know it (...) but I would meet him at that place the next day for a run. Well, that time is now approaching so I must be off.

wonderful, lazy, weekend

I hope you enjoy my new layout! I also changed the gadgets at the bottom of the page to a world map you can click and drag around to see the current location of daylight and darkness around the world.

Tonight I finally opened this tofu that I was going to send home as a joke... its not too bad. It appears to have been soaking in some type of tea. This will soon be contrasted by the brinner of eggs, sausages, and bacon Morten has promised to invite me to later tonight- hopefully soon! The rain has definitely been putting the kabosh on any overly active plans I had. My freshmen proposed the idea of hiking the west mountain, but that will need to wait for a sunnier day. But really, activity is sometimes overrated. Staying in last night, eating jiaozi, and reading my book on global warming was wonderful. I only wish I had another day off! Tonight I need to finish writing some characters for class and plan my class.

This coming weekend, Myles is planning a party with a bunch of the students at a bar by the new campus. They are expecting everyone to perform... and news got out that I'd brought my violin and apparently they expect me to play it. I'm not very good at the violin, and even the basic songs I can play I don't like to play in front of people. Eventually I'd like this to change, but there's a lot of practice required between here and there and anything this before that just seems horribly embarassing. Julia reassurred me I would be able to dance with cute boys instead.

下雨了 (xia yu le)

Rain Rain Rain. It didn't rain last Friday. It didn't rain Saturday morning. Otherwise it has been raining everyday and is forecasted to last two more weeks. This is ridiculous. I've never seen so much rain. 1/4 to 1/2 inch at a time. Punctuated by intense thunderstorms with lots of lightening. Apparently Zhejiang Province is known for its rain and storms as well as number of people hit by lightening (perhaps a simple issue of population density). As I walked to the bus stop from my apartment earlier this week on my way to my 8am class, even with my umbrella my leather shoes were soaked to the sock within approximately 1 minute of being outside. Lightening everywhere. In class it struck close enough that some of the girls in the class screamed. After class I found myself again waiting by the bus stop, watching lightening hit the surrounding mountains and neat rows of mulitcolors umbrellas walking along the various paths and bridges away from me on their way to lunch deeper into campus.

The temperature has been hanging in the 40s all day and night, but the dampness from the rain makes you feel quite chilly so I've taken to firing up the space heater again. This week my Chinese classes also started, so I am teaching 16 hrs/week and a student 14 hrs/week. These classes are provided for free by the university in our contract and are also for the foreign exchange students (like Andrew last term) but in one class I was the only student and ended up having a nice chat with the teacher which ultimately lead to me having dinner last night at her flat courtesy of her mom. She made a special chicken that lived in a field and ate grass, not feed- cucumber, carrots, green beans (I had requested veggies over meat), and spinach (well- not really spinach.. but close enough (its better!)). The thing about eating most meat in China is the amount of bones in it. I'm okay wielding chopsticks, but when it comes to navigating the meat off of the little piece I pick up and then politely setting the bone back down with my sticks on the table- I suck. Plus, eating with new people makes me a little nervous so my skills are worse and I just end up not eating a lot- which makes the host think I didn't like the food- which isn't helped by the fact that my Chinese sucks and I can't simply tell her that her assumptions simply aren't true- I just suck at eating her food.

This semester my classes are much more laid back, and its nice to be able to get to know my students better. They know I am taking Chinese classes too, and I received an email from one of my students this afternoon offering to help me practice my Chinese. Other students have reached out too, and I hope to befriend more of them outside of class. I'm just staying really busy- which I think will keep me more productive. Julia invited me to play ping pong with her and Rainbow (my students) so we had an afternoon of lively conversation, coffee and jiaozi. One day I really hope to hold a conversation with them in Chinese. I've been studying diligently and can now write many characters by hand- a skill which I don't think is terribly useful- but I feel really cool being able to do. There are so many things I want to accomplish this term! Mid-March my friend Emily I met at the caves in Oregon will be flying up to Shanghai, so I need to coordinate meeting her and showing her around Hangzhou- so that will be nice to see another familiar face.

The rumor mill has been very busy lately- we apparently will be moving up to the new campus sometime in March- but no one seems to have any idea when. Elisabeth is flying back to America this weekend. There was an unfortunate rumor that our pay would be delayed (the 20RMB left in my wallet was hoping that wouldn't be true) and indeed it wasn't- in addition to the rumor that has literally blanketed the campus that I'm dating Morten- grumblegrumble. The Chinese whispers are pretty intense. Julia says there is an extremely attractive teacher in the accounting department. It is her homework assignment to subtly take a picture of him.

out of hibernation

So, after nearly a week of near constant sleeping and nonstop rain the sun has come out and like a furry, growling bear I have emerged from my concrete cave to greet the good people of China. I may be full of grumbles and my students may continue to pet my luxiourious arm hair (true story) but things seem to be on the up and up. I even went for a run up to the new campus, ran a mile around the track, and ran back. I even asked a man what the time was and he asked if it was time to stop running or something like that and I think I said yes. Its nice to generally have a little idea of what people are saying. I keep finding myself very surprised when I say something to a Chinese person and they understand what I say- like when I was eating at the cafeteria with Elisabeth and after she got her food I said "yi yang de ta" (the same as her) and they actually just started loading up my tray! Its amazing! And this term I will be able to take the Chinese classes offered by the university- ooohhh maybe I can be conversational by July! Julia seemed upset that she had spent so many years studying English and I'd been here 5 months and could read and communicate basic things.

One of the foreign teachers isn't returning. She is Phillipino and married an American down in Shenzhen (pretty close to Hong Kong) and I don't know where she is now. By being one of the only foreigners in town I feel a lot of- I guess you could call it racism. But most of it is pretty positive. Like the random guy video taping me walking down the street on his cell phone. There are definitely people who don't like foreigners, but generally people are friendly. But I'm white. I think this teacher received a lot of negative racism for being Phillipino- maybe from being from a poorer country than China? She would mention that her students would be talking about her in class in Chinese- that they didn't like her. I don't know. But it was surprising not to see her when I came back.

Also, I just realized that Morten has lost his British accent. He talks like I do. I have changed his accent. Apparently the same thing happened the last time he was in China when he lived with a bunch of Canadians. I find that so odd to think about. The way he speaks has changed in the past 5 months. So what does Morten actually sound like? This is just an issue of his accent on his English changing- I mean the real accent in the way he speaks is in his Danish which - obviously- I can't understand. I just find it weird to think about.

Morten is going to lecture for some of my history classes again because- he really likes history (nerd). Otherwise it is just Oral English. I was expecting to have my normal class of 17 students I had for the minor class last term- but instead I was greeted to a room of 70 students. They are minors and have a lot of other classes, so that number will be much smaller the rest of the semester.

So late! Time for bed!

But first- one more thing. So I was complaining about the cat in heat outside my window. When I was up at Morten's apartment the meowing was so loud I had to raise my voice so he could hear me. Where I have one cat on my side of the building, Morten must have twenty. The howling keeps him up and gives him nightmares when he falls asleep. This spurred me too look up more information on the reproductive cycle of cats to try to find out what all the hooha was about. Lemme tell you... its a virtual 'gang bang' situation out there. Did you know that in a litter of 5 kittens, each kitten could have a different father? According to the website this also seems to be an extremely painful process. Perhaps.... no one else is interested in this. But spring is definitely in the air...

Random Notes

Today was the first day of class and in oral English we were talking about adjectives and the students had to describe words from a list I'd made. One of the words was "boring":

"The class where we learn about Deng Xiaoping"

I would also like to proudly declare that I have stayed awake ALL DAY today. Although its going on 8, so I'll probably call it a night soon. But there is definitely a cat in heat somewhere in the courtyard right outside my window.

Its been rainy all day today, but I finally got my mail from the last month from the international office. Lots of belated birthday and Christmas wishes. It sounds like they are going to make us move- somewhere- mid March- because they are turning our apartments into student housing? Eh, I should probably be more alert by then.

Chinese Vampire

Thanks everyone who took some time out of their schedule to visit while I was back in the states. I had a fantastic time and it was extremely refreshing to be able to speak English with everyone and see so many familiar faces.
Although I was hoping to go skiing- the 50 degree heat wave was also very nice. Speaking of 50 degrees... can I also mention how nice it was to be around people who understand English units?! Granted, we are wrong. Metric is a much better system. Don't even argue this. But 50 degrees sounds much nicer than 10C or whatever the hell it is. Even though there are a fair number of English speakers I can communicate with, there is a serious lack of Americans to discuss our archaic measuring system with. And while I am on the topic of weather- Shanghai was a blistering 75F when I landed. It appears the days of warming up with a good sit on the space heater are over!

I have been so out of it since I landed. I don't think I really slept the night before my flight, didn't really sleep on the plane- and have been sleeping like 16 hours a day since my arrival Thursday night. I've been falling asleep at some weird time in the wee hours of the morning and then falling asleep again around 5PM. So I am still sort of on an American sleep pattern and probably only slept at night with the help of a sleeping pill courtesy of Morten. Hence it is 4:30AM and I am wide awake and teaching a class at 8AM. Maybe this sleep pattern isn't SO bad. Going to bed at 5PM and waking up at 2AM isn't that far off a normal sleep pattern. Plus I get all this quiet time to myself at night, to be efficient in whatever ways I see fit- plus all my American friends are out and about now. Poor logic? Well, I'm sure my sleep pattern will work itself out eventually.

Thankfully my Chinese doesn't seem to have suffered much over my vacation. I had no trouble talking to the cabbie in Hangzhou or getting bus tickets. There is a new teacher here from Canada too- which I have been sleeping too much to actually meet yet- but Morten was describing the boost for his language confidence it was to hang out with someone who was brand new to China, exclaiming about the fact that -oh! is that a Chinese bus? wow, this is a grocery store? The honeymoon phase of culture shock is definitely done on this end- but hopefully a day of actual work tomorrow- with a schedule apart from sleeping will help me get back on the right track.

Northern Travels

Looking out over Kunming Lake around sunset, Summer Palace in upper right corner, Beijing. This was famed to be the most beautiful place in China as the emperor had explicitly designed much of the landscaping and architecture. So after the mistreatment of a British diplomat, the British decided to burn down the palace and the pagodas, ect back in the late 1800s leaving most of the current structures just over 100 years old.

This is from Chinese New Year in Beijing. Its really difficult to show what this was like without a video (which I have). Fireworks EVERYWHERE. So Beijing is home to some 13 million people. Imagine every family lighting off a fireworks display similar to your hometown 4th of July celebration. I have decided that one of the first orders of business when I return will be lighting off a roman candle I am holding in my hand.

The Great Wall at Badaling. There were surprisingly few people there.. maybe because it was wicked cold and windy (as my congested sinuses can testify to) but because we had just came back from Harbin we didn't think it was that cold.. See, we thought our train from Harbin to Beijing would take 20 hours (still not sure where that number came from) so when the train staff woke us up at 7am we were very confused because we'd only been on the train some 10 hours or so. This resulted in me leaving my contacts on the train and Morten his cell phone in haste (although Morten soon realized this and I was unaware until roughly 2 days later because I kept wearing my glasses). So we ended up with an extra day and spent it out at this section of the great wall.. a simple 12RMB bus ride out of town to the mountains.

Again, surprised by the lack of tourists over China's most important holiday. This is at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, where the emperor would go and pray for a good harvest... and something else I can't remember now. Each one of those little heads sticking out in horizontal rows on either side of the staircase are a different dragon.

Here I am about to slide off an ice castle in Harbin. Full size castles made out of ice. At night, they have colorful lights inside them so they glow. I have many more pictures of this, it was very impressive. Morten and I arrived around 1 and had to sit around eating jiao zi and sipping cocoa in a heated building till night fell.
In the forbidden city, Beijing. I was making an effort to only walk where the emperor did.

An ever increasing number of new photos can be found on the new facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2170971&l=3e1df&id=59501215
although this collection is still fairly limited. I feel like I should be doing other things than uploading as I am leaving the country fairly soon and hopefully I'll be able to show you my photos firsthand.

I am very happy that I delayed my trip home long enough to see Chinese New Year in China. The deafening fireworks coming from every alleyway, the red paper wrappings filling the street and blowing in the wind. We met up with some foreigners from a forum Morten is on. Meeting a large group of foreigners was reminiscent of going to college - except when you asked the obligatory "so where are you from" instead of people saying things like "Oshkosh" they would say Italy or Holland or Morocco or England or South Africa. At the little pub we were at people were walking around recruiting people to join their "couch surfing" organization- where people volunteer a couch for people to crash on and meals to weary travellers.

Yesterday we flew out of Beijing to Hangzhou a little after 4pm. Its about a 2 hour flight back to Hangzhou and we got in around 6. When we got off the plane we decided to take a bus back to Xiao Shan (which is the city the airport is actually in) because we knew there was a direct line back to Lin'an. Thankfully, my horrible Chinese was adquate to communicate that we were hoping to get a bus back to Lin'an from Xiao Shan and we were told there wouldn't be one until the following morning. Furthermore, he said there would be no buses from HANGZHOU until the morning as well. Apparently due to the Spring Festival they had cut the bus line back to Lin'an early. We quickly changed our tickets to a bus to Hangzhou, randomly got off the bus at the second stop, hopped in a taxi and I told him we wanted to go to the west bus station. Communicating with Hangzhou taxi drivers has always been a headache because they can never understand us. It was such a nice break to go to northern China where they actually speak standard mandarin (aka the language I'm learning) instead of the heavily accented Hangzhou dialect. But he understood where I wanted to go without me having to try to clumsily draw a Chinese character. I'd been calling my Chinese friends on the bus ride trying to get feedback if they would actually stop a bus line because of the holiday, and was fairly pessimistic about the prospect of getting our cheap 10 RMB bus back to Lin'an. Amazingly, when we arrived at the station the glorious 598 bus was sitting there waiting! It was a miracle! Then I looked at the tiny building next to the bus explaining the times the bus ran and I could read a full sentence of Chinese characters! Everything worked out perfectly! When we arrived in Lin'an and hopped a cab back to the univeristy I told the driver where I wanted to go, he asked if I wanted to go to the old or new campus, I said old campus, he asked if I wanted to go to the yi jin jie gate, I said no, we wanted to go to the east gate. There was nothing he said I didn't understand and he understood what I wanted. I actually have a functional level of Chinese! The basic things I need to do to get through a day I can do. I'm so happy to have had such a positive experience right before I leave- I think it will put my return in much more favorable light :).

Time to shower, pack, and see if I can find any place that is open to get some food. I fly out tomorrow evening at 6pm and then fly in to Chicago one hour before I left.

Happy 牛 year!!

catching up-

Well, these didn't really post in order, but hopefully they will provide some insight into the last few weeks.

This is from Drew and my attempt to make tuna noodle casserole using macaroni and cheese, potato chiips, a t-shirt strainer and a lamp because we had no stove or microwave. Really, my life isn't that pathetic, we just really thought tuna-noodle casserole said Christmas moreso than the egg-fried pumpkin I had earlier in the evening. And really- it wasn't half bad.

The view of Lin'an on a hazy Christmas day from the tower.

On nights on the town we usually end up walking by this decibal counter downtown- and scream at it to make it go as high as possible. Don't worry- there are police in a little booth across the street, who we usually say hi to. Then we usually run into some Chinese people who try to out-decibal us. Its a good cultural bridge I say.

This is from a night out with a bunch of people at a fairly typical Chinese bar, although this one actually has a dance floor and a lack of scantily clad women (which I enjoyed but probably disappointed the boys). You usually get a little private table and they always light a candle and bring out elaborately cut fruit and nuts. Beer is cheaper by the 6 pack, wine usually comes with some kind of 7up like drink to mix it, or you can buy a bottle of your favorite liquor and mix it with ice tea. The latter two don't tend to be popular with whatever crowd I'm with.

These are from my recent trip to Guilin- here I am with Kali- a girl who graduated the UWEC geology program at the end of my freshman year. She has a sister who is teaching English closer to Beijing. Apparently we really impressed her and her mom with our ability to order an entire meal in Chinese. I didn't think I would see a familiar face while I was here, so this was a very pleasant surprise.

Views of those crazy mountains from the Li River.

Looking across to downtown Guilin from a little mountain on the east side of town.

Now, I'm about two set off on 45 days of paid vacation. I am extremely proud of myself for navigating a Chinese website well enough to purchase plane tickets to Beijing without the help of any Chinese people. Yes, I had been walked through the process back in December when I bought tickets to Guilin, but let me explain the process a bit to you.

One of the many incentives to buying tickets off a Chinese site was being able to use my Chinese debit card so I could directly use money from my account here without transferring funds back to my US account. But, in order to use my debit card to make online purchases I first needed to pay to have this function added to my card. So I go to the China Construction Bank with my student (and friend) Julia. Apparently, this branch of CCB had SOLD OUT of the function to make online purchases on my debit card. So we needed to hop 7 blocks or so down the street to a larger branch. 40 yuan later, I had a little flash drive in my hand and apparently the ability to buy things online..

When I went to buy the tickets, I selected which bank I had, which sent me to the CCB website. I then needed to put this little "USB key" into my laptop, enter my passport number, enter my pin number, and BOOM- tickets paid for. This method seems much more secure than just typing your card number on the internet- but definitely seemed excessive at the time.

Buying tickets on a Chinese website is easily half the price of buying them off an English one. kayak.com advertised fares to Beijing from Hangzhou for $160- my tickets were 440RMB or about $64. Ok, not quite half. But still pretty significant.

We have a hostel booked in Beijing- but the next thing we are going to do is check out the train station and try to get tickets to Harbin (crazy far north- they have a big ice festival and are right next to Russia). 4 hours, by train, from Harbin is Daqing where there is a delightful (I hope) little oil field (*cough* biggest in China) that is apparently quite interested in me working in their English development/geology proofreading... department? Well, there's a lady who will show us around and hopefully we'll make it up there. Then, I have a student in Qingdao (home of the Tsingdao brewery, thanks to the Germans who settled there a hundred years ago) I might visit. Hope to make it back to Zhejiang Province and maybe visit some more students (especially in Ningbo). My boss invited me to make jiaozi (dumplings) with his family on the Chinese New Year (Jan. 27) and then I am flying home the 29th for two weeks. If you are reading this, I really hope I will get a chance to see you between Jan. 30 and February 11th when I fly back. On the flight out I will get the joy of sitting in one of those inner seats..... but thankfully I have a shiny new mp4 player that should keep me occupied. And the flight is much nicer than the one here- direct Shanghai to Chicago! then just a little hop up to Madison. Whoops- I mean I'll actually be home the 29th- leaving at 6pm, arriving at 9:40. That sure is a nice way to hit the international date line.

I've been horribly homesick, especially with that ray of familiarity (from S. Carolina) leaving. So I think a little trip home is a good way to use some extra RMB's to recharge the batteries. By also trekking up north I'm also using this opportunity to see some more of China too- so I think this has been a good compremise. A vacation stateside- wow, it feels pretty cool to have enough money to pull this stuff off. I almost feel like some sort of ..... adult.

On a final note, now that I am 23 and the Chinese New Year is fast approaching, we will be entereing the year of the cow. Now, for all the other 23 year olds out there that means bad luck for the coming year... that is unless you wear as many red things as possible. I bought a red scarf today. But if you want to be REALLY lucky, you need to convince a member of the opposite sex to buy you red underwear. There are stores in town that sell nothing but red things... including walls of red underwear. I don't know if any 23 year old boys read my blog, but let me know if you're interested.