Dim Summary

Hellooo??

2008-04-17T12:10:24Z

If anyone is still watching this...I've moved (cyber-wise, though soon physically, too).
Yeah, you probably figured that out.

(No, China's still blocking LJ with the Great Firewall, but I finally found a proxy server that will still let me log in!)

Anyway, if you are still interested in reading about my adventures in China, they are now located at http://blog.dimsummary.com , and my many lovely pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/middlekmissie .

I hope you are still interested, and with this new website, you can also use RSS or email notifications to keep track of me.

--Missie Kay
(Lissa_Maylee, 何潇潇，柯梅莉，柯云潇, XiaoXiao or any other name you might have known me by.)

At Sally's House

2007-04-29T14:53:36Z

Whoa, another update from Missie? And so soon? Well, I'm feeling motivated lately, and I'm leaving tomorrow on spring break. I thought it'd be pretty pathetic if I couldn't get my winter break report finished before spring break!

After I left Happy's house, I went to another student's home; her English name is Sally. I was nervous before visiting Happy, because we hadn't been close before, I didn't feel that way about visiting Sally, as we were already good friends. (I did get much closer to Happy through the course of my visit with her.)

Sally's home is in a tiny fishing/salt-farming village called Pinghai (平海，Level or Peaceful Sea), located on an inlet of the ocean.

"Wait," you might say, "I thought salt was bad for most crops. How does one farm salt?"

I'm glad you asked. :-P

Now, I'm no expert or anything, but this is what Sally told me, and it seems to make sense. Since they're close to the ocean, their water is salty anyway. So they take that water and cover the ground shallowly--say about 6-8 inches at the most. Then they let the water evaporate, taking care that the salt stay in a very thin layer (that's what the big stone rolling pin is for). They collect it into piles somehow (I was there over a national holiday, so I didn't actually see anyone at work), and cover it with a tarp (see the striped one in the picture?) until they can sell it.

The other people in her hometown are mostly fisherpeople, and they are very protective of "their" waters, as you can see.

Sally kept apologizing that there was nothing to do there, but I loved it. It was beautiful, and even the everyday activities were interesting to me.

She did take me a few places, though. This is near the neighboring village, Gangkou, at the National Sea Turtle reserve. Because a normal China map doesn't have such tiny towns on it, I did some investigation on Google Earth. If you are curious, this is located on the peninsula at 22 degrees 32 minutes North, 114 degrees 53 minutes East. By the way, that was a real turtle at some point. I'm pretty sure that they preserved the corpse with tar, which is why it looks so...shiny.

We didn't see any turtles that weren't in captivity--I don't think it's the right time of year--but the best thing about this place was the beach:

(Some friendly little local girls, who were very excited to speak to their first foreigner.)

The ancient tree of Pinghai.

Me eating snails.

I also went back to Shenzhen with Sally; Shenzhen is where she has found a job, so she's living there now (with her sister), in a tiny one-room apartment. We spent our last day off at an amusement park, but since that's the first of two I've been to here, I'll save those pictures for my next post.

My last picture is for fans of Firefly/Serenity. If you're not a fan: move along, nothing to see here.

Remember! You can click on any photo to see more at my Picasa Web Album. This trip, especially, had lots of beautiful pictures.

Staying at Happy's House

2007-04-24T15:48:20Z

Well, now that we're at midterms in the spring term, it's a great time to talk about some more of my in-between-terms vacation, right?

Right?

Okay, so it's been a long time. This term has flown by.

The rest of this vacation was spent at the homes of two different students. The first student lives in Fenggang (Dongguan), which is a suburb of a good-sized city near Guangzhou, and her name is Happy. In her home, there are: her father, her older brother, younger sister (April), and her little cousin (Jenny). Her mother came home for the New Year's holiday, too.

Me with April, Jenny, and Happy's Dad.

They were all very polite and kind hosts, constantly feeding me and taking care of me, even when I got sick (twice!). I got a cold that stayed for a long time, and I also got food poisoning once (at a restaurant, not their house!).

Jenny in front of a Fenggang landmark.

They brought me to several places around the area, including the Opium War Museum, which was a little strange for me. I was the only foreigner in sight, which is not something that's very strange in itself anymore. Most of the displays had English captions that, if not accurate, were at least intelligible, but the constant refrain of "the *cough*evil*cough* English and Americans" was unnerving in this context. I started to feel a little guilty by the end!

Lin Ze Xu, hero of the Opium War.

Another place was like a dude ranch, only it was a farm, not really a ranch. It frankly wasn't that exciting for me, farm girl that I am, but it was fun to pick (and eat!) strawberries.

Say "Qiezi"!

Of course, I spent the actual day of New Year's, or Spring Festival, with them. The main celebratory elements in a modern Chinese New Year's are:
1) Hong bao--red envelopes given to (depending on specific region) the unmarried, or the children too young to work, by the married or those who already have full-time jobs.
2) Plants. Lots of potted plants, especially small orange trees.

Shenzhen flower night market. Yes, it was as huge as it looks.

3) The Annual New Year's National Craptacular.
4) FIREWORKS!

A lot of fireworks.

Everyone traditionally goes back to their ancestral hometown for New Year's. Happy's family live only a few hours away from their hometown, and they are rich enough to have their own car, which makes the migration much, much easier than it is for many people.

This is their ancestors' home. We were here for about an hour while they paid their respects to the dead ancestors.

They also took me with them as they completed the yearly rites at the Buddhist temple...which, incidentally, is where the food poisoning hit. I threw up in the car on the way home, but not before I got a few good pictures of the crowded temple area.

Random pictures from my time with Happy's family:

Both born in the Year of the Dog (different ones, obviously).

New Year's bamboo pots

Huh?

My final vacation post should be coming in the next few days. I say should, because I never seem to move as fast as I think I will on these things. I do want to get it done before I leave for the May (week-long) vacation, though.

P.S. I realized that I never mentioned: click on any of the pictures to go to my Picasa web album, where there are more photos.

Chengdu, Part 2

2007-03-18T17:06:40Z

Sorry for the long delay, but I was trying to figure out a good way to bypass the filter on the school's internet. Apparently, most blog sites are currently not allowed. Grrr... They did this before, but only for about a week, and this time it's at about 18 days.

Anyway, I obviously figured out a way around that, it's just annoying, because I can't stay signed in, and I can't access friends-only posts at all, even my own.

So, I left off with Chengdu. By the way, there was a little bit that was cut out of the last post because of bit of wrong code, so if you wondered why I was laughing about the green goat, you might want to go back and reread it. :-)

One of the other things I did in Sichuan was to visit a town near to Chengdu to see the tallest statue of Buddha in the world. I was sure that I had seen another statue billed as the "largest", but then I remembered that that one was laying on its side, so the one I saw probably is taller.

Anyway, it's located in a town called Leshan (Happy Mountain, which, you have to admit, is a great name for a town), and through a friend, we got a local guide (Alice), which is always a wonderful thing to have!

Regardless if he's the biggest or not, he's definitely tall--71 meters (about 233 feet)!

These are his toes. If you've met me in person, you know that I'm not short. So, yeah...big statue.

This is the picture that every tourist takes there. Of course, you're not really touching it, you're actually pretty far away from his ear, but it's just a fun, silly thing to do.

Two other unique (in my life) experiences in Leshan: 1) I actually witnessed my first pickpocketing taking place. I didn't know whether to say anything, so I asked my companions. Alice said that we definitely shouldn't, because the thief might have a knife. This seemed logical enough, but when he got off the bus, smirking at us, because he totally knew that we saw him and didn't know what to do, and then the victim spent about five minutes looking for his cell phone, I made the decision that I would definitely speak up if I witnessed another one, knife or no. I felt so, so guilty for not saying anything. 2) On a lighter note: of course I've seen babies relieving themselves on the street here, that's nothing new; it's one of the first things you have to get used to about China. However, this day in Leshan was the first time that I've ever seen a mother ask the bus driver to stop so that her child could urinate, and the bus driver actually stop!!! And wait!!!! Bear in mind that the bus drivers rarely wait for you if you're 3 seconds late to the stop. Yeah, that was strange.

Behind the Buddha (which is on a small island), there was one of the prettiest bridges I have ever seen.

Here is the lovely Alice and Viola (my fellow-tourist in Chengdu), eating Doufu Nao (Tofu Brains), a local delicacy. There are no actual brains in it, it's just supposed to look like brains or something. It was quite tasty, although Alice had the cook leave out the hot peppers in mine and Viola's. Probably a good idea. :-D

After Viola left Chengdu, I went around the city with Linda, a local girl, and she showed me all of the fun tourist places I could handle!

This guy was pretty awesome. He was selling a food product of some sort. I didn't really pay attention, I just loved his costume.

(Rabbit Heads)

One of the places she took me was a food fair, and we examined (but did not eat) some exotic foods. We did eat some of the less adventurous stuff, including this tasty treat, Indian "Flying" Bread:

The cook seemed a little relieved to find another English speaker in the crowd, and wanted to talk to me for a little while. I know what that can be like, so I chatted a bit.

All too soon, it was time to return to Guangdong. This is a sign on an elevator at the Guangzhou airport. I've had to explain it to my students here, but please notice the second caption underneath the 2F heading.

Don't worry, there's still more to my vacation experiences that will be posted later!

Chengdu, part 1

2007-02-13T15:21:29Z

Six lovely weeks of vacation! (I hear my friend Mirna groan)

Well, this update will be about the first part of my vacation, which was in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. Most of you have heard of Sichuan food (almost all Chinese restaurants in America claim Sichuan (Szechuan) style food). It's very delicious, but I warn the foreigner (even those who may think that their tongues are tough) to be wary of native Sichuanese claims that "it's not hot".

I stayed with some friends from home, who have some lovely children, both of whom love to feed fish.

In fact, I myself found feeding the wildlife a fun diversion.

This last is me with a Red Panda, little known outside of Central South Asia. Sichuan province is home to some of the last wild pandas, along with a large breeding base. The red panda is endangered, although not nearly as critical as the giant (and more familiar) giant panda. It is 50 yuan (about $8 US) to take a picture with, and feed some apples to, a red panda. It is 3000+ yuan ($400 US) to take a picture with the giant panda. Obviously, I went with the cheaper option. Cute, aren't they?

To those of you who think they look a lot like raccoons--you're right. I was told that both pandas are much more closely related to the raccoon than to the bear species. I did get relatively close to the giant pandas--or at least the young ones--even if there was a fence between us.

And here's a funny video. The keeper obviously wanted this one to come out for the tourists, but he thought nap time should continue for a while longer.

I also visited a Daoist temple called Qing Yang Gong (Green Goat Palace), and got some pretty shots there.

Notice the green (ha, ha!) goat?

All of the temples here had these beautiful cushions--I was told I could buy some, but I never saw them.

Oh, and by the way...

This wisdom brought to you by the panda park.

Okay, lest I overwhelm everyone with pictures, stay tuned for Chengdu, part 2.

New Year's, Macau, Finals

2007-01-22T15:00:08Z

For New Year's Day, Karen, Yeeling, Angela, and I went to Macau for a short break. The most famous sight in Macau (which you may not have realized was in Macau) is St. Paul's.

St. Paul's was a church, years ago. Now, the rest of the church is gone, but the front wall still stands. Here's a closer view.

One of the nicest things about Macau was the Christmas decorations. Not that there are no Christmas decorations in mainland China, but they tend more toward the (in the south) fake snow and huge Santa heads. Due to the years of Portuguese (Catholic) influence, the Macanese decorations are more about pretty stars, lights, and nativity scenes (the last being the nicest to see, IMO).

One thing that was really strange for me was the signs. I've gotten pretty good at reading the more important signs in Chinese--Simplified Chinese, that is. Traditional characters still often have me scratching my head. Macau uses traditional characters, because they were under Portuguese rule at the time of the switch.

Okay, well, the signs are mostly bilingual, with Portuguese used as well. I studied Spanish in high school, and although I can't really form sentences, I can understand a little, especially reading (vs. listening), because it's Latin-based, and so is much of English. Portuguese is just different enough from Spanish to be confusing, and thus, the signs in Macau are all in two languages that I can almost, but not quite, understand.

We arrived on New Year's Eve, so there were fireworks, of course.

But the highlight of our night was discovering the Wynn hotel's fountain. The Wynn is a very, very fancy hotel that we could never afford, but it's free to stand in front of the hotel and watch their fountain. Here's a still picture:

But that's pointless. The video below is what you want to see. Someone (or several someones)
who was very talented in both science and music designed this fountain, because the water literally dances to the music! Search for "Wynn fountain" on YouTube, and you'll see several other people's home videos of the other songs it performs.

One of the beauties of Macau is that it's an island, so, of course, we need some water pictures.

When we got back to Guangzhou, it was time for finals. I ended up giving the reading final for all 5 of my reading classes at once, and if I ever do that again, I'm going to have about twenty more teachers watching, I can tell you that. These kids cheat like you wouldn't believe, and it's really hard to catch them. Many teachers just give up, but my principles won't let me do that (although I kind of wish they would). So, yeah...not fun.

Also not fun: when four girls waylay you after the test to beg you not to give them zeros, even though they cheated and you took away their papers. I finally agreed to give them scores of 50 each (60 is passing), so that if they did well on the midterm and attended class regularly, they can still pass the class. When I started grading the papers, the strange thing was that all of their papers were missing! I think that they took them while I was cleaning up the room, so that I had no proof that they were cheating. Unfortunately for them, I also have no proof that they took the test at all now, and they fail.

I finished the finals week vowing to be more organized next term, so that grade-entering won't be so arduous at finals. We'll see if I keep that resolution.

Tomorrow I leave on my vacation--the first part of the break will be spent with friends in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province and spicy food. Wish me luck!

Christmas

2007-01-06T18:05:11Z

We've had some trouble with the internet lately...apparently the Taiwan earthquake messed up telecommunications from America to China, or at least that's the excuse they're using this week. Anyway, here's my Christmas post.

On Christmas Eve, I was able to be part of a special Christmas choir, which was lots of fun, and then that night, I attended a student party.

Then on Christmas Day, we had some American college students who came and visited some classes; after lunch, I talked to my family, which was wonderful. We opened presents from each other while talking on Skype. So here are some highlights of my haul. :-P

The best two presents were both made by my mother. First, she looked at a picture that I took in Yunnan:

...and painted it.

Isn't she awesome?
Also, she made a scrapbook of family photos, which I'm sure represents hours and hours of work.

Yes, that's Baby Missie on the front.

I got lots of happy chocolate and some coffee and honey sticks and cookies from various people, too.

My almost-sister Michele sent me a lovely ornament:

It would have dwarfed our poor Charlie Brown tree, so it's hanging on my bedroom door.

Warm slippers from coworker Yeeling:

Beautiful candle from Karen:

And a Chinese Chia Pet! (From student/friend Sally)

This was mine, Karen's, and Lily's Christmas dinner.

Mmm...Hong Shao Fish.

That night, there was another party, this one much bigger, thrown by the English Association.

Here are the hosts: Dorothy, Charlie, ?, and Jenny.

And here's my student Angeline singing a Cranberries song (which, trust me, is pretty hardcore for here).

On Boxing Day, we did have the day off. The contract officially says that we get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, but since Christmas Eve was a Sunday, we also got Boxing Day. In the morning, I talked to the extended family on Dad's side, and they sang for me. :-)

Then we decided to get off campus, since we had had to stick around most of the day for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We went to Yuexiu Park downtown, and it was beautiful.

The park contains a memorial to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and this is the view upwards. I sort of cheated just a little bit to get this picture.

The park also contains a Nice Store.

Finally, at night, we paid entirely too much money for a tasty Italian meal at Milano, downtown near the Garden Hotel. So good.

I was planning to add New Year's on here, but this is so picture-heavy already. Also, I'm having trouble with YouTube again, and there's a video I'd like to have on that post.

This was the first Christmas that I've ever spent away from home, and it was a little hard, but the parties and the park definitely helped. It also helped to think about the real meaning of
Christmas.

You Know You're in China When...

2006-12-15T17:19:14Z

I thought I'd do an entry that's a little more fun, in honor of upcoming holidays.

Karen and I have been composing a list of "You know you're in China when..." statements, and here are some of them.

1. ...the term "personal space" no longer has any meaning to you.

2. ...intermittent, mild cases of food poisoning are considered normal.

3. ...your cell phone is an extension of your arm.

4. ...the cheapest place in town to buy good cheese and decent coffee is...Ikea.

5. ...you've found yourself (to your shame) playing the "dumb American" card, more than once.

6. ...you've graduated from the "being annoyed at people staring at you just because you're a foreigner" stage to the "also stares at foreigners" stage.

7. ...candlelight isn't romantic, it just means the electricity's out (again).

(This is only bright because my camera has good flash: note the flashlight and candles. The video here is what it was really like.)

8. ...these shorts are fashionable.

9. ...there's always "one more picture".

Midterms and Pets

2006-11-27T14:06:37Z

First, there were midterms. Let me say, I never thought about my poor teachers at midterms before. I mean, most of my professors probably had TAs to do the written-test grading at least, but...poor TAs, then!

Midterms are a lot of work. (Sorry, no fun pictures there.) Not only is the written-test grading hard work, but oral tests are very exhausting. The thing is, you have to constantly be evaluating for one and a half (or in my case two days that week, three) hours at a time, and so you have to concentrate, and since I'm really an introvert, anyway...it was tough.

But I survived! That Saturday Karen and I went to a nearby town to buy a cat. I suppose that now would be an appropriate time for a picture, right?

What a lucky boy! Dancing with a pretty girl...

Lucky, indeed.

Of course, poor Alfred, or 爱福, promptly got sick, and we had to take him to the vet. He seems okay now, although still pretty thin, and incredibly whiny. Oh, and he's deathly afraid of the outdoors, and really likes to chew on (but not, as far as I know, eat) plastic, and still has a few fleas, even though we bathed him in baijiu (alchohol).

Speaking of pets, we were also pet foreigners for a friend of a friend.

What are pet foreigners? They are foreigners who are at some company or social event simply to be foreigners, basically.

Witness:

Okay, so that guy was actually hired help, too. He's a Chairman Mao impersonator, which...AWESOME.

Some more of the entertainment.

Anyway, we got to see some of a nearby city (Shunde), and free hotal rooms and entertainment for the weekend! Plus, CHAIRMAN MAO IMPERSONATOR!!

In other news, Thanksgiving happened. Karen and I did a nice semi-traditional meal and invited our American friend Eddie as well as some Chinese and Japanese coworkers.

We had: boiled chicken (turkey's too expensive, and no oven), fried stuffing, mashed potatoes with Ikea brand swedish meatball gravy, a huge salad that almost no one ate, Orange Tang, a seaweed salad that Hara Sensei made, some daikon radish and octopus thing that Sensei also made, mantou bread, and fruit with caramel and M&Ms for dessert.

The Chinese and Japanese guests seemed especially confused by the mashed potatoes and the stuffing. ("Why are the potatoes all mushed up like that?")

So now that Thanksgiving's over, it's Christmastime, right? Too bad it's not very Christmasy weather (in my understanding of the term, that is). There is one Christmasy thing on campus, though.

P.S. I just realized it might be hard to tell what those are. They are poinsettas, on a tree. Yes, poinsettas are trees here.

Belated Birthday, Carpenter's Wood

2006-11-19T17:39:01Z

I never did post birthday pics, did I? Well, here they are!

Early November brought Carpenter's Wood to our campus. They're a singing group from a college in America, and our students were overjoyed to meet them, although it was definitely a whirlwind visit. We had fun talking to them, and they did a great job singing.

All of the students wanted pictures with the singers, and some of them decided that now was the perfect time to ask for pictures with me, Jeffrey, and Karen, too. This is me with Jimmy, one of the third years. He's now left the school, because he found a job.

This is Happy, another third year.

Three of the singers.

There was a concert where the focus was Carpenter's Wood, but the students here also did some acts. The lovely young lady sang a beautiful song, and the dancers up there are doing something that's more of a game. There are several bamboo poles, and they click them together to a rhythm. The goal is to cross the poles without touching the poles. They pulled several of us up on stage, too, and it was fun, and not as hard as it looks.

Next update: midterms and on being pet foreigners.

National Holiday Vacation!

2006-10-25T15:05:11Z

When I last updated, Karen and I were standing at the side of the road with a bunch of Chinese people, waiting for the replacement bus after the first one broke down on the way to Fuzhou.

Of course, the replacement finally did come, even though it was just short of the time that our fellow-travelers had told me they were considering the company's deadline. If they had taken any longer, we were going to call the police to bring us home, because we were literally in the middle of nowhere.

So, we got to our friends' house, and we spent a lovely, relaxing week with them. We saw some sights, but didn't stress ourselves out with trying to see everything.

Our hosts, with Karen.

Beautiful ancient stone carving at Xi Hu (West Lake)(Not the famous one, I gather, but one in Fuzhou.)

Lovely propagand-tastic statue of Mao. Doesn't he look like Buddha, blessing the populace? (The town square is across from it.)

Glowy bracelets!

Wood carving, also at Xi Hu.

Panda! We went to a place called "Panda World", which only had a few pandas, but it was fun, nonetheless. I'm still totally going to the big panda park where you can touch them when I get around to Chengdu, though.

Butterfly garden, at Panda World.

Red Panda. I totally want one as a pet.

You'll never guess what I'm eating here...and liking! Mushrooms. I love these mushrooms. The thing is, I always told people that I hate mushrooms, but the truth is that I only hate the nasty mushy gray ones that are pretty much the only ones used in the U.S. I like several kinds of mushroom that they use here in China. And I really loved the way these were prepared!

Some more friends who we spent an afternoon with. The lady on the left prepared the delicious mushrooms. They then rented some double bikes with us, and we biked around the park! It was great fun.

Climbing a mountain near Fuzhou.

Lovely views from near the top.

There were paved paths, but we didn't always choose to use them. :-D

Also, another short video clip: They have these great Firework Lights all over in China, and I've never seen them at home. This is at the town square, Fuzhou.

P.S. I now hate Photobucket, and am currently enjoying Picasa. I kind of wish it wouldn't shrink the photos so much when I post them here, but I guess it's easier for readers who don't have fast connections.

National Day Festivities

2006-10-16T09:17:59Z

National Day here in China is October 1st. It's a lot like the 4th of July back home, because it's the big patriotic holiday, and most people get the day off work.

The Tee-Mall (big, upscale mall in downtown) is decorated for the holiday--okay, most of those lights are normally there, but aren't they cool? And the lanterns are for National Day, I think.

The school had a big National Day variety show, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good most of the acts were. I was asked to be an emcee.

Here I am with one of my co-hosts, William.

This is a modern dance performance that was quite good. There were also Korean dance, belly dance, jazz dance, break dance, a magic show, a comedy skit, singing (pop and traditional), a tai chi demonstration, and one of tae kwon do. Probably something I forgot, too.

Oh, yeah, a fashion show. By the school's modeling club. Yes, modeling club. They designed the clothes, too, so I think it's pretty impressive, actually. Here's me with one of my students who's a member. (She did say that she didn't really like her outfit, and I can't help but agree, but she looks lovely, anyway.)

Of course, on the actual National Day, I was riding a bus, then waiting by a broken down bus...

...for 7.5 hours. Yeah, that was...interesting. It wasn't so bad, actually. The fellow passengers were pretty friendly (especially after they had a few beers), and although I was certainly skeptical that someone might be acting friendly in order to pick our pockets, that turned out to not be the case.

Also, there was a young girl and young guy that appeared to have formed a love connection during the wait, which amuses me and Karen no end.

YouTube finally cooperated with me! So I have several links for you.

Students Drilling (Matthias, I think you and your friends should really enjoy this.)
Soldiers Drilling Kung Fu Postions
Soldiers Mock(?) Fighting
Break Dancers at the National Day Concert

Teaching and Random Guangzhou Stuff

2006-09-27T14:15:50Z

Okay, it's been a while since I updated. You may remember that last time, I told you all about the trials of my first week teaching. Well, I have had two and a half more weeks of teaching since then, and I'm happy to tell you that things have improved quite a bit.

I've gotten a better idea of how much to prepare for each class, although the speaking classes still require lots of preparation...Although I can usually ad lib something if someone gives me a topic, I can't come up with speaking games and activities off the top of my head.

Speaking of classes, I believe I promised some photos of my classrooms.

This is a regular classroom, and this is the kind of room that 6 of my 10 classes take place in.

This is the listening lab, where the 3rd year Listening/Speaking/Watching classes are held.

The students have loosened up a bit--they're more willing to talk to me and answer questions in class--and some of them have started to invite me places outside of class and text message me. Text messaging is a very popular form of communication here--I mean, I know it is in America, too, but I never really did it. If I wanted to talk to someone, I just called them. But some people do it constantly here, and I certainly do a lot more. It does cost money off your plan, but much less than calling.

This is one of my students and her friend, posing in front of the waterfall at the White Swan Hotel. This is a huge fancy hotel. We were only in there to use the bathrooms. :-P

I was able to visit a local church on Shamian Island. It was a bilingual service. Here's a picture of the outside.

Another day in Guangzhou, Karen, Jeffrey and I took a few minutes to appreciate the waterfall and park outside of the Citic Plaza.

That's the Citic Plaza in the background.

I did cut out the picturesque Ikea in the background of the last one.

I saw my first student show--they are serious about the pop music here, as you may know. All the students love music, usually pop music of the more sentimental variety. This can be a bit painful for a rock'n'roll lovin' girl like me, but at least I have my computer and my own speakers. Anyway, they danced and sang away the night last week, and I got to be there for it.

Another interesting experience was the freshman welcome ceremony. The freshmen start a little bit later than the upperclassmen, because they have military training for a few weeks. The training was started, I've been told, after Tiananmen Square. However, after witnessing a demonstration, I have to say that it's less military training and more discipline/obedience training. In other words, it's more like the foundation for a real military training.

There was also a pretty cool demonstration done by some of the actual soldiers that trained the students.

I have some movies of both drills, but YouTube is being stupid, so I'll have to try again later.

Finally, a pic for my cousin Simon.

There's a whole store!!!

First Week of Classes!

2006-09-09T15:20:33Z

Well, I've completed my first week teaching at a Chinese college, and I guess you all want to hear about it. Or not, but you will anyway. :-P

Monday and Tuesday I had two (or in this school's language, four) classes each of 2nd-year English majors for an Extensive Reading course. I do want to supplement the readings with extras, because the readings in the book are all manufactured textbook stuff, but I didn't really know how things would go for this first week, so I stuck to the book.

Oh, yeah, the class system here: all classes go in pairs of 45-minute periods, making (to my way of thinking) 3 class periods throughout the day, each 90 minutes long. However, all the students and teachers refer to them as 6 classes, even though classes never change during the 10-minute breaks. Also, at least for the classes that they have us foreigners teach, each one only meets once a week.

On Wednesday, there was some awkwardness. In fact, pretty much the whole day was awkwardness. Before class, I had to run to the office to pick up my family & friend photos that I was showing to all the classes during the first week. One of the younger male English teachers was in there already, and he wanted to see the pictures, so I let him. I pointed out my sisters, and he said, "Very beautiful, just like you."

Wasn't sure how to take that, so I just said thanks and left. When I arrived at the Sound Lab (This is a Speaking/Listening/Watching course), I tried to figure out the equipment, but nothing seemed to be working. When the students got there, I gave my intro, and then I asked if any of them could help me out with the equipment, figuring that for sure, one of them would be able to help me out. None of them knew, either. Eventually, one of the other teachers figured it out after about 20 minutes. We did a little tape work, but none of the kids had the book that I had. So we couldn't do any of the written exercises.

I gave up on the tape and asked each of them to come forward and talk about themselves a bit, and that went pretty well, except that one girl absolutely refused to come up. I didn't want to make her cry, which it seemed like she might if I forced her, but...how can you major in English and be that scared to speak it in front of others? I'm shy about Chinese, but not that shy.

Anyway, that class was over, and one student says, "You know, we did this book last year."

Then all four guys in the class (yeah, all of my classes have many more girls than guys in them--I've heard that the Business English major is that way) came up to me and asked if I wanted them to show me around Guangzhou this weekend. Which struck me as a little inappropriate. I mean, if it had been girl students, or mixed, I would have immediately said yes, but...four guys and one foreign girl? Iffy.

(This decision was later validated by one of the Chinese male English teachers.)

The second class I had that day is my only class that is just Speaking. It's Hotel Management majors, and I think that they take learning English much less seriously. The first thing I heard when I walked into class was "Oh, so beautiful!" coming from the mouth of one of the male students. Loudly. Everyone giggled, and I blushed. I'm not really used to getting these kinds of compliments, and so often. I'm not exactly a fashion model. But the fact that this is coming from one of my students...that much more awkward.

Anyway, these students are rowdy, but otherwise there were no major problems after that.

I found out the deal with the book: half of the students have already done it, but the other half haven't. So I have to pick and choose and supplement a lot with this course.

I was told that I could show movies, but that seems like such a cop-out. I mean, I'm sure I'll do it sometimes, but I don't want to every week or anything. This will take some thinking.

On Thursday, I had one Speaking/Listening/Watching class, which ended up being a bit of a disaster, because I didn't have nearly enough material prepared. The students in that class were kind, though. :-) Then I had my last Reading class of the week, which went about as smoothly as any of the others. I enjoy the Reading classes, which is probably a surprise to exactly no one who knows me.

On Friday, I was taking my morning shower (distinct from my evening shower, because yes, I do need two a day here, especially when I teach in the hot classrooms), when the lights went out.

This has happened before, so when I was done, I went over to flip the breaker switch, only to realize that they didn't need flipping. From this, I guessed that it must be a campus-wide, or possibly village-wide outage. I guess that they were upgrading the power plant or something? Anyway, no electricity till that night. Great, only I was scheduled to teach more Speaking/Listening/Watching classes in the Sound Lab.

We ended up adjourning to the main classroom building and the lovely new material I'd prepared (music, with TV clips if necessary) was irrelevant. It turned out okay, because I had made a point of preparing more than I thought I would need on Thursday night. Turned out that without the music, it was just enough.

I apologize for the lack of photos of classrooms and classes, but I was too busy trying to figure out the system and all. I'll try to remedy that situation soon, but for now, I do have some other photos that are not teaching-related.

Tailoring is ridiculously cheap here, and I saw this fabric and just had to have it. So I had this dress made out of it. I have lots of skirts, but not many dresses, so this made me happy.

My coworker Karen and our friend at a restaurant on Beijing Road in Guangzhou. Sorry for the blurry.

Close-up on the Tomato Tuna Salad from the last pic. I found this very interesting, but it was really tasty. Each layer had tuna, corn, and mayo in between tomato slices. What is that colorful stuff on top? Why, fish eggs, of course. Not all of the strange food I've tried is Chinese. Some of it is "Western".

And who could resist some Engrish signs?

One last sign, but it's not exactly Engrish. It may be an actual word in French, I don't know. But I thought all my Delanoids would appreciate it anyway.

This is pathetic:

2006-09-01T14:46:30Z

create your own China map

Also, riding up at 10:00 on the motorcycle taxi--I decided it's a very good thing that I didn't try to walk up. There are certain things on the way that might be fine to walk by, as a lone white woman, during the day, but not at night.

Campus

2006-08-30T11:52:43Z

Now that I'm all caught up and settled into my dorm here on campus, I think it's time to post about the school.

First of all, the campus is not "in" Guangzhou. The address still says Guangzhou City, but it's really in, or near, a village on the outskirts called Dayuan. It's a gorgeous area with some lovely big hills and lots of trees.

One of the buildings you can see the roof of in that picture is the foreign teachers' dorm, where I live.

The dorm is not full, so we have a bit more to ourselves than what might be expected. Myself, and my coworkers Jeff and Karen, are the only native English speakers who are teaching here. In fact, we may be the only white people in the village, though I'm not 100% on that. There is also a Japanese Sensei who lives on the second floor, along with Jeff.

Karen and I live on the first floor, and we share a kitchen.

There's no oven or microwave--most people don't have one here--but there is a rice cooker, something no good Chinese household is without. We had to buy most of the dishes that we needed.

We each have our own bedroom:

(The cord on the wall leads up to an air conditioner, which is soooo nice.)

And bathroom:

The toilet does have a fun trick to flushing it, but I've had those in the U.S., too. This is a pretty normal setup here: there's a toilet, and a shower head nearby, with no curtain or divider of any kind. There's a water heater that's not in the picture. The machine on the right side is a washing machine. We each have our own, which is like unheard-of luxury. The setup itself is pretty standard for China, but the amount of private space is very generous.

This school is actually a 3-year technical college, and it is only 3 years old. We found out about our assigned classes yesterday. We each have 3 different classes to teach, in different combinations, but always adding up to a total of 20 teaching "hours" (50 min. periods). My classes are: 3rd Year English Major Speaking/Listening/Watching (Movies); 2nd Year English Major Extensive Reading; and 2nd Year Hotel Management Major Listening/Speaking.

I really like the feel of this campus and the village around. I definitely feel as though I'm in China now! Also, Guangzhou is among the more expensive cities in the country, but the village around here is not nearly so much. The same products and same types of restaurants are much cheaper here.

From a restaurant, looking up toward the campus gate.

Dayuan village pics.

When Karen and I went down to the village, we got to ride motorcycle taxis back up the hill to the campus! It was great fun, but they don't have any helmets, so that was slightly nerve-wracking. It was mostly just fun, though.

I bought some dried sweetened rose petals, thinking that they were dried fruit. They're actually really tasty, though. My grandma used to make rose hips tea, and they taste a bit like that.

Because a picture of cute children is never a bad thing.

Guangzhou!

2006-08-25T13:11:02Z

So, now that I've been in Guangzhou for about a month, I'm finally there on my journal!

It's okay, though, because this month hasn't really been too busy for me, so I can catch you up pretty quickly.

Here are a few pictures of Guangzhou to give you a general idea:

Now, this is one of the city centers--there are more than one. Guangzhou is huge. There are several very large suburbs as well. The mist is--well, some of it's probably water vapor, since it is a tropical climate here. Most of it, however, is pollution. I try not to think about it.

This beautiful night picture is obviously on a river. I have no idea which one. Guangzhou is on the Pearl River Delta, which means that there are several major rivers and many minor ones weaving in and out of the city.

The tallest building in the city.

Because the teacher housing wasn't ready right away, I was staying in an empty apartment belonging to a friend of a friend of a friend, or something like that. It was in Clifford Estates, which is this really fancy place with like 5 swimming pools and a massage parlor and a little shopping center. Oh, and an internal bus system and then buses that took you to the city for a small fee--basically, much fancier than anywhere I've ever lived in America.

It's very nice, but I certainly wouldn't want to live there permanantly. I'd feel cut off from the city--from real Chinese life. I didn't feel like I was in China at all there. Maybe there's some kind of portal at the gate, and it was really...Singapore or something.

Many Chinese people like basketball. For my MN friends: the Timberwolves are apparently rather popular here, because they like Kevin Garnett. I find this rather amusing, because I don't know all that many Minnesotans who are huge Timberwolves fans.

Because it's tropical here, it rains often. And when it rains, it rains a lot. This is a still photo, and this is a video of the rain on a glass ceiling. I thought it looked kind of cool.

Coffee is kind of a big-ticket item here. Yes, those are security tags. Yes, that is instant. So, you know, if you were wondering what to send for my birthday...

My friend from college, daidawei (Hi, Dawei!), had a friend here in Guangzhou, so he e-introduced us. I've done a couple fun things with her, and sometimes with her boyfriend--mostly just shopping, getting my computer fixed (it decided to spice up my month and have several things go wrong at once), and going out to eat, so not that exciting as far as pictures go. But here's something fun we did!

A replica of the Swedish ship Gotheborg, which is famous for all the trade it did in China back in the day, was on its world tour, so we went to see it.

Unimportant News!

2006-08-20T17:47:01Z

For all my mom's claims that I have an adventurous palate, today I finally ate chicken feet for the first time. It was...interesting.

Kunming Pics

2006-08-15T16:12:46Z

I wanted to show a couple other pictures of Kunming, but didn’t fit under any of the other entries here. There may be some things that are new to Westerners that have never been to China, too.

Many streets have sidewalk cafes, of sorts, but they’re usually not the romantic vision you think of in Paris or wherever. There’s usually garbage on the street, the tables aren’t necessarily clean, and even the kitchen might not pass health inspection in the U.S.A.

Didn’t stop me from eating at them, though. Those were some good dumplings, too. I have yet to get food poisoning from a small restaurant in China—last time I was in the country, I only ever got sick from big, fancy restaurants. *shrugs*

Just a sample of the kinds of things you can buy on the street in China. I’ve never bought that whole thing about avoiding fruits and vegetables in foreign countries. I mean, wash them, obviously, but I usually start eating fruits and vegetables the second or third day, and it’s never been a big deal. Besides, how unhealthy is that?

The red fruits are something similar to lychees, although not the same. The purple ones are mangosteens, which I had never heard of till this trip. If you get a chance, try them. They’re like citrus in texture, but the taste is similar to rhubarb, only much sweeter.

A tea shop. At most tea shops you can sit down and try various different kinds of tea with one of the workers before deciding what you want to buy. I got some tasty red Pu’er tea here (Grace actually picked it out, and bought whatever I didn’t).

Wherever there are tables in a public place, there you will find retired people playing Mah Jongg, chess, or poker. I was told that many of the parks offer retired people free admission, so that’s part of the reason, anyway.

Sometimes my pictures probably convey the sense that China’s still a third world country—but really, it’s a country of contradictions. Here’s a more modern image.

One of the better places to see semi-authentic old-fashioned housing in the city is a house owned by an Italian man. Pizza da Rocco is an Italian restaurant in a tiny alleyway in the middle of Kunming, and it’s a beautiful old house: taken care of, but not over-restored, like most of the tourist locations (by which I mean those that are government run and charge admission—obviously a good Italian restaurant will attract plenty of tourists). I was told that Rocco married a Chinese woman and stayed, and thus Pizza da Rocco was born.

Once again, several of these pictures were taken by friends, not me.

Trip to Dali

2006-08-11T15:03:20Z

I completely forgot to mention in the last post—Tibetan yak butter tea. If you get a chance, try it. That is all.

Since we were done with the English camps, and had another week in Kunming, we decided to take a short trip to Dali. Dali is a town about four hours away (by bus), and is famous for three things. 1: Lots of Bai minority people; 2: Erhai Lake; and 3: lots and lots of Westerners.

The Bai (White) minority is so called because of their traditional decorating habits: they use lots of the white marble that is prevalent in the Dali area, and the walls of their houses are usually white, often with paintings.

These thin slabs of marble are for sale, each of them already named for what someone thought they looked like. For example, “Rushing River”. A lot of them are supposed to be water of some kind.

Bai houses are in the traditional “courtyard” style, and we were told that the second floor was usually used as the barn, which I found interesting. Their internal doors tend to be wonderfully ornate.

As I’m sure you can tell, there’s a mix of photos here. Unlike a lot of Chinese cities, Dali has kept part of its city wall. Basically, inside the city wall is the tourist park, and outside is where “real” people live. We asked them if we could take pictures, of course!

I discovered when I visited Xi’an that I love city walls. I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it has to do with the feeling of history that lurks around them, a love of good scenery, and possibly some of those princess pretend-games I used to play.

We paid two kuai to go up on the wall, not realizing that the wall itself was free, and it was just a small (not very exciting) temple that you had to pay for. Ah, well. The view was worth more than that (about 25 cents US).

However, since we paid, we could go past the temple, where people actually live on top of the wall. Theses people didn’t want us to come in, but I did get a picture.

Another place we went was the former governor’s mansion, where I learned a lot of this stuff about Bai people, and we also got to sample the traditional Bai three-course tea. There’s a presentation for all the tourists, and interspersed between each course were little cultural dances, etc.

The first tea was quite bitter, and a little hard to choke down, but I figured—when else am I going to try it, right? So I did.

The second tea was very sweet, with little nut shavings in it—almond or walnut, I’m not sure which.

The third tea was also very sweet, and it was a wedding tea, I believe (at least, the wedding dance was what accompanied it).

These pictures are from an adorable courting dance that they did for us.

Here are several different styles of traditional Bai women’s dress.

These two pictures are from the wedding dance. I think the last one is my absolute favorite from the mansion. Apparently the groom carries the bride off on his back at the end of the ceremony.

Of course, we had to try several of the local foods, too.

Okay, I was told that this isn’t really frog skin, but that’s what it’s called. It was chewy and sour. The dish was actually really tasty, but I couldn’t eat too much of it, because it was too spicy.

These thorny little things taste pretty good, but they’re a lot of trouble to get out of their shell. I think they are, or are very much like, water chestnuts, but I’ve never had to peel them before.

Here’s something interesting: fried cheesy bread. Cheese is rather scarce in most of China, but closer to Tibet, it’s more common. I’m fairly certain that the cheese and/or the oil it’s fried in contain some kind of yak products. Trust me, when you’ve toured at least ten Tibetan Buddhist temples, you recognize the taste and smell of yak dairy. The sauce is sweet, and I believe is plum-based.

Because of the large concentration of foreigners, there are plenty of restaurants claiming to serve Western food. I decided to try out the “Vegetarian Mexican Burrito”. Yes, that’s a full-size plate. The filling was mainly lettuce, although there were some carrots and tomatoes, too, I think. The sauce? Spicy ketchup.

There was a line to take your picture at this spot. I normally avoid that kind of thing, but it was so pretty, I couldn’t resist. Also? The tree on the right? Don’t grab it when trying to climb up, ‘cause that thing has some major thorns.

Because we took a bus, we had a lot of opportunities to watch scenery out the windows on the way there. Because there was a landslide (due to heavy rain) while we were there, we had many more opportunities for watching on the way back. We took a nice long detour through twisty mountain roads, which also meant there were some times when we didn’t want to look out the windows.

So here are my best scenery pics, especially including some fields for my dad.

Finally, quite possibly the last thing I was expecting to see on a tourist trip in China:

Note: some of these pictures were taken by my friends Grace and April.