Anchor Chains, Plane Motors and Train Whistles

A few weeks ago, Ben, Elizabeth and I took an overnight train to Xian.  It was my first time on a sleeper train, and I had my misgivings about being on a Chinese train for 12 hours.  My worries were unfounded, however, and it was comfortable and spacious and we all felt like we were Betty and Judy Haynes riding the train to Vermont.

After arriving in Chengdu on Saturday, we asked the hostel staff to help us plan our onward travel, and were informed that the best cheap way to get to Lijiang is by 24-hour sleeper bus.  In the spirit of adventure, we decided to take our chances with the bus.  So yesterday morning we packed our bags, said goodbye to Chengdu and boarded the bus to Lijiang.
A sleeper bus bears only the slightest resemblance to its cousin the sleeper train.  On the bus, the beds were too short to stretch out it, and the ceilings were too low to sit up.  There was a bathroom on the bus, but the toilet was just a hole in the floor of the bus, through which we could see the road rushing past.   So I spent the time in a kind of curled up fetal position, reading Middlemarch and looking at the scenery.  As it happens, the scenery between Chengdu and Lijiang is so incredibly stunning that I didn't even notice how uncomfortable everything was.  After a quick stop for dinner at a wayside stop, a short jaunt on a dirt road, and several hours on switchbacks through mountainous terrain, we arrived in Lijiang.  Tomorrow we are off on a two-day trek through the Tiger Leaping Gorge.  

The Journey Begins

A rough map of our trip

My school is closed for the holidays.  I have four weeks before classes start again, so I decided to travel to the south of China with my coworker and expat friends.  We started off the journey in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province and home of the pandas. 
Pandas used to live all over Southeast Asia in the wild, but now they are concentrated in parts of Sichuan and two other provinces.  Chengdu is home to China's panda breeding research base, where we went to see them up close. 

Pandas seem very lazy, because they have to eat all day long just to get enough nutrients.

Chengdu seems refreshingly clean and warm to us after the smoggy, cold north, so we after seeing the pandas, we enjoyed a day of strolling the streets of the city and exploring an area around a monastery.  Our second and final day in Sichuan province, we decided to get on a bus to Leshan to see the world's tallest Buddha. 

 The Buddha was carved about 1200 years ago, with the goal of calming the dangerous waters of the river rushing past.  After 90 years of work on the Buddha, apparently the river did slow and calm.  Our first sight of the Buddhas was his head.  I think his ear is supposed to be about 7 meters long. 

The stairs down to the Buddha's feet

After climbing down a perilously steep path, we arrived at the Buddha's feet.  Later we took a boat in front of the statue so we could see it better. 

 Today we are getting on a 24-hour bus to Lijiang in Yunnan province.  I will hopefully write in more detail as our trip continues, but for now I'm off to the next adventure.

An American Brother and Sister in China

January 20, 2012-

When foreign teachers get together in China, we might talk about food we miss at home, or travel plans, or anything normal 20-something expats might talk about, but the conversation always includes a new anecdote about our exploits at school.  I've heard my fair share of college plagiarism stories, and my friends are probably tired of hearing about the second grader who keeps trying to kiss me.  But when the conversation turns to school schedules, we all just nod sympathetically and offer each other another drink.  We've all been there.  Foreign teachers are the last to hear about anything.  My friends Katie and Jess have been asking their students about their schedules for next semester, because even the students know more than they do.  Which is why I really shouldn't have been surprised when, the day before Ben and Elizabeth arrived in China, I got a text saying that I would be done teaching two weeks earlier than I thought and that I should give an exam the next week.  That meant that the fun song and game-filled lesson I had planned for when Ben and Elizabeth visited my classroom would be an exam instead.  It also meant that I had to plan my exam over the weekend. 

I was frustrated and annoyed that I hadn't gotten any advance notice about the exam, but I didn't have time to think about it.  I decided, as I often do, to wing it, and instead headed off to Beijing to pick up my brother and sister at the airport.  Even though we were in China, it felt surprisingly normal to collect Ben and Elizabeth at the airport.  It probably felt stranger to them.  But, even in Beijing, what could be more natural than spending the weekend with your siblings?  After checking into our hostel, we headed out for their first taste of authentic Chinese food.  The next day, I gave them a crash course in navigating the subway, introduced them to Hong Kong dessert, and we all explored the Bird's Nest and Olympic Park. 

Jess and me in front of the Bird's Nest with some genuine Olympic medals that we won for our excellent bargaining skills.

Many of you know of my Olympics obsession.  During the Olympics, Winter, Summer or Trials, I live in front of the TV.  More than a few of you have seriously threatened our friendship by telling me the results of a race that I hadn't seen yet.  Anyway, I had already seen the Bird's Nest and Water Cube back in November with my friend Jess, and it was one of the most magical days of my time in China so far.  I knew I wanted to see it again with Ben and Elizabeth, and that this time we needed to go inside.  Olympic obsession runs in the family, after all.  The inside of the Bird's Nest was actually a little disappointing.  It had been converted to a Disney Princess-themed winter wonderland.  Still, we explored for a while, and it was definitely magical, even though we were watching kids sledding instead of Kara Goucher and Usain Bolt.  Unfortunately, after the Bird's Nest, I had to head back to Baoding for a week of exams, and I had to leave Ben and Elizabeth to navigate Beijing and the Great Wall on their own. 

On Wednesday, Ben and Elizabeth came to Baoding.  We spent a few days going to all of my favorite restaurants, and they came to my classes.  My exam became a mixture of songs and askng/answering questions from Ben and Elizabeth.  My students were shocked and surprised and in love with my siblings.  They followed us down hallways, touched Elizabeth's hair, laughed at Ben.  We rounded out the time in Baoding with a few donkey burgers, for which Baoding is famous. 

Baoding is known as the Home of the Donkey Burger- doesn't that make you want to come here?!

I had given Ben and Elizabeth the choice of another city in China, where we could spend a long weekend.  They decided to go to Xian, one of China's most historic cities, and home to  the 6000 life-size terracotta warriors that were made in 210 BC to protect the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.  Ben knows much more about this than I do, and he would probably like to tell you about it. 

All of the faces are unique, and there are also horses and chariots

After an overnight train back to Beijing and another visit to the Hong Kong dessert place, we had to go back to the airport.  In case any of you are planning a similar trip, ten days is not enough to visit China, and it certainly is not enough to visit your expat sister.  Let's just say that a tall blonde foreigner crying alone in the airport/subway/bullet train attracts even more stares than usual.

I was so happy and proud to show off my life here to my visitors, and hey, now I know how to get to the airport, so if anyone else wants to come visit, you are more than welcome!  But, for the next four weeks, you would have to "visit" me in southern China/Hong Kong, because I'm leaving behind the smoggy, wintery North for a backpacking trip through Chengdu, Yunnan, the Li River, and Hong Kong.  I'll be keeping up the blog as always, and hopefully they won't all be quite as long as this one. 

Making Chinese Friends

January 2, 2013-

This may come as a shock to some of you.  I am cripplingly shy.  It takes me years sometimes to befriend people.  So, imagine me transplanted to a strange country, not knowing anyone, and with the added barriers of language and culture.  I have already told you a bit about the American friends that I have made here in Baoding, and about my friend Marios that I ran into in Beijing.  And while their company has been wonderful, I have felt like my social life here was incomplete without any real Chinese friends. 

Over the past month, this has begun to change.  The other teachers I work with have always been friendly and curious, but we only talked during school, and often only about the students.  I have mentioned one of the teachers before.  I found out that her English name is Ada (Side note: most English students and people who work with foreigners have English names, just like most Spanish students in the US have Spanish names- mine was Natalia), but only after several very awkward instances when I had to introduce her as just "my friend" or to the head of my department "the second grade teacher with short hair." 

At the beginning of December, I was sidelined with a monster sinus infection.  At the time, I cursed myself for ever coming to China, and spent many hours huddled in my bed watching Overboard and wishing I were at home.  However, as often happens when traveling, a bad situation created a new opportunity and several new friendships.  The teachers I work with, anxious about me during my illness, came to visit me in my apartment and brought me food.  I think they had been shy about visiting me before, but that shyness went away as they tried help me.  I was already close with Ada before this, but I started to get to know some of the other teachers a little better.   Ada and Milly brought me fruit.  Miss Ta bought me lunch and took me to buy a new coat. Miss Li took me to a pharmacy. 

After I recovered, I knew that I had to make more of an effort to be friends with these women.  There are several very noticeable barriers between us.  Language is an obvious one.  Most of the English teachers at our school actually have trouble speaking English.  The Chinese education system is based entirely on tests (more on this in a future post), so written English, grammar and spelling is drilled into students while speaking takes a backseat.  The result is that communicating with the Chinese teachers of English at my school is not always easy.  Their English is still better than my Chinese of course, and after being here for 4 months, I am much better at listening to English spoken with a Chinese accent and at speaking clearly and simply. 

Another barrier is time.  The Chinese teachers at my school work very hard.  They teach for 10 days in a row, and then have a 3 1/2 day weekend.  They have to grade homework and prepare their students for exams.  They have to supervise the students during breaks and at night, while I have free time.   On the weekend they often need to go home to their parents or their husbands and children (yes, even the teachers who are married and have kids of their own have to live at school during the week).  It is sometimes difficult to spend time together, especially if we want to leave campus for lunch or to go shopping. 

The language and time barriers are significant, but really the biggest barrier between me and my Chinese friends is cultural.  In many ways, these teachers are like me.  They're mostly in their early twenties, and worrying and wondering about the same things that I worry and wonder about.  They are thinking about the future, about where they will live and who they will marry.  They are thinking about their job and whether they like teaching and how they can become better teachers.  The difference is that my Chinese friends have much less choice in the matter.  Young adults in China often marry the first person they date, and they often meet this person through a blind date set up by their parents or friends.  Ada met her boyfriend through a mutual friend.  They went on one date, and then they discussed whether or not they liked each other, and now they are on the path to marriage.  Chinese parents also often have veto power over their child's love life.  Ada told me she is lucky because even though her boyfriend is from a poor family with few connections, her parents will not stop her from being with him.  Chinese parents and test scores also determine what students can major in at university, so some of the teachers I work with are teachers just because someone told them to be. 

Sometimes the cultural barrier between us is caused by opportunities that I have that my friends will never have.  My friend Ada has never left Hebei province (where Baoding is).  The thought of going to another country to visit or live is just a dream for the teachers I work with.  When I tell them about my plans for traveling around China, they sigh enviously, because they have neither the time or money to travel around their own country.     

At home, it is very common for people to invite their friends over to their home or dorm room.  In China, it is much more common to entertain friends at a restaurant.  After I recovered from my sinus infection, I started to invite some of the teachers out to lunch with me, and we had a chance to talk more about things other than school.  On Tuesday, Ada, Miss Ta and Miss Wu (the first and second grade teachers) came to my apartment to teach me how to make dumplings.  Even though my "kitchen" consists of a hot plate, a wok, one plate, two knives and two bowls, we managed to make some pretty good dumplings. 

Making the filling for the dumplings

My coworkers Miss Wu, Ada and Miss Ta

I'm not very good at making dumplings...

Miss Wu's 13-year-old sister came to help, and one of the students got back to school a day early.  Dumpling success!

There is only so much I can learn about China as a foreigner on the outside looking in.  I finally feel like my budding friendships with my Chinese coworkers are giving me an inside perspective. 

A Chinese Christmas

December 24, 2012-

Merry Christmas!

While I'm sure you all know that I would give anything to spend Christmas at home with you, my Christmas here has actually been quite wonderful.  Christmas has made it's way over to China, but most of the traditions that we are used to have been lost in translation.  For instance, there are Christmas lights everywhere and pictures of Santa, but there are also masquerade masks and fairy wands. It's a little like a mixture of Christmas, Mardi Gras and Halloween. 

Last week the head of our department, Miss Li, took Lex and I out to dinner to celebrate Christmas.  She also invited two of the other English teachers, Jade and Milly.  Jade is probably my best friend in China, and we all had a very good conversation over a meal of dumplings and other Chinese dishes.  They ordered so much food for us that we couldn't fit everything on the table and had to put some dishes on chairs. 

At the restaurant, trying to make room on the table for more food.

The students don't get any time off for Christmas, but Lex and I have a holiday today and tomorrow.  I gave a Christmas lesson yesterday, and my students went crazy.  I showed a picture of Santa to one of my classes and they started to clap and cheer.  Apparently many Chinese children do know about Santa (they call him "The Old Person of Christmas"), but some believe that he only gives presents to American children. I had one of my classes decorate a paper Christmas tree (much like the one my family had when we lived in the little white house and didn't have room for a real tree).  They all made ornaments with pictures of what they wished for.  Most asked for money or candy; they asked their Chinese teacher if their wishes would really come true, and I guess the ones who wished for candy will get their wish sometime, but one kid drew an elephant...

Decorating the Christmas tree

All of my third grade classes gave me an apple wrapped in tissue paper.  The Chinese word for apple is "ping guo" and "ping" also means "peace" or "safe," so people often give each other apples on Christmas Eve. 

An apple from my third graders

A card from one of my fifth grade classes

My Christmas tree and gifts from home and my American friends

I spent Christmas Eve at Pizza Hut with my American friends.  We exchanged gifts and indulged in pizza and mashed potatoes.  Pizza Hut is on a large shopping street in Baoding and the street was closed to cars last night.  The street was lined with venders selling masks, apples, and anything sparkly or flashing.  People were walking in the street, setting off fireworks, forming roller blade chains and lighting paper lanterns.  My friends and I decided to sing Christmas carols, which we did with considerable gusto and plenty of stares.  Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of the festivities on Yuhua Street.

With the magic of Skype, many gifts from home and my students, a marathon of my favorite movies and the prospect of mac and cheese for lunch, my Christmas has turned out much better than I could have hoped.

Home

December 16, 2012-A year is a very long time to be adventurous.  I have tried to be unflinchingly honest about my travels and about how I see China.  So, in keeping with that philosophy, I must tell you all that I want to come home.  I'm not actually considering leaving China before my year is up, but lately all I can think about is home.

I think about Christmas cookies and lefse and our Christmas day tournament and $10 gifts and spending winter break watching reruns of Project Runway and Christmas movies and trying to start the fire at the Ski Hill.

I think about homemade soup and annoying the cousins by opening our presents very slowly.

I think about watching the new James Bond movie and The Hobbit, and buttery movie theater popcorn.

I think about shots of espresso.

I think about playing True American and eating bison burgers and listening to Casey's Pandora station while "working" at the rock wall.

I think about all my boxes of books in the garage and knowing I want a certain one and going out to look for it and coming back with about 15 others instead. 

I think about dark beer and Grandpa's apple pie.

I think about July and the big homecoming party that we'll have. 

I don't mean to be depressing.  There are many, many good things about my life here in China, and normally I feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity.  I like teaching, and I love my students.  I have made some good friends here, both Chinese and American.  I have had the chance to see some amazing places so far, and there are many more such adventures to come.  I have the chance to really learn about another culture, and to understand our own culture from another perspective.  Most of the time, I can't stop thinking about how lucky I am to be here.  It's just something about winter and cold and Christmas time and being 14 weeks into a semester (Carleton's 10 week term is even more appealing from a distance) that makes everything seem a little hopeless.

Luckily, I have a few exciting things on the horizon to raise my spirits and reignite my sense of adventure.  In a few weeks Ben and Elizabeth will be here to visit.  I am so excited for them to see China and to see my life here, but mostly I'm impatient to see them.  And shortly after their visit, my semester will be over and I'll have a month off to travel around southwestern China and Hong Kong.  So for now I'll just have to get through Christmas (never imagined I'd say that!) and New Years. 

Stay warm, and drink some coffee for me!

A Text Exchange

December 7,2012- China is a very safe country to travel in, even for a woman traveling alone. Young women are often trained to roam in packs, especially in foreign countries and/or after dark.  My co-workers at school were all surprised to hear that I have been traveling on my own, and I remember several conversations before I left home in which Mom and I discussed befriending and traveling with guys.  While I came to China intimidated by the thought of traveling alone, and even a little frightened at the prospect, over the past few months I have fallen in love with it.  Everything seems so much more intense and immediate when I have to figure out everything myself, when I have to stumble along with my barely adequate Mandarin.  Of course, I have had some truly wonderful travel partners in the past, and I love sharing those experiences with good friends and family.  Last weekend I decided to head off to Taishan on my own, and for the first time in China, I wished that I was with a friend for an extra sense of security.  I thought about not even writing about this incident (don't worry Mom, Dad, Grandma, whoever else has a tendency to worry about me!), but a journalistic desire for honesty came over me, so here we are.

Getting ready to climb Mount Tai

 First of all, you have to know that I am an uncommon sight in China.  Living in the US, even a place like Iola that is 99.9% Norwegian, it is hard for us to imagine such a homogenous culture.  Foreigners stand out.  Always.  I get stared at.  People ask to have their picture taken with me.  People call me beautiful (this is almost always young Chinese women).  People are curious and like to practice the English that they know, even if it's only "Hello." I'm used to most of this by now, and when someone asks to take a picture with me I usually smile and nod, snap a quick picture and go on my way.

Taishan is in the province to the southwest of Hebei, where I live.  "Shan" means mountain, and the biggest (only) attraction in the city of Taian is Mount Tai.  Mount Tai is one of China's five holiest mountains.
 I left on Friday after class and two fast trains and 5 hours later I arrived in Taishan.

One of the many temples on holy Taishan

 After checking into the hostel, I found a night market with cheap hotpot stalls.  I was walking up and down the street, checking out the other venders and trying to decide where to eat.  A young Chinese guy (in his 20's maybe?) came up to me and started to speak to me in very poor English. He asked if he could borrow my camera.  I just repeated, "borrow my camera?" while clutching said camera and looking for exit strategies.  Then he said he wanted to take a picture with me.  Now, this is the first time anyone has wanted to take a picture with me using my camera.  I was a little baffled.  He wouldn't even have a copy of the picture.  I agreed anyway and then because he asked for it and because I didn't know how to politely say no, I gave him my phone number. We parted ways, and this text exchange is what happened next:
 
  7:15pm  Li: i don't good at English.  But i want to make friend with you.  do you have dinner?

  7:29pm  Li: you are my first friends from English.  hoho. I have classmate in your country now.

  8:02pm Me: I'm sorry I have to return to Hebei.  It was nice to meet you!

  8:14pm Li: I feel sorry for hear it.  we can have friendship in after days. my english is very bad. I thank will be well. nice to meet your.

  8:28pm Li: I have just come back from the army demobilized.

  8:33pm Li: I am a person who likes to make friend, Hope our friendship forever!

  10:15pm Li: I wish you a happy voyage

  10:41pm Li:  I drank some wine. i think if you have hard, tell me, i will help you.

Halfway up Mount Tai

  And then the next day, while I was climbing Mount Tai (all 6000+ stairs to the top):

  3pm Li: Friend, I see you

  3:10pm Li: Coincidentally I in Mount Taishan

The stairs leading up the mountain

  And then on Sunday night:

  10:52pm Li: do you have a man you love?

So, I sent this guy one text, and I don't think it was particularly encouraging.  I can't even really describe how much I wished that I had a friend with me on this trip after this happened, especially after I got the "Friend I see you" text.   Everything turned out fine, and if I had had a friend to laugh it off with it wouldn't have been so creepy and upsetting.  In fact, when I got back to Baoding and recounted the whole thing to my friends here, we were all laughing so hard that I could barely finish the story.  I still enjoyed the scenery, had some great and really cheap street food, practiced my budding Mandarin skills and had an overall good trip to Taishan, but this incident definitely tainted it.  I guess it reminds me that even though I'm feeling so comfortable and at home in China these days, I still need to be aware of the situations I'm getting myself into. I mean, in a strange country or not (and, young woman or not), it's not a good idea to give out your phone number to strange men that you've just met.

In other news, my school is having an English match tomorrow.  My students have been practicing for weeks, and tomorrow they will compete.  The winners will go on to compete against other students in Baoding.  I'm still a little hazy on the details of this competition, but I'll let you know how it goes!

A Baoding Thanksgiving

November 25, 2012-Being away from home on a holiday is hard.  It is lonely and strange, especially in a different country.  Last week I tried to celebrate Thanksgiving and to fight off a particularly strong bout of homesickness.  Two things kept my spirits up: my students and my new friends here in Baoding.

Last week I introduced my students to the wonderful art of hand turkeys.  My students are so clever and curious and affectionate, and all they really want is for me to give them a gold star or compliment their turkey.  It makes it easy to love my job and it makes me anxious to become a better teacher. 

My favorite class with their turkeys

A few weeks ago Lex and I met some Americans teaching at a university here in Baoding.  Alex, Jess and Katie are just out of college as well, and Alex and Jess are new to China.  We have been spending a rapidly increasing amount of time together, sharing China stories (nightmare toilets, strange encounters, a universal longing for dairy products and pizza, etc) and swapping tips on Baoding. This week we all got together to have Thanksgiving at a restaurant in Baoding that sells American food.  Our Thanksgiving consisted of mashed potatoes, garlic bread, onion rings (not for me of course!), pizza and a can of cranberry sauce that Jess's parents sent her in the mail.  As exciting as it is to be immersed in Chinese culture every day, it is also a huge relief to know that just across town there are people going through the same struggles and triumphs as me, people who speak my language and know about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving dinner at Babelo's with my new American friends

Happy (late) Thanksgiving!

Challenges

November 10, 2012- When I first started running with my mom in fourth or fifth grade, I would often want to stop and walk.  She always pointed to a landmark about 100 yards ahead and told me, "just run until that mailbox."  So I would run to that mailbox, and then she would point to a tree or telephone pole and say, "just run until we get there."  It was possible to run many miles this way.  Of course as I got older running became its own reward, but at the beginning I needed those little incentives to keep me going.
I have often found myself using this technique in China.  I tell myself, "you only have to stand in this line for ten more minutes" or "you only have to wait for this delayed train for half an hour."  There have been a few times now where I have been cold, tired and hungry, trying to get somewhere, and I have just known that I COULD NOT keep wandering the streets in the rain for one more minute, that if I didn't get something to eat in the next 30 seconds the world would just end.  So I just calmly tell myself, you only have to make it this far, you only have to wait a little longer.  It is possible to travel all over China this way, and to have some incredible adventures along the way. 
My teacher friend and I have been talking a lot recently about differences between China and the US.  By the way, I awkwardly don't know this girl's name.  I mean, when I got here, I was very overwhelmed, and I met many many people all at once.  This teacher has been very nice to me all along, but I can't remember if she told me her name and I forgot it or if she ever told me at all.  Either way, I have long felt that it is much too late to ask what her name is.  On Monday when we went to lunch together she told me her name meant "jade" so for now I guess I'll just refer to her as Jade and hope that she introduces herself to someone else in my presence.
So Jade and I have been talking about differences between China and the US, mostly about education and families.  Most of you are probably aware of China's one child policy, their attempt to control an out of control population.  A combination of this policy and an old-fashioned desire for boys rather than girls means that the population of China is noticeably skewed male.  If a family can only have one child, they want that child to be a boy to carry on the family line.  This is especially true with the older generation.  Jade's sister recently had a baby girl, and she told me that while her sister was not only overjoyed with her daughter but actually wanted a girl all along, her in-laws were very mad at her for having a girl and not a boy.  Like she could control it?  Anyway, think about it, this child is not only the only child of her parents, but also the only grandchild for four grandparents.  That's a lot of parental attention for one kid. 
I don't know whether I mentioned that my school is a boarding school.  All of the students live at school from Tuesday until the following Friday (11 days), and then have a long weekend.  Most of my students seem fine with this, but for my first graders, it is a new experience to be away from home for so long.  Last Monday, the students were returning and I watched as one of my first graders had to be dragged into school by one of his teachers while his mom and dad smiled and laughed.  It's like the first day of school but over and over again.  Sometimes my students will cry in class, and the other teachers are like, don't worry, he just misses his mom.  Jade was telling me that most students at our school live in the country where the schools are not as good, and their parents don't have time to take care of their kids.  I don't know how to feel about his.  I mean, it felt pretty monstrous to watch this kid being carried into school by his teacher and crying for his mom, but when I had class with him the next day he was fine.  And I know that his parents send him to our school so that he can get a good education.  I guess it's just very hard to imagine only having one child and then sending that child away to boarding school.
China is challenging the way that I think and forcing me to really consider and define the way that I think about the world.  It is exhilarating to see the world from such a different perspective, especially this week as both China and the US decided who would run their governments for the next several years.   I think that most people receiving these emails from me probably feel strongly about voting and did vote on Tuesday, but I also know that sometimes it can be really frustrating to have to listen to months of annoying campaign ads and attacks, and to feel like your opinions and votes don't make a real difference.  I just think it is important to remember how lucky we are to get to hear both sides of an argument, to make up our own minds and to participate in our government, no matter how meaningless our vote sometimes seems, because not everyone gets that chance.   

So if you've made it to the end of this very long post, thanks for indulging my rambling, and I hope that you are all well. I've attached a picture of my lunch with Jade.  We had hotpot.  We had a boiling pot of soup to which we added different raw ingredients such as beef, fish, some kind of chinese potato, and other things that I couldn't really identify.

SNOW! (and some more about my school)

November 5, 2012- It occurred to me that you may be curious about my school and my job as an English teacher here.  My school is called Baoding Eastern Bilingual School.  There is a primary school, a middle school and an international program. 

I teach grades 1,2,3, 5 and the international students.  I have each class once a week, and there are 6 classes in each grade.  With 50 students per class, this means I have around 1000 students in total. Unfortunately, I don't know any of my students' names yet.  On the first day, I was trying really hard to ask every student their name, but after a while one of the Chinese teachers told me that it would be impossible to learn all of their names and that I shouldn't try. 

My job is specifically to teach speaking and listening, which means that most of what I do is play games and sing songs with my students.  They have English class with their regular teachers as well, which I imagine are much more serious.  The students are usually very excited to see me since they know that my class is usually game based and also that I don't really know how to discipline anyone.  The younger students sometimes even cheer and jump up and down when I come to their class.  The same thing happens at the end of a game, when the winning team will cheer and the losing team will sit dejectedly with their heads in their hands. 

The international program at my school is made up of Mongolian, Korean and Kazakh students who are at our school to study Chinese.  They are offered English classes as well, but no one takes it very seriously.  Sometimes I only have two or three students in a class, sometimes I will have ten or more.  It all depends on who feels like learning English that day.  Most of these students are in their early 20's and some speak English very well already.  I usually just go and talk with them about American pop culture or ask them about their home country. 

This weekend it snowed in Baoding, and I couldn't figure out how to turn on the heat in my apartment for a really long time, since the remote was in Chinese.  Today I went to an old government building in Baoding with one of the other teachers at my school.  She grew up near Baoding, and we have become friends because we share some classes.  She teaches second grade English.  We talked a lot today about education in China and the US, and the pros and cons of each.  We also talked a lot about our families and future plans and literature.

My friend Ada and me outside the old government building in Baoding

My school gave me a bike, and it was a time machine

October 23, 2012- By now it must seem like all I do is take pictures of beautiful scenery and sit around drinking Tsingtao with other expats,  but my life here is so much more.  More chaotic, dirtier, louder, more confusing.  A few weeks ago my school gave me a bike to use, and it has given me a level of freedom that I hadn't even noticed was missing before.  I often go and explore a different part of Baoding during my lunch break or after classes.  I've found that I see so much more from my bike than I do from the bus.  It makes me more aware of where I am, and I feel like a participant in daily Baoding life rather than just an observer.

My bike Orlando.  I named it after Shakespeare's brainless but brawny hero.

 During the past few weeks, I have been trying and failing to capture the China that I see every single day in a picture.  I've found it to be impossible.  For one thing, without the sounds and smells of China, a picture is almost meaningless.  I've mentioned to some of the people I know living in Beijing that I like going to Beijing because it feels like Europe or America to me.  They are always shocked and think that Baoding must be an awful place.  But to me, the chaos and noise of Beijing traffic is nothing to that of Baoding.  The streets of Beijing and Hangzhou seemed very clean and orderly to me, because I'm used to a city that is still trying to attain that level of modernity.  I know that there are many problems with the terms developed and undeveloped countries, but Baoding can only be defined as developing.  It is a city rapidly expanding to contain it's 1 million+ people, and to gain the appearance of wealth and modernity that is evident in other parts of China.  I know that I am still explaining this very poorly, but just bear with me.  I feel so lucky to be in Baoding rather than one of the larger cities in China.  In some ways it is harder for me, since there are fewer foreigners and people who speak English.  But I feel like I am getting a glimpse at what China is really like, and hopefully as the year goes on I will be able to describe it better.

A picture from my explorations of Baoding- part countryside farm, part towering apartment complex.

This past weekend, I went to the neighboring province to the city of Pingyao.  It's an ancient walled city and an UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It was very beautiful and old, and less touristy than some of the other places I've been in China so far.  The city walls, built in 1370, still surround the old city, and contain many well-preserved courtyards and buildings.  I spent one day exploring the old city, and climbed the city walls, and another in the surrounding countryside.  The whole weekend made me feel as though I had gone back in time, especially when I wandered away from the one or two tourist streets and wandered instead through abandoned cobble-stoned streets. 

Pingyao's city walls

Wang Family Courtyard, outside Pingyao

The village of Zhangbi, outside Pingyao

Once a week the students have dumplings in the cafeteria, and the class before lunch is either shortened or canceled entirely.  I never know which day is going to be dumpling day, and today I went to class only to be informed that class was canceled for dumplings!  I don't know why this is, but I don't question it.

Hangzhou

I spent most of the last week lost and eating unidentifiable foods.  The combination of two Chinese holidays meant that I had a week off from teaching.  Mid-Autumn Day, also known as the Mooncake festival, is based on the lunar calendar, and this year it happened to fall on September 30, right before the week-long National Day holiday beginning on October 1.  I decided to spend the week off exploring the city of Hangzhou.

My school's Mid-Autumn Festival celebration

Last Friday, on the night before the students left for the holiday, our school had a big celebration for Mid-Autumn Day.  The whole school gathered together for a talent show, followed by a dancing around huge bonfires.  Of course, I didn't really know what was going on most of the time.  I was standing by some of the junior school teachers that I recently met, but they didn't really speak English.  All of the festivities were wonderful and crazy, and made all the more exciting at the idea of a week long vacation starting the next day.
I left Baoding on Saturday, and headed to Beijing to catch a train to Hangzhou.  Because most of China's 1.3 billion people have the same holiday, traveling during National Day seems difficult or even impossible.  Hangzhou is a very popular destination for Chinese tourists, and my visions of a relaxing, quiet vacation quickly went out the window.  I spent much of the week searching for solitude, and sometimes I was able to find it in the many trails and tea fields surrounding Hangzhou.  At other times, particularly in train stations and the most popular shopping streets and scenic spots, the crowds were impossible to avoid. 
The main draw to Hangzhou is West Lake, described as heaven on earth because of its beauty.  It is also famous for its variety of tea.  I spent most of my time walking or biking around the lake and its surrounding tea fields and hills.  I don't know that it is "Heaven on Earth" but it was quite beautiful and very different from Baoding. 

Sunset over West Lake

Tea fields outside Hangzhou

An example of the crowds of Chinese tourists during the National Holiday

In addition to my days spent cycling and walking, I spent the evenings trying new and strange foods and meeting people from around the world.  There was a street near my hostel full of street venders, and that is where I ate most of my meals.   The food was strange and unfamiliar, but once I decided just to start trying things it was really delicious and wonderful.  I also like street food because it requires very little language ability.  I know numbers in Chinese, and that's about all I needed.  I would just point at what I wanted, and hope for the best. 

The food street near my hostel

My hostel was attached to a bar/cafe, and I started each day with an espresso and ended each day with a couple bottles of Tsingtao.  Tsingtao is a cheap, popular Chinese beer.  I met many people from all over the world in the hostel.  It was thrilling and exciting to be traveling on my own, but it was lonely and strange as well, especially since I can't speak Chinese yet.  It can feel isolating to be unable to communicate with anyone, and meeting other expats in Hangzhou was one of the best parts of my trip. 
I am back in Baoding now, and school has started up again.  As great as my trip to Hangzhou was, it is really wonderful to have a home base here in Baoding, somewhere to come to rest up and plan for my next big adventure.

The Great Wall of China and a Carleton Miracle

September 19, 2012- Last weekend Lex and I decided to head to Beijing.  We had a 3 1/2 day weekend, and I was ready to start seeing the China of all the travel books.  The Great Wall!  The Forbidden City!  The Olympic Stadium!  I was so excited to see it all, but as it happened, the most amazing thing that happened to me in Beijing involved getting lost on the way to our hostel.
On Friday, I had to teach two classes right away in the morning, and then we were off to Beijing. After an uneventful train ride, we alighted in Beijing and headed straight for Tiananmen Square.  It's the largest public square in the world, and it's very imposing and stark.  I wouldn't say that it was a highlight of my weekend.

Tiananmen Square

By the time we were through exploring Tiananmen, Lex and I were ready to stop at the hostel and drop off our backpacks.  Of course, this meant two subway rides and asking for directions several times.  By the way, when in China, if you don't have directions and addresses in Chinese characters, you might as well have nothing.  Anyway, by this time we were both getting tired and hangry, Lex was asking for directions, and I was looking for any hint as to where we were, when all of the sudden I saw a very familiar face walking towards me.  It was my friend Marios from my freshman year floor at Carleton!  I still can't really believe that this happened.  There are approximately 20 million people living in Beijing, and I just happen to run into someone I know!  After a round of exclamations and questions and hugs, Marios helped us find our hostel and then took us out to dinner with one of his friends.  We ate at a dumpling place, and Marios ordered, thankfully.  He's in Beijing studying Chinese, and after dinner he brought us to meet some of his other friends from the program.  They were all expats as well, and it was wonderful to spend an evening speaking English and catching up with Marios.

Saturday took us to the Forbidden City.  In older times, the Forbidden City was home to China's emperors and royal family.  It was forbidden for ordinary people to enter, hence the name.  That is no longer the case, and Chinese tourism being what it is, the place was crowded.  It was still amazing and beautiful though.  Most of the buildings were closed, so I just walked around outside the buildings and took lots of pictures.  I met an American university student and talked with him for a while.  I guess that part of being a foreigner in China is being automatically drawn to other foreigners.  In America, you would never randomly introduce yourself to someone just because they were also blonde, but in China it's perfectly acceptable to do so.  I actually think this is great, and it's really nice to meet other people who are traveling and exploring China.

The Forbidden City, with characteristic crowds and uncharacteristically blue skies.

On Sunday, Lex and I decided to set up a tour through our hostel to the Great Wall.  I was skeptical about this, because I wanted to be adventurous, and not take the easy, safe way of getting places.  I think it actually worked out well, however.  We got to go to an almost deserted section of the Wall, that was only partially restored.  It was wonderful to get away from the crowds and I'm not sure we would have been able to get there on our own.  We had about 3 hours to explore the wall on our own, and hiked about 5 miles.  I took hundreds of pictures.  Everything that I've seen so far in China has been interesting or perplexing or spectacular, but it didn't actually feel real until I was standing on the Great Wall itself and seeing it stretch off into the distance in both directions.

On Monday we had to return to Baoding to work on getting our residence permits, and there was a lot of confusion and disappointment and waiting.  Getting my residence permit has so far involved: having a physical exam done in the US, waiting to get my TEFL certificate just minutes before leaving for the airport, having my parents send me an original of my diploma, having another physical done in Shijiazhuang where I gave them my American physical paperwork, getting about 50 passport photos taken, finding out that I needed to have the paperwork that I had given away in Shijiazhuang, and having another physical done here in Baoding.  The amount of blood alone that I've had to give to be a teacher in China is ridiculous.  I have a feeling it will all be worth it, but I can't say for sure yet.

Brain Engineers

September 5, 2012- After a week of orientation in Shanghai, I left for my school in Baoding, a smallish city in Hebei Province.  Throughout orientation in Shanghai, the experienced teachers told us over and over again that we would be given very little information and that we should always be prepared to improvise, and my first week in Baoding has proven to be a marathon of improvisation, getting lost and miscommunication. 

Lex (the other American teacher at my school) and I arrived in Baoding last Friday evening, via a flight to Beijing and a 3 hour bus ride to Baoding.  We were met at the airport by Peter, our Chinese guide and translator.  I don’t really know what to call Peter, but his job is just to help us with anything.  He speaks English, but there are still times when we don’t understand each other.  Sometimes there is a language barrier, and that is bad enough, but other times there is a cultural barrier, and that is when we really have trouble communicating.  

The front of Baoding Eastern Bilingual School

The students arrived at Baoding Eastern Bilingual School on Sunday.  There are three sections of the school: the primary school, the junior school and the international school, and all of the students live on campus, even the kindergarteners.  The students go home every second weekend.  I spent most of the day on Sunday exploring the campus and waving and smiling at the students and their parents.  The students were mostly shy, although some did say “hello” or “hello teacher” to me.  Their parents were more excited to see me.  In China, education is very important, and with the one child policy, parents have a lot of time, money, love and hope all invested in one child.  They want the best education for their child, and in China that now includes learning English.  Even though I might not be the most qualified teacher, having me here is seen as a big advantage for the school and students. 

On Monday, Lex and I had to travel to nearby ShiJiaZhang to get a physical for our resident permits.  While we were there I tried corn-flavored ice cream and had my first real cup of coffee since coming to China (Yes, Tom, I have been living off instant coffee for over a week now).  The real excitement came when we tried to buy our train tickets to return to Baoding.  Peter hadn’t come with us, but we felt pretty confident after getting to ShiJiaZhang and through our physicals without any problems.  At the train station, we also bought our return tickets successfully, or so we thought.  After buying our tickets we had some free time in which to try strange ice cream and get caffeinated, and it wasn’t until we were on our way back to catch our train that I noticed we had accidentally gotten tickets for the following day.  Back at the train station, flustered and hoping to avoid being stuck in a strange city overnight, I desperately began asking others in line if they spoke English and if they would help us.  I got mostly blank stares in return, but after a few minutes the girl behind held out her phone, which had a translator on it and offered to help.  Between her phone and Lex’s Chinese, she figured out the problem and helped us change the ticket at the counter.  We ended up making the train just in time and getting back to Baoding without any other problems.

The girl who helped us at the train station in Shijiazhuang- we don't even know her name!

I realize this is already getting a little long, but I wanted to mention a little bit about my first few days of teaching.  First of all, it’s not easy.  Because I didn’t know what to expect from teaching, I didn’t think about it much in the weeks and months leading up to my departure.  Somehow it got lost among my daydreams of sitting on a beach in Thailand and camping on the Great Wall.  Besides the normal challenges of teaching, I have to deal with a language barrier not only between myself and the students but between myself and the other teachers.  Each class has about 50 students of varying English abilities.  I am both excited and nervous about the challenge of teaching these students.  Peter told Lex and I that in China teachers are highly respected.  He calls us “brain engineers” because as teachers we have such a strong influence over our students’ minds and hearts.  It’s a lot of pressure, and a great challenge.

Ni Hao

In August, I moved to China to begin a year of living and teaching abroad.  While I wanted to keep in touch with everyone at home, and share my experiences and my pictures, I have always had an old-fashioned reluctance towards blogging.  I wanted my connections to be more personal and special, like a battered postcard with a handwritten message.  Instead, I decided to send out weekly emails to a list of friends and family.  After nearly five months living in China, I have decide to add my voice to the world of expat/travel blogs.
I recently got into an argument with my co-worker here about how often it was appropriate to email home, and I rather grandiosely stated that writing home was the most important thing in my life.  I have often felt that the things that I see and do aren't actually real until I write about them, in my journal or in my emails.  Having realized the actual importance that writing has for me in experiencing life as an expat in China (or really life anywhere), I decided to take the concept further and give myself some more accountability by starting a blog.  So here it is, my life in China, starting at the beginning.