it's beginning to look a lot like christmas...everywhere you go

well i went into chengdu this weekend for a bit of last minute christmas shopping, and was greeted by an army of chinese santa clauses. again, this christmas staple is not there to spread the christmas spirit, although that is seriously wanting over here, but to sell products.

near the center of downtown is chunxi lu, the biggest open-air mall in chengdu. walking there from tianfu square you pass by the "street of cell phones," a thruway usually occupied by a thousand people handing out fliers for deals on cell phones and plans. this weekend it was filled with a thousand santas handing out fliers for cell phones and plans.

there's something unsettling about pushing through a crowd of santas--like a holiday version of that scene from being john malkovich. none of them are jolly, or for that matter fat. they scream at you to buy or chase you down and give you candy or maybe a flier. you just can't get away from it.

i'm looking forward to easter, when i'll be confronted with an army of 6 foot bunnies.

close shave

ever since college i have wanted to get a hot shave with a straight razor at a barber shop. today, was my chance. my plan was to get a quick trim of my month and a half beard, and be out in a flash. i told the woman "beard, short." she pointed to the straight razor, and i said bu yao, and figured myself in the clear. then she took out her pair of clippers, sans guard, and took the whole eighth of a year growth off my face.

for the most part, i am happy to part with my beard. but usually i make the decision to rid myself of it. i was pretty upset. but i figured, "now i can get that hot shave i've always wanted!" you always have to look on the bright side.

unfortunately, the side wasn't very bright. they poured hot water in a bowl over a towel, and covered my face with shaving soap. then i got the hot towel treatment, delightful. after the towel, i was treated to another application of shaving soap, and the barber got down to business.

she started with my mustache first, scraping it off bit by bit. by the time she was done with the 'stache, my face was cold, due to the open air nature of all chinese shops. she continued to scrape all the hair off my face. she even took my beloved sideburns, for i didn't know what to say to save them.

when she was finally done, she wiped my face off, and i paid and ran as fast as i could. i walked away, feeling my tender face. there were still patches of hair places, and when i got home, i found my neck was bleeding.

so my first straight razor shave was a disappointment. i hope the next is a bit happier. maybe she wasn't ready for my big, tough, american bristle. whatever the problem, i have not given up on my hot shave. i just need to find the right place.

english corridor

i try not to say no to anything, unless it's illegal, immoral, or hurtful toward others. this explains why patrick and i were at an "english corridor" last night. at cheers patrick had met poly, a business-english dual major at the university near my school. after a few dinners, he invited us to one of his clubs meetings to speak about christmas.

last night, patrick and i met at cheers an hour before the meeting to have dinner, and wet our whistles, to make the english a little smoother. after a delightful dinner of not one but two dishes of pork and mushrooms, we set off for the university. on the way, i decided to pick up 10 oranges. i'm on the verge of getting sick, and i've been eating about 5 a day. i figured by buying 10, i wouldn't have to by more for at least another day.

we met poly in front of the library, and he gave me santa hat. since i am now sporting my semi-annual beard, the obvious santa claus references were made, and we walked towards the dorm where the meeting was being held. when we entered, things became surreal. the club, or audience, was made up of about 100 girls and maybe 30 guys. all of them swarmed us when we entered, beatle mania style. i was surrounded. girls had their cellphones up and were taking videos, another was taking pictures with a camera.

soon one of the organizers came over and asked me to make a speech about christmas, or sing a song. i was a bit overwhelmed, so i thought i might sing jingle bells, get some crowd participation, and move on from there. they got into jingle bells (albeit i only heard my voice on the verse) and by the time we were done, they had given me a bit more space.

at that point it devolved into a question and answer period, which was something i could handle. what do you do for christmas? what music do you listen to? what movies do you like? etc. etc. one girl's question was, "do you have any gifts that you will give us?" i couldn't imagine the sort of miser who would hoard oranges, so i offered my flimsy plastic bag up to the mob. i began to hand them out when the girls began to grab at them. eventually the bag was literally in shreds and the oranges were gone. it was like they had been autographed by jay chou or something.

for the most part, everyone was very nice. there were a few faux pas, like when one girl told me my chinese accent was "awful", and the other girl who suggested that I "work out more." aside from that, it was nice to have people take an interest in me.

now as for the question of going again next week, that's still up in the air. like, way up.

white models

white people are often used for models in chinese advertising. of course, there is the regular clothes modelling, which is done by young men and women. where the modeling becomes interesting is when we move away from clothing and look at other sorts of advertising.

one of my favorites is on the site of a new apartment complex that is going up. victor city, or vc. successful living for successful people. one picture shows a handsome chinese man drinking scotch, the other an attractive white woman wearing pearls and long gloves. successful living indeed.

the only roles for white men outside of modeling clothes, are those that call for a "distinguished gentleman." a new hotel that is being built has a billboard with an old white guy reading the newspaper in a beautiful room that has been illustrated around him.

for white women, any bath fixture being advertised uses a naked white woman. she might be in a bathtub, holding a shower head, or behind opaque glass. main thing is, she has to be naked. it's interesting where the white faces are used. very interesting.

christmas in chengdu

there are christmas decorations everywhere, but unless everyone is saying merry christmas to each other in chinese, i'm not feeling the christmas spirit. it's like the chinese skipped the step in american culture where christmas meant something, and instead went straight to the pure commercialization. this can easily be seen by noticing where these decorations are. i've only seen them inside classrooms and inside stores and restaurants.

it's interesting to me that in spite of the many decorations i feel nothing of christmas. perhaps it is the lack of music. i'll be honest--i like christmas music. holly and the ivy, o holy night, the bell carol, good king wencelas. without them, i feel like i'm in another country.

that isn't to say christmas music isn't played. while i ate lunch in a downtown chengdu restaurant, jingle bell rock was on repeat. it played about five times during the meal. every time there was a slight pause between the last and the next i hoped. my hope never came through. i couldn't stop thinking of macaulay (i had to look up how to spell that name) culkin fooling those crazy crooks by setting up a fake christmas party. what a caper!

but i am in posession of some pine incense my folks sent me and the internet to scare up some good christmas music. i may not be able to have a white christmas, but i can have an enjoyable one.

i'm a liar

i am infamous for lying about food. (well, perhaps not infamous, but a little exaggerated self-deprecatism never hurt anyone.) this includes, "i'm done," "i can't eat anymore," "last one," "this isn't that spicy," "no i in't urn y ongue." the latest was posted monday night on this very blog, promising an expose on the market, and the food therein.

instead, i was kidnapped and made to watch senior i english plays.

and when i say kidnapped, i mean i walked in to watch a few plays, and was forced to judge all thirteen, which put me back home way past my bedtime (9 pm).

the program was as follows:

american dreamz
harry potter
beauty and beast
the fire of hope
princess diary
the little prince
peter pan
swan lake
tulips
the emperor's new clothes
new journey to the west
pride and prejudice
it's a wonderful life

as you might gather from the titles, the judges were not scoring for creativity. most plays were taken directly from scripts found on the internet, and then edited down to be less than eight minutes. (i was told, as a judge, to subtract points if a play went over 8 minutes. when i asked how i should know that the play was too long, i was told to guess.)

but the show was impressive. the seniors (sophomores) had been practicing for the last month, and they had clearly spent a long time on costumes and makeup. for the little prince, one of my students dressed up as a fox--complete with head and all. many of the plays featured dancing, singing, and at least three of them had a violin (one play had two).

before each play, there were four students who would stand up and introduce each play. clearing chosen for their english prowess, the joked their way through 2 and half hours. i realize now my experience was much like the oscars. my favorite part was when of my students quoted brokeback mountain ("love is a force of nature") to introduce a play. in all my classes, the movie is notorious as a joke, and i am still wondering if she was joking or not.


after all the plays were over, i was pushed out on stage to "comment" about them. in actuality, i was burning time as they calculated the winners. i'm pretty sure i was picked because i'm the only one who could extemporize in english. for my first time on live tv (it was filmed and broadcast to the rest of the school), i don't think i did half bad. i did use the word excited four times in about a minute speech, but otherwise i thought it was okay.

the plays that got first (there were no losers, only third place) were harry potter and the emperor's new clothes. i think harry potter won because it was harry potter, but the emperor's new clothes was a good play. it was clean, well blocked, and there was some good slapstick in there, too. i mean, sure they had a great foreign english teacher, but i'm positive they won are their own accord.

the fair

at the university village there is a fair. now in fact, it's just a bunch of street food carts grouped in one location, but there still is a festive atmosphere that pervades. there, of course, are the guo kui people, who also sell french fries. the fries are made by taking a metal basket, and weaving julienned potatoes inside of it, so it makes a basket inside the basket. that is then deep fried. the basket is then dumped out, sprinkled with chopped onions, parsely, dried pepper flakes, and of course, msg. haven't yet tried it, but i plan to. i'm making my way slowly around the fair, trying to sample all the types of food. to be honest, this marketplace is one of the most diverse places to get food here in chengdu. and it's in my backyard. hooray!

as the week goes on, i'll be posting on a different food from each of the carts. tomorrow, cabbage tacos!

traffic and banks

friday was the day i decided to finally open a bank account. i researched how to say, "i want to open a bank account," and set off for the nearest branch to the school on my bike. leaving on a friday can be frustrating. cars are parked everywhere, mostly by parents picking up their children at one of the the three schools in the same vicinity. i estimate that means 6 or 7 thousand students leaving at once.

there are cars, pedicabs, and taxis parked everywhere, including the middle of the street. figuring i'd be okay on two wheels, i headed towards the gridlock of cars. soon i was in traffic. not car traffic, but bike traffic. i was behind a scooter as we followed a line of two-wheeled vehicles through a narrow channel of cars. a pedicab passed me on my left and then cut me off, so i angrily rang my bell at him. i was contemplating the bird, but that's bad karma, and i'm not sure he would have known what that meant.

soon though, i was out, and cruising toward the bank of my choice, "the chinese construction bank." they have a bunch of atms, and they're affiliated with my bank at home. i locked my bike out front, and realized that the lobby had about 20 people waiting for 3 tellers. i cursed myself for not bringing my book. i approached a complicated touch-screen machine to get a number for the tellers. as i was about to press the button for a non-vip number, a security guard stopped me. he already had a stack of numbers printed from the machine in his hand, and he gave me one. chinese culture will never cease to make me wonder. i took my number and got ready for my wait.

watching the led panels above the teller windows, i was excited to see that i only had 13 more people to go, and it seemed not everyone was showing up. after waiting maybe two minutes, i was approached by a bank employee. she said something in chinese, and i told her the sentence i had been practicing in my head for the entire afternoon. "wo yao li yin hang zhang hu." she quickly brushed this off and repeated herself. so much for my practicing. i gave her my passport, and she asked me to sit down in a different chair.

oh, my bearded white face. always getting me special treatment. i don't like having an unfair advantage, but when something like this is forced on me, i'm not going to argue. i'm thinking it's retribution for getting hello yelled at me all the time.

the woman had me fill out an account opening form, and when the next teller was available, she ushered me to a seat in front of the window. i answered their questions, and tried to help them out when they had trouble figuring out my last name from my passport. (james bickley mc swiney gives them many choices.) the whole time, this other bank employee was standing over me, doing nothing. whenever they needed something from me, the teller would ask me, then the woman on my side of the glass would ask me. i would start to put whatever they needed into the space under the window, and before i could, the woman on my side would take it from me, and do it herself. talk about service.

after many stamps--a red stamp makes anything official--and a new impersonal atm card, i was good to go. i thanked them, and left. now i don't have a ton of yuan underneath my mattress anymore. sweet.

well, well, well

ahhhh...the whims of the chinese government. for a time now, it is impossible to say how long, blogger has been accessible to me. last night, i finally realized it. it's nice to have complete control over my posts again. i will savor this open time, as long as it lasts. thanks again, china.

the great wall

so tonight, i decided to enter into the world of chinese red wine. the first vehicle was a bottle of great wall wine. made from the grapes near the great wall near yantai. it is produced by the world renowned winery of china national cereals, oils, and foodstuffs import and export corporation. it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? what kind of grapes? i have no idea. just grapes.

when i bought the bottle, i asked if i could get a corkscrew as well. to be honest, i just pointed to the top of the bottle and said "i open?" they nodded and grabbed what looked like a well used corkscrew from underneath the cashier's counter. as one clerk rang my purchase up, another took a knife to the bottle and started to tear the foil off. i tried to stop her, but she kept going. after the foil was off and i had paid for my goods, i grabbed the foiless wine and the much worn corkscrew and put it in my bag. the clerk shook her head no, and took both of them back from me. it turned out that i had not bought the corkscrew--it was used by the clerks to open the wine before you left the store. unfortunately, she didn't know how to use it. she was able to screw it in, but seemed to be it at a loss for what to do after. i told her i knew, took the bottle, and popped the cork out, by this time in front of about five chinese women. a student remarked, "wonderful," and i went on my way.

once i got home, i poured a glass into a plastic cup, and gave the wine some time to let it air. the bouquet smelled okay, better than i thought it would. but when i tasted it, boy oh boy. it turns out chinese beer is better than chinese wine. it's a shame really. now i have to finish a bottle of wine i don't like.

kuai zi

kuai zi is chinese for chopsticks. i've gotten quite used to them by now. and i've realized that eating with these two wooden sticks has its advantages. because there is the ability to squeeze with chopsticks, the tactile information available is greater. i can tell if there are bones, huajiao shells, or even stiff rice. chopsticks are used by just one hand. no need to lay a book down on the table to read during lunch, i can hold it and eat at the same time.

now it has taken me some time to get used to eating rice with chopsticks but it is doable. first off, in china, all rice is very sticky, so for the most part picking up big chunks of rice with the 'sticks is not an issue. but even at the end, when the rice becomes less cohesive, it is possible to get those lone grains of rice by holding the chopsticks parallel about a centimeter apart and scooping.

now last night i used a fork, as i usually do when i'm eating western. didn't even cross my mind that i wasn't using chopsticks. i guess old habits die hard.

a philosophy salon sans philosophy salon

well this evening i rode into chengdu on my fancy new bike. i had a few things i was going to pick up at the computer towers, and then make my way over to a philosophy discussion group where we talk about gilles delueze. if you don't know who he is, join the club. turns out he was a contemporary french philosopher best known for his thoughts on immanence and his critiques of kant, spinoza, and nietchze. sounds to me like he should be more famous!

i was psyched all day, reading about deleuze and his philosophy, and to meet some new people. i always say the best way to meet people you'll like is by doing something you like. so i rode down to the computer towers and got there about five minutes after six. now this was my first time parking my bike. you pay a guy two kuai, and he watches over your bike, and a hundred other bikes and scooters. so i pay the guy two kuai, and he says something to me, as always, quickly in chinese. i say good, good, and walk towards the store. the first two doors i try are locked, so i have to walk around to the main entrance in the front. while i'm walking, i notice that i'm a salmon swimming upstream in a rushing river of chinese. i figure this does not bode well for me, but i have to try. sure enough, there are security guys at the door making sure the crowd only goes one way. darn it.

so i walk back to the bike man, he smiles, and gives me my two kuai back. man, i wish i knew chinese.

this meant i was gonna be about forty-five minutes early for the salon, so i went down to stake out the restaurant, so i wouldn't have any problems. ha. i rode around in circles for a half hour. i even came down off my high horse and asked people where it was. no one knew. so finally around 7:05 i gave up, and sat down to have some western food, and a cold sam adams. this was my first american beer in china, and it was sure good. a nice full bodied beer. chinese beer is much more like miller light. (oliver, our school's liaison loves budweiser.) i relaxed and had my meal slowly. i am reading 36 children by herbert kohl (thanks to j and piper), and i read quietly, munching on chicken fingers.

after my delicious meal, i began to ride out of town. the bike is a thousand times better than the bus. my perspective on the bus is so restricted. i can only see to the left and to the right, and about sixty degrees vertically. i really enjoyed seeing the city approach as i rode in when it was light. in the dark, the overpass i have to go under is lit up with what seems to be a thousand feet of blue neon lights.
it lights up the sky to a deep dark blue. light pollution can be gorgeous. every time i've ridden the bus under it, i've wanted to tell the bus driver to stop so i could get out and take a picture. when i was riding my bike, i didn't have to ask anybody.

also, you can race people. i'm a very competitive person, even when the person i'm competing against has no idea. when i passed him the last time, i told him he was very fast. i'm not sure if he appreciated it.

after the overpass, i was in the country, so i put on my tunes, and my open-ear headphones (safety is a must, children) and cruised to the music. the dichotomy of rock and roll with my surroundings makes me feel like it's the soundtrack to my travelogue. pounding on my handlebars, singing along to the presidents of the united states of america, i drew a few stares. i smiled back, and sometimes i get a smile in return. i rolled in to my apartment to company in my back by wilco. it was awesome.

all in all, it was a great night. too bad i didn't get anything done.

i like to ride my bicycle, i like to ride my bike

at 9:30 this morning, i was crammed in with a 100 or so chinese people on a double decker bus. towards the back of the first level, the floor is raised to make room for the engine. when i boarded the bus, the woman in charge of tickets kept screaming, "go to the back! move to the back!" at each progressive stop, i moved closer and closer to the back of the bus, and eventually, there i was standing with my neck at a delightful 80 degree angle, feeling like a giant. i took this as a sign that the universe approved of my course.

i got off on renmin zhong lu (the people's center road) and began to browse. one of the great things about chengdu, is that the stores are all placed together. if you want a sign made, you go to a certain street, and there are about 20 sign shops all in a row, doing the exact same thing. if you want commercial cooking appliances, head north, and you'll find a whole line of them on the third ring road. here, at renmin zhong lu, they sold bikes and scooters.

ever since i lost my bike (i think using the word stolen might be going a bit too far...i left it unlocked in front of a restaurant. oops.) i've been thinking of getting a new one. to be honest while i had my old bike i was thinking of getting a new one. we were provided with shiny new one speeders. beach cruisers, basically. i needed more power. arargharghargharrr. (i've decided all posts from now on will have some type of home improvement reference.) just cruising is not my style. i need to be passing people. moving quickly. on the old bike i topped out at like 5 miles an hour, and that was with me standing on the pedals. so my subconscious made me let my bike get stolen, so i could get a new one.

and a new one i did get. a nice orange one, 18 gears, rack above the back tire, bell and lock included. not too bad for 600 kuai (75 bucks). i took her out on the street and began to put her through the paces. chengdu is a great bicycle town. there are no hills, just flat roads. i started moving out towards the suburbs in high gear. i was surprised as i began to pass electric scooters. i was the fastest thing by far in the bike lane inside the city. it was great, weaving in and out of bikes, pedicabs, scooters, and the occasional (and illegal) car, passing them all. once i passed the third ring road, which is where the city stops and the sprawl begins, motorscooters began to appear, and i couldn't keep up. to be honest, i could no longer keep up with the electric scooters, either. i need to learn how to pace myself. i finally arrived home out of breath and happy.

i feel like this is going to add a new dimension to my understanding of chinese. my experience thus far has been a bit two dimensional. i've been sticking to the bus routes and the places i have been shown by others. now i feel like i have the ability to explore. and explore i will.

i am a musical robot

so my lesson plan this week is about robots. (which is boring, i guess, because one of my best students told me after class today she wanted to do something interesting.) i asked them if they had a robot, what would they want it to do. the answers were very telling.

first we had the violent robots. these robots were to kill people my students didn't like, burn down the school, rob banks. one student wanted their robot to kill gwb, then make the student delicious food. an interesting diaspora there.

the next are the lonelibots. these are designed to be friends, keep secrets (that's a must), and play tennis, soccer, and computer games with the students. i tried to make the point that when they played computer games against enemies not controlled by humans, they already were playing with a robot, but for some reason that didn't fly with my eighth graders. one better student wanted to liberate her robot from mundane tasks, and for it to have emotions. "it would be just like a human, but its brain would be simpler."

studybots were the most prevalent. all the students wanted a robot that would do their homework, take their tests, etc. the most creative answer thus far is a shape shifting robot that could take tests for a student as well as taking the place of the parents when there were parent/teacher conferences.

finally, there were parental units. many of my kids wanted robots who would teach them about the world, go to work and give them pocket money, do the housework, and one girl went so far to want it to keep her on task. she mentioned that her parents were always at work, and she often watched television or played computer games when she should have been doing her homework. she thought a robot could solve her problem. another said she wanted a robot to do house work because her grandmother spent too much time cleaning and the student wanted her to have time to "play with other old people."

and finally, a few girls wanted a robot to play piano with them. god love those people and their musical robots.

(if you don't know what i'm talking about, rent spellbound. it's great.)

things i see regularly

rides outside stores for little children that play jingle bells.
bicycle tires burning on the sidewalk.
men with quarter-inch long fingernails. (it's a status symbol, showing that you don't work with your hands)
street sweepers playing happy birthday.
children relieving themselves on the street, sidewalk, supermarket or bus floor.
ducks' and chickens' heads, pig snouts, occasionally whole butchered yaks.
crowds of people standing around watching others scream at each other over a fenderbender.
live turtles and frogs at the supermarket.
police officers (or at least people in the drivers seat of police cars) reclined and passed out.

things i don't see regularly:
the sky
a good grilled cheese
uniformed police officers

here is a map of chengdu foreign languages school. the yellow thumbtack marks my building, on which i live on the second floor of sixteen. the five buildings above (northeast) my apartment are the "primary school" attached to the chengdu foreign languages school. what a mouthful. to the left of the primary school there are eight identical buildings. these are dorms that hold the 6,000 students in six grades, 7th to 12th. that means there are about 750 teenagers in each dorm. incredible. below the dorms is the giant square building with a courtyard that holds all the classrooms, as well as a tv and radio studio, computer labs, an infirmary, and a/v labs. on one side of the classroom buildings is the gym complex (that's that big oval building), and on the other side is the cafeteria and the library (no books to speak of).

so there's the tour. if you want to check out my neighborhood here are the coordinates. get google earth and check it out.

30°44'3.27"N
103°58'47.63"E

i am currently reading a memoir by john pomfret, one of the the first american exchange students to study in china after it was opened in 1979. he tells the story of five chinese students and the hardships they faced.

in a chapter called outside the gates, he talks about the sexual repression present in many of the chinese men and women in the early 80's. both men and women had to wear shapeless mao coats, and pre-marital relations, kissing included, might land you in jail. relationships between chinese people and foreigners were forbidden, and at nanda university, parties thrown by the foreign students are banned.

in a quarter century, much has changed. women still dress conservatively--there is no midriff showing here--but it is clear they are women. short skirts, leggings, and knee-high boots seem to be the fashion these days. as i walk through the local university campus students can be seen kissing cheeks with hands on the smalls of backs. it is clear that dating is acceptable, at least at the university level.

at the high school level, it seems as if the thought has yet to enter my students' minds. virtually none my students socialize in coed groups, unless it is during a game of basketball. throughout the halls, you see boys hanging out with boys, girls with girls. in the sophomore classrooms they seem more comfortable with each other than they do in the 8th grade classrooms, but loud, class-wide, spastic laughter greets any joke about a relationship. now granted, the seniors are in another building, and may act differently, but in my experience there seems no place for the romantic relationship in high school. perhaps they are too busy studying. perhaps america's children just move to fast. either way, it's nice not to have to see necking teenagers everywhere you look.

waking up in the middle of the night

there are no time zones in china, despite the fact it is the fourth largest country in the world. that fact means when it is 7am in beijing, it is 7am here, despite the fact we are about 1200 miles apart as the crow flies. that coupled with the lack of daylight savings time makes me think my 7am is alot like an american's 4am. when i wake up it is completely dark out. as i walk over to breakfast the sky has lightened a smidgen, but it is still too much like night. by the time i have eaten, gotten prepared for class, and answered a few emails, it is light, but still no sign of the sun, or silhouette of the sun, as i am used to. call me spoiled, but i like waking up with the sun. there is something, dare i say, natural about it.

last saturday night iwent out for my first karoke experience in china. it brought back many memories, and here are a few highlights.

my first karoke experience was a table set up in my high school's dining hall. as we ate a special dinner that consisted of a bunch of fried food (i can't remember what the occasion was) my dorm mates and i went up and sang bohemian rhapsody. (i'm not sure if my college friends realize how far back the group singing of bohemian rhapsody goes back for me.)

my next experiences were in taiwan. there were quite a few, but i think unchained melody on the bus after watching a bootlegged copy of star wars episode one before it was released in the states. the video feature two asian people doing pottery together. how sweet.

the other very memorable time was when we visited a cultural village at sun moon lake. it was like a taiwanese version of williamstown. after our tour and after we had all donned vintage taiwanese garb, we were treated to a dance performance. after they cleared the stage, they gave us the opportunity to sing karoke. justin man, ms. fontaine, and i, in our traditional taiwanese clothes, sang a delightful rendition of knock three times.

this ktv, as they call it here, was not as family friendly. the bar was smoky, and they projected the picture and words onto a blank wall, and people sat in their seats and sang. that way there wasn't as much pressure. i convinced a chinese guy i met there to sing unchained melody with me. it was great. brought back some really nice memories...

the chinese spit very unusually. they spend a lot of time phlegm clearing and gathering. they seem to relish making the loudest noise possible, like glass-pack mufflers that one might drive around dc in the 60s. they make a lot of noise, but when it comes to the actually spitting, they lean over and let it dribble out of their mouth.

now i, brought up on the chairlifts of king ridge mountain, do not spit that way. ithis is where this blog might get a bit graphic...feel free to skip the next part.

like a good glass-pack clearing myself, but i need to rocket the loogie away from me. i rest the loogie on my tongue, and while it's sitting there, i purse my lips to create a wind tunnel. i raise the loog up into the path of the airway, and foom! it's off like one of those cylindrical containers you put mail in at an old timey office and lost.

there's no force to chinese spitting, no strength. i am planning to stage the first spitting revolution of 2006. i better get busy. 2006 is running out.

notice how i no longer mince my words. thank you chinese censorship!

so midterms are coming up, and my students are freaking out. now, i'm always one to procrastinate to the last minute, even the last second, but i'm afraid i'm getting teacher-y in my old age.

tonight my 8th graders have an oral exam. they are given a topic, and they are meant to speak 10 sentences on that topic. i have wondered today if i could do the same thing in chinese. the answer is certainly not. well, maybe if it was about food.

the frustrating thing to me is, they have this native speaker in their midst for about 2 and half months, and they do nothing. but come the night of the exam, they want help on speaking. i stopped my lesson plan and tried to switch to something that might be beneficial for an oral exam, but i quickly realized there was nothing i could do with thirty kids that could be helpful. so i continued on.

one of the activities in this week's lesson plan is an icebreaker type thing centered around sleep. you have to find someone who...overslept this morning, had a nightmare recently, sleepwalks, etc. one of the things i stressed was that you must speak english. the questions were basically laid out for them, all they had to do was knock it out of the park. frustratingly, the only class that complained about the exam was the only class who had trouble speaking english. now that i type it there seems like there might be a correlation there.

so after the activity, i slowly lectured about how this is how you get better at speaking. if you want to do well on your oral exam, don't come to me the night of, just try to speak in class. that's it. i think i got a little fired up about halfway through and might of lost them, but hopefully the first part registered.

i guess i'll see when i get the grades. yeah, right, like they'll let me see grades.

today i had my weekly "official" chinese lesson. i call it official, because i try to study every day, and when everyone speaks the language, isn't your life a learning experience?

we were going over the days of the week. a fairly simple thing in chinese--monday translates literally to week 1, tuesday, week 2, etc. the only one that doesn't follow that pattern is sunday. sunday is written as xing qi ri, or week sun. isn't that interesting.

in my classes today, i tried a new lesson plan about fables. at the beginning of the class, we go over the definition of morals and fables, and i tell them (i think) a particularly rousing version of the tortoise and the hare. after that, i have them write fables of their own in groups. in each class, on average 2 out of 8 groups wrote the story of the boy who cried wolf. it was very interesting to me, especially after one student described it as an "ancient chinese story."

now i'm not sure when xing qi ri or the boy who cried wolf was adopted, or how it came to be that both things are intergral parts of western and eastern culture. i just think it's amazing that two cultures that are so different have some very similar historical artifacts.

tar but no feathers

sorry for the short break...censorship's got me down.

today, the improvements around my apartment continue. first they were ripping out all the grass, and now they are sealing all the cracks in the sidewalk.

this is an arduous process to say the least, especially for just one man. he started coming last week, with simply a hammer and a chisel that resembled a railroad spike. at each crack, he took the chisel to it without mercy, perhaps to make the surface even, and give space for the tar to stick. on monday, he began to fill in the cracks. he had two chunks of solid tar just sitting on the sidewalk, looking like a 3 pack a day elephant's lungs. he built a wood fire, again on the sidewalk, and stacked some bricks around it. he took one of the lungs of tar and put it in a metal bucket and set it on the bricks over the fire.

soon it was a boiling pitch black substance. he transferred it to another bucket, this one with a spout, and began to pour it liberally into the cracks he had made. while he did this, people walked around him and on the already filled cracks, paying him no mind. at the end of the day, he strapped the buckets and solidified tar to the back of his bike, and rode into the sunset...a tarman's job is never done.

Completely Blocked

now the chinese government has blocked access to blogger.com, effectively disabling me from posting completely. sweet. luckily, i have a proxy (read my ma) who is happy to post for me. now karl is an ist guy, so he may be able to help me work around it, but i guess for now, i'm going underground. darn it!

chinese mashed potatoes

what a pleasant surprise. i walk into dining hall, and begin to bother the lunchlady about lunch. everyday i point at one thing and say, "na ge," (that). she points to one bowl, and i say "bu yao" (don't want), and then she points to another and another, until she hits the bowls i want. today, i just wanted her to pick anything, and i don't know how to say, "i don't care." so i said i don't know. the lunchlady thought i was confused, and looked around for help. at that point, a chinese english teacher came up and helped. she said that that bowl was potatoes, and to avoid anymore fuss i said yao.

she plopped a spoonful on my plate, like any good lunchlady (unfortunately, it wasn't an ice-cream scoop). when i got to the table, i plunged my chopsticks in, and i could not believe it. mashed potatoes! (i think i kinda blew the surprise with the title, there.) a very smooth mashed potato with a nice addition of scallions and chives. eating mashed potatoes with chopsticks was a breeze as well. the consistency requires no chopstick skill at all, just poke and chomp. great! it was a welcome respite, and was the most homey meal to date in the cafeteria.

i love my cafeteria.

my middle name is danger

so i went running around 6:20 tonight through the streets of xi pu. now i am the first to admit that dusk is the most dangerous time of the day (besides dawn [just ask george clooney]). but when i started running, it was light out. now granted that all of china is on beijing time, and there is no daylight savings here, i think i should have known better. but darn, it got dark quick.

as i ran towards traffic, there was no danger from the cars. i saw them, and they saw me. more of a threat however, were the bikes and scooters. they would come at me with a playing-chicken type determination. as they would pass me, they would stare, and i would make eye contact with them.

at one point, as i ran past a bus, there must have been 30 people staring at me. i waved, and one brave soul waved back. (luckily, they weren't on a field trip i was supposed to be attending. [a little inside, i know])

as i ran back, i began to realize how dangerous it is to be running at this time of night. at one intersection i saw a boy on a bike and a man on a scooter have a head on collision. they seemed to be okay, but the rubbernecking at full speed was a bit more disconcerting. everyone, including me, did not slow down, just followed the action with their head.

finally, about a mile from home, a boy was yelling at his friend behind him while he rode his bike towards me. i leaped onto the sidewalk as he turned around and swerved away. afterwards, he gave me a friendly apologetic wave, which made me happier for the experience. it also gave me a chance to prove my fancy footwork.

needless to say, that was the last run i go on at this time of night. at least that i tell my parents about.

saddest notebook cover ever

as i walked through class the other day, i scoped out the notebook scene. no lisa frank here, just pandas and pigs, and a few weird words of chinglish. this notebook was different. the english was intelligble, but the message was rediculous. it was a picture of a sad 10ish year old girl standing in a doorway, with this text written below:

the worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them.

i have no idea where they're going with this, what it means, etc. but i do think it's sad. i'm not exactly sure why, but it is.

streets

there is a huge difference between chinese streets and american streets. in america, streets are something for cars, trucks, anything with a CO2 exhaust. in china this is not the case. there are cars and trucks, of course, but pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, pedicabs, farm animals have a right of way as well.

here, every street is its own marketplace. the store owners sit outside, perhaps cooking their lunch on a wok over a gas stove. in the afternoons you will find people playing mahjong outside or perhaps cards or chinese chess. at night, kids run throughout the street, playing kick the can or hide and seek. the streets are alive.

now while all this is happening, the chinese are spitting, dropping trash, shooting snot rockets. dogs are meeting each other in the bibilical sense, while i eat dinner watching it all.

there is a sterility that comes with development, and while that is can be a bit more hygenic, it's certainly not as fun.

an evening of games

tonight i brought my chinese chess board to cheers (our regular restuarant). hiro and i played a little bit, but then karl came and a full battle ensued. i taught him the rules and we were off. we took each others soldiers, cannons, and chariots, but eventually karl had me cornered in my palace. (i should have moved my advisors.) every so often a chinese man would come over and marvel that we were playing xiangqi.

after the game we had dinner, and began to watch the local children play outside the restaurant. their playing was a bit more spirited than ours. they played a game of what seemed to be pickle or dodgeball with a bunch of ribbons tied around a washer. i got involved as a specator, yelling and hooting with each throw of the ribbons. karl pulled out a camera, and when it flashed--boom!--the kids swarmed karl like angry chinese bees. except they were happy. they all wanted to see their picture, and while they crowded around, i got karl to hand me the camera, and i got a great shot of about 9 kids and karl, all with big grins.

playing games is fun!

dirt and destruction

outside my apartment building used to be a nice grassy area with plants and bushes. it was nice. kids would play there, dogs would run around, i would sit and read. now on monday, a group of laborers came in and are systematically removing the sod from around my building.

one of the biggest surprises as they began digging was what was underneath the dirt. all the landscaping at my school is set on giant concrete trays. i thought that the earth was there, and they paved paths between the buildings. instead, the concrete was there, and they added the earth later.

reminds me a piece that michel gondry that is in his director's work. buy it (it's definitely, definitely worth it) and check out the book that comes with it. you'll see what i mean.

but i digress--the work these laborers do is immense. with hand shovels and baskets, they are systematically ripping out all the grass near where i live. they get there around 8 in the morning, break for an hour or two at lunch and leave by 6. in this time about 12 of them in three days are almost done with the lawn. i am amazed...and a little sick.

starry sky

i looked up as i walked to the nearest kiosk for a cornetto (yes, they do have cornettos, and yes, they are my saving grace) i looked up and i saw a few stars.

there is an amazing amount of air pollution, due mostly to the large amount of coal burned. every so often i come across the coal man riding through the village. he unloads coffee can sized coals to be burned in establishments' stoves and grills. because of this, i am unable to see blue sky a majority of the time.

another problem is the amount of light pollution. nearer downtown it is amazing the amount of neon that abounds, but even out in the suburbs there are neon red characters illuminating ktv places, banks, and even apartment buildings.

so when i looked tonight, almost to say to myself, 'you won't be able to see the stars,' and saw them, it was great. now i only saw a few, but it was good to know they were still there.

paths

in all the campuses i've been on in america, there seems to be two kinds of paths. one set of paths is paved, or bricked, or cobbled, and is very official. the other set is a dirt track that has been worn into the grass by students and teachers going directly from building to building, instead of going around those inefficient corners campus landscapers seem to put in.

here, it seems, there is none of that. i walk through two campuses regularly. my high school's, and the college that separates me from the town. where i would usually cut across, an unacknowledged social pressure keeps me off the grass. if 10,000 students haven't cut across the grass to get to the library, i think it might be a presumptuous to do it myself. or maybe i'd start a revolution...

sworn in

a note about hellos. it is inevitable, as a white person, to be subject of hellos. there are pleasant hellos from children and middle aged people wanting to practice their chinese. there are wimpy hellos where a teenager will wait until they have passed you on the street before they have the courage to shout hello. there are covert hellos, where a teenager hides behind a pillar or a building and shouts hello at you. and there are bad ass hellos. hey guys--want to see me say hello to this foreigner? it's gonna be awesome.

today, as i walked through xi pu, the local city, i experienced the latter. usually i make a point of saying ni hao to every hello i get, but today, the amount of hellos were getting to me. it seemed every 2 minutes there was one group or another was saying hello. at the end of my walk, i was fed up. if it wasn't the nicest of hellos, i ignored it, and walked on. the last hello i received was from a group of boys walking towards me on the other side of the street.

as they approached, there was some nudging and nodding, and finally, one of them worked up the courage to say hello. i gave no response or sign that i even heard him, and walked on, staring straight ahead. i next heard, "what's your name?" that is second most frequent thing you will hear on the streets of china from people who know two phrases of english. i ignored this as well.

the next shout really got my attention, even though i didn't show it. "F*** you!" he shouted. it was clear he was joking around, and there wasn't any viciousness in it. but it wasn't what i expected to hear. i kept on ignoring him, and they walked on.

it seems like the english education is in full swing in china.

another note--i can't imagine being french or spanish in china. being constantly greeted in a language not your own must be incredibly grating.

but hey, at least they sound friendly.

a full day

this morning at 8 o'clock i was invited to the opening ceremony of sports day (or track and field day, to be more precise.) i went out to the field wearing my nicest clothes. all the students were assembled in their classes, as were the teachers behind them. the kids all wore the track suits that are their uniforms and bright pairs of white gloves, and the teachers wore grey suits, which are theirs.

when the bell rang, they began marching around the track. when a class would arrive at the center of the track where the headmasters sat, they would stop, do something creative, and then move on. it was all very much like a military parade. one class did a neat hand salute with many flourishes, while another class performed a martial arts demonstration. their demonstration prompted me to move closer to the center, where i was spotted by mr. hu, the headmaster who is my boss.

he graciously gestured to sit down, so i joined the three headmasters at this red velvet covered table. me, a lowly english teacher. amazing. it was enjoyable, but at nine, i had to leave, for i had another appointment.

because it was sports day, mr. hu arranged for oliver to take us to huang long xi, an ancient chinese village about an hour and a half outside the city. the village is restored to its ancient grandeur, like it would be in crouching tiger, hidden dragon. but inside these beautifully restored buildings were only shops. shops and shops and shops. the commercialism of the scene quickly overpowered the feeling of ancientness that may have been there.

we were not the only foreign visitors huang long xi had that afternoon. while we were there, we saw lee hsien loong, the prime minister of singapore. he seemed nice.

after a lunch where the dishes did not seem to stop, we decided to take a boat ride. we boarded a gondala like boat loaded with tea-chairs. the two men who ran the boat pushed off, and i settled down in one of the two bamboo recliners positioned at the bow of the boat. we rowed slowly down the river, and quickly i was dozing, catching sight of the river, and dozing again. it was a quiet rest as we passed fisherman, geese, and tea-houses.

when we arrived back on land i was well rested and ready for more...sitting. we sat and had green tea as an endless stream of vendors came around pushing their wares--peanuts, pomolo, a rice cake snack specific to huang long xi, and massages. most of all massages. bu yao would have quickly come to my lips, had i been asked, but they must have sensed that, and stuck to the other waiguoren instead.

after tea we piled back in the minibus, and on the way back to school i picked oliver's brain about chinese characters i saw, and got from him a promise to teach me xiangqi, or chinese chess. i've decided i'm going to teach myself, and try to win the first game we play. i like to win.

it has been a great day for me...many different experiences, a lot of chinese speaking, and a lot of eating. 3 for 3 in my book.

bao-zi, man tou, and...peanut muffin?

every morning that i am able to rouse myself out of bed, i traipse over to the cafeteria across from my apartment building. once there, i lean through a window and say: "yi ge bao-zi he yi ge man tou," or "liang ge bao-zi," if i feel in a meaty mood. this time i saw something different down at the end of line so i asked, "zhe shi shemme?" (what is this? [i realize now i should have said na shi shemme?" {what is that?}]). the lunch lady replied "da ge" (i don't know what that means). she handed me a muffin.

bao-zi i have discussed before. a "dumpling" of chopped up pork and onions (or whatever one wants in the middle)--you take a piece of dough, place the meat in the center of it, wrap it up, and steam it. voila! my favorite breakfast.

man-tou is a steamed bun, empty of any filling. pretty simple.

da ge is basically angel food cake, with some peanuts thrown in for good measure. it was delicious and weird. it may just mean cake in general, i'm not sure...i'm just describing what i had this morning.

but still, bao-zi holds the number one place in my heart. it is tasty and easy to eat, and no matter where you go, it seems the bao-zi remains the same. it is the mcdonald's of breakfast foods.

thinking in chinese

now i have not been in china long enough to start thinking in chinese linguistically, but i have begun to think in chinese monetarily.

in the first few weeks after i arrived, i was blown away. i could get a beer at a restaurant for less than 50 cents. i could eat out like a king for 2 dollars. i could even buy a scooter for less than 200 bucks.

but now, all of that has changed. quickly, within a month or so, i have begun thinking in yuan. it just about killed me to buy some good, imported, sharp cheddar cheese for 35 kuai (dollar:buck, yuan:kuai). granted, 4 dollars is pretty expensive for cheese, but when it is flown around the world, it's pretty moderate. you should have seen me lose it at le shan, when i found out it cost 105 yuan to get inside.

i find myself arguing with shopkeepers over 3 or 4 kuai. i gasp at a price more than 20. i've become a stingy bastard. but i guess when you get paid less than 500 dollars a month, it makes sense.

(no pun intended.)

decidely un-free range chickens

rachel, my co-worker and colleague had complained of a cock crowing and waking her up the past few days. she wondered if i heard it, but i had not. indeed it was a mystery. how could one person hear a cock crow while another sleeping by an open window did not? ahhh...the answer my friends, lies within the position of the rooster.

this rooster, or this couple of roosters, are sequestered into a closet next to the elevator, directly across from rachel's apartment (or flat, as she would call it). i imagine in not too long a time that these fowl will be dinner for rachel's neighbors. but until then, rachel gets a free alarm clock. it's like having a farm in your apartment building. man, you people living in the states are missing out on a lot of stuff. aren't you jealous?

dinner with the kitchen

at night, the cafeteria at my school offers three options. the cheapest (for those who are paying) option is a bowl of noodles. at mid-range, you can get a tray of what we had for lunch. and the high end are a bunch of dishes of premade delicious food. whenever i eat dinner alone in the caf, i usually pick the former. the noodles there are delicious, but in addition to that, you have a choice of condiments.

now usually at a noodle place you have specify whether you want the noodles spicy or not, or if you want hua jiao or not (huajiao is a spice that numbs your mouth that is often used in sichuan cooking.) and they take care of the rest. here at the caf, you are given an undoctored bowl of noodles, and you do with it what you will.

you bring it over to the tray of condiments which has hua jiao powder, da jiao (a chili pepper paste), msg, salt, and two other bowls of liquid which might be vinegar and soy sauce.

a recipe for bick's favorite noodles. 1. take noodles from your cafeteria. 2. put two heaping spoonfuls of da jiao into it (be sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl, that's where the peppers are). 3. add a spoonful of huajiao (too much makes it feel like you just got back from the dentist, it can be fun, but it isn't good for every bowl of noodles). 4. avoid the salt and msg. 5. add a small teaspoon each of the mystery liquids (at least until i can find out what they are.)

the noodle ladies love to help me with pronounciation of the condiments, even though it doesn't get me very far in knowing what they are. but their smiles and excitement makes me happy to eat there. plus the fact that it's free. that's a big one too.

lunch with the kitchen

on sunday lunch, the school is practically empty, and they only make enough lunch for the security guards and the kitchen. and the foreign teachers, since we don't have a home to go to for the weekend.

i arrived at 12:15, and everyone was serving themselves from behind the counter. i went back, and immediately there was confusion. waiguo laoshi (foreign teacher) can't be asked to get his own meals! so as i tried to help myself, they quickly prevented me, and helped me themselves.

after they gave me my tray, it seemed everyone was sitting at one table, so i sat down as well. again i caused quite a stir, but soon they got used to it. it was nice sitting there, just listening to everyone speak. it's gotta help on some level, right?

after i was done i said, "wo chi hao le, xie xie ni men." (i ate well, thank you all) and went to clear my tray. they looked at me as if i was crazy, and used hand gestures to tell me to put the tray down. they are just too nice.

the sounds of chengdu

every saturday, as you may have guessed, i go into the city to explore. today i took the bus to the jinjiang river, and walked along it until i came to wen shu (which is the chinese name for manjushri, the buddha of wisdom [in chinese, wenshu translates literally to "culture uncle"]) temple. whenever i'm on the bus (in china, or anywhere) i am of two minds about putting my headphones on and pressing play on my 'pod (sorry, but i love alliteration). on the one hand, it is an hour and fifteen minutes on a bus. on the other, do i want to remove myself from the flow of culture? i decided my open-ear headphones allows me to hear enough of what's going on around me to be okay. but it is definitely not an every bus ride thing.



my first surprise when i began to hear strains of an electronically produced "happy birthday" being pumped into the street by what sounded like a giant cell phone. eventually the bus passed the culprit. it was a street cleaner. apparently, if you are walking around in chengdu, and you hear happy birthday, run. it is the warning call of the street sweeper, and a watery and embarassing fate awaits you if you dawdle.

i debarked from the bus and finally began walking along the jinjiang river. soon i was greeted by about 8 raspy notes being played over and over again. i reached a shaded bench and there was a woman practicing her saxophone. it was good she was practicing, if you catch my meaning. i am borrowing a page out of homer-dog's book, and here is a haiku about the incident:

she plays saxophone
not well, but she's practicing

silence would be fine

her playing made me more aware of the sounds around me. the cars rushing by on my right, with the similar, but utterly different water flowing past on my left. birds sung all around, and i passed a group of teenagers, one of whom held a cell phone that was playing tinny pop music for the rest.

i find that this world sometimes uses questionably pleasant things to wake us up from our inner thoughts.

rat race

so i saw my first live rat a few days ago, and now i realize why they usually hide in the dark and avoid open spaces. as i was walking from the post office at 10 in the morning, there was a commotion in front of one of the stores. there, a family of three proprietors (wife, husband, grandmother), were chasing around a rat about as big as my two fists put together.

the rat didn't have a chance. whenever i imagine wild animals, i think there is no way i could ever out run them. these people did. it may have been because he was a fat little sucker, or it could just be the fierceness of the chinese people. first the wife chased it into the center of the concrete in front of the store. she stamped and it flipped over on its back, got up, and ran the other way. the woman continued to chase it, but the man got it first. with another vicious stomp, the rat was no longer moving. i turned away from the final deathblow, but i was about the only one who did on the street.

a tip for rats: keep to the night, and the enclosed places. stomped is not a good way to go.

trial run

i went running for the first time since my ankle injury this summer. i waited until night fall, and after the bell rang for the kids class. yes, they have class until 9:50 at night. i expected the school track to be empty, but figures moved around the gloom slowly. the smog (or fog, as google weather would have you believe) gives everything a spooky aspect.

as i ran, my nostrils began to burn. the whole time i worried whether if it was an effect of the smog or me not running for 3 months. i decided it was the lack of exercise (fingers crossed).

older women walked slowly doing arm exercises. there were a few couple walking around in the romantic atmosphere of the...uh...track. there were a few toddlers being chaperoned around by grandparents.

soon a music class came out and sat on the grass inside the track. they lit candles and began singing happy birthday in chinese. after that they sang other chinese songs i didn't know, and their singing added to the otherworldly mood.

as i went around, i began to ponder the strange figure i was cutting. hawaiian print board shorts (no one was wearing shorts, least of all hawaiian print), t-shirt (no t-shirts either, too cold) and an ipod. ruining their wonderful evening off in my own world pounding down the track, breathing like a shuddering air conditioner. i hope they don't really feel that way. i hope they just think, "silly waiguoren."

ps--i returned to find my apartment lacking hot water, or warm water, or cool water. everything but freezing water. the problem should be fixed by monday. luckily, i love cold water.

friendliness

i am killing myself softly with chinese. i study quite a bit--more than i did in college--and i'm constantly practicing on the locals. my whole day rests on how they react. for instance...

a few days ago, i was walking in town after buying a few apples. as i walked by our regular place ("cheers" we affectionately refer to it), i saw hiro and patrick eating dinner. as i walked toward them to say hello, a security guard i have spoken with a few times saw me first. he was eating with friends at the same restaurant, and he quickly offered me a beer. of course i accepted, but my fellow teachers only saw me after i had sat down with the security guards. they gave me the, "i see how it is" business, but it was clear they understood that this is how one learns a new language.

so i sat down, drinking my beer in the tiny little glasses they serve with it. i tried to follow the conversation, and added a few things myself, "i like kung pao chicken," was about the extent of it. but i'm sure i'm getting something by osomosis, and these men were extremely nice and friendly to me. it was a great experience, and i know have a new "peng-you" (friend).


the next night, i ventured down the fair area of the village to pick up an electric pencil sharpener (i need it.) and a fried dough crepe. the people who run the booth are very friendly as well, and it was nice to see them after a long break. i ordered a banana one, and watch the cook make his magic. while i was waiting, 3 college aged girls came up, speaking rapidly in chinese to one another and to the proprietors. i waited quietly, again trying to follow the conversation until i heard a girl ask the laoban, "ta ting bu dong ma?" (does he understand?) at the point it was clear to me they were talking about me, and my face turned beet red, as it is wont to do. i told them "wo ting de dong yi dian dian," (i understand a little) picked up my pancake, what was left of my diginity, and walked away.

i'm sure they weren't saying anything too mean, and i'm sure they meant it in the nicest of ways, but the tones of each situation were so different. in both i tried to understand the best i could, it just rested in the locals how they treated that comprehension or lack thereof. keep that in mind next time you come across someone who doesn't speak your language.

chengdu...in connecticut?

my parents went to visit my aunt and uncle just outside of hartford for a columbus day. (we don't have columbus day in china. darn north american continent, always getting in the way!) and lo and behold, they stumbled upon Chengdu! it seems to be a little jazzier, and a lot more american than the one i know. but it's good to know that chengdu is letting it's presence be known. they didn't have any food, which is disappointing, but i'm pressuring them to go back and try some. it better be good. and spicy.

bus duos

from what i can gather, from my two long distance bus rides (to and from dardo) is the bus is usually run by a husband and wife team. the man usually drives the bus while the woman deals with the business.














on our way back from dardo, our bus was run by a perfectly charming (i gotta believe) married couple. it seemed like they had been driving the chengdu-dardo run for their entire lives. a long distance bus ride, like almost anything else in china, has a fair amount of bureaucracy. before we even left the dardo bus station we had two officials board the bus, the driver initial some documents, and the wife, or the laoban (what you call a manager of any business, be it bus or restaurant), hand one official a 20 kuai bill. (suspicious, no?) but they handled the red tape like clockwork.

we would approach an bureaucratic station which would usually be an official sitting behind a desk in a shop front (once it was a man sitting behind a wall he was using for a desk underneath an umbrella in a garden). as we drew closer, laoban would stand next to the door, and when the bus stopped, the door would pop open, she would walk over and have some paper stamped or pay someone some money.

the whole time they had been joking, laughing, and talking to each other, and it seemed like they had a really good thing going.at one point during the ride, the wife yelled to her husband that she was hungry. the bus driver gallantly pulled over to where some country people were selling roast corn, and bought her one. while we were there, quite a few passengers took advantage as well. no one complained about the unscheduled stop, it was clear we were going to get there when we got there, and not a moment before.

when we left dardo, we did not have a full bus, and at any point during the trip a person would wave at the bus and laoban would begin to barter with the wouldbe passenger. the going rate was a hundred kuai, and it was clear she wasn't moving from her price. in that situation, it's clear who has the upper hand. one woman tried to get 90, and laoban wouldn't come down. eventually the woman paid the hundred and boarded. another time, an old man tried to get 80, and the bus driver began to pull away even before he had a chance to offer more.

by the time we were 4 hours away from chengdu, our bus was full, and laoban had given her seat to the final passenger. she took a red cushion she had had next to her seat and laid it on the console next to her husband. for the next 4 hours, they sat next to each other, her peeling and cutting apples, and him sharing them. occasionally she would swing over to her tape bag to change the music. it was like they were on a road trip, with a few 60 extra hangers on. it was quite sweet.when we returned to chengdu, our supposedly 8 hour ride (which took 9 on the way there) took a measly 6 and half hours, including a lunch stop. i was a big fan of their team, but i couldn't figure out how to express myself. i settled for a big smile and a hearty xie xie (thank you).