censorship

one of my questions about traveling to china was the amount of censorship. was i going to be able to stay up with international news? i had heard the bbc news website was blocked and i was worried about my favorite news source, the new york times. go ahead, call me a bleeding heart liberal. when i arrived, my worries were soothed quickly. nytimes.com was up and running, without any modifications at all. i could even access articles on china, which is more you can say for the bbc website. i am well connected, and very happy to be away from the american news machine.

this morning my dad sent me this image. (again, if you click on it, it's a little bit clearer.) it is a comparison of this week's newsweek covers between europe, asia, latin america, and the us. the first three headlines are "losing afghanistan", the last one is "my life in pictures" a story about annie liebowitz. very interesting. now, i'm no conspiracy theorist who is arguing that the government made newsweek change the cover in defiance of the first amendment. i'm a corporate news theorist. i believe in their quest to sensastionalize the news and make it play the way they want it, they are selling the average american (or whoever reads the news...) up the river. it makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

now read this quick...i'm not sure how long the american censors will let it in to the united states. you know how they feel about bad news.

somebody doesn't like mao?

in my classes this week, we've been doing a bit of getting to know you stuff. more in fun as opposed to breaking the ice. we all know each other by now. so in this excercise you write 3 or 5 things down about yourself on a piece of paper, then you ball it up and throw it across the room. now i'm courting disaster here, but it's fun! you should see their faces when i ball up my piece of paper and throw it across the room. they are shocked. but they quite soon get into the swing of things.

after 30 seconds of a hailstorm of paper, i tell everyone to stop, and pick a ball up. then you read it to the class. you guess who the person is, than that person has to read.

number 3 of one kid's list was, i don't like mao. man, talk about courage--or stupidity. balls of paper were immediately thrown at him, and one kid glared at him very threateningly. i know i can't talk about politics, but i wanted to know why he didn't like mao. and for that matter, why they liked mao so much. either way, i'm just going to have to sit on my curiousity. maybe i can talk to him later.

justin's story

after class yesterday, i spoke to justin, the monitor of my sophomore 6b class. in class, we had written five sentences about ourselves, mixed them up, and distributed them throughout the class. everyone had to read someone else's and we all guessed who wrote which.

a girl read justin's. "i miss my old junior friends. i wish it was last year. i'm afraid i will never make any new friends." when no one could guess whose it was, justin eventually raised his hand. i was surprised. he seemed well spoken, smart boy, without any glaring social problems.

he approached me after class. he told me that last year he was in the experimental section of the school (think advanced placement). for some reason or another, he failed one of his finals and he was dropped down to a lower class. now a monitor, or head student, he was bitter about the conduct of the other students in his new class. "they swear, and they don't listen." he is lonely, but feels he can't make friends with people with such low standards. i suggested to him that, perhaps, after getting to know them, they wouldn't be that bad. he did not see that as an option. for him the only option was up.

"studying is the thing that makes me forget. i study and i am not lonely." before entering this school, he was a loner. his classmates in his junior class took him out of his shell, but now he is retreating back. by studying hard, he hopes to ace his exams, and hopefully make it back into the experimental classes, and back to his friends.

not the way i would go about it, but it does shed some light on the human condition in china.

the buses of chengdu

the moped, the bike, the rickshaw, the car, the car that looks like it should be a moped. all of these are wonderful ways to get around the city. i, however, am relegated to the bus. now it is possible to take a taxi into chengdu from where i work and live, but with a price 15-45 times expensive as the bus, that is saved for weekends when i am out later than the buses run. and do they run. the system is quite good albeit a bit confusing.

a few times during the day, the bus is a relaxed affair. you put in a single yuan (about an eigth of a dollar) into the receptacle, and you ride until you get off. the seats are comfortable, as bus seats go, and there are ads for gatorade featuring yao ming, that star of stars (almost everyone's favorite nba team here is the houston rockets). my favorite seat is on the right side of the bus, after the second door. it is a single seat bolted to the wheel well. you can put your feet up on the handrails by the door, and people seem to avoid that seat...perhaps because of the bumps. i lean my head out the window, even though a couple of giggling girls hot to practice their english told me it was dangerous. now i don't know about dangerous, but you want to avoid leaning your head out the window on the left side, as you are likely to be spattered with loogies of the bus driver.

spitting is an art in china. a unisex art. after hearing a massive snot gathering, you are as likely to see a woman as a man launch the contents of their sinuses into the street. snot rockets are popular here as well.

however, i digress. i sit watching the advertisements for new housing developments go buy, the scooters passing, being passed, then passing once again, and the massive amount of commercial establishments once we reach the city proper. it is a nice ride, when i am not packed like, dare i say it, a sardine in a can.the state of the bus usually more like this. i guess when you have 10.2 million people living in a city, the bus is going to be full most of the time. now you pay a single yuan and cram yourself into the cattle herd of humanity that has gathered at the front of the bus. now i recommend that you hush that fuss, and move to the back of the bus. for some reason, most of the standing crush resides in the front of the bus, and if you can make it past the rear door, there is usually much more space. people board with roll-on luggage, nothing but the clothes they are wearing, plastic sacks filled with what seems to be fertilizer, anything and everything. no chickens yet, but i'm waiting. they seem to travel mostly by rear of moped.

as for seating, people are very wary of the elderly and the pregnant. people will stand up and shout "qing zuo, qing zuo" (please sit, please sit) immediately whenever someone in either condition board. (there are many pregnant women about, this being a little more than 8 months after chinese new year and the winter festival.) i was standing once when a few people would not give up their seat to an elderly man, and the bus driver started shouting at them. eventually, younger but older man stood up, giving his seat to the man. clearly, the reason he had not stood before is because he thought someone younger should have stood first. i felt the same. kids these days.

but when trying to give your seat to a younger person, such as a more vivacious expectant mother, or a woman whose foot you just crushed, expect a bit of a fight. a simple single qing zuo won't do it. you have to plead with them to take your seat. if you say please sit enough, and ignore their cries of "it's okay, i can stand" (at least i imagine that's what they say) you will be able to get them to sit down. because of course they want to sit down, but they don't want to accept on the first offer. good ole chinese culture.

but it beats walking.

mistakes on the english map of china

as promised, my communist student, tang, came through. today, before class (yes, not even after class, before class!) i was presented with a copy of the anti-secession law in english. one country, two systems. i was also provided a white rabbit, which is like a tootsie roll, except made out of the same cream filling in bull's eyes. i was worried that my democratic tendencies seemed to be up for sale for delicious treats, but i decided it was just a gift.

after class, tang informed me that the english map of china that he gave me last week was incorrect. the english map said that qumanglang feng was the tallest mountain at 8848 meters high. in fact, qumanglang feng was the tallest mountain at 8844.48 meters high. the discrepancy had not bothered me by that point, but there is no doubt it would have eventually. what really bothered me at this point was that he had spent time scouring both maps simultaneously for mistakes. i decided that this couldn't be the case, and this fact had been found out some other way. either way, i'm reading up on the npc's decision, and i'll get back to you about how i feel.

site change

tom dibblee makes me want to be a better blogger. he's got pictures, links, everything. he is driving me to step it up a bit. (that means pictures and links.) soon, hopefully, i'll be up to no loitering standards.

i have also found out that frogs has a blog too. kudos on the friscalating dusklight, my friend!

more soon. check out the new links, and the lack of china in the title of my blog.

and my new hidden blog, subconscious bick.

a trip to the tibetan quarter (pt. ii)

i went inside. xizang fengqing wu is a small place with 6 different rooms. the host gestured for me to seat myself. i went through the first open door and found myself in the presence of another waiguoren. i said "ni hao" and sat down. we did not speak.

note: all the waiguoren i've met (including myself) act the exact opposite of the chinese when they see a westerner. instead of staring, we ignore. we want chengdu for ourselves, unsullied by other visitors.

i sat down, and ordered a few dishes. a few minutes after i ordered, at the door from our dining room to the street, a man hit two metal sticks together, making them ring, and said something to the two of us westerners in chinese. i said i didn't understand, and the other westerner told me that the man wanted to clean my ears. at that moment, the man produced some wicked looking metal hooks (they looked like dental picks) with cotton swabbing wrapped around them. i said "bu yao" don't want very quickly. [bu yao is something everyone should remember when traveling to china.] i used the opportunity after the ear cleaner left to apologize to the westerner for intruding. he told me that i was speaking nonsensically, and told me why he was there.

he was canadian, his children were grown, and his wife was ill with a stomache, which explained his solitary position. he and his wife owned a boat that was now in malaysia. they had set sail ten years ago from the north american continent. it was cheaper to live in asia, so they were spending their retirement here. they were in the middle of a year traveling through china, to lhasa, to kathmandu, to etc. etc. etc. needless to say, i was jealous. but then again it seemed he was a bit jealous of me. the grass is always greener.

my food came. i had ordered yak meat dumplings, droma ("a sweet root vegetable") [someone later told me it was ginseng, but i'm not sure about that.], and milk tea. i think the yak tasted better just because it was yak. the droma came with sugar, which i shook on sparingly. it had a taste between a sweet potato and a red bean, and was quite grainy. the milk tea was delicious, and as i stood to go, i realized i hadn't finished all of it. while i stood, i poured the rest of it in my cup, and drained it, college style. ahhh. the good ole days.

i turned to leave, and realized the canadian left while i was eating ninja-style, without even saying goodbye. perhaps it was just that he couldn't be heard over the sound of my epicurian enjoyment.

a trip to the tibetan quarter

yesterday, i took a bus and walked down to the tibetan quarter in chengdu--i wrote this in xizang fengqing wu, a tibetan restaurant.

knock on wood--everything is going to plan. i took the 54 into the city, changing to the 48 after auchan [another french supermarket]. the bus was packed when i got on, but practically empty after chungxi lu (a lot of shoppers, apparently). i got off at xin nan men bus station, and began to look for the traffic hotel, where the bus to the tibetan quarter was supposed to stop. i followed the crowd--but there was no sign of it. then i noticed a few people going down a small alley in the direction of the hotel.

instead, after a few twists and turns I found myself outside a large indoor food market. it smelled delicious. there were meat, veggies, and various noodle stands. i think it was the noodle stands, where they would pull the dough, that smelled so good. i eventually made it back to the street, decided to give up on the traffic hotel, and struck out on my own.

i kept contemplating a taxi that would take me directly where i wanted to go, but i would put off until the next intersection everytime, and i eventually found myself on wuhou ci da jie, off of which the tibetan neighborhood began. i walked around looking for a tibetan restaurant i had read about, as well as a shop to purchase a meditation bell.

i saw more monks than i have ever seen in one place. they were everywhere. it was wicked cool.

i kept walking until the street i was on ended at one of chengdu's main drags. i turned around and within 30 seconds ran into a student of mine. i didn't say anything at first, because i am very wary that there are 10.2 million people in the city, and one student might look alike. but after we passed each other, he shouted mr mac. he was coming back from lunch with his father. small city.

after walking a bit farther, i found the sign for the street the restaurant was on. across from the sign was a shop with a beautiful bell staring me in the face. i bought it and an incense burner. i then walked about 500 ft down the street, and lo and behold, there was the restaurant, like magic!

at this point i'm going to rest and take a breather...more tomorrow...and pictures.

americans can write?

i stood in the middle of chungxi lu, the biggest shopping mall in chengdu, writing in my journal. i was waiting for rachel, who was buying boots. i was simply recounting my eventful day, so i wouldn't forget anything. all of a sudden i felt this presence over my shoulder. it was a chinese couple who had come over to see what i was writing. like i was an exhibit or something. "Step right up folks, see this amazing creature--a literate american. now i know it may be hard to believe folks, but here he is, right in chungxi lu!!!"

people would change their courses to pass a little bit closer, and crane their heads upward to see over my notebook. again, i have no idea about their motivation. did they think i was writing about them? i was. serves them right for staring at me all the time.

trip to chengdu

i figured, since i didn't i have class until 2 that i would go into chengdu and pick up some groceries (peanut butter, bread) and a yoga mat to help with the old ankle. while i was shopping i spotted a nice plant that i purchased soon after.

so to get back to school i need to take the 54 bus, and figuring since it was the middle of a weekday it wouldn't be too crowded. so as i approached the bus stop, a 54 pulled away that was almost empty. right afterwards, there was another 54, but it was packed. i figured since there were two 54s right in a row, there would be more soon. wrong. unfortunately, i had to wait another 15 minutes for another. which had more people than the second one.

all the while people were staring at my purchases and laughing. now it does not bother me when chinese people laugh when i'm trying to speak chinese. that makes sense. but when i'm sitting quietly holding my purchases it begins to get to me. i like to purchase things that should be understandable to people across cultures.

at first i thought they were laughing at my yoga mat. it featured a western woman bending over in trikonasana, which could be interpreted in any number of ways. but instead, i think they were laughing at my plant. i couldn't understand why...but my hypothesis is they were thinking why would anyone travel so far into the city to buy a plant. but i really have no idea. they could have been thinking who buys a plant at a grocery store? who buys a plant at all? who knows?

so i was getting frosted, as i stood there with my box with a bent over woman on it in one hand, pb and bread and plant in the other. after i sat down, i began to take refuge in my plant, and try to send it some good vibes. it helped a little bit. it also helped when people lost interest in me. i relaxed, and enjoyed the wind in my face from the open window, and before i knew it, i was back in the high tech zone (west).

i returned home to find another tile had dropped from my ceiling.

sometimes, you just can't win.

jobs

so this week we've been talking about what jobs the students want when they get older. interestingly, older is a difficult concept to get across. so i've started saying, "in the future." the answers are across the board. CEO, boss, and managing director (i had three of the latter in my most recent class) are the most popular. when asked why, the answer is inevitably, money. though rachel had a kid in her class say that he wanted to be a boss because he wanted a secretary who could make him friends. interesting, to say the least. there were a fair share of football players (soccer--they are taught out of an english english book), musicians, writers, lawyers, artists, pilots, drivers. then came the ones from the book, butcher, shop assistant, milkman. after hearing any of those, i'd ask them to close their book.

what was interesting to me were the jobs that drew laughter when they were suggested. cleaner, housewife, farmer. after they laughed, i would ask what they thought was funny. there would never be an answer. i pointed out that i used to be a farmer, but they were never shocked about that.

after a good list had been written on the board, i would ask them questions. "which jobs make you famous?" artist, footballer, singer, boss. i would ask how a boss would be famous, and inevitably, bill gates would rear his head. i would ask what jobs make you rich, and i'd get the same answers, with engineer thrown in as well. a few students would say farmer, and i would ask them how. they would clarify--they meant american farmers. very interesting.

it's interesting to see the values of these students. it seems, right now, that money is number 1.

chinese lessons (official ones)

so first chinese lesson today! stroke order, tones, the works. feels like i'm back at high school. but it's great to get the bare bones back again. if you practice the tone of those words enough, you don't even realize your saying it any more. bizarre. anyway, the teacher, carol, had a really cool insight into tones. tones are for english speakers like the difference between sink and think is for chinese. it's a step closer for me understanding the chinese language. our teacher seems patient and excited to teach. i guess i can understand, coming from teaching high schoolers to people who aren't laughing at every word you say, or passing notes underneath the table.

other than that, i was late for two classes, the ceiling over my bathroom fell in, and was completely misunderstood at the noodle place. but the chinese lesson was fantastic.

i'll get you someday chinese...someday.

photo albums

the new update of picasa2 has a new feature of uploading entire albums of pictures.

so i have.

if you haven't had your fill of china photos, check these out...

my albums

and if you want higher resolution ones (so you can see the buddha in picture 22 of the le shan album) just email me, and i'll send you them. they're pretty cool.

the anti-secession memo

on the first tuesday i taught, i was asked by a student what i thought about the taiwan-china issue. skillfully dodging the issue, i told the class that i was not supposed to talk about politics during class. he asked once more during class, and i gave the same answer. he then approached me after. "so what do you think about taiwan?" "well, i guess i feel the same way most americans do." he was not satisfied. i think he wanted me to actually say it. so i did. "i think that taiwan is okay the way it is right now." he started to go on to the history of the issue, and began to try to convince me. i did not have time, as i had to go to class.

two weeks later, today, after class, he approached me again. he gave me two, in his view, correct maps of china, one in chinese and one in english. it was then i noticed that he was wearing a communist pin. i then realized that this smart kid was most likely a party member. he also gave me a dense (at least to me) document which he told me was the anti-secession doctrine. it was written chinese, but he assured me that he would provide me with an english translation of it next week.

he asked me to read it and "bring [his] message to the west."

so i am.

welcoming ceremony

so today was the oft postponed welcoming cermony. 3 less than 1,500 seventh graders stood in groups of 60 facing us. we stood on a stage, the five foreign teachers, next to the administration. as we watched, they followed directions from a man with a microphone next to the stage, and demonstrated various parade-ground-type formations. then a small woman, not quite as tall as the microphone walked up and began to read something she wrote from a piece of paper. her voice was much larger than her stature, and she had much to say. then a different man stood up, and introduced all the members of the administration. then mr. hu, vice-principal, senior teacher, vice-chairman of foreign language specialized committee of chengdu education society, and my boss, introduced the foreign teachers. he spoke well in both chinese and english, repeating everything he said for the benefit of the 7th graders, who were just starting their english education. he introduced each one of us, and we gave a small bow, and the ceremony was over. the whole thing was videotaped so it could be shown to the rest of the school. what a pleasant introduction!

the top english name of the year

i've kept on trying to share this for going on 2 weeks now, and i forget everytime...perhaps there's a higher power behind it. without further ado, the top name of the entire year for all of my 500 or so students:


God.


i'm reaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllly nice to him.

top 7 things i miss about america

i got up and it was raining, and it will probably still be raining when i go to bed. it made my subdued. i went down to our regular restaurant by myself, had some delicious mapo dofu, and a cup of tea. after working on my lesson plans for a while, i treated myself to dvd of an american movie, criminal. john c. reilly, diego luna, both definitely not at their best. the whole movie wasn't at it's best. i would not recommend it. so that dropped me into a homesick funk where i was until dinner. as a result, i have come up with this list:

top 7 things i miss about america:

9 dollar movie tickets
steven colbert and jon stewart (they can count as one)
traffic laws
giant slabs of meat (all the meat here is chopped up into small pieces and served mixed up with vegetables, weird, huh?)
peter christian's
blue sky, the sun, moon, stars, etc.
my friends and family


awww. aren't i sweet. i put every one of you in my blog at once.

le shan

le shan is where the giant buddha is located. it resides in a park with tons of buddhist statues, temples, and...stairs. many, many stairs. we entered into the park by the south gate, and we paid 105 yuan per ticket. now that is a measly 12-13 american dollars, but after 3 weeks of living in chengdu, paying more than 20 for anything is "tai guai le" too expensive. but we forked it out anyway, because, hey, when are you going to see a giant buddha.

so we entered into the park through the south gate, crossed a small river choked with water lillies, (you can click on each picture to enlarge it)

and into the buddhist park/museum/theme park. there were a great many interesting statues to see, of buddha, and different bodhisattvas floating around. we were unclear if these statues were here originally, or if they thought that this would be a good place to put them. it didn't matter. they were beautiful, and where we were was quiet and uncrowded. patrick and i walked peacefully through the statues, breathing deeply, and snapping an odd photo.

we reached a pavillion that led up to a steep set of stairs. i wanted to call and tell someone about it. and luckily, there was a china telecom pay phone. how convenient! unfortunately, as payphones have failed me in the past, so did this one. to this day, i don't know how the phone card in my wallet works.at the top of the steep steps, there was a big buddha, and we asked ourselves, "is that the giant buddha?" and we answered, "nay, it is not. the giant buddha is larger." so we continued on. we passed through a cave with a beautifully carved thousand-handed bodhisattva. it was carved so cleanly. in fact all the carvings in that cave were crisp and clean. gorgeous!

after that we began to follow signs to "da fo" the giant buddha. we spent hours climbing up and down stairs. as we got closer to da fo, the density of chinese tourists was rising. steeply. we would come over a hill, and there would be big umbrellas with pepsi logos on them, and tourists, quite snappily dressed, sitting underneath. eventually, after stopping for directions, we found the back of da fo's head. his hair looked peaceful and beatific, but the hordes of tourist pressed to every inch of rail around his head, did not. i, like any good tourist, needed to see for myself.

a quick sidenote: the chinese know nothing of lines. if you are waiting for the bus, it does not matter where you are standing, only how close you can squeeze in to the person in front of you. this is true everywhere. i have yet to enter a chinese bank, but i shudder at the thought.

so i mushed myself into the fluid crowd, and with a little politeness (unheard of!), a little patience (never!), and a little boxing out (which i learned from my dear friend abbey), i was able to make to the rail. it was quite a sight. he was huge. and i appreciated that. the crowds of what seemed millions of people, i did not appreciate. on the right side of the buddha, there is a switch back trail you can take to get to the bottom of the buddha, and see it in all it's splendor. the "line" looked to be about 2 hours long. i had seen all i need to see.

so we trekked back, stopping for an expensive lunch, and eventually making it back where we had began. unfortunately, now, it was full of tourists like the rest of the park. the constant hum of conversation was unsettling for me, in such a beautiful environment.

this is something that i clearly need to learn to accept.

more discussions on changes

i had one of the most eloquent classes ever yesterday. we talked about change...yes...still. that's what happens when you teach the same lesson plan for one week. they talked about chengdu changed, but many offered vignettes on how change affected their lives.

one girl spoke about her grandmother's farm in the country. for a long time, it didn't have anything. it was a hut, and to get there you had to climb a mountain. the water came out of a well, which you had to climb another mountain to get. there was no electricity, and everything was quite rustic.

two years after my student was born, her father put in an electric line to the house. soon they had a refrigerator, air conditioning, and most importantly a tv.

was their life better? she didn't say.

belated teacher's day, and morning and afternoon exercises

first off, i'd like to say that i'm no longer the only teacher that didn't get a teachers day present. i mean, i'm the last, but i can deal with that. while i was writing on the board, one of my classes slipped a piece of lined paper onto my podium. on it said, "four days ago was teacher's day. happy teachers day! from 10b." so while my colleagues got multiple cards, a tea jug, and other fine things, i thought i got a half-assed piece of lined paper. as i left, though, my kids ran up and gave me this neat clay mug. it has a little compartment on the inside so you can put your tea leaves in (almost all the tea is loose here) and they won't get in your mouth. it's wicked cool. made me feel kinda bad for my mean thoughts during the lesson.

one thing that i'm getting used to here is hearing music clips
blasted at all hours of the day across from my window in my apartment there is the primary school of Chengdu Foreign Language School. in between classes, they blast the opening bars of the william tell overture. in the morning, before school, they'll often. play nice classical music, that flows in my window and serenades me in my bed. it reminds me of my mother waking me up with her practicing the piano. at about 10 in the morning though, those speakers are turned into a PA system, and the whole school practices counting, or marching, or something. all brightly dressed, they'll stand in rows, and count up to eight, sometimes in groups, sometimes all together, always very loudly. do not try to sleep in on a weekday.

the high school has the same thing. they stand in line and do exercises, but it does not seem to be with the same reckless abandon as the primary schoolers. they look like bored teenagers who have been requested at a line dancing ceremony in the middle of the day...which...i guess...they are. i don't know what the speaker says to the high schoolers, but i'm very interested to find out. come on chinese, come on!

address

some of you have been asking about my address...i have received a card from the good ole parents, so the mail does work. in english, my address is:

bick mcswiney
chengdu foreign language school
high-tech zone (west)
yangxi rd.
chengdu, sichuan, china
611731

now my headmaster said it would have gotten here sooner had the address been in chinese. so i cut and pasted this together:

















611731

i forgot to include the postal code on the image, so you might want to just write it in there.

if anyone sends me letters, i'll send them letters back...and chinese envelopes are cool!

thanks.

just a note about my chinese

now, i'm afraid that i may have given the impression that every chinese person i meet says, "man your chinese is great!" this is simply not the case. it's just that i only report the times that things go well. most times, i say something in chinese and the person starts talking wicked fast or they say "ting bu dong" i don't understand. this is what happens the majority of the times. but i just don't feel like writing about that for some reason. so the impression you get may be a bit biased. but here is my shot at "fair and balanced" reporting.

okay morning

so i woke up early today to ride my bike. i went out with hordes to xi pu. bikes everywhere. it was great. i rode into xi pu, turned around, and stopped for bao-zi on the way back. these are little buns filled with stuff. they look like white balls of uncooked dough, but i assure you they are cooked. i got one--i think i should have gotten two--and it was filled with green beans and beef. delicious. i also got a glass of duo jia (i believe that's what she called it) or soy milk. it's served in a plastic cup with a plastic seal on the top. you take a straw and stab through to drink it, much like capri sun, but easier to open. she asked if i wanted a straw stabbed through or not. at least i thought that's what she said. i think she might have just offered me a straw. anyways, i said no. (she also said in chinese that my chinese was good , and in english she said that she gave me half off) i ate the bao-zi on the way back, passing tons of factory workers going to work in the high tech zone. they all had bao-zi or a fried dough thing (that's on the list for friday's breakfast) in their hands. some were joking, and some trudging in, like they were extras in metropolis.

i also passed many groups of older people doing tai chi. they would do it in little parks on street corners, 30 or 40 people following one at the front. the chinese also have these playground like areas, which are actually communal gyms. they have leg presses, sit up bars, something that i can only think of as a "wax on, wax off" machine (two discs at about head height that you spin in different directions). i also witnessed a group of older people that looked as the were doing aerobics, for it certainly wasn't taichi. to be honest, it looked a lot like the electric slide.

so this sounds like a great morning, not an okay morning, right? well it was. until i came up behind this boy bicycling, passing him on the right. i didn't ring my bell or anything, and just before i got even with him, he spit. remember to always ring your bell when passing someone. i thought i got away scot-free, but when i got back, there was this nice loogie on the lower leg of my jeans. luckily, it was all spit, no snot, which was nice. i wiped it off with a tissue, and now it's only my pride that hurts.

also as i was riding back a boy shouted laowai at me, which means foreigner. i turned around and stared at him to show i understood, and kept riding. it's very nice that it doesn't happen very often.

but the bao-zi was good, and when i finally got back, i tried to open the soy milk. the top wouldn't come off, so i resorted to poking a hole in the top and sucking the milk out, crushing it as i went. i wouldn't recommend it. next time you buy soy milk and the shopkeeper asks, dabuda, answer da. answer da.

great day

an interesting day today. my first two classes went well. With these new classes I had discussions about change in chengdu. the answer to the question are these changes good or bad was 'it depends.' i liked that a lot. future lawyers, the lot of them. or perhaps liberal actors.

the real fun came when i went to the college village that is on the other side of the university from us. we went to a noodle bar for dinner. everyone stared at the waiguoren, and the sheer number of stares and people made it a little disconcerting. we tried to order with the waitress the first time, and we were a bit too complicated. finally, it seems she became too frustrated and went to deal with other issues. all the while the rest of the kitchen staff was standing by, staring at us like we're nuts. she finally came back, and i asked for five noodles, two spicy, 3 non and that was it. simplicity is always key when ordering food. it was delicious, and a little more than a quarter per bowl of noodles seemed more than fair.

the village is like a fair every night of the week. there are tons of food stalls, veggie stalls, dvd stalls, noodle stalls, restaurants, general stores, anything your heart could desire. what really caught my eye was a man flipping dough in a way reminiscent of pizza throwers. he didn't throw it over his head, but he swung it around at a good velocity. once it was thin enough (think crepe thinness), he either put sweet stuff (strawberry or pineapple jam, smushed banana, condensed milk) or savory stuff (different meats, chive, msg powder) then he folds it up and puts it on the fryer. his apprentice, as i like to think of him, takes care of the frying, then puts it on the chopping board. then the wife takes and dribbles condensed milk over it, chops it into little pieces, and puts it in a little container to eat with long toothpicks. i love how everything is a family affair. i had a pineapple one, and i thought i had died and went to heaven. an added bonus here: i got into a remedial conversation with the owner. he asked if i was a teacher, where i taught, if i was british. i was able to understand and answer all his questions. it was great. no english, but still a little understanding. life is getting better all the tiiiiiime.

foreign expert and just plain experts

well, the inevitable has happened. the People's Republic of China has recognized my genius and issued me a Foreign Experts Certificate. According to the passport sized booklet, I am one of a few "Foreign Experts Working in the Fields of Culture and Education." Man, it is so cool.

now, back to the non-lazy. the chinese work all the time. on the bus riding back to chengdu on sunday, there were plenty of construction workers out. there is a shift working at all time in the apartment buildings to the northeast of me. at night, they make less noise, but the lights are on, and the cranes are moving. can you imagine working construction at 1:30 am on a monday morning. i think part of this has to do with the sheer number of people available for jobs (check out this construction crew from downtown [i count 17 blue jumpsuits]), but a lot has to do with sheer work ethic. they are willing to work harder for less. there are no immigrants doing poorly paid labor here. it's all chinese. very interesting, if you ask me, says the man with the easiest job in china.

teacher's day

one of my favorite things about china is the value they put on education. today is teacher's day nationwide. i have received a healthy bonus (1/7 my monthly salary) and the vice-mayor of chengdu came to visit the school earlier in the week. if you get the chengdu news, tune in...you might see a couple waiguoren walking behind the headmaster and the vice mayor. that's me! i was tempted to get closer and scream hi mom, but i figured no one would see it.

i have yet decided what i'm going to do with my windfall, but more peanut butter is a definite item.

on the bus today, i stepped on a woman's foot. i apologized profusely (duibuqi, duibuqi) and asked her to take a seat. she protested, but finally sat down. she didn't seem to be too angry with me.

i think my chinese is getting better too. we went to meet a bunch of people from rachel and patrick's program, and we were the only ones who didn't get lost. i'd like to think it was my excellent pronounciation of the address to the cab driver. it probably was just a good cab driver.

chengdu...a lot of chengdu

hiroki, rachel, and i left after lunch today, hoping to pick up a SIM card for rachel, the aforementioned SD card hook up for myself, and DVDs for all. the whole day seemed to go without a hitch. the bus took us almost exactly where i thought the mobile phone store was, we picked up rachel's SIM card, boarded another bus that took us again to almost exactly where the computer towers were. i did a great job bargaining, if i do say so myself, and we decided to walk north to tian fu square, where a giant statue of mao stands at the ready.

along the way, we stopped at one of the tea houses chengdu is famous for. luckily this one was sponsored by budweiser, so i felt right at home. the tea comes in beautiful porcelain bowls, with a saucer and a top. you take the cap off once the tea is done steeping (you can tell when the tea leaves sink to the bottom) and use it for a receptacle for leaves that make it into your mouth. it was a perfect break from an afternoon of walking. we kept moving northward, passing a battalion of chefs (or is it cheves?) and hostesses being briefed on the upcoming night. we reached tian fu square, hiroki took some pictures, and we decided it was time for hot pot. taking our leisure, we walked whichever way interested us, arrived at the bus, which took us to almost exactly where rachel thought the hot pot restaurant was.

we entered, and our adventure continued. hot pot is a boiling mix of peppers, hua jiao (a spice that numbs your mouth), and more peppers. it sits recessed in the middle of the table. the waitress gave us a checklist, like one you might find in a sushi restaurant. i explained to her that i could not read chinese, and looked at hiroki expectantly. finally they brought another waitress over, and i was able to get the idea across that we wanted anything that was good. they brought that.


we had some lamb, some pork, some radish much like hickima but stronger, and some delightful little whole fish. due to some great hand gestures from rachel, one half of the pot was the hot boiling oil of peppery goodness, and one half a milder vegetable, fish, and chicken type broth. due to my mother's tendency to cook texmex, and my father's love of making his bald spot sweat, i have been raised to tolerate a little spice. this was a lot of spice, but i was able to play through, with a little cold beverage. the fish were difficult for me to deal with, but i think the main problem was that i didn't let them cook enough. it was very slippery. the meal was capped off with a gelatin fruit cocktail sort of thing, that was not as good as ice cream.

we made it back to the bus. we figured that since we were boarding the 54 the first stop after the origin, that we would get a seat. we were wrong. standing room only, even from there. i bet that we would have an hour bus ride, and rachel thought we would have an hour and a quarter. hiroki was smart enough not to guess at all. things were going well until we reached shuhan road. according to my watch we spent more than 45 minutes at a dead stop in traffic. the parts when we were moving weren't bad at all. we figured we had to pay for such a productive day with some hardship. (and that was before i dropped my sd reader in the foot bath.) after exiting the bus at about 9:30 (about 2 hours after boarding) we got some ice cream and called it a day. life is (mostly) good in chengdu.

rage

well, one of the many things i did was trek my way down to chengdu to purchase i lovely photo uploader. i bargained the woman from 45 yuan down to 30 yuan for it. i unwrapped it tonight, as i soak my foot, and plop, right into the water. and i took so many pictures today. hopefully it will be dry by tomorrow morning, and by then i'll try it again. and just when i thought i wasn't a butter fingers.

home for the weekend

for those of you don't know, it's friday night. so that means i have just witnessed a mass exodus from the college/high school town i live in. junior 1 (7th grade) leaves on friday at 3:35. that leaves junior 2 and 3, and senior 1 and 2 (senior 3 is in a different building) to watch from their classes as the juniors get their rolly airport carryon hardcase luggage and leave with their parents from home.

me and 8b, my junior 2 class at that time, watched from the windows as we worked. they did not seem happy about that, but they plugged on anyway.

after school let out, all but senior 3 went their own way. that meant the street to the main highway was chock full of cars, taxis, rickshaws, and busses. right now it occurs to me that i should have taken a picture. which i will take next friday. with ice cube, but without chris tucker. rush hour was too big.

there were also many more stands put up. one stand looked to be selling custards. he would scoop the pudding like substance into a plastic cup, then you would have a choice of toppings. i didn't have it, but again, maybe next friday.

there was also a skewer stand selling vegetables, meats, and what looked like dumplings on sticks. you pick what you want and put it in a basket, then they take the skewers in the basket, and throw it in the fryer. then they take it out and sprinkle on a hefty amount of spice. then you can take it your hand, or they'll put it in a bag for you. i saw one spoiled brat of a student order about 15 or 20 of these skewers. i hope he ate them all. as i always say, there are children starving in america.

NO POLITICS!!!!

i have this underlined three times in the notes from my meeting with my headmaster before classes started. i have done my best. i figure that american domestic politics is fair game, so when they ask about george dubya, i let loose. they seem to really enjoy me ripping on bush jr. as they call him. they ask about the iraq war, and i figure that we'll come down on the same side as well, and we do.
it gets a bit more shaky when they ask about japan. they try to slip it in, like i might answer it if i'm not paying enough attention. "How many girlfriends do you have?" "None." "Do you like Japan?" on cctv 9 (the chinese run english news channel) they keep running stories on chinese comfort women suing for reperations from the japanese government. they were denied earlier last week, and they are appealling now.
meanwhile, my foreign collegue hiro, the japanese teacher, is treated like chinese wherever he goes. we'll be having dinner, the five foreign teachers together, and a chinese person will come up to hiro and speak quickly to him in chinese. he smiles and nods, but says nothing. hiro speaks as much chinese as i do, but luckily for me, no one assumes that i speak it. he tells me he uses the mute routine often when he is shopping. but it says something that my school is offering japanese language classes, and that students are taking them. that is a step in the right direction.
taiwan is something they ask about often as well. i have debated telling them that my students last year were taiwanese, and that i've spent five weeks of my life in taiwan, as well. i decided i would not keep that from them, and it has been okay. i make sure not to talk about it too much, and change the subject quickly.
tibet has not come up, and i wonder if it is on their political radar. perhaps it's a non-issue inside the country. i haven't met anyone i've felt comfortable enough to ask.
the administration seems understanding about our issues, and it seems that our warning to stay away from politics is for us almost more than the classes. i've been told stories of american teachers getting into shouting matches with whole classes. that is something i can definitely do without.

top 3 names today

3. Robin Hood
2. Beastman (is that one or two words?)
1. Zorro

the broad mindedness of my students

we discussed change in my senior 1 (sophomore) rocket class.

[a rocket class is when you take the best students of the grade and put them into one class. i believe that the students are ranked by class in order, i'm not positive about this, it just is a gut feeling. senior 1 class 1 is the smartest, while senior 1 class 2 is second, and so on and so forth. i don't get to teach class 1, but class 2 is great.]

i asked them how chengdu had changed as they had grown up. they began replying the way i had imagined. more buildings, more roads, more cars, more foreigners. i asked if change was good or bad. change was bad, they thought. there was too much pollution. one student was glad that there were more roads, as it cut his weekly commute from 2 hours to 1 hour. but he was unhappy that the cost of their meals at school had gone up because of the drought. we talked about how the road made it easier to get places, which made more people drive, which caused more CO2 to be released into the air, which helped global warming, which probably caused the drought, which caused the price of their meals to go up. it's nice when the damage done to the environment has concrete costs one can demonstrate to students.

i asked if there were any positive changes, and a student brought up school reforms, and how the NPC (National People's Congress) had provided more time during the school day for sports. she seemed happy about that.

we also talked about how there was more advertising. i asked if they trusted the ads, and they answered with an emphatic, NO! man, i love this class. it seems like they are concerned and want to do something about their problems, and they aren't sure that progress is the way. heartening news to a harden westerner.

things that amaze my students

for the first week, i'm assigning my students groups and having them write down ten questions that they want to ask me. after they have written the questions, they stand up, say their english name and ask me. these are the answers that cause the most stir.

i only have 3 people in my family, my mom, my dad, and me.
i am 24. "so young" they scream. i try to remind them they are 13 and 15 respectively.
i like mapo dofu.
i speak a little chinese, but it's very bad. [in chinese]
writing my chinese name up on the board.
i am single.
i like both chinese and american women.

i think you can start to imagine the types of questions i'm up against here.

bike ride

after classes, i took a bike ride to see what i could see. i did not see much. in the suburb where the school is, there are all types of land use. there was a man sawing lumber into planks. people farming under enormous telephone and electricity wires. tons of people on bikes, rickshaws, three wheeled cars, busses, trucks. no stilts. yet.
there are many people doing different things. a group of eight parked their bikes in the middle of a median and seemed to be gardening. there were about 12 people that i saw sweeping trash around the road. a man at a cart made noodles. there were many different jobs, and many different people doing them. and one waiguoren riding his bike around gawking and taking pictures.
no one seemed to pay much attention to me, except for the occasional hello. and i mean, "halllloooooo!"
i also passed a lone gaspowered lawn mower running by itself in the middle of a lawn. no one near it. just sitting there, spewing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. but did i do anything about it? heck yeah, i did. i wrote this blog.

first day

it was a good first day. the opening ceremony where all the students laugh at--no, no, i mean--greet the foreign teachers was postponed due to rain. that means i got up at 7 for nothing. ahhh well. but my 3 classes that i've had of 17 are good. they seemed interested, motivated, and engaged. the difference between engaged and interested, you ask? i answer, poetic license is everything. they seemed to understand well what i was saying, and were impressed when i said i was trying to learn chinese. a few asked questions of a political nature, such as "how do you feel about the institution of education in china?" I think mostly they were wondering how much homework americans had to do. I also skirted issues of taiwan, one child policy, and whether american women or chinese women were more attractive (both, of course). they asked about food and basketball (Steve Nash asked who my favorite player was), and rubbed it in my face that USA had lost in the FIBA. I then rubbed it their face that I hate basketball. stupid ankle. all in all it was a productive day, and i think i'm getting the hang of this stuff. 1 week down, many more to go.

top seven english names of students

7. Smart
6. Pall
5. Alan
4. Moonshine
3. Toyota
2. Cabbage
1. Circus

mint water and cake

i had mint water. it was weird, and did not sit with me well.

when the bus stops at a, um...stop, the bus gives a signal that sounds like the first two notes from long line of cars, by cake. now that i'm listening to the song, i'm not convinced...so just take my word for it.

everything's bigger in china

i experienced my biggest thunderstorm ever last night. it kept me up. lightning could be seen across the chengdu plain, despite the smog. and the thunder! what thunder! i've never heard such a racket. i was quite pleased, until into the second hour, when i still couldn't sleep. but at least i'll sleep well tonight.

catching up

In China, the days are long. People are in their shops and foodstands from when I go out in the morning to when I go out at night. That means fourteen hour days. When the children are not at school, they're at work with the rest of the family, waiting tables, unpacking bikes, working the register. I swear a five year old took my money yesterday. They are learning a trade before they hit double digits. In a job like teaching, where the family can’t be there, the grandparents take care of the children. Everywhere you see grandmothers and grandfathers pushing happy children in little car like vehicles with steering wheels and gadgets to play with, and a little handle for the grandparent to hang on to. It is a great system. There is no daycare to send your children off to—at least not out here—there is no need. Here the family takes care of itself.

So this is the second day without internet, and I’m beginning to see how much I rely on it. My whole communication is shut down. I could use the phone, but I’m afraid it might destroy my salary too quickly. So I sit in silence, on a lonely machine, hoping someone will call, or that the internet will magically come back. Please Internet, come back.