My first day as "Miss Mary"

Today was my first day teaching. My classes are split between 6th and 7th grade. In China, they split classes between "Junior" and "Senior". So the grades are like this:

Junior 1 - 6th grade

Junior 2 - 7th grade

Junior 3 - 8th grade

Senior 1 - 9th grade

Senior 2 - 10th grade

Senior 3 - 11th grade

Senior 4 - 12th grade

So, my classes are on my schedule as Junior 1 and Junior 2. I also have two "advanced" Junior 1 classes. The way Mr. Dong explained these classes to me is that the students in them "learn more quickly than other students". So, I have those classes two times a week each, while my other classes I only have once a week. It's interesting to me that they've "tracked" these advanced students already, when they're only in 6th grade. The way classes are in China is that the students are grouped into one class, and they remain in their classroom. The teachers travel between rooms. The students are with their class for (I believe) their entire time as  Junior or Senior. It builds a sense of community amongst the students, and I think it's an interesting concept, since in the US, we take classes that fit our own schedules, with different people in each class. 

The school's full schedule is extremely interesting. I hated going to high school for eight periods.. I can't even imagine having to go all day like these kids do. Here's the school's schedule:

6:20 AM -- Rise

6:30-7:10 AM -- Breakfast

7:10-7:40AM -- Early morning class

7:40 AM -- To the post

7:45-8:25 AM -- 1st period

8:35-9:15 AM -- 2nd period (PE for all Juniors)

9:25-10:05 AM -- 3rd period (PE for all Seniors)

10:15-10:55 AM -- 4th period

11:05-11:45 AM -- 5th period

12:00 PM -- Lunch

12:30-2:10 PM - Break/study time

2:30 PM -- Getting ready

2:40-3:20 PM -- 6th period

3:30-4:10 PM -- 7th period

4:10-4:25 PM -- Eye exercises

4:25-5:05 PM -- 8th period

5:15-5:55 PM -- 9th period

6:00 PM -- Dinner

7:00-7:45 PM -- 1st period night class

7:55-8:40 PM -- 2nd period night class

8:50-9:30 PM -- 3rd period night class

I'm exhausted just typing it. My schedule isn't the same as that, though. I only teach about 3 classes per day.

Mondays, I teach: 5th period and 6th period, both to 7th grade.

Tuesdays, I teach: 5th period to 7th grade, and 6th and 7th periods to 6th graders.

Wednesday, I teach: 3rd and 4th period to 7th grade, and 6th period to advanced 6th grade.

Thursday, I teach: 3rd, 4th, and 6th period, all to 6th grade.

Friday, I teach: 3rd and 4th to advanced 6th grade, and 5th period to 7th grade.

The schedule itself isn't too taxing, but I was surprised by how little English my 6th grade classes knew today. I just assumed that, if they were taking an English teacher who spoke no Chinese, the kids would know at least basic English. Well, you know what they say about assuming.

I am happy to report that they are regular kids. As frustrating as it can be for me, they talk in class. They whisper to each other in Chinese and English. They make fun of me for not knowing Chinese. They're not robots.

My first class had 47 students and my second had 46. It actually didn't seem too big once I was in there. My first class knew a lot more English than my second one. I already know that there are a few girls in each class that are going to be a BIG help, because they seem to know some English already. Their parents probably either taught them when they were younger or they've had personal tutors. There are, of course, quite a few boys who are already troublemakers. There's one boy who is super sweet and wrote me a note that said "you are beautiful" after asking me how to spell the word. There's one girl who refuses to do anything other than rest her chin on her desk and glare at me. There's one boy who doesn't know a single word of English. He doesn't know numbers, colors, or the alphabet. He's in my second class on Thursdays -- the one that I know is already going to be the one I have to work the hardest in.

My day started with a thunderstorm, and the Thai students thundering just as loudly down the stairs at 6 something in the morning. I guess it was alright that I was up earlier than I expected, because I had time to try on multiple outfits and talk on Facebook for a while. I chose not to see it as foreshadowing, even though Lauren and I had to walk to school in a total downpour.

My first class was alright. It wasn't as intimidating as I thought. I've never been nervous with public speaking -- it gives me a kind of adrenaline rush that makes my mind focus extremely clearly on what I want to say. I can almost picture the words I wrote down in my mind, and it's almost like I'm reading from a mental picture everything I wanted to do in class. I had no problem fitting everything into the 40 minutes I was given. Plus, after being recruitment chair, I'm used to talking to the sound of crickets sometimes. (Haha).

I started each class with a very brief introduction of myself, since I knew they wouldn't know very much English. I'd say maybe half the class understood what I was saying. They all loved repeating "Mary", though. Oh, well. At least they're speaking. Then, I wrote down my rules. I know none of them really understood those. In the second class, one boy actually said, "We don't understand. You speak Chinese?" My response that I didn't made the entire class gasp. Haha. It's gonna be a fun year!

After the rules, I tried to break them into groups, unsuccessfully. They did understand that they were supposed to make lists of 10 English words that they knew, so I told them to stand up and move around. After about 5 minutes of blank looks, there were finally small groups of students making lists together. I had them turn them in so I could see exactly what level they're on. They're mostly numbers, colors, sports, etc. Some of them have other words like him, her, he, she, you, which, that, etc., so that gives me a little hope for 3rd period on Thursdays. After that, I had everyone go around and stand up and introduce themselves. "My name is ___________". Most of the kids talk very quietly and quickly, so I didn't catch most of them the first time around.

After hearing their names, I asked them all to choose an English name to go by, and we folded name cards. It took me a very, very, very long time to explain that I wanted them to choose an English name. There were a handful of girls throughout the classroom who understood, and they volunteered to stand up and say, "My Chinese name is ________. My English name is __________." The most popular names seem to be Lily and Alice for girls. We went around the class again, with each student saying that little script. I understood most of the English names, but there were some that I just couldn't get, and I didn't want to make them repeat it more than 2 times. I was afraid it would embarrass them too much, or make them think their English was too bad to speak out loud in class. Some of them were just weird - one kid wants to go by "Flack", and one kid refused to choose an English name. Since I couldn't catch all of their English names, I had them each write their Chinese name, along with their English, on a sheet of paper to hand in at the end of class. I'm planning on handing them back out next week, and writing down where they sit on my seating chart as they come up to get their pieces of paper.

My initial impression of my second class was that I was going to like it better. I was wrong. They were extremely friendly when I first walked in, and crowded around my desk, pointing at my name tag. "Hello, Miss Mary!" They were very excited that I was there. There was one little boy who immediately introduced himself and told me he was 5 years old. Alright. So, we're going to need to work on some numbers there. He's the same boy who gave me the "beautiful" note. There's an adorable little girl right up front, and she is so soft-spoken that I can barely hear her when she speaks, and she's the closest student to me. It's too bad, because from what I can tell, she's one of the students who knows the most English in that class.

Oh! I also gave them all my e-mail and QQ numbers (QQ is like AIM). They all found it just hysterical that I had a QQ, and immediately wrote both down. I'm sure I'll get lots and lots of spam QQ messages from them, but I've heard from other teachers that a lot of students will ask you questions via QQ that they're too embarrassed to ask in class. I think this rule applies more to the university students, but I'm willing to take the risk of spam messages just in case some students do actually use it.

Okay. The second class did this adorable little thing when the bell rang. They all stood up and chanted something at me. God knows what it was, because it was in Chinese. I'm sure it was some way of greeting me. They did a same thing at the end of class, and I caught the word "laoshi", or teacher. So, I guess they were saying goodbye. It was cool.

They all repeated my name back to me, and I started to work on my rules. They didn't understand a single word of what I was saying. That's when I started to get a little nervous about that class. I went through the same thing with my QQ and rules with them, and asked for lists of words.

I gave them quite a bit more time with their lists, because their comprehension was so much lower than my earlier class. I wrote on the board "10 English Words", and that helped. I think their reading is much better than when I speak, which makes sense. Even when I speak slowly, it's always easier to actually see the words. I walked around the room and helped people. This class was much more willing to raise their hand for help. I had to hold up a piece of paper with an example list of words to show them. Most of the kids wrote the numbers 1 through 10. Some wrote the alphabet, because that was all they knew. Some copied words out of the book. There were may 7-10 who actually wrote words from memory. This exercise was when I figured out that there was one little boy who didn't know a single word. I wrote the English numbers 1-10 on his paper and the words next to them, but he didn't recognize them. I really don't know what to do about this little boy. I don't know what to teach during my next class. Do I start with numbers and risk the other students being bored? I should mention that this class NEVER STOPPED TALKING. I even yelled at them. They would stop briefly, but when I would go over to another section to work with them, they would start again. I don't want to leave this kid behind, though, and have him lost for the rest of the year. I'm guessing that some of the other students could benefit from a refresher.

After everyone gave me their lists, I just had them go around and introduce themselves with their Chinese name. I knew that there was absolutely no way they were going to understand picking an English name. The desks are arranged into three groups, so I went down each section, and had each student stand up and say their name to me, "My name is _________". I'm pretty sure one boy said something dirty or that wasn't his name, because everyone around him laughed when he said it.

After going one by one, I told them, "My name is Miss Mary. I am from America." Then, following my example, they went around and said it in front of the class, "My name is ________. I am from China." Again, they struggled with this. I ended up having to write it on the board and have them repeat it after me before we tried to go one-by-one again.

Those were my classes this morning. We'll see how my next section of 6th graders goes this afternoon!

Some pictures from my homestay

Okay, I'm still waiting for my parents to send me my cord to upload my own pictures to facebook and this blog. I did, however, get a few pictures in my email today from Charlotte, my homestay sister. Don't worry, there will be more to come soon!!

The garden had tons of statues like these, of people
playing different instruments.

Charlotte, aka the best homestay "sister" ever.

They had this real crocodile out, just chilling on the table.
We were able to pet and hold it, so that was pretty cool.

Me and Charlotte at the garden.

Some of the plants.

Those buildings in the background are actual apartments.
Some people have balconies overlooking this indoor
garden. Jealous.

By the palm trees.

There were tons and tons of palm trees in this place.

At the foreign goods mall.

I think this was supposed to be "Italy" at the international mall.

Making friends in China

Last night, we officially made our first Chinese friend. His name is Brody, which I found hilarious, of course. (That's my dog's name).

Emily, Lauren, and I went back to the hot pot restaurant I first had tried with Lauren O, Isaiah, and Rebecca. It was also our first cab ride alone since moving into our apartments. It went surprisingly well, because we had the address to the Fuhua Hotel, and we just walked down the block from there. It only cost us 22 yuan to get across the entire city, so that was a really awesome surprise.

We actually received everything we ordered at the restaurant this time...I'm pretty sure that's the first time that has happened this entire trip. We were trying, and failing, to get the fat off of our beef with chopsticks before putting it into the broth to cook. I guess Brody saw us struggling and decided to help. He came over to our table, announced that he spoke English, took the tray and chopsticks out of Emily's hands, and proceeded to cook our beef and noodles for us. While doing that, he cheered us (gambei!) with our beers and made small talk about why we're in Shijiazhuang. He told us that he emcees for basketball games in Beijing, complete with arm movements and fake beatbox noises to signify that he plays music during breaks as well. Once our meat and noodles were done, he also took them out of the hot pot for us, served us, and then poured the amount of peanut sauce he thought we should have over our meal.

To wrap Brody up, he was basically a wanna-be Chinese thug. He was wearing a white track suit with the name of his basketball team on it, bragging about one of his friend who is a professional basketball player, and wearing a baseball cap indoors. He ended up giving us his QQ number, e-mail, and cell phone, and asking if we were "best friends". Of course, we said yes. After all, it's someone we know when we go to Beijing.

This morning, we also made two new friends. There are two British guys also teaching at our middle school, Matt and Dan. We met them because we were supposed to go to the Botanical Gardens as a group, with all of the foreign students and teachers. Miss Li told us that there was a private bus we were taking, and it would be about a 15 minute ride. We were supposed to meet outside our building at 8:30AM. The three of us got outside our building by that time, and that's when we met Dan and Matt, who moved in yesterday. Then, since it's China, we didn't actually see Miss Li until about 9AM, when she told us we would be taking the public bus. Alright, no big deal. We've already done that a few times. Okay, so we got on the number 78 bus. We were on there for about 10 minutes, and then we got off. Naturally, we thought that we were just a short walking distance away from the gardens. Wrong. We got on another bus, number 1. We were on that for roughly 40 minutes. It took us completely outside the city, to the last point that the number 1 bus stopped at. That was the botanical garden.

Per usual, everything was unorganized. Besides us three girls and Matt and Dan, everyone else there was a Thai exchange student, leaving us very little to talk about...especially since we're probably going to end up being their teachers. It took us at least another 45 minutes just to round up the students to get inside the botanical gardens, because all they wanted to do was take pictures of themselves making the peace sign outside the front gate. Uhh. Sweet. Initially, Miss Li told us we were going to be there until about 1PM. Wrong. They were staying until 3. There was no way. No way. We were not going to wander around this garden for four hours. The five of us took off together to go exploring, leaving the Thai students outside the gates. God knows how much longer they stood there, taking the same damn pictures.

It was actually a really pretty garden, just not kept up very well. (Story of China's life, apparently). We wandered around for about an hour and a half, saw the dock, the amusement park, a wedding, a lotus pond, etc. By the way, the amusement park played Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" on a constant loop. They freaking love that song here. Anyway, we'd seen about all the park had to offer, and Lauren wasn't feeling well at all. Unfortunately, we couldn't find Miss Li to tell her that the 3 of us girls were going to take a taxi back. We decided to sit up front for a little while and wait to find them, because it was about 12:30, and we figured they had to feed us if they took an entire group to the gardens and were keeping them there from 8:30AM to 3:00PM. Wrong again. We sat there for at least an hour, including a pretty long conversation with two Chinese girls who were studying tourism. They, of course, wanted to practice their English with us and give us their QQ numbers...and take pictures. Of course. After that hour, Lauren was feeling worse, so we knew we needed to find Miss Li. Emily and I took off to find her, and thankfully did within the first 15 minutes of looking. They were all just standing around this rock. No one was eating. I don't get it. We told her Lauren wasn't feeling well and that we were going to leave, which was fine with her. We just didn't want her to end up searching for us later.

Turns out, that didn't need to be a worry at all. They actually left Matt and Dan there later that afternoon.

Anyway, we're slowly expanding our circle of friends here, and had all of the Drake Shijiazhuangers over to hang out tonight, and Matt and Dan. There's supposed to be an American girl moving in to teach middle school here sometime soon, too, so I'm pretty excited for that.

We found a really, really pretty garden and fountain in downtown Shijiazhuang tonight that I can't wait to go back to. Things are starting to feel like home, and the Shiz is actually a really pretty city, once you get past the dirt, dust, and squatter toilets.

Oh, and I'm a taxi pro. I can hail cabs like nobody's business.

Our most productive supermarket trip yet

After “auntie” left my room, I went downstairs to go get some water and green tea from the store next door, and happened to run into Mr. Fu knocking on Emily’s door, yelling, “Lauren? Laaaaauren?” I guess he wanted to tell us that there is a school outing for all of the foreign teachers and students tomorrow morning at the botanical garden. Then, he took us over to the school to show us the cafeteria, where we can eat for cheaper than the markets around here. (We had rice and tea for 75 cents later that day…what is cheaper than that?!) Next, he took us to the building that Mr. Dong’s office is in, in case we need him for anything.

Unfortunately, it was the same hallway that the boy’s bathroom is in. It was one of the most disgusting things I have ever smelled in my life. Thankfully, Mr. Dong’s office is at the other end of the hallway, so it doesn’t smell.

We told him that we couldn’t get the internet to work, so he said he would talk to Mr. Zhou and offered to let us use some computers there to e-mail our parents, which we did. Hopefully they can get the problem solved soon, because I really need access to the internet. It’s gone past a want at this point.

After leaving Mr. Dong’s office, we went to one of the restaurants down the street. We were all hungry, but not feeling well, so we just wanted rice and some tea. In China, rice and noodles are served at the very end of the meal, after a salad/vegetable of some sort, meat, and soup. Although we knew the words for rice and tea, it took us at least 5 minutes to get them to understand that it was all we wanted. Then, after we got our rice and tea, they sat and watched us eat, while laughing. It’s only been a little over a week, and I’m already used to having an audience while eating.

While we were eating, around 11, there was another group of people eating at the table behind us. It was a group of five people, and they were on their second bottle of bai jiu. Bai jiu is generally between 42-55% alcohol. This was lunch, and an early lunch at that. There was, of course, lots of toasting, and lots of chugging contests.

Another hilarious thing about China is that, after finishing a good meal, a lot of Chinese men pull their shirts up over their stomach. Some of them take them off completely. I have seen far, far too many Chinese men with their shirts pulled up. I guess it’s a thing here.

So, after our meal of white rice and tea, we went back to the supermarket. It was our most productive yet, probably because were mainly on the lookout for groceries. They have a huge food section, but hardly anything is labeled in English.

I left with almonds and pistachios, which I am eating as I type this, cucumbers, oatmeal, and, most importantly, INSTANT COFFEE! The word is still out on whether or not it tastes like dirt, but, at this point, I don’t think I’ll care. I’m just happy to have coffee!

My first experience with the auntie

This morning, at 10:30 AM, the building’s “auntie” and a repairman barged into my apartment. I don’t mean they knocked, or that I let them in. I was in my bedroom, getting ready, when I heard pounding on my door and someone trying to fit their keys in. I headed toward the door, thinking that maybe it was someone new who had just moved in and confused my door with the one next to it. Nope. “Auntie” and the repairman were just walking in my door – she had let herself in. Good thing I wasn’t changing or still sleeping or anything. No advance notice, just “auntie” barging into my apartment, heading toward the bathroom, and pointing at my hot water heater while speaking rapid Chinese. The repairman is working on it now, which is kind of a bummer because I had actually figured it out and now I’m concerned he’s going to ruin it. I am impressed that they got someone in to help me so quickly, though. Apparently that’s an issue in China.

Also, the caulk issue. I got the towels to put around the base of my shower in case it leaks. Apparently, that offends “auntie”. She spent at least three minutes pointing at my towels and talking to me in Chinese. I tried to mime “leaking”, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t work. Then, I heard her say, “mei guo ren” to the repairman, so I’m sure she thinks I’m an idiot. Then she used her shoes to feel if there was water on the floor. Uh, no, you walked in before I could take a shower, actually.

As of now, I’m still attempting to connect to the internet, and I’m pretty sure the repairman cut off all power in my apartment, because my computer stopped charging, even though it is plugged in.

The internet issue is frustrating because I can see that I am actually connected through Ethernet, with the green light and everything, but I can’t actually access any webpages. I think the problem is just that Mr. Zhuo’s router or whatever needs to be reset…at least that’s what the network diagnostics I ran on my computer says, and that’s always been my solution when we’ve had internet problems at home.

We’re trying to decide whether or not we want to buy a wireless router for our apartments. We all really want a wireless connection, but we’re not sure how we’re going to be able to set it up. I’ve set one up at my parents house, and I’m pretty good at fixing all of the problems with it…but, I’ve had instructions in English. I don’t know if I want to test my wireless router skills with an entirely Chinese instruction manual. Hopefully we can get Mr. Zhou to help us, but I’m not sure how he’ll feel about us getting wireless. My VPN also won’t connect over this network, which is annoying. It just constantly says that it’s looking for a connection. It’s not disconnected; it’s not connected. It is in VPN limbo.

Supermarket, take two

Following lunch on Thursday, we went back to the supermarket to get things we had forgotten or realized we needed since the first time we went. Again, we ended up getting tons of stuff, and again, I still need to go back and get more to make this place livable.

I found a really soft down comforter to put in the duvet of the set I bought yesterday, and two wonderfully soft pillows that will hopefully make my bed much better than it was last night. As I’m sitting here typing this, it actually looks pretty cute. I have a cute little pink and purple theme going throughout this apartment…or as “cute” as you can call this shit hole. “Living in squalor” has become me, Lauren, and Emily’s motto for our ten months in China. Man, we’re going to appreciate everything when we get back to the states.

Anyway, my apartment is finally livable, though I have yet to tackle the room with the toilet. We got this terry cloth like mop thing (sorry, I don’t know the correct term for it), and I was able to sweep/mop/clean my floors using that and the Clorox I bought yesterday. The bedroom, sitting room, entry, and hallways all look much better after that treatment. I’m hoping to get a few rugs to put down, and I have my house shoes to wear around, so hopefully things won’t get too dirty any more.

The part of the bathroom with the shower is an entirely different story. It took me at least an hour and half just to clean the walls of the shower and the shower doors. The walls are white now, but they were a really lovely orange color previously. I can also see through the glass doors that used to be completely covered in soap scum. Following that riveting hour and a half, I scrubbed the floor. No, I did not mop the floor. I sat on my hands and knees and scrubbed the floor with Clorox, hot water, and a sponge. My floor is no longer orange and grey, though. It is white. I also cleaned out the little bucket/faucet thing that I’m pretty sure is supposed to be used to wash your feet. At least, that’s what I’m using it for. I also bought some pink, white, and yellow striped towels that I rolled up and placed around the base of the shower. Hopefully they will at least help a little with the flooding problem. I’m hoping to get some rugs to put under the sink and right outside the door of the bathroom to help with the same problem. I have separate shower shoes for that room, so I won’t drag in any crap that may be on my house shoes and make the bathroom grey again.

The bedroom thankfully didn’t take me long at all to clean. I’m not even going to attempt to clean the kitchen/patio area, because the only thing I plan on using that for is to dry my clothes. Oh, that’s another thing. My washing machine is broken, so until I can find a way to communicate to my building monitor that it’s broken, I will continue to wash my clothes in my bathroom sink. Fun fact about China: building and classroom monitors for foreign English teachers are not chosen based upon their ability to speak English; rather, they are chosen based on their rank in the party system.

I’ve unpacked all of my suitcases, and just need to go buy one more round of hangers to fit all of my clothes in the armoires.  I’m going to buy a couple of cutesy baskets to put things like my medicine and hair care items in. It’s starting to look like “home” as much as this place ever could. Again, I’m still looking for a way to upload pictures to my computer since I forgot my cord at home.

(Note, we still have yet to find internet. Both Mr. Dong and our building monitor have said that they will buy us Ethernet cords since we can’t find them at the supermarket. Alas, you will be reading this far after I’ve typed it yet again).

So, to wrap up, the last thing I have to tackle is the bathroom. It shouldn’t take me too long, but I’ve ruined my rubber gloves and gone through all of the sponges that I bought, so it’s a project for another day. I’ve bought a toilet roll hanger to put on the wall, and some lavender air fresheners to place around the apartment. In case I haven’t said it enough, China just smells. Thankfully, the room with the toilet is much smaller than the other bathroom. I plan on cleaning it with a sponge and Clorox as well, but it shouldn’t take me nearly as long.

I don’t think I’m going to end up buying a hot plate, so the meals I cook at home are going to end up being whatever I can make with boiling water, since I did end up buying a kettle. I’m still trying to find coffee here, because the supermarket does sell French presses.

Tonight, for dinner, we were all exhausted from cleaning and just wanted to get out of our apartments. First, we went and bought a piu jou (spelling will probably be corrected later – it means beer and is pronounce pee-joe) and sat outside our building monitor’s door because he claimed he was going to buy us internet today. False. We each drank an entire bottle of piu jou, and Mr. Zhou’s door was open, but he never came back. In other words, we lost our building manager.

After finishing our beers, we decided we may as well go to dinner. We walked down Wenyuan St., the street we live on, and realized that we’d already eaten at every semi-decent looking restaurant on the street. We turned left at the intersection, in hopes of finding somewhere new. We actually found a really nice looking restaurant, so we decided to go in.

It was another hot pot restaurant, and it was actually clean! The menu, however, was a paper menu that we had to fill out – like a sushi menu. It was only in characters. Absolutely no pinyin. So, I got out Lauren’s phrasebook and found the characters for beef and pork, went through the menu, found the characters, and marked that it was what we wanted. What we ordered, though, wasn’t ONLY the characters for those meats. There were other things, but we figured it was things like noodles or rice or vegetables that came in the dish. So, we ordered the two meat dishes, cabbage, and noodles…and a sauce to cook it in.

Our first dish comes out, and it is most definitely not pork or beef. It was lamb heart. Yep. Lamb heart. Lots and lots of lamb hearts. For the record, there is hardly any meat on lamb hearts. We probably had that plate on our table for at least 20 minutes before they brought out our next dish…

…which was cold beef. It was cooked, but it was cold beef with garlic and some kind of soy sauce. It actually wasn’t too bad, but it definitely wasn’t what we ordered.

We finally found a waiter who spoke the teeniest bit of English, and he happens to attend Number 42 Middle School, even though he looks like he’s at least 19. We ask him where our noodles that we ordered are, and he says they’re coming.

The next thing we know, they took our lamb plate, took it to the back, took the lamb out, and brought the pot with seasoning back to put on the burner. Thankfully, the next things they brought out were our cabbage, some sort of meat balls, and noodles that this lady made out of dough in front of us.

The funniest part of the noodles was that we had put down a 3 next to the characters for noodles because we assumed it meant three bowls of noodles. Wrong. It literally meant three noodles that this lady made in front of us. We were able to flag down the English speaker later and order more noodles.

Despite the road bumps, our meal actually wasn’t too bad. Or maybe it was the three piu jous we had with dinner.

Oh, another interesting dinner occurrence. There was a table of young Chinese men sitting close by, and at one point, one of them had come over to toast us with his cup of bai jiu. Later, while Lauren was in the bathroom, he came back over to our table, shoved cigarettes into me and Emily’s mouths, and lit them. We each took about half a puff, and it was terrible. Thankfully he walked away after that and we just put them out and set them on the table.

Now, we’re back at the apartments, watching a movie in Emily’s apartment. I had a DVD player in mine, but she has more comfortable living room furniture and a working TV. This seems to be the meeting place for now. American movies and beer are becoming our ritual, and it’s nice.

Slowly…very slowly…This is beginning to feel like my home for the next ten months.

Other fun facts of the day:

I had to hand wash some clothes, and the only place to hang them is a rod in my kitchen/patio. I opened the windows to help my clothes dry more quickly. Nope. Instead, it just made it look like there is a constant fog in my apartment. Sweet. I love pollution.

MR. DONG JUST CAME WITH ETHERNET CORDS.

IT’S CHRISTMAS IN CHINA!

(FYI, it was 9:30 PM when he came…uh.)

Update 2.0:
The Ethernet cables connect, and our computers say they’re working, but we’re not able to go to any websites, including ones that the government allows…like yahoo.

Medical exams in China...

This morning, at 8, the three of us had to go get our official Chinese medical exams, because apparently the ones we had done in the US aren’t good enough. I knew this was going to happen, but I guess it just irked me…or I was in a testy mood because we weren’t allowed to eat breakfast beforehand.

Oh, and it was raining today. Mmmm, I love the feel of acid rain on my skin.

Thankfully, Mr. Dong showed up with a taxi to take us to our medical exam. Upon arrival at the clinic, there was this machine thing that look almost exactly like a scale looks like in the US. The person checking us in only made Lauren stand on it. Apparently, you stand on it for two seconds (actually two seconds; it’s what the sign says) and it somehow takes your temperature. I have absolutely no idea how, but a bunch of things light up. It was kind of cool. (I would love for someone to fill me in on how a country with such cool technology still has yet to figure out real toilets and caulking showers…)

Next, we had to fill out these forms about past medical history, etc. After we filled them out and were waiting to go back to get our blood drawn, Emily showed up. It ended up being like a China group reunion because Tyler and Lauren O. showed up later.

The first step was to go into this little room to get two vials of blood drawn. The nurses were behind this glass screen, and there was a little cut-out where you placed your arm. You put your arm on this little pillow and they had a blue pad out that they wrapped around your arm, under the strap to make your veins more visible. It was quite the efficient procedure, although the human element was almost completely missing. I guess one of the Drake students from last year fainted while getting her blood drawn, so Mr. Dong was buzzing around us like a little bee, constantly asking if we felt okay. Dude, it’s not like we’re having surgery here. It’s getting blood drawn. I told him my story about Uganda to get him to shut up.

Next, we had to give a urine sample. I immediately thought, “Hooray, there’s nothing I like more than attempting to do a urine sample at 8:30 in the morning with a squatter toilet”. Thankfully, this clinic, unlike anywhere else in China, had a western toilet for us to use. Sorry for all of the details about the urine sample, but it’s really freaking rare for a public place in China to have a REAL toilet. I feel like it’s noteworthy enough to deserve a place in my blog.

After that was done, we went back to this hallway that was lined with little rooms on either side, all the way down. Instead of each of us seeing one doctor, it was like an assembly line. Radiology, ultrasound, “facial features” – otherwise known as testing our eyesight, EKG, and blood pressure. It wasn’t too bad, and I think we were out of there by 9:30.

After getting back from the clinic, we each took a break to clean some more of our apartments before meeting at 11 for an early lunch. We had about an hour, so I got my refrigerator and the top of the refrigerator clean. That it took me an entire hour to clean half of a fridge should speak volumes about how dirty it was before.

Following my fridge adventure, we went on our first lunch adventure as a trio on Wenyuan St. We tried to find the place that Mr. Dong and Mr. Fu took us for lunch yesterday because we really liked their sweet and sour pork, but we ended up going into the wrong place.

Since we’re kind of off the beaten path, hardly any restaurants have menus with pictures. We can get by with rudimentary words like “chicken”, “beef”, “pork”, “cucumber”, “noodles”, etc., but when it comes to actually ordering dishes with full names, we’re screwed. That, and we can only read pinyin, not full characters, which is what the menus come in.

When we got to the restaurant, we initially had a CHILD taking our order. If I had to guess, I would put him between 8 and 10 years old. In usual fashion, in about five minutes we had three more waiters crowded around us attempting to help.

I had out my phrasebook and told him we wanted chicken, or “ji rou”. He pointed to a dish on his menu that had the character for ji rou, which I could see in my phrasebook, and then the one below it for chili pepper. Since we couldn’t seem to get them to figure out a pork or beef dish, we decided to go ahead and try this chili pepper chicken. It actually ended up being really good, and had green peppers in it, too.

We ordered some noodles, “mian”, which actually ended up being noodles with eggs and tomatoes. It sounds pretty disgusting, but it’s actually really delicious. I could do without the cooked tomatoes, but the sauce combined with the noodles and eggs is delicious.

We also wanted some vegetables, so we ordered cucumbers using my phrasebook, hoping that he would come up with some sort of salad dish with cucumbers. Ah, if we could only be so lucky. The child, upon hearing the word cucumber, went over to the fridge, grabbed a HUGE cucumber, and carried it over to our table. Our faces must have said it all, because the dad grabbed it and carried it to the back to prepare with garlic and some sort of sauce. Again, delicious.

All in all, the meal ended up being extremely good, but it’s always an adventure to attempt to order a meal in China.

My first supermarket experience

After lunch with Mr. Dong and Mr. Fu (I’m so not making those names up), the three of us girls went to the supermarket to get some necessities for our apartments.

I ended up with towels, a new bed set because of how much the old one smells, hand towels, a set of dishes and glasses, a tea kettle, a desk lamp, hand soap for the bathroom, an all-purpose cleaner, hangers, a laundry basket, house shoes, a bath mat to put in the shower, a bath mat to put outside the shower, a new hair dryer, and tons of other things. For the most part, finding stuff wasn’t too bad because we were able to go on our own. The biggest problem we ran into was trying to figure out how the linens worked. Apparently it is very hard to find an actual bed set in China. They like to sell thing separately. And, having no grasp of the language and needing to say something that the phrase book doesn’t include definitely doesn’t make our lives any easier. What I needed to find was a bed set that would fit my massively huge bed. I knew there would be no way to communicate that, so I ended up going with a queen size duvet, sheet, pillow combo that will at least cover the bed, but not be able to tuck in. It’s actually pretty cute. It’s white with purple and pink flowers on it. It cost me 300 yuan, or about $47. I’m going for a pink theme here in my apartment, because it seemed like the easiest and I will probably never, ever decorate an apartment back home with pink or flower patterns. Again, hopefully there will be pictures soon!

Each of us had an entire cartful of stuff that we bought. We were planning on taking a taxi home, even though the apartments are a short walk away, because of how much stuff we had. That was, until we got to the check out and I realized that Mr. Dong had never given us a card with our school’s address on it. Scratch the taxi plan… There was no way we’d be able to express to a cab driver where we needed to go.

Plan B was to just pretend to be stupid Americans and take our carts with us, then return them when we came back the next day. Honestly, it probably would have worked. We were definitely the entertainment for everyone at that shopping mall. If we were doing something out of the ordinary, they would attempt to tell us, realize we were American, mutter mei guo ren (American in Chinese), and just walk away.

Thankfully, on our way out, we ran into the three boys we met when we were moving in – our building “monitor”, a guy from Chile, and another guy whose name I never caught. Although none of them really speak much English, they helped us carry all of our bags, mops, and baskets back to the apartment complex. I’m hoping that Joaquin (I think that’s what he said his name is) will be able to help me practice some of my Spanish while I’m here so I don’t forget it!

So, back at the apartment, I cleaned out the sink and counter in the bathroom. It turned out okay, but the amount of dirt and grime on it was absolutely disgusting. We’re talking, it-turned-my-sponge-grey disgusting. I don’t even know how in the world an apartment can get this disgusting. Who lived here and didn’t even attempt to clean? Who would want to live like this?!

Currently, I have my water thing on so in AN HOUR I can start to clean out my shower and actually have water to rinse the Clorox off with. I’m so upset and disgusted. These are the clean, nice apartments? God help the other students on this program. I’ve sprayed cleaner in my shower and I’m letting it sit. I’m not even a germophobe or a manic cleaner. I’m usually okay with a certain amount of uncleanliness…but this is over the top, unacceptable. There are dead bugs in my shower. The floor is grey. I don’t want to be scared of walking around my own apartment. Oh, and another thing. The effing shower leaks. Even though it’s a closed shower and it’s raised off the ground, apparently no one in China has ever heard of actually SEALING the shower so water doesn’t leak out between the cracks. We had this same problem at our hotel.

I’m sorry for the rant, this is just really grossing me out.

Cleaning my apartment is making me panic. I’ve gone from being completely happy with being here and thinking that I’ve made a great choice to thinking that this is the worst idea ever. I’m panicking because there’s nothing I can do about it. Even if I wanted to go home, I’m almost a full 24 hours of travel away from anyone. I don’t want to go home. I really don’t.

This is a low point. Anyone moving out of the country for a year has them, and once my apartment is clean and I have things to do, it will get better. I know myself, and I know I’ll make the most out of my year here.

I still don’t have my Ethernet cable. We couldn’t find one at the supermarket, so here’s to hoping that the Future Mall has one and we can find it tonight. (Again, you’ll be reading this God knows how long after I’ve written it on my computer because I don’t have the internet).

Again, I feel if I just had the internet or a phone or some way of communicating with the outside world, this moment of panic would pass much more quickly. But, I don’t. I have myself, here, alone, in China.

My apartment: first impressions

Today was the day that we finally moved out of the Fuhua Hotel and had to officially move into our real homes for the next year. We were supposed to be picked up at 9:30 AM, but our Waiban showed up early. I was packed and everything, and headed down at 9 to grab a bottle of water and a snack from the little store across the street. When I got to the lobby, though, my waiban was there, and waiting for us. I went back to my room to get my stuff, and Kirk came up and told us we had to go. We were pretty much rushed out of our hotel in a hurry and into this SUV that they somehow managed to fit all of our luggage into.


Our middle school is in the northwestern part of Shijiazhuang. No, I’m not that good with directions outside of Iowa. They told us that. When you first pull up to our apartment, it looks really old and dirty. The school’s entrance is currently undergoing construction, so even that looks a little scary. Pulling up and hearing him say which building was our apartment, I was extremely nervous. But, as with most apartment buildings in China, the inside is much, much, much nicer than the outside. I’ve taken quite a few pictures, but I left my cord to transfer them at home. I’m hoping to find one later at the supermarket. More about that in a minute.

Emily and Lauren are on the first floor; I’m on the second. I must have lucked out, because my apartment is definitely nicer than theirs. That’s not to say that their apartments are bad, because the three of us are in the nicest/newest apartment building of anyone with the program. Two of the guys in Chongqing are even going to be living in a hotel the entire time because their school couldn’t find them an apartment!

So, I’m in apartment 202. Pretty much everything is dark wood, which works well with my OCD over the mismatched dark and light wood that are in Emily and Lauren’s apartments…not that the color of the wood is the biggest of my concerns right now, it’s just a nice added touch. When I walk in, to my right is a door (that doesn’t shut all the way) that just had a little bit of a storage area behind it. I don’t plan on having enough things to fill it with, but it’s nice. On second thought, maybe that’s where I’ll put my suitcases. Maybe even Lauren’s and Emily’s if they need me to. Straight ahead from my front door is the sitting room. It has a TV and DVD player, an armoire, an air conditioning unit, and a futon. The futon is currently covered in a blanket, presumably to keep it clean…but the actual fabric is covered in dust, so I don’t see myself using it. Ever. Well, maybe I’ll sit on the blanket.

Okay, again, coming from the front door. If I turn left, there is a little nook thing where I can hang coats and store shoes. If I keep walking down the little hall, there is a fridge at the end. The fridges here are a lot shorter than in the US. And it’s dirty. Well, pretty much everything in my apartment could use a good scrub-down.

Turning right from the fridge is another short hallway. To the left is my bedroom. My bed is HUMONGOUS. Well, beds, I should say. It’s two twin beds pushed together to make one massively large bed. Then I have the desk and chair that I am currently sitting at to write this, a working air conditioning unit that is pumping out some very lovely cool air on my arms, and two armoires for my clothes.

Back out in the hallway, to the left of my bedroom, is the toilet and a sink. Again, not as clean as I would like it to be, but it actually flushes, so no complaints here.

Directly across from my bedroom is the shower. And yes, it’s a REAL SHOWER. With DOORS! It’s actually separated from the rest of things and not a hose on the wall!! In that same room, there is a counter top with a sink and a mirror, the hot water heater that I have to turn on to take a shower (which I’m going to forget to do at least a handful of times), and the washing machine. All of the directions are in Chinese, but there is a blue button and a red button. I’m assuming that stands for cold or hot water. At least, that’s how I’m going to take it.

If I go to the end of this half of my “bathroom”, it goes out to this little patio-type area. It’s not open like a patio, but it has big windows with a bit of a view. It’s my kitchen…kind of. There is a sink, a few metal shelves, and a microwave. That’s all.

Okay, that’s the tour of my apartment as for now. I’m hoping to get a few other necessities like shower shoes, towels, a rug, and maybe a fan.

The supermarket is just a short walk away from us, and it has everything you could possibly imagine. The downstairs has clothes, shoes, electronics, purses, briefcases, etc. The upstairs has every kind of food you can imagine. There are so many fresh fruits and vegetables, I feel like I’m in heaven. There is even fresh shrimp on ice! If I ever get a hotplate to actually cook on, I’m going to be making so many shrimp dishes. A little touch of home, I guess!

Since we do have to walk, I was very happy to discover that I can buy some of the heavier items right next door. There’s a little corner store right next door that sells toilet paper and water. I actually just ran over there right before finishing up typing this. It’s kind of frustrating, because even knowing a little bit of Chinese, it’s hard to get around. The language is so tonal that my pronunciation is hard for them to understand, even if I know what words I want to say. I accomplished buying my jug of water and toilet paper with a lot of gestures and holding up how many fingers it costs. (5 kuai for toilet paper and water – a little more than 75 cents). Oh, and kuai is just kind of like slang for yuan, similar to dollars versus bucks.

Mom and dad, you’ll be happy to know that not only is there a lock to get into my apartment, but we also have a key to get into the apartment building at all. That makes me feel a lot better about living on my own for the very first time, with no roommates. There’s also a lady who everyone refers to as “auntie”. She basically has a room at the very front of the apartment, with a window looking out into the courtyard. We’re pretty sure her only job is to look out the window and see who comes into our building. There is also a video camera on every floor.

We’re getting ready to head to the supermarket soon, to get some food and home items. There’s also a pharmacy and a KFC right there, in case we need some American food. We had lunch with two of the men who work in the foreign affairs office today, though, and there are a few good restaurants around.

After going to the supermarket, Mr. Fu took us on another walk to show us where the bank and post office are. Then, he took us through the outdoor market that winds around right by our apartment. At first, I was a little weary of the market. Not trying to be mean, but a lot of places in China smell bad. There’s a lot of open garbage piles or just weird smells that don’t seem to have a reason or source. Anyway, the market at first reminded me of the market in Uganda. As we got further in, and closer back to our apartment, the market is actually going to be a really good place to go to find fruits and vegetables, and maybe even bread and rolls.

Actually being at my own apartment has made me feel a lot better, much like I thought it would. I feel more settled, and I think I’m going to enjoy living here. I still miss everyone, but I just feel better having my own place and not living out of a suitcase. When I find cool places around here, I know how to get back to them because I live here. The streets are dirty and, at first glance, it kind of looks like I live in the Chinese version of the projects, but keeping things in perspective for the Chinese income instead of the American view of city life, this actually isn’t too bad.

I’m typing this right before Emily, Lauren, and I go back to the supermarket on our own. We’re going to try to find an Ethernet cord and maybe even a wireless router. I don’t know when I’ll be able to post this, but it will obviously be after that point.

At this moment, right now, as I type this, I feel okay. I feel like this next year is going to be an adventure. It’s barely started, and it’s already had such an impact on my world view and what I want for my future. I’m excited. I’m nervous. I’m homesick. But I’m keeping a journal of all the things I see and do so when I do have access to the internet, I can remember the things I see that I want to tell people. It makes me feel closer to home, even if I do look like a weirdo taking out a pen and notebook to jot things down out of the blue. I really don’t care. I’m already used to being stared at, having my picture taken, and being videotaped just for being American in China.

The control freak that I am, I’m starting to learn to let things go. I can’t plan how the next year is going to map out. I can’t possibly now what’s going to happen when I get home. But I can live in the moment and enjoy it, and try my hardest to keep in touch with the people I care about.

My homestay was DA BOMB

I apologize, there is just no better way to describe how amazingly awesome my homestay was.

I admit, though, that my initial impression was not anywhere near this great. I was absolutely 100% terrified. We were picked by our majors, and being an international relations and politics major, I knew this was going to get me an interesting homestay "sibling". I was correct. A quick rundown of the first topics my homestay "sister" touched on within the first half hour of meeting me…

1. The US financial crisis. I'm not even kidding here. She asked me about it, my opinions of it, which party's plan I agreed with, what I would do if I were in charge of changing our financial crisis around, how I think the US is going to be able to handle our debt into the future, etc. She also was able to tell me her opinion, but it quickly turned into a better conversation. She had some ideas that she talked about that she thought her government should implement so they wouldn't fall as deeply into the same financial crunch that the US and Europe are in right now. I was extremely impressed with both her ability to formulate ideas on what she thought the government should do, and on her ability to express them so well in English. This leads me to the second topic of conversation....

2. Since she had so many great ideas, I asked what she wanted to do after high school and college (she is 16. Funny story, actually, her birthday is the same as Domenic's. She'll be turning 17 the same day he turns 18). She wants to work for the government.... Immediately, my brain went.. "Oh, God, what have I gotten myself into? She's a young party member." I was wrong, though. She wants to go into economics and be able to help her country. I don't think the pairing of the two of us could have been better. Yes, our countries are completely different, with different outlooks on life and governance, but I think that the desire to want to be able to improve upon your country and government is the same regardless of where you are from. Although I kept my answers to her questions about China as diplomatic and unbiased as possible, we were able to have some really great conversations. I told her I was extremely impressed with her English and her ability to express herself and have these political conversations/debates in another language. It was really sad to see her view of herself, because she said that she doesn't think her English is good enough to ever get a job with the government, even though that's her dream. It really put China's population crunch into perspective for me, because if the roles were reversed and this was an American girl who spoke English and Chinese as fluently as my homestay sister does, our government would jump at the opportunity to have her on board. All in all, I think we both agreed that, looking to the future, the cooperation of our governments is a necessity.

3. Then, we talked about China's former One Child Policy. God, talk about having to stay as neutral and unbiased as possible when trying to answer a question. It wasn’t too bad.

4. Next up on uncomfortable topics to talk about in China was religion. Not even joking, she asked me what I thought about so many people in China being unreligious. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to tell me that I shouldn’t proselytize or what, but I danced around that topic pretty quickly. Any conversation that includes the words “religion” and “our party” in one sentence is a conversation I want to steer clear of in China.

5. Thennnnn, Justin Beiber. She told me he is “very beautiful”. My mind went, “Young party member who loves Justin Beiber. How is my night going to go?!” But then I saw that she had on Harry Potter glasses and we had a wonderful conversation about Professor Snape.

6. The tax structures of the U.S. and China. This girl is SMART. Her mom is an MBA professor and her dad is an engineer, so I guess that is part of the reason why she wants to go into economics. She did ask me what I thought about a country’s right to take taxes, and we had a really interesting debate. Although she wants to work for her government, she is very open-minded and we had some really good discussions.

Okay, so that was the beginning of my homestay adventure. I was a little nervous with all of the politics talk, just because I don’t know what I’m at liberty to comment on or not yet. I mean, I quite obviously wouldn’t say anything outwardly negative about the government, but I don’t know how people react to making comparisons between China and the US.

We took a taxi back to her apartment. It was just her and her mom for the time being, because her dad is working on a project in Tianjin. Her mom doesn’t speak any English, so it was just the two of us talking, or her acting as an interpreter. Their apartment was A LOT bigger than I expected it to be, and freaking pristine. It looked like it had been scrubbed top to bottom for the last week and a half. There were three bedrooms, so I had a guest bedroom, and the bathroom was pretty big. There wasn’t a separate area for the shower, but they had this weird plastic contraption that they placed over the toilet while using the shower so the toilet didn’t get drenched. It was interesting.

Oh, and an embarrassing moment. They had three sets of house shoes when I first went in. They pointed to one of the pink pairs to have me try on. My foot was definitely too big. I’m pretty sure I ended up having to wear her dad’s house shoes. Whatever, Americans have big feet. Cool.

While her mom made dinner, we went to this garden nearby. It was SO COOL. It was six stories up, in this walkway between two tall buildings. It was beautiful! They had about every kind of plant there, from palm trees to cacti, to flowers. There were paddle boats that you could take down this lazy river, and waterfalls, and (we found out later) and entire huge swimming pool area.

We walked around the garden for a bit, and then went to see this film. It was advertised in English as a “4D film”, but it was basically just kind of a jankier version of our 3D movies, complete with really hot yellow 3D goggles. At first, we watched these really lame videos about dinosaurs and rocks.. There were no words, just music. Not like I would have understood the words, anyway. The last one we got to watch was really cool, though. It was about ten or fifteen minutes, and the only way I can really describe it was that the main guy was kind of like a Chinese version of Dracula. At the beginning, he came out of this coffin and the whole story was about how he killed people and made them the marionettes for the Beijing Opera. I got pretty into it.

The “4D” movie was definitely not the best part of the garden, though. There was, suspended above the garden, a rope and bridge obstacle course! Despite the fact that I was wearing a dress and flip flops, I knew I HAD to go on it. My homestay “sister” and I got in the harnesses (don’t worry, the harnesses held my dress in place!) and headed up to the top. The first one we went across was just a rope bridge, so it was pretty easy. Then, we got on another rope bridge, except instead of being placed straight, they were all crooked and you had to balance where you put your feet so the whole thing didn’t teeter to one side. It was really awesome, but took a LOT of work. My hands were red and covered in rust from gripping the sides so hard. It was really trippy, too, because when you looked down, the obstacle course was over the part of the garden that had a glass floor. Not only was I suspended in air over a garden, I was suspended in air over a garden that was suspended six stories high. I thought that was the end of it, but we had one more left – and it proved to be the hardest to do in flip flops! It was a metal tightrope type thing surrounded by a rope net that we had to balance our way across. There were ropes on both sides for us to hang on to, but it was REALLY hard to keep my flip flops on the rope in the middle without sliding anywhere. Once we finally got across, I was drenched in sweat and I thought I might have given Charlotte a mild heart attack. She just said to me, “My English teacher from New York said American women were very active. I didn’t know what that meant when he said it…but now I do.”

Alright, so we got lost in this huge garden, and once we found our way back to an elevator, it took us down to the International Foreign Goods Mall. It was SO COOL. I’m taking everyone in Shijiazhuang back there! First, it was freaking HUGE. I’m pretty sure we’re going to get lost when we go there ourselves. Next, it had just about everything you could possibly want to find shopping there. The coolest part, though, is that each hall or wing is modeled after a different city from around the world. There’s London, and it’s modeled after the Sherlock Holmes books/movies. There’s Rome, and the Vatican. There’s France. There’s Greece. There’s Egypt. That’s just what I saw, but I’m sure there is more.

After we found our way out, we went back to her apartment for dinner. It was SO GOOD. There was a ton of food to choose from, and I think her mom kept the foods pretty tame on purpose because she knew there was going to be an American. There was sweet and sour pork, spring rolls with something really sweet in them, a shrimp dish, soup, rice, corn, another chicken dish, a dish with pork and vegetables…it was all delicious. Then, there were these pickeled or carmelized or something duck eggs. They were really weird, but I ate them. They were slimy, but the taste actually wasn’t too bad. The funniest part about dinner was that it took forever for me to convince the mom that I actually knew how to use chopsticks! For the first half of the meal, every time I tried to use my chopsticks, she would take them out of my hands and replace them with a spoon. I didn’t know if she was offended that I was trying to use the chopsticks instead of the spoon she had set out for me, or if she thought it was polite because she didn’t think I knew how to use them. Finally, she asked if I had ever used chopsticks before coming to China, and when I said yes, she let me use them for the rest of the meal.

This next section I want to remember so I can e-mail to my grandma Cahill when I get a better internet connection. China and Google aren’t exactly BFFs right now, hence a very slow gmail connection.

Charlotte’s school schedule is CRAZY. Her regular day: school starts at 7:20 AM. From 7:20 to 9:20, they have what she calls “reading” and she says they can read in either English or Chinese. I think this might be a time for studying, but I could be wrong. Then they have five classes that go until noon, when they have lunch. Then they have “reading” and “soft study” until 2:20, when they start up the second half of their classes. I think she said that she takes nine classes total. The end of regular classes is 5:40, but then they have a break for studying time and/or night classes. They’re finally done at 9:20 PM. They eat lunch and dinner at school. From what I’ve heard other people say about their homestay children, it isn’t uncommon for these kids to stay up past midnight, studying. One girl said that she usually goes to bed between midnight and one, unless there are exams. Then, she stays up until three in the morning. They’re killing these kids.

Okay, after dinner, we looked online at some pictures of her school, and I showed her some pictures of my family on my laptop. When I was ready to go to bed and everyone was going into their rooms, her mom brought me a glass of regular water in case I got thirsty in the middle of the night. I took it, of course, but didn’t drink any. Quite honestly, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it. I know I had problems in Mexico when I would tell people I would like bottled water instead of tap, because they would get offended that Americans thought their water was “dirty”. I just took it, thanked her, and put it in my room. Oh well.

Another thing I wasn’t sure about was the bed. The bed was flawlessly made… very, very tightly tucked in. Then, there were two pillows and a pile of blankets on top. They had informed me that they had two types of pillows. One was soft, which they called the “Western” pillow, and one was hard and felt like it was filled with little balls. And by hard, I don’t mean firm. I mean I pushed my hand down on it with quite a bit of force and I barely made it move. That was apparently the “Chinese” pillow. (Side note: beds in China are not soft. Not firm, but hard. Like you’re sleeping on a floor. It doesn’t move. It is just straight. Apparently it’s good for your spine alignment or something. A lot of people have had problems sleeping, but I don’t really mind it too much). So, my dilemma was this: do I sleep under the covers, or do I sleep on top of them with the blankets they brought me?

I ended up sleeping on top of the comforter because it was pretty hot, with one of the lighter blankets on top of me and the western pillow.

All in all, my homestay was really good. Charlotte and I are even QQ friends!

What just happened there?

Okay, so dinner tonight.

It was pretty good. We went to this Indian/Chinese restaurant. The food was pretty good, even though we ended up ordering fish when we thought we were ordering chicken. The food wasn't the best part of the story, though. This is:

So, Chinese children and babies love to wave at Americans. They can also be really, extremely shy if you wave back at them, but for the most part they seem to like it. In the restaurant, this little boy (about 1 1/2) ran over by our table to stare at us, followed closely by his father. My initial shock was to see that he had a slit in his pants instead of diapers. Yes, of course I'd heard that they do this..but it's one thing to hear about it and another thing to SEE it. After dealing with the shock of seeing this, I smiled and waved at the little boy.

Apparently this was waaaaaay too much for him to handle.

He peed himself.

And by he peed himself, I mean, he peed on the floor. Of this really nice restaurant. And no one cleaned it up.

I'm talking, we sat there for a good twenty minutes after it happened, waiting for someone to do something. And all that happened was that someone made a half-assed attempt to sweep it up. Sweet.

I'm glad we had already finished eating.

A day with coffee

Okay, a few things I forgot from my post yesterday.

1. Children in army uniforms. It's freaking me out. We were at the University after our language classes, and our class got out earlier than the other half. So, we walked down a little bit to where the bus was parked instead of waiting for it to pull up in front of the building. Off to the side, I saw this group of 8 Chinese students, in army green outfits, doing these drills. My first thought was, "Wow. Those kids look really young, like maybe freshmen in high school." Then I figured they couldn't be because they were on a college campus and because who enrolls fourteen year olds in the military? Then, later that night, while we were walking in the alley, I saw more kids in army greens. And I really mean kids this time. These kids were 11 or 12 years old, just riding down the street in army uniforms. What is going on here? Maybe I'll find out later, and I doubt they're actually enlisted in anything, but it is still FREAKING me out. Pre-pre-training for the military?

2. The mall cop. We went into the really nice mall and this security guy came up to Kirk, seemingly a little angry. It turned out that he was making it very clear to him that our group was not to take pictures of the mall. Whatever, okay. What I noticed was that he had the Chinese flag tied into a bandana of sorts around his arm. I don't really have anything else to add to that other than it was an observation.

Alright, so the day so far. This morning started out pretty rough. I had a pretty bad dream last night, and Marcus was in it. It was kind of sad, because I wasn't able to see him before I left, and he messaged me while I was in the Beijing airport to talk. I guess that must have been on my mind, because my first thought when I woke up was that I needed to mend things with Marcus...then I realized I was in China. I was pretty upset, and that added more fuel to my concerns about whether or not I was doing the right thing. Emily and I had enough time this morning to talk about how we were feeling while we were getting ready, because I think we're both feeling similarly about the decision to come to China.. or at least we're both yo-yoing back and forth depending on how much alone time we have.

It was a really good thing for me that we had Chinese lessons first thing this morning, because I was able to completely throw myself into them and concentrate on learning things. We learned how to order drinks in a restaurant, and I feel really good that I can string together some short sentences. I really want to find a way to take classes while I'm here or find a personal tutor or something. 

I had some more down time today, and it was alright. I mostly spent my time getting on the computer and posting because Tyler finally helped me figure out my computer charging problem. It really helped me feel better....even though it was the middle of the freaking night back home and I wasn't actually able to talk to my parents. I did get to send them an e-mail, though. 

The solution to my problem seems to come in reading. I've downloaded a ton of books on my iPad, but at the rate I'm going through them to keep myself occupied and my mind off of missing everyone, I'm worried that it's not going to get me too far. We'll see.

Lunch was, again, really good. I didn't try the pig ears. I couldn't bring myself to eat them because they looked so fatty. Oh well. I ate pretty much everything else. I'm also getting much better at crossing the street. I actually crossed all by myself today to get a water after training. Success!!

The one bad thing I found out today is that planning for my parents to come is going to be more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Apparently no one freaking knows when the Chinese New Year is going to be or when the semester break is going to be. I seriously have issues understanding how a middle school wouldn't have the semester break planned. That weirds me out. I guess the only thing I can do is wait until I meet with my foreign affairs officer next week and see what he says and keep my parents updated. (Dad, I know you'll love that). So, cool.

We're getting ready to go to dinner now, so I'm sure there are more adventures to come. I'm not planning on letting myself have any down time until I have access to a wireless connection and my text messaging.