I'm back!

I am back in Shijiazhuang as of yesterday. If you didn’t know, I was traveling from January 22nd to February 22nd for the spring festival holiday also known as Chinese New Year. The Chinese New Year fell on February 7th, I was in Hong Kong at the time. I went to Beijing, Harbin, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Macau, Sanya, and Haikou. I have many stories and not enough blog, so you’ll have to talk to me if you want to hear them. : P I will leave you with my favorite quotes and entertaining snippets.

Memorable quotes
-The leaf just lactated on me (from Sanya, Hainan)
-I’m taking off my pants! (Sanya, Hainan)
-Do you have putonghua (Mandarin) coming out of your ass? (probably in Hong Kong)

Highlights
-going in circles in Beijing (Temple of Heaven, the mall to the subway, our hostel)
-walking into a massage parlor and asking for lambsticks
-the preferred mode of transporting five people in a taxi which only allows four in Harbin and Tianjin
-finally climbing the Great Wall!!
-being fed by a policeman in Harbin (with his chopsticks)
-being stalked in Harbin
-real Indian food in Hong Kong! I died that night and went to heaven, I’m pretty sure.
-a group of about 10 foreigners singing songs throughout the streets of Hong Kong
-Erin and Jenna performing various Rent songs on the Hong Kong subway…which somehow led to the 7/11 crawl in Hong Kong (best idea ever)
-Hong Kong fireworks on New Year’s day, it doesn’t get any better than that
-climbing a mountain…or three with a man in shorty-shorts as our guide
-how Erin and I managed to lose two cameras with 2300+ pics, a passport, a phone, an iPod, a backpack, a cute D & G purse, money and became way too familiar with the Chinese legal system in two separate cities
-rickshaws and riding in the backs of trucks to go see volcanoes in Haikou
-the 5 hour standing train back to Shijiazhuang at the end of spring festival holiday

Blitz to Beijing

Okay, I need to tell this story about my daytrip to Beijing. So if you don’t want to read a long story, stop now.

December 30th (Sunday) I was supposed to go to Beijing at 11:45 am to meet up with Jeremy, Michelle and CJ. My train was delayed…and delayed…and delayed for another hour and 15 minutes. By the way, that’s the longest delay I’ve ever experienced with a train in China, generally they’re on time or maybe 15 minutes late at the most. So I get on the train to Beijing at 1 pm. Let me explain another thing that happened before I got on the train. While I was purchasing my tickets at the train station, they sold me a standing-room only ticket, meaning all the seats were sold out and that I would have to stand on the train to Beijing, which is only 3-4 hours away, so it’s not bad. So I took the ticket. This is what I saw when I got on the train.

Where are the people? There were tons of people waiting for this train and I don’t know if they just took another train or what, but this was the emptiest train I’ve ever been on. When we got to Baoding, about halfway to Beijing, everyone got off the train and I was the only person in my entire car. I was questioning whether the train decided to not go to Beijing and if so, how I was going to get to Beijing. So logically, I took a nap.

After my nap, I noticed these train attendants who kept walking up and down the aisles in my car. Finally, out of nowhere 5 or 6 of them sat down in my area and started talking to me. Then more attendants came, so there were about 10 of them or so. I also made friends with a cart lady who spoke the most English out of all of them. It turns out they’re all from Chongqing, where Kyle teaches. They were really friendly and surprisingly very young. One guy was only 19. The cart lady gave me spicy tofu and a clementine. This was probably my favorite train ride. Then the boss came by and yelled at all of them and they left. Five minutes later, they were back and chilling.

Anyway, I got to Beijing and it was around 5 pm. I was really late and my phone had no service, so I walked around the train station for about 20 minutes when I saw a long, bright blue coat with a white and pink hat in the distance. It was Jenna. I bolted after her and was able to use Ericka’s phone to call Jeremy. It was pure chance that I saw Jenna at the biggest train station possible. It was 5:30 and the good news was I found Jeremy, CJ and Michelle. The bad news was the train back to Shijiazhuang was going to leave at 8 pm. So I had 2 hours to explore and shop. So I left with Michelle and CJ on our most efficient shopping spree ever. We took the bus and the subway to our destination.

First we went to a DVD shop. This was the coolest place ever because we walked in and the lady behind the counter moved the bookshelf away from the wall and knocked on the wall. The wall opened up and they let us into the secret part of the DVD shop where the nice ones were. There were a couple of other foreigners already browsing, so I guess it’s not that secret, but you would never know it existed if you just walked into the store. So we got some DVDs and moved on to Silk Street. Silk Street is actually a building with 6 floors of different markets. We could spend no more than 15 minutes at each place that we wanted in order to get back in time and not miss our train. We were actually doing well, Michelle got her earrings that she wanted and a purse and CJ got a purse and DVDs. I got a ring and a DVD. We were 5 minutes ahead of schedule. We finished and took the bus back to the train station and made it onto the train about 10 minutes before it left. I was a little nervous about missing the train but Michelle and CJ were pros at this, so I was in good hands.

This train ride was sweet by the way. It only took 2 hours and it was more like an airplane with more legroom and no loud, obnoxious music. Although I didn’t make friends with any attendants on this train. : P

Recap of the Xmas festivities

I had a fantastic Christmas. The CCEPers had a Christmas party at Steph’s place two weeks ago and last Friday all the foreigners were invited to a party held by the government. The past two days, I’ve been treated to dinner by my school. My classes have given me apples or cards or some other kind of gift. I might be making dumplings on Monday with one of my classes. At least I hope I can go. I felt bad because this past Thursday I said I’d go and then I got the invitation to go to the school sponsored dinner which is compulsory. So I couldn’t go make dumplings. : (

The wrapped apples and oranges are popular gifts here because apples signify peace and security and oranges signify happiness. Tomorrow I’m going to Beijing to meet up with Jeremy, CJ and Michelle. I might meet up with Jenna and Aleks because they’re also going to be in Beijing. I think Steph and Kelsey might be in Beijing too, but I’m not sure. CJ is leaving for good on January 4th. It makes me sad. She’s also a really cool, chill person to hang out with. She’s moving on to grad school, so I guess it’s for the best, but I’m still going to miss her.

It still seems surreal that I’ve been here for 4 months now. I’ve been contemplating staying another year. I just really like it here. My Chinese is progressing albeit slowly and I’ve settled into a nice routine. Routine is a relative term in China as anything can happen at anytime. Classes are winding down and finals are beginning here. I’m officially finished January 18th, but the last day of classes is January 4th. Then I’ll be off until February 24th. I’ll be traveling with fellow CCEPers. We’re going to go to Harbin up north for the ice festival and then we’ll make our way down south to Hong Kong and Sanya, Hainan. Sanya is where the Miss World pageant was held recently. This is where Miss China was crowned Miss World. Another interesting fact to note, she was born in Shijiazhuang, where I live. How nuts is that?

I'm a teacher? What??

I now have confirmation that what I am teaching does not matter at all. Why? Yesterday while I was giving a final in my class, I had a student show up in the middle of it that I had never seen before. She asked me to give her a grade for freshman English. What she was telling me wasn’t making much sense so I told her to come back after class. She was a sophomore who had changed her major so she hadn’t taken freshman English because she was an education major last year. So she wanted me to give her a final and then a grade even though she’s not on my roster or ever been in my class. I talked to one of my bosses and she said I should do it. Hmmm…okay. So, there’s no need to go to class or participate or do anything other than show up for the day of finals and ask a random teacher for a grade??? How does this make sense? Oh that’s right. I’m in China. And yes, I’m giving her a grade today.

Handan and Xi'an!

In other news, I went to Handan and Xi’an this past weekend!! It was fantastic. Jenna and I went to Handan where Erin and Ben teach and from there we took the train to Xi’an. Pictures do not do the terra cotta warriors justice. We also visited a famous mosque in Xi’an. Xi'an is a great mix of old and new. I really liked Xi'an. Handan is nice because it's a small town and everybody knows each other. It seems like a nice place to teach.

Okay, I know I’m not in India but there are some things that are identical to how it is in India. First example: On a bus in Xi’an, the extra people standing in the aisle ducked to avoid being caught by the police. It’s illegal to have a packed bus and have people standing in the aisle. At least for a bus passing a checkpoint. Second example: Bargaining with vendors. They say, “Mingtian, wu kuai” meaning “Tomorrow, 5 kuai.” They say the same thing when you bargain with vendors in India. Tomorrow it’ll be that price. Of course they don’t mean it but it’s funny they say the same thing.

I got back from a very shady dinner with some old creepy Chinese men. I went with my friend because there was no way I was going to let her go alone. There was nasty Great Wall wine involved and some bizarre phone calls. The “tea master” would not let us leave and I just finally got up, put my coat on and said I have to teach early in the morning, which I do. I don’t know how we would have gotten out of there if I hadn’t done that. The tea master kept making excuses, “one more glass,” or “one more cigarette” to my friend. It was not that late, but late enough. I was tired and the whole American and Indian fetish is getting old.

Today I decorated my room for Christmas. I feel more cheerful already.

Living in China

I think James Fallows has China down to a T. If you want an idea of how things work in China or why there are so many accidents in China, you should definitely read this. http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/11/the_way_vs_a_way_japan_v_china.php

Other related news:
I have now wandered onto two constructions sites since being in China. This doesn’t include the construction site that a taxi driver took my friends and I through once upon a time. How many have I walked through in the US? Zero. I was trying to get out of Future Mall, the basement of which has a grocery store. The rest of the floors are under construction. One would think it would be simple to do this. Not so. The exits were clearly not exits in this mall o’ the future.