Earthquakes abound!

So around 2:30 pm today, I was beginning my class as usual and found that several of my students were really fixated on the lights in my classroom. I thought maybe there was a bee or a spider up there. I looked up in confusion and asked them what they were looking at and noticed they were swaying back and forth. Then I felt the ground move a little bit. Half of my class freaked out and said, “Earthquake! Earthquake!” and then I noticed people leaving the classrooms. Then one guy who took pity on my general state of confusion as a foreigner said, “EARTHQUAKE!!!!” in the doorway of my class and said we all had to leave. It was the most dramatic thing ever. My students got their stuff and we all went outside and waited for half an hour. I thought somebody would make an announcement that it was ok to go back inside but nobody did.

So some of my students and I led the way back into the building and the other students slowly trickled back into their classes as well. We started class again and my last student came in and said where the epicenter was in Chinese and some of my other students frantically got out their phones to call home because their homes are somewhat near the area. It was located in Sichuan province and it registered somewhere around a 7.5 on the Richter scale. The famous earthquake that happened in Tang Shan 30 years ago registered nearly the same and that killed almost 300,000 people. I have several other friends in Kunming and Chongqing that were a lot closer to the earthquake and probably felt the effects a lot more. An early report said an elementary school collapsed and that 4 children died and that 100 students were injured in Chongqing. The epicenter as far as I can tell is closest to the city of Chengdu which is way down south and not at all near where I live.

Later I found out that there was a smaller tremor in Beijing that was about 3.9 on the Richter scale. So I'm not sure which one I felt.

Enterovirus, octupus and train crashes

There has been an outbreak of Enterovirus 71 in China which has killed some children and stricken about 1200 ill. So the following picture is kind of frightening.
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/04/30/dish_of_the_day.php

I saw this yesterday on shanghaiist.com and it is really the one thing I will not try. I will not be eating anything that is still alive anytime soon. It freaked me out so I asked one of my Korean friends if he has had it and he has octopus that has been freshly killed so that the tentacles are still moving but not while it was still alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIDJlsSSFM

A couple of days ago there was a train crash on the way from Beijing to Qingdao which killed 70 and injured roughly 400 people. The reason why I mention this is because my friend and I were planning on going to Qingdao for the May holiday. If our school had given us a few more days off like lots of other schools, I could very well have been on that train because it was an overnight train which is what I was thinking of taking when I looked at the train schedule. Anyway, my friend and I had been talking and we had changed our minds the next day (before the train accident occurred) because there weren’t many hostels available so that worked out.

China Drake Relays!

I just got back from the first ever Drake Relays in China. I was in Handan which is about an hour and a half south of Shijiazhuang. We held the relays at #3 middle school which is where Erin and Ben teach. The actual relays were only from 12:30-2 pm because the kids had class (on a Saturday, mind you, which is just wrong). We had three-legged races, water relays, piggyback races, egg tosses and my favorite event, the slowest bicycle race. For those of you that don’t know, the Chinese have a fabulous talent of cycling at approximately the speed of a turtle. It’s innate really. We proved it cause we all sucked at keeping our balance and maintaining that slow of a speed. Amy was the only Chinese person who competed with all the teachers and she won easily.

It was a lot of fun and the students really enjoyed it. We had lots of fun with it too. Before we headed over to the track, we all sat on the benches outside their classes to see what would happen when they saw 10 foreigners in one place right before their classes dismissed. Some noticed before class was dismissed and their teachers got pissed off at the distraction. It was nuts. They all lined the balconies and didn’t really know what to do. Some were brave enough to talk to us. Most just stared from afar.

Anyway, after the relays, we had a scavenger hunt throughout Handan of things that you should not leave China without doing. Some of my favorites were: buying a bag of baijiu and having some locals share it with us; eating a cornsicle (which is really good by the way); riding a rickety, old roller-coaster; and helping construction workers with their work. I guess you don’t have to do these things before leaving China to experience China but I think they represent life in China best.

Then the real relays began. It was pretty great.

First thunderstorm in Shijiazhuang

Okay, so I take what I said back. It does storm in Shijiazhuang. We experienced our first storm in the Shiz last Friday. It took most of us by surprise. When I heard the thunder, I assumed it was a car accident on my street. Another Shizzite saw the lightning and was plugging in a new hairdryer at the same time and thought she electrocuted herself. Another person thought that there were fireworks going off again. Clearly, it has been too long since any of us have experienced a real thunderstorm. Almost 8 months for me. It made me happy but it also seemed to drive the foreigners inside. When I went to Mcdonald’s, I was the only foreigner there. Usually there are no Chinese people there. I was really confused as to why the place was packed with Chinese people but I couldn’t think of a reason other than the rainy weather.

Last night, I had sushi for the first time. It was good. Since being in China I’ve had Russian, Korean and Japanese food for the first time.

Qinhuangdao

I just got back from a weekend in Qinhuangdao visiting some fabulous friends who I met over the spring festival holiday. We met more of their friends and ate delicious food and saw Old Dragon’s Head, where the Great Wall meets the sea. We also went to Olympic Park which is really pretty. It was gorgeous and the air was soo fresh. It turns out that their school is a five minute walk to the sea. It is also where the Olympic athletes will practice soccer during the summer. They are so lucky.

Anyway, on the train ride back to Shijiazhuang, I saw thunder and lightning for the first time in 7 months. I’m not sure why, but there aren’t any thunderstorms in Shijiazhuang. So I really liked the storm. I just like rain in general.

In short, I <3 Qinhuangdao.

Medical emergency in class? Check

So I taught Thasha’s sophomore class Monday since she is back in America for a while. I thought I was doing well teaching them, I had some of them from last semester. Then I made these two girls stand up and talk in class. They were doing a telephone conversation and the first girl finished her lines. So the second girl started to speak, then she faltered a bit. I thought it was because I made her talk with her partner, but then she said, “I’m sorry….I’m…” and passed out on the floor. Naturally, class was over then and the entire class circled around her while the people next to her held her tongue and rubbed her chest to soothe her and maybe wake her up. They put water on her forehead because she started to sweat. Then she started making some groaning noises and I thought she was going to have a seizure. I sent some students to go get help and it arrived pretty quickly, not that they did anything. They brought in a stretcher and a couple of hard cases of stuff but they didn’t put her on it or check her out. They didn’t really do anything, then the nurses left. The students had done more than the nurses did. She came to eventually and her classmates stuck by her and I felt really dumb because I couldn’t have done anything else that they hadn’t already done. What else can you do? Turns out, she has blood sugar problems and occasionally passes out. Sounds like hypoglycemia to me. I’m glad that it wasn’t anything worse. I have no idea what I would have done if it was something more serious.

So the moral of the story is: when in China and something medical happens, you’re pretty much on your own. I’m really surprised the nurses didn’t have any smelling salts or glucose tablets or anything. Actually, no I'm not. I'm in China.

Luckily, the student is fine now, except perhaps a bit embarrassed at having passed out in class.

Incubus and Baseball

So I got back from Beijing on Sunday. I was there from March 12th through 16th. I saw the Incubus concert in Beijing. It was fantastic even though the bassist was sick and they had to play acoustic the entire time. Star Live Music Hall was like being in Val-Air. It had a small club atmosphere. Actually, it was a lot smaller than Val-Air. But it was great because not many people were there, maybe a few hundred (mostly) foreigners. I got a few videos on my new camera. It definitely felt like being in America because I had to fight to get in front of these tall assholes who were blocking both me and Claire and would not let us around them. So “elbows up, side to side,” became our anthem. However, we did not lean like a cholo.

I stayed through the weekend because I thought it would be pointless for me to go and come back in two days. My girls from the Shiz met up in Beijing. We all shopped and at night had a decent meal at TGIFridays and went to Sanlitun after that. I’m not sure why but shots are super cheap in Beijing, which is not how it is in Shijiazhuang. 10 to 20 kuai (1-3 dollars) was typical at the places we went and in Shijiazhuang, they are usually 20 kuai minimum. Anyway, it was fun hanging out.

On Sunday, the LA Dodgers and the San Diego Padres came to town and played on Saturday and Sunday at Wukesong Stadium. They tied on Saturday and the Padres won on Sunday. The Dodgers had a press conference afterwards and the Padres did not. Why? I’m not sure. How do I know? Because my friends and I snuck onto the field after the game and hung around, taking pictures and generally just enjoying Americana. My friends stole signs from the stadium. I refrained because I don’t really care much about baseball. Then we saw the coach for the Dodgers in the press box and then some of my friends were a little bit inebriated which may or may not have contributed to us being kicked out of the stadium. It could have been the stealing of signs. Haha, it was great. As we were all standing in the parking lot of the stadium, everyone was arguing about why we were kicked out and who wanted what sign and as this was going on, I waved good-bye to the baseball players as they drove away in their private buses. Some waved back, most did not. Oh well. It was a humorous moment. “Bye, thanks for playing even though we showed why the world hates Americans.”

Then we had to go back to the Shiz since most of us taught on Monday. The train ride back was mixed. This lady was being a huge bitch about letting us stay in the dining car instead of standing the whole time because we didn’t have seats. We had standing tickets. So lately whenever we have standers, we go to the dining car and sit there until we reach our destination. We could tell she was going to be a bitch as soon as she came up to us. She kept yelling at us and saying, “No, no pijiu (no beer) and no, no mifan (no rice).” We know that you have to pay 20 kuai to stay in the dining car but we were willing to do it. She wouldn’t let us order what we wanted and then we watched as other Chinese people pulled out their own food and just sat in the dining car. Some had beer if I remember correctly. It was soo dumb. Then we finally ordered some crappy food that we all ate very slowly because we didn’t want them to kick us out if they thought we were done. Then they kept trying to take our food and we kept yelling at them not to. But it was an alright ride because it was only 2 ½ hours and we were all together. Most of the time, we slept or read.

It was good to be back, especially for me because Beijing is not my favorite city in China even though there are a lot of fun things to do and see. Beijing is associated with travel hassles for me and a lot of other people. The weekend before when I was in Beijing, we tried to get a bus back to Shijiazhuang and they simply said there was no bus. We know this isn’t true, but we ended up scrambling back to the train station to get a train ticket and we stayed in the dining car. To quote Jeremy, “It just isn’t a trip to Beijing if something doesn’t go wrong.” Other friends have missed trains back to their cities because trains have left early or because they didn’t make it on time.