Life in the limelight

A student of mine asked me for Playboy magazine in class today. He said that since it’s banned in China, maybe I have some male friends that wouldn’t mind sending it to him. “You know, I’ve heard there are lots of pictures and a lot of really good English articles in it.” I got his hopes up falsely, I told him perhaps. Fat chance buddy! “Perhaps” and “maybe” mean no to most Chinese people, you would think that he would have gotten that.

I must have been really out of it in class today because 3 different students asked me if I was okay and I totally passed out in the office sleeping for a good 30 minutes after the first class. The typist said she saw me on TV at the Red Cross donating stuff to give to the earthquake victims. So now, I’ve been on TV, radio, and the newspaper. I get a lot of media coverage here.

I had dinner with Governor Chet Culver tonight and his buddies and the vice governor of Hebei province. We met at 5:30 at my campus and didn’t have dinner until 7:30 and everyone left at 8:30 pm. We talked with Governor Chet for a few minutes and had our pictures taken. I don’t know which newspaper that will appear in, but we were told it would appear in some paper. I don’t know if that means in Iowa or in Hebei. After dinner, we all went to DQ for ice cream. He’ll be in China for a week total, spending a day in Shanghai, two in Hong Kong and he was in Beijing for three. He will be in Shijiazhuang for a total of maybe 12 hours. Shijiazhuang is Des Moines’ sister city and he’s spending the least amount of time here.

Moment of silence

We had 3 minutes of silence at 2:28 pm. It was strange and surreal. The traffic stopped where it was in the street and horns blared for 3 minutes straight. I watched out my window. I noticed one person on a bike who stopped. There were a few people who kept walking. After it was over, the wind started blowing again in the trees and traffic went on as usual.

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.