September 23rd, 2008

Whoops! Sorry it's been a long time since I last updated. Here's the gist of what I'm going to talk about: Smoking is bad for the furniture, Chinese guys are fun to drink with, Mountain Resort is beautiful, my freshman classes, discrimination, and my new tattoo.

So we were sitting at the OK bar the other night, when Matt and Jimmy lit up cigarettes. To our amusement, Lotus (Jimmy's girlfriend) pipes up and says No smoking! Smoking is bad for the furniture! Funniest. Quote. Ever. Lotus is really cool, even inviting us all over on Autumn Festival for her friends to make dumplings for us. While there, we got Matt to write down some of our favorite dishes in PinYin so we could at least try to order something we like instead of it always being a guessing game...

A few nights ago, Zach and I tried our hand at a different barbeque with Matt's little cheat sheet. While we were there, Megan and Chris stumbled upon us and we invited them to sit for drinks (BTW, this barbeque is just a tent on the sidewalk just behind my apartment). Soon, the grill-guy comes and sits with us. He tries to say the few words he knows in English, so Megan hands him her phrasebook, I grab mine, and we have our conversation through our phrasebooks.

The next night, Zach and I were on our way to meet the Normal people at their hotel for dinner. On the way there, we have to walk through the BBQ from the night before. The grill guy stops us, sits us down, and pops open beers for us. Well there went our night. We called the Normal people to come join us. Soon, grill guy (I can't remember his name) brings us lamb skewers. Then he brings us more skewers. And then more! We are then invited to sit with some friends of his, who happen to be dining at the BBQ that night. Just as we are sitting down, lo and behold, Matt walks by! He decides to sit with us, and we now have a translator, and one of the guys happens to know a little English. Oh, and Matt and these guys are good friends. So before we know it, we've all been poured glasses of beer, and we Ganbei them. And then we Ganbei again. And again. And again. Well, you can guess what happened. I found out that the guy who spoke English was a tattoo artist, and I started talking to him about the tattoo I wanted. He's drawing me a picture. More on that later. I tried many interesting things that night. Most noteable was silkworm cocoons and snails. Yeah, definitely won't get them again. Vei Yun, one of the guys, got really drunk, and the only words he knew in English were USA, I love you, and friend. He then proceeded to kiss everyone at the table, and even chased Zach around trying to kiss him. That night, once again, ended at McPerkins.

The funny thing was that we went out with Serena the following night for dinner and bowling. We were telling her the story when she suddenly realized she knew Vei Yun! She then called him and a very sober and abashed ei Yun joined us at teh bowling alley for a game of pool. Oh, and the pool girls like to sit and watch everyone play pool. It's a little unnerving at first...

Anyhoo, about my tattoo. It's a picture of two dragons (I love dragons) that are intertwined. One is Chinese, the other is western, and both are 3D. It will be on the back of my shoulder. I'm going to see the finished drawing tomorrow. w00t. Don't worry Erin, I waited the three years grace period.

So freshman classes: HUGE! And definitely didn't have enough copies of the worksheet for everyone. I had 50 copies for 137 students! And they had no idea what sharing was. I tried to explain, but everyone in the front still took one, and everyone in teh back sat there and didn't know what to do. I had to go take papers away from people to distribute. And I swear, if I have one more person tell me to slow down, I'm going to tell them to sit down and shut up! Seriously, if I talk any slower, it will be like this. And that is completely unproductive. Nor do I speak Chinese, so I will not be teaching them how to speak English by speaking Chinese to them. Frustration! I hope the next freshman class goes better.

As for discrimination, it happens, but I've never been on the recieving end until now, and I really don't like it. I mean, yeah, there is that whole feminist thing where it feels like as a woman you are looked down upon and don't get the same opportunities, but here, we get discriminated against because we are white. We had to shove our passes in the face of the guy at the gate to Mountain Resort before he would stop pointing us to the ticket counter. Out of all the people walking through the gate to get to campus, we are the only ones that get stopped to have IDs checked. In the library, we weren't allowed to have our backpacks with us. They had to stay with the librarian even though the only thing to steal were books in Chinese and the door had a book alarm. Because we are clearly going to steal books written in all Chinese. The librarian was about to tell us we couldn't be in there and that we should go to the English section until we explained that the English section was closed. I guess they aren't trying to do it, it just gets cumbersome after a while. And annoying. It's hard going from a country where white skin gets you everything to a country where they are suspicious of anyone who doesn't have black hair, brown eyes, and yellow skin. Damn white supremacy.

One thing I've noticed here is the weird thing the brain does when faced with a language barrier. My brain knows they can't understand me in English, so it switches to the next language I know, which is Spanish, before it switches over to Chinese. So when I'm trying to translate something, it comes to me in Spanish first and then I have to try to translate it into Chinese. Weird, huh?

We met the professor of the Overseas Nursing program yesterday and went to talk to him today. He is AWESOME! Despite being in the medical field, he speaks very fluent English. His name is Lei Hui (Mr. Lei). He offered to take me and Zach to Hammer Hill after holiday. We are totally taking him up on that. And he also wants us to come play ping pong with him, which I am totally going to take him up on. And he introduced himself by saying Jeremy and Michelle were his friends. A lot of people say that. If nothing else, they were well liked and paved the way for me and Zach (Jeremy and Michelle were the previous foreign teachers).

Another person I've met is Cecilia. She's a translator who studied English in Beijing and is now working at a nice all in Chengde. She wants to hang out with me sometime, which I'm totally up for. I met her through Matt at the tattoo shop and she took me to get a chicken sandwich while Matt was getting his tattoo. I really like her. And I can talk at a normal speed with her and she completely understands me. We also visited a little pet sop and I was pleasantly surprised to find she likes animals. Perhaps we will take her with us to purchase train tickets for Guilin.

We are planning on going to Guilin for national holiday next week. It's a 27 hour train ride, but we can't afford anything else. And it looks like beautiful country. Mountains, hills, valleys. I was told by Mike to take the Li River Cruise to Yangshue and see the light show. I can't wait to go to Guilin.

Oh, and Mountain Resort is gorgeous! We still havn't seen much of it because of my VMCAS essays, but what we've seen has been phenomenal. And it's been there for 300 years. While we were there the last time, it started to rain (it does that a lot here). So we took refuge in one of the pavillions. There happened to be a man there playing a version of the wooden flute, the kind you hear in Chinese music. he was amazing. I could have sat there for hours listening to him play coupled with the rain and the scenery. I tried to ask him the name of the instrument, but he thought I was asking his name and wouldn't give it to me. I really want one of the flutes he played. Esp. one of the ones with deeper, richer tones. He had about 6 flutes with him, and he played all of them. I have a video of it. I also want one of the tooled wooden swords they sell outside mountain resort, and one of the tea sets they sell in the grocery store.

Whelp. Bedtime. More later.