Happy moments

I feel I have been posting a bunch of negative thoughts and I wanted to counter with examples of the happy moments I have every day.

Today I left my last morning class before lunch and as I was heading down the stairs from the teaching building, I heard an excited chorus of “Mira!!” and I looked up to see four girls from that class waving excitedly at the bottom of the stairs.  I was surprised because I had just said goodbye to them.  When I got to them I could tell they had something they wanted to do say or ask, so I waited quizzically until one of them burst “Can we take a photo with you?”  I told them “of course.”  Three of them shuffled over excitedly and tucked their arms in mine and held up the ubiquitous peace sign as the fourth girl held up a cell phone.  Their energy was infectious and I couldn’t help laughing inside as they captured every possible combination of me and them, and my cheeks began to ache from the prolonged smiling.

Although my students are all between 16 and 18, they have a different maturity than Americans of the same age.  In some ways they are very childlike: they love cute things such as gloves with big bears and rabbits sewn on, and big hand warmer pillows that look like cows and pandas.  They get excited over very small things and devour the cheesy kid songs I teach them.  However I know that perhaps many of them live a hard life at home: some grew up on farms or in small homes.  They know how to make do with what they have, and it doesn’t seem to bother them too much that they live in drafty dormitories with no heating (honestly, I don’t know how they survive!).  Now, if you are reading this blog, I hope it’s because you know me. And if you know me at all, you know that I also like cute things, I get excited over small things, and I love to laugh and to make other people laugh.  So although sometimes my students baffle me, I think they’re really adorable and I have many little moments that make me happy.  In that way, this is the perfect place for me.

The Princess and the Soybean

Sometimes I feel like that girl in the fairy tale who slept with piles and piles of blankets.  Granted, she needed them to not feel the pesky pea on her mattress, and I sleep under them to feel warm!! Also, though, because Chinese mattresses are notoriously hard, I also have one blanket folded in half whose sole purpose is to cushion the mattress.  It’s been in the low 40s and high 30s for some time now.  In order to fall asleep, I wear two pairs of socks, pajama pants, three shirts, and my sweatshirt, and then I have a cotton sheet, a fleece blanket, an electric blanket, an open sleeping bag, a felt blanket, and now the new thick fleece blanket that my school gave me for Christmas.  I also wear a beanie pulled down to my nose to keep my face warm.  I hope you’re enjoying the mental image, because sometimes I chuckle to myself at the absurdity of it!  I have an air conditioner in my room that supposedly doubles as a heater but I haven’t figured out how to use it.  Of course my windows are closed, but like all the windows in my apartment, they are poorly designed so even when closed there is an infinitesimal chink between the two panes and that’s enough to let all the cold night air in.  Instead of two panes meeting at the edge, they overlap but like I said not very well.  I guess in America there’s like a rubber piece between the two so they suction together or something.

Thoughts on Chinese culture

In China, many people believe in the importance of saving face, which means that they don’t like to embarrass themselves or make mistakes in front of other people.  They will not outright tell you things, but maybe try to communicate in an indirect way.  This can be very frustrating for an American like me who is used to being told things straight up.  It also means that sometimes people will not call someone out for doing something rude or inconsiderate.  For example, whenever you wait in line for anything- buying train tickets, getting on the bus, and so on- there is never actually anything that could be called a line.  Instead there is a shoving, shuffling mob, and many people cut to the front.  Even when there is a line to buy train tickets, for example, there will be people that go straight to the front and shove their money under the window and holler out their destination.  The thing that gets me is while I’m standing their glaring, no one else seems to care.  Nobody says, “hey dude, wait in line, we’ve all been waiting for fifteen minutes!”  But watch out China, because I’ve learned the words to stay, “please stay in line” (qing pai dui) and “don’t cut” (bu yao cha dui).  The thing is that if you do call them out, then they get embarrassed and stop (usually).  So I don’t understand- some Chinese people do things are rude or inconsiderate but it’s ok as long as you don’t call them out and make them lose face.

            Right now I’m reading a book that I recommend, called Fried Eggs and Chopsticks, by Polly Evans.  It’s about a British woman who travels for a month in China, and it demonstrates her frustrations with the language and culture (as well as the rewarding things that happen, such as kindness from a stranger).  I can totally relate with a lot of things she shares.  For example, she talks about being in a restaurant and the waitress says, “Would you like some gobbledy gobbledy gook?”  That happens so many times to me!  Before traveling she did take a course in Chinese but of course it’s never the same as dealing with speaking for real.  Another time she talked about being in a taxi cab, and after exhausting the few sentences she knew, the driver kept talking and asking her questions, and no matter how many times she said ting bu dong (I don’t understand) he kept jabbering at her a mile a minute.  That also happens to me all the time.  I tell people I only know a little Chinese but they think that means I can understand everything spoken at full speed.  Even if you spoke slower I couldn’t understand you because I don’t know that many words!  I’m not saying anything against the Chinese people because this happens in other places too.  It is hard to know how much of a language someone knows.  But you’d think that once they start saying they don’t understand, you’d stop talking!  She mentions also about being a patient person but finding herself constantly short-tempered and frustrated.  I know the feeling.  I feel bad that I get so frustrated but all the simple daily things can be difficult to complete.  Luckily our Peace Corps language training was pretty thorough in teaching how to order in restaurants, so that’s not too bad.  It’s just that the language barrier can be rather inhibitive and many things are done differently than we’d expect.

            This is a tangent, but another thing that frustrates me is that I often don’t find out about schedule changes with my classes until right before.  I don’t understand why there isn’t a school calendar with the dates of holidays written in- I mean, they’re the same time every year!  I just found out today that there are no classes next Monday through Thursday because they give time off for the New Year.  I didn’t expect to get a holiday for the western New Year. I know we don’t have classes during the Chinese New Year (aka Spring Festival) because our semester’s done by then.  No one told me about these classes, until I happened to tell my class monitors that next week would be our last week of classes this semester.  Then they all said, “Oh but we don’t have classes!”  Oh.  Well now I know.  Who knows when I would have found out if I hadn’t mentioned it! 

            I hope you don’t get the wrong impression.  I am happy here. But there are definitely things that continue to be a challenge even after all this time.  I still get stared at all the time and it still sometimes bothers me although now I just try to look above people or at the ground.  Sometimes to help myself cope I talk or sing to myself.  Which doesn’t help with the staring but it calms me down.  It’s something I will have to deal with the whole time I’m in China. At my school it’s not a problem anymore, but anytime I leave my city I have to deal with it all over again.  And I seem to be leaving my site quite frequently!  It’s nice to get away and see something new and be with other volunteers.

Bingo!

Today I played Christmas bingo with my students.  I hadn't played this before because I didn't want to print a bunch of bingo cards, but today it hit me that I could just have the students draw their own! Of course!!I had already showed them my Christmas PowerPoint  so I just drew each word on the board and had them tell me what it is.  They remembered most of them, so it was a good way to review.  Then I had them draw a bingo card with four boxes by four boxes (16 total).  I had written all the words an separate pieces of paper, so then I pulled the papers out of a box.  The students really liked it, and it took me less than five minutes to prepare! I just came up with a list of Christmas words.  The only problem is that for some reason the same papers kept getting chosen so the same people were winning, until I said you couldn't win more than once.  If you do this, make sure your students draw the square right- some were just drawing pictures without boxes, or they only had 2x4.  I will definitely do this again for other holidays!

My list:

1. angel
2. bell
3. present
4. Christmas tree
5. star
6. Santa Claus
7. Santa hat
8. snowflake
9. reindeer
10. sleigh
11. hot chocolate
12. stocking
13. holly
14. snowman
15. wreath
16. candle
17. candy cane
18. ornament
19. bow
20. Christmas lights

Things my students say

   A few weeks ago, I asked students to tell me their opinions of the class. I asked: what have you learned, and what would you like to learn?  Besides the repeated requests for more games, songs, and movies, I received many compliments, many of them telling me that I'm beautiful and that I have lovely golden hair. I'm not really sure what that has to do with what they learned, but that's what I get when I give them a set number (10) of sentences to write! I thought I'd share a few of the gems with you.  They made me happy and they made me laugh.

Thanksgiving (belated)

      For English Corner around Thanksgiving Day, we made oreo turkeys with the students (you can see an example of the inspiration here ).  We did not have candy corn, but not having one thing has not stopped us from trying: finding a substitute is something that becomes a standard procedure when living in another country!  Instead, we used Pocky sticks, gum drops, something like malt balls, peanut butter to keep things together.  The students loved 'em, and they also loved the four pumpkin pies that Mary made- they devoured them (with chopsticks, of course!).  Then we read a book about Native Americans thanking Mother Earth.

    For the midterm, I had my second year students write a story about a turkey who pursues a goal and is successful or not (they decide), draw a picture, and then present their project to the class.  There were some very creative stories and drawings!

So many turkeys!! Gobble gobble gobble

Yikes, not sure what's going on here!!

Dr. Gobble

Turkey says: "Oh. My. God. Play Games."

Aww, turkey and dragon love story! <3

Generosity

Sometimes my students surprise me with their generosity.  Last night a student came to me with a bouquet of paper flowers she'd made with her dad and her brother, just for me.

Gorgeous colors!!!

She also gave me these notes, and that red pom pom.  I taught her class about Santa's naughty and nice list, so she told me I was on both lists this year! :)

"That's so cute!!"

This, apparently, is my new catchphrase.  I just can't help myself when I see certain things, and China is just overflowing with an abundance of cute things.  They make everything cute- pens, gloves, scarves, notebooks- everything has cute animals or happy flowers.  At least once a class period as I walk around the class, I point at something a student has and exclaim excitedly, "Aw that's so cute!"  My students think it's very funny and they always laugh.  The example from today was gloves shaped like alligators.  Even the lights in my apartment's living room have little star lights that twinkle blue, pink, and green.  What can I say, I guess I'm a child a heart, and little cute things make me happy.

I'll have to take some pictures of the cuteness so you can share the experience.

Coping

There is a lot going on in my mind recently.  Mainly, I am trying to stay warm and  trying not to get too sad about the fact that I will not be home for Thanksgiving or (for the first time ever) Christmas.  I have missed Thanksgiving before (when I studied in Mexico) but never Christmas- I have always been home with my family on December 25^th to wake up early and open presents together and then eat cinnamon rolls and drink hot chocolate while listening to Christmas music.  But this year I will be on the other side of a world in an isolated farming town that does not acknowledge western holidays.  I never thought about how hard that would be until now!  My strategy will be to try to keep as busy as possible with my students and do things to keep me from dwelling on how much I miss home.

            On that note (keeping busy, but also staying warm), today I made my first circle scarf.  It’s so easy, I don’t know why I never bothered.  Maybe because I’ve never actually depended on scarves for keeping warm but here I really need them.  The inspiration for this was two-fold: first, my friend Lindsay made one and she’d looked super cute wearing it when I visited her last weekend, and I feel that the scarves for sale outside my school are a little pricey (I mean if you convert it to USD it’s not that expensive, but I’m paid a volunteer salary and we’re paid in RMB so I don’t like to convert too often.  I’d rather save my money for travel… and baking supplies!).  I had been knitting a scarf (just simple knitting- I have never been able to figure out how to do the fancy stitches!) but I stopped because it looked boring and it wouldn’t be long enough with the yarn I had to be a good-size scarf.  But then after seeing Lindsay’s and the expensive ones, I decided to finish it.  Then I just used the extra yarn to “sew” the two ends together, and voila!  I’m really happy with it because it keeps my neck warm, and it’s more my color than the green and red scarves that were left here by the previous volunteer.

Purple!  I have some beige yarn so I think I will use that to make my next circle scarf. So warm!

            I mentioned the cold.  Temperature-wise it really hasn’t been that cold (lowest is low 50s F), but add that to the fact that my apartment is made with concrete walls with no insulation, and the window panes have gaps in between even when closed as much as possible.  So I can’t leave the cold outside and come in to a warm home.  I’m told my heater works but I haven’t bothered using it because apparently if you have it on for too long (how long is too long??) it kills the power in my apartment.  But let me tell you, I have recently learned the wonderful value of an electric blanket! I never understand the need for them before, but now I plug it in about an hour before I go to bed, and it is such a relief to be able to get into a bed that’s already warm.  I definitely have to wear a sweater, jacket, and scarf just to sit in my house.  Also ear muffs have become my friend.

            You know, just trying to cope with new things!

Halloween in Jiangyou

I taught many Halloween and fall related lesson plans the past two weeks. Examples:

·         A fill-in-the-blank to introduce fall vocabulary and then asked them to tell me about fall in China.

·         Make as many words as you can using the letters in: Jack o Lantern (I also used Autumn Leaves, Harvest Time, and Haunted House).  They really liked this activity, and were surprised at the amount of words that could be made with just a few letters (the one that had the most was Harvest Time, which was over 110).  I invited the winning teams of four classes to come to my house and bake (cake or pancakes).  It was fun to see them get so excited about English words!  I learned that some of the students are pretty competitive.

·         I introduced some prepositions and showed a picture of ghosts inside a haunted house, and had them write sentences for each ghost (for example: In the living room, there is a ghost sitting on the sofa).

·         I talked about the origins of Halloween.  Did you know that people in England and Ireland originally started wearing costumes (a long time ago) so that ghosts and spirits wouldn’t recognize them, and at first they carried lanterns made out of turnips?  Then when the Irish came to America, they started using pumpkins instead because they were more readily available.

·         I introduced some common costumes and explained how to make them. Then I had them brainstorm what they would be for Halloween if they could, and also how they would make the costume.  Some of their answers were really creative, like UFO, Mickey Mouse, a fish, a bird, a fridge, Fruit Man, and an ice cream.

I made some great decorations for our English Library.  The students were very helpful, and if they saw me working on something they would ask to help.  We made paper chains, streamers, paper pumpkins, ghosts, and bats, leaves in fall colors, tissue ghosts, etc.  By myself, I also made a large paper tree to help cover some of the ugly blank white space on the wall, and pennants saying Happy Halloween. It’s great to know that any time I want to decorate I only have to show the students what I’m working on, and they’ll jump in to help.  Many times they have to do art projects for their classes but it’s rare that they can do it on their own, so I think they love the opportunity to make some easy crafts without worrying about them being perfect.  My site placement was pretty awesome in that respect, because I have lots of craft ideas and the desire to do artsy things.

Wall decor

Students helping me make the paper chain

Our Halloween party last Wednesday was a great success!  Mary baked some plum cake and bread, and caramel for dipping apples in.  She had figured out that you can make caramel just by boiling a can of condensed milk for 2.5 hours (that’s all you do- and then you open it, and bam, it tastes pretty close to caramel!).  We started the party by letting students make pomelo jack-o-lanterns (there aren’t many pumpkins at the market here, and the ones they have are long and skinny and not good for carving.  They wouldn’t have been able to stand up on their own).  We played pin-the-nose-on-the-witch, and they loved it!  It was so funny to spin them around blind-folded and see them stumble towards the poster.  The best one was when someone put the nose on the wall, a good two feet from the poster!  I taught them the Time Warp dance (from Rocky Horror Picture Show) and then we split everybody into two lines of 9 people each and then two people at a time would dance down the aisle.

Making pomelo lanterns

 Although Mary and I had come up with activities beforehand we didn’t plan things exactly and we just played it by ear during the party, which worked well.  I had wanted to do bobbing for apples but after the line dancing (which was spontaneous- Mary’s idea) I thought it would be good to have a calmer activity, so then we played Uno and Twister.  Also throughout the night, I was randomly coming up behind students and scaring them.  As the party was starting, I waited in the shadows with Alice and Sunflower and when two girls came towards the corner we jumped out and gave them a really good scare.  The funny thing was later I scared several people in quick succession- you’d think that after they heard someone scream they’d be alert for sneaking feet!  I showed the students a video from YouTube of Halloween lights flashing to the beat of the Gangnam Style song because several of the students are learning the dance for a performance, and then they taught some of the other students and we all danced it together.  It’s really such a fun dance to do with a bunch of people! 

Twister! Always fun

Not all the activities were exactly Halloween-related, but as far as being a really fun party we totally rocked!!  I know the students had a blast.

This was my playlist for the party:

·         Time Warp

·         This is Halloween (from Nightmare Before Christmas)

·         Jack’s Lament (Nightmare again)

·         Sally’s Song (Nightmare)

·         What’s This (Nightmare)

·         The Remains of the Day (from Corpse Bride)

·         Monster Mash

·         Purple People Eater

·         Witch Doctor

·         Michael Jackson’s Thriller

·         Grim Grinning Ghost

·         Addams Family Theme

·         Theme from Edward Scissorhands

·         Ghostbusters song

Recently

It's been a while since I posted anything!  I've been busy preparing for our Halloween party tomorrow (pictures and details to come!) and dealing with lack of electricity (the power was out all of Saturday and half of Sunday. There was also no water at that time!).  That was interesting... at first, I was like, "Yeah, Peace Corps experience!" and I was very creative and actually pretty productive with no power.  Two groups of students came over to bake on Saturday (we made pancakes on the gas stove) and one group cooked me a delicious lunch of Chinese food (they went to their dorm, got buckets, and found water somewhere...).  I painted a picture, rented a bike, graded some homework, and at night I read Game of Thrones on my Nook (luckily it was fully charged).  The next day, however, I started to feel a little disgruntled and well, dirty! I wanted to shower! Luckily the electricity and water came back after lunch.

  Here are two sentences from my students' homework:
1. As Ann was sitting in the sun, an ant climbed up on her body and attacked her.
2. Meat is also our human growth the necessary food.

Breaking from routine

Today after I said goodbye to my afternoon class and started packing up my things, the students began to whip out materials for another class.  I was intrigued to see them pull out felt mats with red lines, and thin brown paper that looks like the paper used to make patterns for clothes.  They set white trays on their desks, and pulled out bottles of black ink and long brushes.  Their next class was Chinese calligraphy! Feeling nosy and wanting to do something other than flee back to my apartment as I always do, I stuck around and watched some students set out their materials. When the teacher came in, a Chinese man, I asked if I could stay and watch and he said it was no problem. So I sat to the side and observed a Chinese calligraphy class! How fun!  Later tonight I texted one of the students (Jiang Ling Ling) I had been talking to in that class and asked her to teach me, so she came ten minutes later and showed me, and even left all her materials for me to practice!  I asked if she would need them, and she said she could borrow her classmate’s.  I was very touched by her generosity and her willingness to let an incompetent laowai (foreigner) use her precious calligraphy materials.  This is just one example of Chinese generosity that I find so impressive. I’m glad I did something out of the norm- I need to break my routine and do more things with students!  I’m trying to work on taking opportunities in the moment they come- there’s no time like the present.

While Jiang Ling Ling was at my apartment, Sunflower called me to come see her roommates and classmates perform a dance.  They are learning the Gangnam style dance, which they will perform at an event welcoming the new students!  Huzzah!  I think it’s so great that they are doing that dance, because I’m kind of obsessed with it.  It was really fun to watch them practice the dance, and I stood in the back and tried to follow. I’ve seen the YouTube video (and different variations thereof) so many times that I kind of know it.  They were very excited to have the new “student” in their class! I can’t wait to see the real performance.  I will post videos, or at least pictures… for some reason I haven’t been able to post videos on this blog yet.

Sunny

I would like to introduce an awesome student at my school.  Her name is Sunny, and although she is not even one of my students, nor one of Mary’s, she has become one of my best friends at site. Let me tell you how we met.

On my birthday, I was walking back from my classes and as I started to walk past the back of the administration building, I hear someone calling my name.  I look left, and right, and I see nobody.  My name is called again, and I look up to see a girl in a black and white striped sweater waving at me from the fourth or fifth floor of the building.  I wave back, thinking it must be one of my students (I have so many that I often don’t recognize them).  She asks me to please wait for me outside the building, so I stop and a few minutes later she comes running out.  She introduces herself to me and as we start walking, she tells me how excited she is to meet me- a foreigner, wow!  I hear this from a lot of students but I was struck by Sunny’s enthusiasm, especially when I realized she wasn’t one of my students after all.  The fact that she sought me out so energetically was a big deal considering that most students are too shy to even say hello.  On a whim, I mentioned to her that it was my birthday and that she should come eat dinner with me, Mary and some students.  When she heard it was my birthday, she got so excited.  I gave her my phone number and said goodbye.  A short time later, she shows up at my apartment with a bag of candy and marshmallows, and beautiful card with a lovely long note expressing her desire that we can be friends and that I can “love China, love my school, and love me,” the whole thing punctuated with a joyful “come on!” (I’m not exactly sure what the translation should be but it’s my favorite part of the note).

"Happy Birthday to you! Come on!"

My cozy new friends

      Since then, she has come over a few times, and last week she came to give me a pair of cute and comfy slippers that I now wear every day.  She also showed me a Chinese movie called “The Love Song of Kangding.”  Coincidentally, my LCFs (Language and Culture Facilitators) had taught us PCVs the song it’s based on during language training in PST.  Sunny’s a really sweet and energetic girl, and I’m really grateful to have her as a friend.  There are a few students like her that are not too shy to talk to me, and I really appreciate it.  It’s a nice break from the stares and nervous glances I get from most of the students. 

The Small Things

I’m beginning to see that my time in China as a Peace Corps is not going to be about fanfare and fireworks, but about the small things.  I have been feeling like I am not doing much in being here, and I just can’t wait to get our English club started (we’ve had to wait because of the military training and the national holiday).  I just feel like once I can start that, then I can get to know more students, and find out where their interests lie and then start other clubs like movie club, music club, and crafts club.  I want to make a difference in students’ lives.  But it’s occurring to me that maybe I have already made a difference and I do every day, but it’s in such small things that most of the time I don’t even realize.

For example, today I went to Wal Mart with Mary and two students, Eva and Alice.  Mary and I were overjoyed to find that Wal Mart has suddenly decided to start stocking cheese on their shelves (a wonderful discovery but also dangerous because it’s very expensive for our allowance, and only a 30-minute bus ride away!).  We bought some mild Dutch cheese, as well as some apples, grapes, and crackers.  Eva and Alice had never really had cheese before because it’s not readily available and not part of the average Chinese person’s diet.  They were really curious to know what the big deal was all about, and why these two foreigners were getting so excited! (Actually, perhaps it was just me that was getting the most excited… I love cheese…).  So we explained that cheese can be eaten in many different ways, and they got to try it with crackers and fruit.  They liked it, but they preferred it plain. 

It occurred to me that this is one way that I am making a difference in the students’ lives, by exposing them to different tastes and ways of eating.  Another thing is that Mary has introduced Eva to coffee and to peanut butter.  Eva even brought home two jars of peanut butter, and her brother ate an entire jar while she was at work! 

Today I shared with Eva a recipe I had found using the wrappers they use to make dumplings but filled with chocolate, peanut butter, and banana slices, all deep fried (so healthy, I know).  She and other students never even thought of making anything other than dumplings with those!

The concept of “making a difference” to me often brings to mind amazing people who’ve had books and movies made about them and who have Nobel Peace Prize medals hanging on the wall.  But this process manifests itself in many different ways, and everything takes time.  I have to remind myself of this when my ambition gets restless and I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything here yet.

English names

In order to manage my ridiculous number of students, I asked each of them to create a note card with a photo of themselves, their Chinese name, their English name if they have one, and so on.  Here are some of the stellar, bizarre names that they chose for themselves (otherwise they were boring like Jane, Joy, and Rose- I got tons of those. I'm positive "Rose" is because of Titanic, the only English movie every made, or so it seems because that's the only one they know!).

• Source
• Cricket
• Rice
• Jeremy (weird only because it was a girl)
• Digest
• Seven
• Moon
• Dream
• Sapphire
• Kissy
• Fergie
• Lemon (two of those)
• Venus
• Spring
• Darling
• Sweety
• Panda
• Beenle (I don't know what's going on there)
• Rowling (as in, J.K., perhaps?)
• Star
• River
• Fairy
• Fish

How I (sometimes) spend my free time

I drew these letters with pencil first, and then I used my X-acto knife ( a traveling crafter's best friend! Or at least, mine) to cut out the letters and the designs inside.

The finished poster, with pieces of leftover colored paper behind the main part 

The new addition to me wall

Ta-da!!!

My national holiday

For the week-long national holiday, I decided (for several reasons) to stick around my town and explore.  I had spent the past three weekends visiting volunteers, in Chengdu and in Chongqing.  I had heard there are a lot of beautiful places around my school and I wanted to take advantage of the time to explore some of those places. Plus, so many people travel during the holidays that I figured it would be more pleasant, and less stressful, to avoid long train rides and crowded train stations.

I mentioned previously that I went to visit my host family again on Sunday.  I was hoping we could go to a park because Jerry had told me we would, but instead we just sat around and ate. We played Uno because he’d asked me to bring the cards, and while I was grateful for having Uno the first time I had stayed with the host family to break the tension and pass the time, I am getting so sick of that game because my students always want to play it. We also watched part of Resident Evil and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice (which I actually kind of liked).  Don’t get me wrong, I love eating, playing cards, and watching movies, but I don’t know why we couldn’t go to the park. I was looking forward to running around with the kids because I don’t get much exercise at site and it sounded like fun. Maybe next time?

Monday I went with Mary and Eva (a second-year student who’s really smart and earned a scholarship to attend school) to Fo Ye Dong which was a beautiful place.  From downtown, we took a small van about half an hour outside of town, past countless rice fields and farmers’ houses.  Once we got there, we walked through caves illuminated by blue, red, and green fluorescent lights- it was like Christmas! The rock formations on the walls and ceilings were amazing, and the lights really enhanced the crevices and nooks and crannies. Every once in a while we came across a mini shrine or a series of statues. After walking over slippery stones and steps through the artificially illuminated tunnels, we discovered that the only way out was via a short boat ride over the underground river.  The boatman paddled us through with a shovel (Chinese people are so resourceful!), and sometimes we had to duck our heads to avoid getting scraped by a low ceiling or a low-hanging stalactites.  Soon we emerged into the sunlight and found ourselves on a beautiful river.  We disembarked, and followed the path across a bridge farther down the river to a temple.  After looking at the temple, we hiked up the steps to a stone forest.  There was a giant (and by giant I mean close to 100 feet tall) swing which I of course rode on!  Fo Ye Dong was a beautiful place and definitely worth visiting, although it was followed by a less-than-stellar meal at a restaurant outside the park.

Cave shrine

So pretty!  I guess Chinese caves will have to substitute looking at Christmas lights on people's houses in December.

"Don't crush me!!"

Eva and I on the little boat

Watch your head!

Temple

Stone forest, as they call it

The EPIC swing. Mary has the picture of me on the swing.

Tuesday we went to a park dedicated to Jiangyou’s famous poet, Li Bai.  The day basically consisted of snacking on delicious street food and junk food.  I ate a delicious sandwich made with fried bread, ham, and some spicy sauce, and fried potato wedges with spices.  We wondered through the park, and fed biscuits to the colorful fishies.  The best part was going on bumper cars, which is always so much fun.  I don’t know why, but every time I bumped into someone or was bumped into, I just started busting up laughing. There was one guy in another car who seemed to get a kick out of my laugh, because every time I laughed, he would smile really big, which made my day because I love making other people happy.

The story behind these statues is that the middle guy is drunk... is that supposed to be Li Bai, the famous poet? I'm not sure.

Bumper cars

forever young

"Feed us more biscuit!!"
There was one really fat fish hanging around with his mouth open and I made it a game to see how many times I could land a piece of biscuit in his open mouth. Final score: 3 out of 5

Wednesday, Mary’s friend, Catherine (or Caty, the 17 I mentioned in the other post) and her student, Tobey (a girl- isn’t that a cute name for a girl?) visited us from near Chengdu.  We spent that day baking breads (pear, apple, and pumpkin) for Caty to take home (she wanted to give them as gifts to some of the staff and workers at her school, and she doesn’t have an oven at her place).  Mary made a delicious quiche for dinner and we also had some noodles for only ¥3 ($.50), and then some pumpkin pie.  We got Caty hooked on the TV show, “Being Human,” which is about a ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf who are friends.

Friday we went to Bai Long Gong (which means White Dragon Palace), which was another place with brightly illuminated caves because Caty had not been to such a place yet.  We found some tables inside so we had a little picnic inside the cave, of yellow cake, popcorn, sunflower seeds, and peanuts.  I think it was cheaper than Fo Ye Dong, but it was also smaller, and once you leave the cave, you just walk a short path back to where the bus drops people off.  It was fun, but not as cool as the boat ride and hiking that Fo Ye Dong had.  There was a boat ride at Bai Long Gong inside the cave, which was optional but we took for the fun of it.  The guy let us get out and cheap out this awesome underground waterfall. Normally, they give you a free ride over, and then you have to pay to be taken back, otherwise you can walk for free on this little path along the water.  We opted for the latter, but for whatever reason the guy decided to take us back for free.  To thank him, Mary wanted to give him the leftover yellow cake, but when he started to refuse (as is custom), Mary ran behind him and placed the cake on his table, and then ran away yelling every Chinese word she knows: “Zai jian! Xie xie! Hen mei! Hen hao!” (Goodbye! Thank you! Very beautiful! Very good!).  The man, and other visitors, all started laughing, as did Caty and I.  Mary said later that she didn’t have the patience to follow that Chinese custom of gift-giving.  It was hilarious to see her drop the cake and then yell to Caty, Sunflower, and I, “Run, go go go!” followed by her stream of random Chinese words.

...an electric WHAT??!!!  Oh broken English, why do you have to leave me in suspense??  

Awesome underground waterfall! I did feel  a little nervous standing on that tiny rickety platform...

"The safe and careful road in attention is slinnery".... hahaha!!!

The sketchy toilet we used

You go in these barely partitioned cubicles and do your business in a collective trough. Lovely!

This was a hotel before the 2008 earthquake

On Saturday, we took the same train as Caty to Chengdu, where she left to take her bus back home, while Mary, Sunflower, and I went to Ikea.  We were met by Sunflower’s classmate, Jolene (her Chinese name is Zhou Ling which sounds exactly like Jolene so that’s what we call her).  Now, you may be wondering, why would you pay for a train ticket somewhere just to go to Ikea?  First of all, they have cheap western food like hot dogs and Swedish meatballs!  But more importantly, it’s actually a great cultural experience for the students: they can walk through models of western-style bedrooms, kitchens, and living rooms and see how other people in the world might decorate their houses.  They also got to try the western food, although I think they weren’t super wild about the hot dogs and ketchup.  They were also asking for the English names of different pieces of furniture. 

Beyond educational and cultural exchange purposes, though, it was a lot of fun to lie on beds and lounge on sofas and comfy chairs (they don’t care if you do that at the Ikea here- score!).  Plus both of the girls found some useful items.  The only tricky thing is that we had to drag them out of the store when it was getting closer to the time we had to leave to catch our train, which is difficult in Ikea when you have to go through everything before you can get to the exit.  They kept wanting to stop and look at things, and every few minutes Mary and I had to stop and yell for them to come.  I didn’t want to stop their fun, but I knew we still had to walk back to the metro, wait for the metro to come, and get back to the train station and make our way through the crowds to our train.   As I mentioned, we got on the train with only five minutes to spare but we would have missed it if we had let Sunflower follow the Chinese custom of gift-giving refusal.

There it is- Chinese Ikea, in all its glory

Awesome pillow case