DRUNKEN BLOG INTERLUDE

Ok, so here's the deal. Laura and I went out tonight....and drank just a bit, and by just a bit i mean, enough to post a drunken blog. Hopefully I will be back to normal blogging tomorrow, but for now, enjoy our recount of the evening.

Tonight we went to dinner at the in-laws of a teacher in my office. We ate the best-est meal we've had yet in China. We also learned how to stuff dumplings. We suck at stuffing dumplings, but they were nice to us anyways, because "dumplings are dumplings" and that is a direct quote from a chinese person. After dinner we went to watch people dance in the square, and then went home with many many dumplings in tow.

Before going to dinner a student came to our apartment and told us he was having a party for us tonight, but we had other plans, and told him maybe after dinner. oh well. when we came home from dinner, no one was around and our apartment was locked so we thought maybe the party was delayed. We got a text from our friend Liu Jie, asking us to come to his restaurant for a beeer or two. On the way there we were assaulted by some students. They know where we live now, so they stalk us. Apparently this is ok by chinese cultural standards. We still don't buy it. We told the students we were going to see a friend and would see them another time.

One student in particular followed us there and came in to hang out. We agreed to let him have less than half a cup of beer, to humor him. but we did not want to drink with him because, even though there is no drinking age in china, we do not feel right drinking with students. because, alas, we are not chinese. but as we were drinking and talking, the student that followed us, David James, told us a lovely story. Apparently for the party that was supposed to happen that night, he bought some beer. We asked him how he was able to buy it and this is (pretty much word for word) what he said:

"This night i went to the shop. The shopkeeper said 'what do you want to buy?' 'Sir, i want to buy some beer.'(said David James) But the shopkeeper said 'you are only a children, you can not buy beer.' And then I said 'can you give me a chance?' and the shopkeeper laughed and give me some beer." David James (16 years old)

So, we let the kid hang out for a while, but it was weird because he is my student, so eventually we told him to go home. he wasn't pumped but he did because i went into teacher mode and convinced him to go. We stayed and hung out with Liu Jie, and he tried to teach us Chinese. he kept saying how easy it is, but we tried to learn ONE word (vegetables) and said it like 2,000,000 and it was always wrong. He would say it "right" and we would try to repeat but it was wrong. ALWAYS wrong. So much for chinese being "easy". Anyways, we decided to call it a night and now we are home, blogging and having some late night beers, and most likely hitting up some of the jiaozi we made tonight.

I hope this is somewhat entertaining. I'll be back to the regular routine tomorrow night, filling in the gaps from the previous week!!! Thanks for reading! :)

Honestly, I need to work on this...

So I really need to work on my blogging skills. I keep having things happen and I'm like, "I need to write about this." But then I don't. So anyways, I'm going to try and remember everything that happened in the last week, and also I will try to post things as they occur so that it's easier to follow along.

Besides the Chinese names, last weekend was a very interesting. Friday night Mr. Xu took us out for drinks. This apparently means we will go out at 6pm and have a HUGE meal, a bottle of wine, and like 8 or 10 half liters of beer. That's kind of a lot of alcohol for 3 people. After dinner we decided to keep going and ended up at KTV. If you are unfamiliar, KTV is karaoke. But it's a bit different than in the States. Here, you have a private room with a touch screen menu where you can choose your song and how you want it to project on the wall and play over the stereo. So we found the English songs, which was a hilarious mix from Lionel Richie to Michael Jackson to Brandy to Britney Spears. It was great. Mr. Xu even sang some of the English songs. Apparently he tells his students that he doesn't sing. This is a lie. I've seen it first hand.

Sunday we went to our students "sports meeting." This is known as a track meet in America. The students were so surprised to see Laura and I there, we ended up being somewhat bombarded by kids, and didn't really watch too many of the races. It was fun to sit and talk with the kids though. I really feel like we are the first people to give them the time of day. Their other teachers simply expect them to show up and memorize everything they need to achieve a certain result. We would rather them gain the confidence and understanding in what they are doing, so we'll sit and chat and hopefully make a difference.

This past week my teaching schedule changed (again) but now I am much happier with it. I will be teaching 2 classes each day, and then an English Corner at night four times a week for the top students. It means I will see each class only once a month, but the top 8 classes will see me 2 additional times each month beyond their classroom lesson. In the English Corner, I can teach whatever I want. I can also (hopefully) create a much more relaxed atmosphere in which the students will not be too scared to try and practice their spoken English. The Dean of the Senior 1 class took us out to dinner on Tuesday night. Things kind of got a way from us too. I was supposed to teach at 7:35a and 8:35a the next day (which ended up being canceled due to a mix up) but that didn't matter to the teachers. We got sufficiently drunk by about 9pm on a Tuesday. The Dean (who doesn't speak English) really seemed to enjoy himself. We were linking arms and drinking and he even ended up hugging Laura and I. I hope this means that I am officially welcomed a part of Senior 1 at Siyang Middle School.

We found out that Siyang hosts a semi-pro basketball team in their off-season for training. They play an exhibition game in town before heading on the road for their season. We were able to get tickets and went to see the game. The first Chinese player to ever play in the NBA is actually back in China now and plays for this team. The crowd loved him! It was funny though because we walked in during warm-ups and got a fair amount of looks from the people there to watch the game. We've gotten pretty used to that, but when the players from the team noticed us and were all looking in the stands, it's kind of weird. We definitely bring an even bigger spectacle to any event that goes on in our town. Chen said she heard people talking about us and they thought we were Russian. People have also said they think we're French...not sure what they are basing their opinions on, but oh well. After the game we waited to the team to leave and the crowd to thin and we headed out. The game was held at the feeder school for where we teach, and there were many students standing in the hallway as we left. They were all very excited to see the foreign teachers, and one even held out a notebook and pen like for an autograph. I figured it wouldn't hurt so I signed my English name in the book. Then all hell broke loose. The kids started pushing towards us and shoving notebooks and pens into our hands and wanting us to sign things. I honestly felt like a movie star or something. The security that was working the game came over and started holding kids back and ushering us out the door. Laura said she even signed a kid's jacket. It was such a strange and surreal experience!

Friday we decided to be brave and go get our hair cut. Chen came with to help translate, but it was still unnerving to let someone near me with a scissors when I couldn't tell them anything! It all worked out though, and I now have short hair again, and it only cost me about 1.50USD. Apparently for a wash, cut and dry, it's very inexpensive in our town! But, if you would want to actually have like an up-do or color done the price would jump from the 10RMB we paid to about 100RMB. That's still much cheaper than in the states, but yikes! That night we decided that we would finally check out the "club" that we had discovered on a different night of wandering. Yes, a real live club. It's called Mass Fashion Bar. The music was loud and we ordered a bottle of vodka and went from there. It was pretty fun, but we would've preferred more American music. It's hard to get into the mood to dance when you don't know any of the songs being played. But we were able to snag some VIP cards, which means discounts! and I think the club managers were really excited to have the foreigners in town make an appearance at their bar. We'll probably go back a few times, and if we can ever convince people to come visit us, we'll take them there. It's probably the most happening place to go on weekends, besides KTV. Our friends from the restaurant where we eat at least once a day came with as well. Liu Jie and Liu Hao. They are brothers and only Liu Jie speaks decent English, but Liu Hao is learning, and they are teaching us Chinese, and it's nice to have some friends outside of the school.

On Saturday Chen took us downtown so that we could buy some bikes! It's difficult to get to places in town quickly from our apartment without taking a pedicab, so we wanted another means of transportation. Chen had her mother-in-law do some bargain hunting and she was able to find a place that could sell us decent bikes with baskets and locks included for about 36USD. Even in China that is a good deal for new bikes. They are kind of hilarious, but will totally do the trick to get us through to February. We road the bikes around for a bit and got to see a few other schools in the area, Chen's old apartment, and even some rice fields and people harvesting. I never knew what rice looked like before it got to the store, so it was really interesting to see! That night we rode our bikes to a dinner with all the English teachers from my office as a welcome dinner for Laura and I, and also a going away dinner for a young assistant teacher in the office. It was very fun and I was able to get to know the people in my office better. Everyone thought that I was very shy, but they usually speak in Chinese in the office, so I never have anything to say. I hope that now we will all be more open to talking with each other.

Finally, Sunday. Today we went to lunch at Chen's mother's house. She doesn't speak any English but was so excited to have us over. She cooked soooooo much food. The always have a ton of food at meals in China, it's crazy! But we got to see an old Chinese house, which seemed huge because now everyone lives in apartments to save space for the ever increasing population. We also ate with Chen's sister and one of her friends from the school she used to teach at. There wasn't a ton of interaction because of the language barrier but it was really neat to see someone's home and experience true Chinese home cooking. We met some children from the neighborhood as well, one little girl in particular, after warming up to us wanted so many pictures taken together! We also got to see some kittens that are only about 2 weeks old. Chen's cat lives with her mother and just had babies...I really want to take one as a pet, but that's just not going to be possible, with me leaving in 4 months and all. After lunch Chen's sister took us to the Siyang Exhibition Center where she works and gave us a tour that showed us about the history of Siyang as well as the progress it has made in the past few years. It also gave us an idea on where the city will be heading in the future, and I think that in maybe 5-10 years, Siyang with be a strong economic and industrial area.

Quite the week I had, huh? As I said before I will do my best to break the week up a little bit more, especially if so much happens. It's impossible to remember it all a week later when I try to update this thing!
(PS I'm having some issues uploading pics, so hopefully I'll be able to get them up soon!!!)

Nice to meet you (in Chinese)...

So this will be super short, but I wanted to share with everyone that I officially have a Chinese name, and Laura does too.

This is my name, its yang li. Pronounced like yong lee. The first part is my "family name" and it means Italian poplar tree, which is what our city, Siyang, is famous for. Then li is part of my mom's name, which is Mary or ma li in Chinese. So I'm named for her, and it also means jasmine flower.

Lauras name is yang lu. Pronounced like yong loo. Her family name is the same, which means that we are "sisters", and her first name means the morning dew, which is very beautiful to the Chinese.

We are so happy with our names and are practicing writing them, which isn't going so well, but we're trying. I like that our family name comes from the city we live in, too, because the school and our students and friends are essentially our big family while we're here. Also, our first names are personal and beautiful. So, yay! I'm feeling a little more at home every day, a temporary home, but at least somewhat comfortable. Not to mention, with this new name, I think I feel a second tattoo coming on when I get back to the States... ;)

Holy Cow (pt.2)

So, on to Tuesday. We decided to try our hand at real Chinese bargaining by heading to the Pearl Market. We asked the hostel how to get there and attempted once again to navigate the bus system. This time it was a bit confusing and the directions we were given were not right. So we tried to ask some people on the bus and they told us we had to get off and transfer. The hostel said nothing about transferring so we hesitated. But next think you know we're at a bus stop and the guy we asked for help starts shouting, "GET OFF THE BUS!!! CROSS THE STREET, TAKE BUS THREE - SIX!!!" Laura tried to clarify and said, "bus thirty-six?" and he goes, "NO, BUS THREE SIX!" So we get off and find our way to the stop for bus "three six" and we get on and start moving. We try to ask around but no one speaks English but finally we get to a stop and a little old lady points to a building across the street and then to the bus door. So we get off and look around and sure enough, we're at the Pearl Market.

Don't let the name fool you, the first stand when you walk in is pearls, but the other billion (ish) stands on 4 different floors sell EVERYTHING. I would like to take this moment to warn you though, if you ever go to the Pearl Market in Beijing, be sure to eat something before because it is exhausting, and you must have a strong front, these people are relentless. When you walk in they start in on you, and looking western is even worse. White means money to these people and they will do anything rip you off! We wandered a little and talked to some people, who were all asking outrageous prices for their products, when Teresa met a woman at a scarf stand. This woman was a flight attendant for Air Canada and shared some wonderful advice. She sent us to her friend Steve who worked an electronics stand. She told him that we were friends with her and he should treat us well. I was looking for some portable speakers to use so I could play music in the classroom and Steven said 40RMB. The first stand I asked at said 200RMB!!!!! This guy was too good to be true. He helped us with a few other prices that we should accept for certain products and was just wonderful with our questions. While we were shopping there, another couple from Air Canada told us to go to Shanon's stand on the 2nd floor for clothing. Just tell them that we are friends with the Air Canada people and they will give us great prices. So we went up to the second floor and found the women who ran the stand, and they gave us amazing prices on all sorts of clothes and accessories. It was quite a relief after trying to bargain our way through everything else. I was beyond exhausted by the time we were done.

We got back to the hostel to pick up our things and went to get a taxi to the train station. Unfortunately, it was rush hour and no one would take us because of traffic, so we start speed walking because we were already running late. Finally some pedi-cab driver says he and a friend will take us and we climb in with all our stuff and speed off to the station. We paid an obscene amount of yuan, but didn't really have time to argue because our train was about to depart. So we're running through the station and we get to our platform as they are starting to pull the little ramps away. We had to cart our stuff through 3 cars to get to our bunks, but we made it! It was ridiculous. As expected after a whirlwind 3 days, I slept through the night on this train, and woke up when we arrived back in Xuzhou. We decided to tour a little bit there and went up a mountain to see a temple and some other sights which was really pretty, but by the afternoon Laura and I were ready to head back to Siyang. So, we got to the bus station, bought our tickets, and were on our way. After about 3.5 hours, the bus stops on the highway and the driver comes to our seats and tells us to get off... We had no idea where we were but he points to the forest and is like "Siyang, Siyang". We get off and get our bags and just stand there, unsure of what was going on. Some taxi driver takes us and we show him the address for our apartment and he starts to drive. For the first 5 minutes of the ride, neither of us recognized anything in the town, but finally I saw a kid in a uniform from our school so we knew we were in the right place. It was a bit unnerving, but we finally got home. When we got to our apartment there was a note, in English, taped to our door. Apparently there are other foreigners in our town, and word got around to them about Laura and I. This guy, Anthony, found us and left us his information so we could meet up. He is from the UK and knows 2 other guys, from Africa, that are teaching in Siyang. So we are finally going to meet some foreigners. It will be weird though because Laura and I have found a weird sort of comfort in our life as the only foreigners, but I suppose we're still the only Americans, and mid-Westerners at that, so we have our niche.

Anyways, that brings us to the end of the fall holiday after quite the crazy ride. In the 3 days since we've been back, the stories have started to accumulate, but I think I'll save those for next time...

Holy cow I have a lot to share...

I would like to apologize right off for a few reasons. One because I haven't written in over a week, another because I will most likely repeat stories more than once, and also because this entry will probably be obnoxiously long. But hey, a lot has happened in the last week and a half, you should be happy! So.....

Laura and I took a bus up to Xuzhou to see our friend Teresa. She met us at the station and we went back to her place for the night. We got to wander a little bit and see another bigger city. She has a Carrefour and everything so it was cool to see that. It really shows us how small our town is. We really don't have anything western like so many of the big cities do. After a day in Xuzhou, we got to the train station to take our overnight to Beijing. They really just pack you in. Our compartment (which didn't even have a door) was 3 bunks high on both sides. We were the only western people in our car, and probably on the whole train. Not too many people come from the smaller cities when traveling to Beijing, most just fly in directly. Anyways, the trip there was a bit rough and we arrived around 5:30am. We navigated our way on the bus to the hostel and checked in around 6:30am. Needless to say, we took a bit of a nap before heading out to be tourists. On the first day we wandered around the shopping district and then headed over to Tiananmen Square. The floats from the National Day parade were all on display, so that was pretty sweet to check out. We also saw the Forbidden City, and had our pictures taken by a bunch of Chinese tourists in Beijing as well. I guess we should be used to it by now, but it was a little unexpected in such a busy city because there were tons of westerners everywhere! It was really nice to be able to use some English too though, especially with someone other than Laura. We need a little outside stimulation every once in a while, or we will go crazy!

That night we were going to go to an Acrobatics Show, but it was sold out so we rescheduled for the following evening, and we just went out and took it easy around the hostel. We decided to head to bed early because our second day would be very full. We were up and heading out to the Great Wall by 7:30am Monday morning. Our hostel offered a private tour to a different section of the wall than most people see. We had to hike up the mountain to get to it and then walked along the crumbling pieces for about 3 hours before heading back down. It was incredible. I had a slight asthma attack going up, which really sucked, but I just slowed my pace a little and it wasn't a big deal. It was totally worth it. Absolutely one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life. I know the pictures don't really do it justice, but seriously, there are things in life that you just don't ever think you'll really do, and this is one that I'm proud to say I can cross off my list, and it was more than worth it. Our guide was this little 75 year old man that kicked everyone's butts going up the mountain. He was unstoppable, and didn't speak English, but it didn't matter. I totally bought an "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt too. It had to happen, haha. After the hike we had a decent meal, then headed back to the hostel. We tried to get a bit of a nap in before heading off to the Acrobatic Show that we were unable to go to the previous night. We got ourselves ready and headed off to the show, which was also incredible. The strength and flexibility and everything that all the performers has was mind blowing. I felt like I was holding my breath for the entire show. Afterward, we went out for a late dinner of western food and just enjoyed our night with a few beers and chatting up some people at the hostel. We planned to go to the Pearl Market the next day for a ton of shopping before our overnight train back to Xuzhou.

Due to the length of this and the fact that I have to get to a track meet I'm going to make this a "To be continued..."

On Holiday...

So Wednesday marked the beginning of our holiday. We were able to go to a Chinese wedding on the 30th and experience what that was really like. It's very different that in the States. Wednesday was the celebration for the Bride's side, and basically it was just a big luncheon. There were many rooms with tables and food and the bride, groom, and bride's parents came around to each table and toasted with the guests. One thing that did seem very Western was the bride's dress...it was so crowded though, I didn't get a very good picture. She looked beautiful though!
The food was really interesting, and by that I mean that Laura and I didn't eat much. Apparently a lot of it was really fancy and expensive, but that doesn't really mean that it is appetizing! We were polite though and did our best, but were kind of hungry shortly after, haha.

There are two celebrations occurring over the break, National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival. National Day was October 1st, and is the Chinese equivalent of Independence Day. We got up early to watch the parade that was being televised from Beijing. It was pretty boring actually. The majority of it was the different branches of the military marching past the Forbidden City showing off their weapons and whatnot. Towards the end though there were floats and music and some dancing and things, so that was kind of interesting. There have been firecrackers going off to the last few days to commemorate the event, actually, any event. The Chinese are obsessed with firecrackers, it's a bit obnoxious. But, when in Rome...or China... Anyways, last night there was a special dinner that we were invited to--to celebrate National Day. Like I said before, usually when we go to "special dinners" the food is very authentic and actually not always things that Laura and I would eat. But the food for National Day was so good! We even brought some home. Chen (our friend and colleague in the picture) knew the word "doggie-bag", it was hilarious. But everyone really enjoyed themselves and the food, so this dinner was awesome!!!

Anyways, we are off to Xuzhou to see Teresa, and then heading to Beijing by overnight train tomorrow, so I have to go and pack. We will have a computer and internet access, but I'll be really busy, so you can expect an update after we're home and hopefully lots of pictures!!!!!!