Mop's New 'Do

My friend Mop Dog has been violated! They took away his fluff, leaving behind this:

He still looks like a teddy bear

He's still pretty adorable, and the more time we spend with him, the more convinced we are that we have to have a dog like him when we return to the states, no matter how stupid the name of the breed is. This is pretty surprising for us because we both hate small dogs, but Mop Dog has convinced us otherwise! I've been getting in his, and his owner's good graces, by bringing treats (for both parties) and trying my pathetic Chinese with them. It must be working because the owners said I could take him with me to the states! My evil plan is working. By the end of the year, they won't even be joking when they say that!

Pretty sunset in Qinhuangdao

Monday morning we're outta here for our first vacation. I really don't know how you poor suckers back home do it; after three months of working 24-hour weeks, I'm pretty beat and can't wait to get out of Qinhuangdao and see some cool stuff. I'm definitely spoiled and adjusting to the "real world" is going to be really difficult when I get back home.

We've finally made contact with some foreigners here, so now we have a group of Californians to hang out with. I've wow-ed them with my homemade chili, so at least I know they'll keep coming back, if not for the company, than for the food! Unfortunately, they live and teach pretty far out of town, and our hours are pretty different, so we won't get much time to hang with them.

Here are some pictures from the school. Enjoy!

Andrew's adult class: a lesson on traveling on an airplane

Me and Karen, individual student class

Doesn't he look good in a sweater vest?

Mid-Autumn Festival

September 22 had the honor of not only being Frodo and Bilbo's birthday, but also Mid-Autumn Festival in China. As the name suggests, this is the middle of fall, which obviously seems early for you guys back home. It's supposed to be the time when the moon is brightest, and traditionally people exchange moon cakes and eat dinner at a restaurant.

We received dozens of moon cakes from students and Helen and John. Most were filled with a bean paste, which wasn't very appetizing to our tastes, but if we were lucky (which Andrew always was and I never was) we bit into ones flavored with fruit instead.

Moon cakes on sale at the supermarket

Moon cakes, traditional and "European"

Helen and John took us to dinner that night and we shared a whole chicken, feet, head, and all, in a hot-pot. Andrew was brave and tried the head, complete with cockscomb, but I stuck to veggies and beef.

Yum...

Recently we started taking Chinese classes with John, who doesn't speak any English but means well. We've had four classes so far, and I've only cried once! (I get very emotional under stress.) Let me tell you, Chinese is HARD. Each word in Chinese has four different "tones" and each tone gives a different meaning to the word. Being literally tone-deaf, it's really difficult for me to hear the difference between these words, and even harder to imitate them. I'm going to just stay away from words that could insult people, like the number 4, which also means "death" if pronounced a different way. But, at least we're learning useful phrases that will hopefully make communication easier in our city. Andrew is a champ and can pronounce Chinese even better than John!

Say what??

Of course, the joke is that in just two weeks we're going to Shanghai, where they speak a completely different dialect of Chinese, and where surely no one will understand us or vice versa. This will be our first vacation, and I'm a little nervous. We'll be taking an overnight train to Guilin, a beautiful city down south known for its karst formations and beautiful countryside.

Guilin, courtesy of Google Images

Seeing as how this city is 2,300 km away, it's going to take us over 24 hours to get there by train. After three days there, we'll head to Shanghai to see the World Expo before flying back to Qinhuangdao at the end of the week. With the amount of traveling we're doing, it's like taking a 10 day trip to the U.S. and flying first to California, then New York, then Florida. Except on trains.

We've almost made some foreign friends here. After stalking people on Facebook and Couchsurfing, I've made contact with a handful of foreigners and we're in the process of arranging meetings with them.

Things here have been both slow and busy. We spend our time planning lessons, going to class, cooking, cleaning, watching movies, shopping; in short, all the normal things you probably do in your lives. Nothing has been overtly exciting recently, thus the lack of blog posts. My guess is that after our vacation, which begins October 11th, we'll have more news to report before going back into dormancy until Thanksgiving.

Despite the many problems France caused us, I find myself missing it more and more. Mostly I miss being able to communicate, but I also miss the friends I had there, both foreign and French, and the charming little city of Orleans. Stepping outside my door here, I am bombarded with a cacophony of car horns, car alarms, and 3 million people packed on the streets. I've been having terrible headaches and I've come to dread even going outside for shopping because of the noise and all the people. I'm definitely finding that I am not a city person!

What's the "Inedidible Method"???

National flag of China

Beijing Trip #1

Bus ride to Beijing

We finally made it out of Qinhuangdao! We couldn't figure out how to get express train tickets during the back-to-school rush, so we had to settle for a four hour bus ride instead. However, compared to Mali, we traveled in luxury. We didn't have to share our seats with anyone, the bus was air-conditioned, quiet, and there was even a bathroom break mid-way! And thanks to the portable DVD player my mom gave me last summer, we easily entertained ourselves with Heroes (Thanks Mom!). Once we arrived in Beijing, we had a little trouble finding the metro station which would take us to our hotel, but a nice woman stopped and asked us if we needed help (this was a friendly trend we noticed throughout our stay in Beijing). We arrived to our courtyard style hotel in plenty of time to deposit our things and go to dinner down the street.

Red Lantern House

Despite only knowing about three words in Chinese, we managed to order a delicious and filling meal for about $10. Fortified, we decided to walk to the nearby park on our map. This is where we learned our first lesson about Beijing: Distances may be farther than they appear. We never found the park, despite walking for about an hour. Our education continued the next day when we tried to go anywhere in the city. Despite taking advantage of the new, cheap metro system, it seemed that every place we wanted to visit was a good twenty minute walk from the metro. It really cut into our day.

Lemongrass chicken, spicy potatoes, and corn with pinenuts

We spent most of our only full day in Beijing at the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is an enclosed collection of palaces that served as the administrative center for the Emperor and his three thousand concubines. As you can imagine, the place is huge! Like the city itself, it was quite a hike between each pavilion, hall, and palace. After awhile they all start to look the same, but the gardens were spectacular.

We also saw some interesting jewelry, clocks, gold buddhas, sculptures, and lots of jade!

There's a new style hitting the toddler scene: butt-less pants! There're all the rage in China, and you'll see many a kiddie squatting on the side of the road to do their business. Parents, never buy diapers or even use a toilet again!

The highlight of the day, for me, was buying some imperial Manchu headgear, which cost us around $2. The hats turned us into rock stars, and the Chinese were lined up asking to take pictures with us (or were not-so-discreetly snapping pictures from a distance). It reminded me of the time we were leaving the supermarket and a car pulled up, rolled down its windows, and a group of Chinese snapped our picture and then drove away. But really, can you blame them? Look at us! We're a pretty fine-looking couple! ;)

Nine Dragon Screen

Another memorable moment of our visit to the Forbidden City was when we stumbled upon this deserted rocky area, and were quite pleased until a guard showed up, took our camera from us, snapped some pictures of us, and then proceeded to kiss me vigorously on both cheeks. It was really weird. What is this, France?

A little confused...

Despite our extensive traveling experience, we were still Shanghai-ed in Beijing. Usually the fact that we don't speak any Chinese works in our favor, but in the Forbidden City English-speakers abound. One women told us there was an art exhibit going on, so dumbly we followed her and spent nearly an hour looking at beautiful paintings. In the end, we bought a set of paintings on silk that show the four seasons. It was rather expensive, and we both are experiencing Buyer's Remorse. But they are pretty, no?

After a long day of walking, we decided to make for the foreign bookstore and treat ourselves to some literature. If you know me at all, I'm sure you can imagine how hard it's been for me to live the past two months without anything to read but my guidebook! In Beijing we were able to find a very decent, albeit expensive, collection of English books. A real bargain was classical novels for about $3 each. We picked up Portrait of a Lady, The Travels of Marco Polo, a collection of four Shakespeare comedies, a book on Taoism, and Arabian Nights. I also splurged and picked up a new paperback, Empress Orchid, which is a historical fiction about the last Empress of China. It was really interesting and now I want to read the sequel. After making our purchases and chatting with some other ex-pats in the store, we explored the area a bit and discovered an awesome market where they sold scorpions on a skewer. Despite their wriggling bodies, Andrew couldn't resist and he ordered some to go. A few minutes later, the scorpions were light and crispy, and thankfully dead. I watched in horrified fascination as he devoured them and am not looking forward to a repeat performance. Next time he wants to try the big Emperor scorpions instead of the puny ones.

This market brought us lots of good finds, such as Lucky Cat. Andrew has been wanting a Lucky Cat since we got here. The cats are usually found in restaurants, and are supposed to bring money. He's like one of those bobbleheads; he constantly moves his paw up and down, which I find very soothing. And he really does bring good luck! When we returned to the hotel, I found that we had an extra 100 RMB more than I thought!

Our final day in Beijing was spent purusing the foreign supermarkets in town. We had been so excited about the presence of a Carrefour, a French chain that we frequented in Orleans, but we were really disappointed. Hoping for something better, we headed across town to Jenny Lou's.

Bingo! This place had (almost) everything! Frosting, BBQ sauce, spices, bakeware, cheese, pasta, even tampons! We dropped a cool $50 in that store, which doesn't compare with what we used to spend in Bamako at La Fourmi, but it still felt like a lot to us. The bigger problem was not our finances, but the time we had remaining before we had to catch our bus. Remember how I said it took a long time to even get to a metro station? Well, add the twenty minute walk with a stop at Subway for a little taste from home, plus the run back to the hotel to get our bag, and we were really running late. For about two hours we ran, ran, ran; literally! I had to leave the bags with Andrew and run the fifteen minute walk to the bus station from the metro to keep our bus from leaving for Qinhuangdao. Along the way, I got a lot of stares, whistles, and what I only assume were inappropriate remarks (never run in short shorts. Ever.) When I arrived at the station, I managed to communicate by pointing at my ring that my husband was behind me. How is it that I don't even know the Chinese word for husband?? Anyway, we just made the bus in time and began the long journey back home, which included a rest stop where we saw a big truck full of doggies. Dinner, anyone?

Speaking of husbands, Andrew and I went to Beijing to celebrate our four-year wedding anniversary. It was definitely the best one we've celebrated so far. I gifted Andrew some cool new T's, and most importantly, I got his pocket-watch fixed. The watch was a gift from me to him on our wedding day, but through years of accidentally washing it in the machine it stopped working some time ago. Andrew being Andrew, he never got it fixed, so I felt it was time to intervene.

Andrew gave me my only real desire, a Mop Dog of my very own! Somehow the little guy even resembles the real thing (and he smells better!). He also got me a pair of beautiful purple earrings and matching phoenix/dragon amethyst pendants. The phoenix and dragon are popular lovers in Chinese mythology.

Randomness

Sorry I've been so absent these past couple of weeks. It's been mostly work for us, with little time for play. We're nearing the end of our summer overtime, so from now on we'll only be working a measley 24 hours a week. To celebrate, we're headed to Beijing for a three-day weekend on Monday. We'll be celebrating our four-year wedding anniversary on Wednesday! So far we've never spent an anniversary in the states, but I think this year will be extra special because we'll finally be able to do something special. We're also taking our first vacation October 12-20, and we'll be headed to Shanghai for the World's Fair! Hopefully we'll have a lot more exciting posts in the near future. But for the meantime, here's a mish-mash of random things we've seen and done in the past two weeks:

Andrew taught Julia, John's niece, how to cook hamburgers and fries. It was a big success, though John ate too much and abruptly had to get up and leave the apartment to lie down. Can't decide if this is good or not...

Andrew's student Lily celebrated her 17th birthday, and we had her and Karen over for chicken soup and cake.

Andrew decided that the "dragon fruit" needed a bit more dragon, so he gave it a makeover. He was sad to eat it and ruin his beautiful artwork, but he made me promise to show you all his masterpiece for posterity's sake.

The best thing about the past two weeks was my introduction to Mop Dog. This little guy belongs to the shop-owners near the school, and while I often saw him running around outside, I was too shy to introduce myself. Instead, I admired him from afar and planned to dog-nap him. One day I got up the courage to pet him and since then he and I have been good friends. I think he might come willingly with me when the time comes. It helps that I bring him treats and scratch his belly. He's the sweetest dog, and not once have we heard him yap like others of his breed. His owners seem bewildered by my interest in him, but are happy to give me (supervised) visitation rights. I wish I could say that he wasn't being treated well and thus justify my plans of grand theft doggery, but his owners adore him, as does everyone else on the street. His real name is "Ball" in Chinese, but I've had his fake passport made to say "Mop Dog" because that was how I first thought of him that fortuitous day so many weeks ago.

The second best thing that happened recently was that we got paid! A mere pittance compared with what most of you are making in the states, but considering our only expenses for the moment are food and paying off our enormous debt, it felt like we were millionaires! It was especially noticeable because we were paid in cash. I swear this job is legit, really!

So how did we use our small fortune? After wiring about 70% back to the U.S. to pay for our loans and credit cards, we went shopping! We finally found the cheap stores that really live up to the "Made in China" label. Shirts for $2, dresses for $10, bags for $1.50, you name it, we bought it. Andrew seems to be under the impression that I am some sort of Barbie Doll, and he forewent a day at the beach in favor or dragging me through four shopping malls, buying me everything in sight. What a jerk! ;) I'm sure you can see the theme of my purchases, though. Did I mention that I love purple??

I received yet another too-generous gift from a student. Penny gave me a very nice, very expensive jade Buddha necklace. This was because I invited her to taco night at our house. They better stop it, or I'll get used to this pampering!

We've been raiding the bulk candy section of Tesco to try out some new flavors. It's actually kind of overwhelming because there are so many types of candies and many are not recognizable. There are even little packets of dried peas and fish in this section, so you have to be careful of what you buy!

This guy is near the Tesco

Last night Helen and John took us out to dinner after our staff meeting. In addition to getting to try new, delicious foods for free, these little trips give us plenty of ideas for meals when we're too tired to cook for ourselves. This place was very similar to eating raclette. A big grill is placed at the table, and each person can choose their food from a huge buffet table full of meats, vegetables, and seafood. You then grill your food right at the table. They have different sauces and spices that you can add. It's an all-you-can-eat restaurant. The price? A mere $3.50/person. Even Andrew was full by the time we left!

We finally made it to the beach today. Somehow we managed to get on the right bus (though going the wrong direction), and though we had to get off and find the other line, we made it to the beach all by ourselves. Our first stop was the Dolphinarium to see the dolphin show. It didn't compare to Sea World, but it was still pretty cool and predictably cute. There were also sea lions, which are always my favorite part of a water show. After that we hung out on the beach and tanned for awhile, which drew stares from others around us. Have I mentioned that Chinese women HATE getting tan?? When they ride bikes or motorcycles, they wear long ballroom gloves to protect their arms from the sun, and if there's even a little bit of sun out, all the women walk around with their umbrellas. It's a bit obsessive, really, but kind of cute!

"Qinhuangdao, known for it's ice-free port."-tourist brochure

Yes, that dolphin is painting

Finally, some more about food. Andrew decided to be adventurous at the store today, so we scored some dried BBQ eel jerky, some blueberry flavored potato chips, a slice of durian, which smells strongly of poop but tastes pretty good, and some "passion" soap, which actually smells pretty wonderful (but is not for eating, of course).

Reflections on the Chinese Education System

I have only four students: Molly, Sandi, Karen, and Penny. Two are university students, and two are high school students. Working and speaking them has led to many interesting, and disturbing, discoveries about the Chinese education system. I thought I'd share those revelations with you.

Molly went to an arts high school, which is a different experience from most Chinese students, but in some ways better. Because she was a musician, she didn't have to cut her hair like a boys, which is what my other high school students have to do. Apparently wearing your hair as you want is an expression of creativity that is necessary for art students. Of course, if the contrary is true, what does this day about those students who are forced to cut their hair? They aren't allowed to be creative?

In addition to stifling creativity, the school is heavily involved in the student's life. All students in high school are forbidden from dating. If a student is found to have a boyfriend or girlfriend, he or she will be kicked out of school. Even Molly, who is goes to a university in Beijing, has still never had a boyfriend or been on a date. And don't even ask them is they've ever been to a party or done anything fun in their lives. It's all school, school, school.

Karen has extremely short hair, not by choice, but because her school demands it. She just started high school, and this weekend she'll be moving into the dormitories across town. Her school day will begin at 6:00am and end around 9:00 or 10:oopm. These are just the hours she will spend in class, learning. She will have three hours on Sunday afternoons to visit her family, who lives only twenty minutes away, or, more likely, catch up on homework. In her dormitory, she will not be allowed to have a cell phone, computer, or MP3 player. There aren't even outlets available to charge electronic equipment. Karen is really excited because she received special permission from her school to spend Thursday and Saturday nights with me learning English from 6:00-9:00pm. This means that for two nights a week she can leave the school and spend the night at home.

Summer vacation is only about two weeks for them, sometimes only 12 days, and yet during this time Chinese students choose instead to take extra English classes at our school, which is why we've been pulling so much overtime. If you only had two weeks of vacation a year, would you spend it taking an intensive language course?

All four of my students are hoping to study at a college in the U.S. or Canada. They all claim that if they work hard enough now, they will be able to enough the relative easiness and calm of being an American college student. I hope for their sakes that they are accepted and can go, because these kids need a break!

Of course, this rigid system explains why the Chinese have a reputation for being so hard-working and intelligent, but it all kind of seems unnecessary to me. If their goal is to study in the states, it seems that they're going above and beyond the necessary to get in. After all, I went to a pretty bad high school (in terms of its ranking in the system), I had friends, boyfriends, family problems, did extracurricular activities, attended school dances, and didn't get straight A's. After all that, I still got into the best public university in the country! Surely these over-achievers can let up a little and still be accepted to a good university? Or maybe times have changed so much and it's much harder for anyone, especially foreigners, to get into college.