A Little Catching Up

Life has picked up in China! I plan out a part of my day to send an email to my mom to post on my blog and then something happens that prevents me from doing it. So I have a little bit to get caught up on!
Last weekend I went to Nanjing. One of the couples in our ward invited Alyssa and I to Nanjing to take us to dinner Saturday night. We left in the morning to meet up with some other China Horizons friends that live in Nanjing. There was a group of about 8 or 9 people and we grabbed some rice and headed to the Purple Mountains for a picnic by the lake. It was really nice, the rice tasted fantastic. I got pineapple fried rice and it was delicious. Afterwards we decided to play a game called Swedish Footsy a fun but invasive game. For some of you who might not have played this game before let me explain how it works. You stand in a circle and one person begins by moving their foot to touch the foot of the person to the right of them. That person must then move the foot that is being touched to touch the foot of the person to the right of them and so on and so forth. The result is a big jumble of people that are trying to not fall over. One of the boys that came with us was a Chinese boy named Tony and he was the one that was touching my feet. He was really nice but I'm pretty sure he thought Americans were really weird for playing this game. It's not anything new for white people to be stared at by Chinese people but when you play a weird game like this you get even more people staring. Tony explained what we were doing to one Chinese man who then thought it'd be funny to try and play the game with us as well. He came up behind me and pressed his body against mine and tried to work his way into our knot we had made. It sounds really weird when I write it down but at the time we were all laughing about it. Brother and Sister Powell took us to a nice Chinese restaurant by the International housing so the menu was even in English! It was so weird being able to read everything and pick out what we wanted to eat. The restaurant was so crowded that we ended up sitting outside. It was pretty warm out though so that was okay. During the dinner one of Brother Powell's students (Oh, I forgot to mention they both teach English at a University in NanJing) came up to talk to Brother Powell. He ended up pulling up a chair and proceeded to interview Alyssa to see if she was worthy of marrying him. She did pass by the way. She doesn't drink or smoke and she eats healthy foods. She was saved by Sister Powell telling this boy, Success, that Alyssa had a boyfriend. We finished our meal and ran off pretty quick. As we were leaving Brother Powell apologized and said "When you sit outside you are exposed to the elements."
I left NanJing right after church because my new friend Remy (I can't remember if I mentioned Remy or not yet. I met her coming out of the hospital. She wanted an English speaker to come to her company and prepare them for a light show thingy that they were doing in the West) had invited me to dinner at her house that night. Remy and her husband live with his family and have a nurse for the baby. On the way to her house Remy told me that we would be eating the famous puffer fish. I pretended to be excited while wondering what I'd done wrong that I would have to eat puffer fish three times while in China and everyone tells me I'm so lucky and that foreigners rarely get to try it once. The other food was pretty delicious, but of course I was forced to eat way more puffer fish than I wanted because I'm white and should eat much of it. Then, they brought out delicious homemade noodles to finish up the meal and grandma decides that the best way to eat them is by dumping fish juice in it and that the poor little white girl who just wants to eat the noodles must eat hers this way. Afterwards Remy decided that I am her little sister, her mei mei and Remy is my big sister, my jie jie. To show our new found sisterhood she stopped and bought me some fruit on the way home. It was a wonderful evening.
This past week I did a heroes lesson in my classes. I taught them about superheroes and then heroes like Robin Hood and Zorro. Afterwards I had them make up their own heroes and turn them into me. They really liked that. They really like Spiderman and Superman but don't really care for Batman. They'd never heard of Wonder Woman but went crazy over her outfit. Yeah...I should have just put a head shot on the power point. I talked to them about the Scarlet Pimpernel and then decided to show them a clip from the movie that I had on my computer. That was not thought through. High schoolers here are fairly immature. In fact quite a bit immature. So, imagine that this is a show you frequently watch and one that you enjoy quite a bit. You enjoy it so much that you decide to watch it with your five year old child. Only then do you realize how very violent it is. Obviously, it does take place during the French Revolution so this shouldn't have been such a surprise for me. I never really realized how many heads get chopped off and waved around until I was watching it in class. Some of the girls looked like they were either going to vomit or cry or go running from the room screaming. Even the boys were uncomfortable. Yeah... I only watched it in one class. It only took once to realize how bad an idea that was. I only got to teach two of my classes this week and I covered one for Andy so three total. My other two classes got cancelled because they had exams. Luckily I started training at the LED light company so I still had some things to keep me busy.
The training is going pretty well. At first it was kind of hard because I don't know anything about lights so we kind of had to struggle through that one. There's four girls that come and they are all very nice.
This weekend I stayed in Yangzhong because I had training on Saturday. After training Remy took me to her house for lunch and then the two of us and Remy's friend, Psyche, went shopping. Psyche lived in England for one year and she had pretty good English. We went all over the place and Remy bought pants and Psyche bought a skirt that I was eyeing but she beat me too. They also took me to a bakery and bought me some chocolate ice cream cake. It was Chinese chocolate so if they'd bought it for me at the beginning of my stay in China I would have thought it was nasty but now I thought it was delicious. Afterwards the three of us and Josh went to hot pot. This is where the most exciting part of my day occurred. We had duck as a meat in our hot pot and they put everything in there. Psyche really enjoys duck tongue and gave one to Josh and I to try. Yes, it still looked like tongue and you could see exactly how it would have been attached in the mouth. Psyche popped two in her mouth and devoured them before Josh and I got the courage to eat ours. Josh counted to three and we bit in and then I screamed because tongue is not soft and couldn't be bitten in to. You could see my teeth marks but that was it. I eventually was able to pull a piece of meat off and decided it was nasty and left it on my plate. Josh never ate his.
There's 13 Koreans living in Yangzhong, they live at a hotel here and work at a Korean factory. We've met a few of them and one named David took Josh, Andy and I to dinner. We had some really delicious foods! We had sweet and sour chicken, shredded pork, onions and eggs and shredded potatoes and green pepper. Oh it was so good. David was so amazed that we could use chopsticks so well.

Being Sick In China

This has quite possibly been one of the weirdest weeks since I've come to China. (Yes mom, I know I say that a lot!) On Sunday I went to bed, nothing was new there, but I woke up around 2 in the morning and I couldn't open my right eye because it was glued shut with gunk. I started panicking because I was 99.9% positive that I had managed to get pink eye. I wasn't sure what to do and I was really scared. I ended up skyping my parents at 2:30 in the morning and ended up sobbing through most of the call. The next morning I got up bright and early and asked Molly, one of the English teachers, if she could take me to the hospital. They don't just have regular doctor's offices here you go straight to the hospital. She didn't have time but Elaine, one of the other English teachers, did. So at 2:30 we headed off to see the doctor. Hospitals here are similar to Western hospitals. The two biggest differences I saw were sanitation and privacy. I was taken to an eye doctor who looked at my eyes right at the front desk. All the Chinese people already in the office sat and watched and apparently word spread that a white girl was at the hospital  because pretty soon the whole room was full of people watching, completely fascinated by what was going on. After looking at both of my eyes and putting some drops in them the doctor took me to the back room and my fan club followed us in there. He looked at my eyes in a machine that eye doctors in America use. Then he had me go to the machine that blows puffs of air in your eyes. I'd done this before and knew that it made me jump and that I didn't really like it much. I guess jumping at this machine isn't allowed in China because he had a nurse come over and hold my head right up against the machine. That was embarrassing because I still had a crowd of people watching me! In the end he concluded that I have an infected cornea and gave me two different kinds of eye drops to take. I was also told I cannot wear contacts for one month. I guess I fit in with the Chinese people in my glasses now. It was really fun to see how fast word gets around at my school. I had so many teachers come up to me and ask about it and stare at my eyes for long periods of time.
This week for my classes I taught about April Fool's Day and Easter. I began my class by telling my students that their Chinese teacher came and talked to me because they were not happy with the spoken English in the classes. I told them that I had to give a test next week on the PowerPoint I was going to do today and all the other power points I'd done that semester. In my first class some of the students looked as though they were going to cry. I then proceeded to teach them about April Fool's Day. They actually have April Fool's in China so they knew a little about it already. I told them about my April Fool's last year (My uncle got married) and they got a kick out of that. I showed a picture of the wedding cake and in one class they told me it was beautiful and wanted to know how much it cost. Naturally I had no idea and they found that to be hilarious. In China you talk very openly about how much you spend on things so it probably did seem weird to them that I didn't know. After that I taught them about the Easter Bunny and Easter Egg Hunts. I mentioned that it's a Christian holiday but told them not to ask me too many questions because I am not allowed to talk about it at all. I showed them a couple pictures of me as a little kid with Easter baskets and they loved that. They oohed and aah ed over both the pictures. They even told me I looked beautiful during my awkward looking phase of life which I appreciated immensely. After talking to them about it for a few minutes I pulled up a slide that said "Now, about that test..." and told them we had to discuss a few things and then we would go out and have an Easter Basket Hunt. I then told them the test was an April Fool's joke! I have never seen so many relieved faces in my life. It was absolutely hilarious. None of my classes have ever listened so well in class before, I might have to threaten them with tests more often. My first class didn't get it at first. They sat there and stared at me in shock. After I explained it was just a joke and there was no test there was an audible sigh of relief. After a few more minutes they kind of chuckled. I really had them going on that one and it was awesome.
For the Easter Basket Hunt I filled a bag with goodies that my wonderful mom sent from America. We went outside and I had one person hide the bag, one person be blindfolded to find the bag and one person direct the other to the bag. I went along to make sure no one got seriously injured, and luckily no one did. One person almost fell in a fountain and I had to step in but other than that there were no real big problems. One of the students in my class came up to me and said "Teacher, this game is not very safe." I just told him "I know." and we kept playing. One poor boy reached out to grab the basket and got a pine tree instead, but he laughed that one off luckily. They got really excited about the treats. One boy got a push pop that was stuck. He came over to me exclaiming "Teacher! It's broken!" I took it and looked at it, then I pointed out that on the label it said you must be 3 years or older to use this and gave him a funny look. He took the push pop from me and walked away blushing. I eventually gave him an Air Head because he kept whining about it. I saw the sweetest thing during this. One girl got a package of Air Head extremes which had lots of long strips of Air Head inside. She ripped every single piece up and gave each of her friends a piece of candy. It was very sweet to see.
During the week I went to one of Josh's classes. We colored pictures of Easter eggs which was a lot of fun. The little kids got excited over mine and were so eager to show me their eggs. They never got tired of showing me so I saw the same one multiple times before class was over. Josh and I were sharing a desk with some of his students when apparently a spider decided to disturb the peace. I had no idea what was going on. One second Josh was sitting next to me coloring then next thing I knew he gave a little squeal and was running to the other side of the classroom. The teacher came and got rid of the spider and all was well. Josh wouldn't come and sit by me anymore, he moved his chair to the other side of the room and colored with those kids. The little boy I was sharing a desk with thought Josh's reaction was funny and kept reenacting it for me and the girl sitting by him. It was pretty funny to watch.
I still don't have a camera so there aren't any pictures to go with this post. One day I'll work that one out and send pictures again!

Adventure Is Out There!

Guilin was the craziest vacation I have ever been on. Every second was an adventure and filled with activities. We would wake up early and go to bed late with no moments of boredom at all!

Friday morning Rick, Sarah and I caught the 8:30 bus to Zhenjiang. We got there with enough time to have some lunch and then go to KFC to order ice cream and a Pepsi to try and satisfy a root beer float craving. It worked actually! We found out our train to Shanghai had been delayed almost 2 hours and we probably wouldn't be on time to catch our train to Guilin, which was bad. We ended up having to exchange tickets and take a G train to Shanghai and race to the subway to get to Shanghai Nan (Nan is south) Station grab a sandwich from KFC and race onto the train where we would hang out for the next 20 hours. We ended up being in compartments right next to each other which was really nice. All three of us had bought hard top bunks. The hard part is nothing new and I really didn't think it was hard at all. The top part is where I started rethinking things. There were six bunks in one compartment, three on one wall three on the other wall. The bottom bunk you could sit up in and most people used it as a couch during the daytime. The middle you could sit up in as well, just not as comfortably. The top...yeah you'd have to be a midget to sit up in that one. I didn't spend very much time up there. Basically I just slept there, it was a little too confining. Our train left at 4:30 and got in on Saturday at around noon. So we stayed up talking until 9:30 (lights go out at 10:00) went to bed woke up and had only a few more hours on the train before we arrived in Guilin. All in all it wasn't too bad of a ride, I was expecting something really horrible.

Josh was going to Guilin with us as well but decided he wanted to get there earlier so he was taking a different train to Guilin. It was a good plan in theory but didn't work at all. He ended up being told the wrong bus to get on and the driver dropped him off somewhere random and had someone pick him up and take him to Zhenjiang. Long story short he missed his train to Guilin. He tried to get a ticket on our train but it was full and he ended up getting a ticket on a K train (We were on a T train) that left not long after us. But it gets even better. They didn't have any sleepers or seats so he stood for the entire trip and the K train took a couple hours longer than the T train. Then to top his day off he had no idea where we were staying and none of our phones worked in Guilin so he had no idea how to get a hold of us. Luckily for him the three of us were on top of things. As soon as we got off the train we checked to see what time his train got in. We decided we had enough time to try and find our hostel before his train got in. We thought we had good enough instructions to get there but they weren't good at all. Three girls took pity on us and helped us find our hostel. We were so worried about missing Josh that we sent Rick back to the train station to watch for him. Sarah and I found the hostel thanks to our new friends and made it back to the train station in plenty of time to find Josh. During the wait we planned out the best places for everyone to stand to make sure we didn't have any chance of missing Josh. We decided that I would stand right in front of the gate because I stand out the most, Sarah would be to the left in front of the other gate that no one else was using. Rick would be standing at the top of some stairs over looking the entrance so if we missed Josh he could yell or run after him. All of our planning was not necessary it turns out. Josh saw me and almost burst into tears. He was so happy to see us that he insisted on a group hug. After Josh had gathered control of himself we all headed to our hostel to check in and get settled before going out. Our hostel was right next to the Li River and there were some amazing things to see there. We ended up spending all night taking pictures there and got some really awesome ones. It was all so beautiful!

Sunday morning we were taking a river cruise along the Li River to Yangshuo. That was absolutely beautiful as well! It reminded all of us of Utah and then we all realized how desperate we were for something familiar because it wasn't really like Utah at all. We took a Chinese cruise so everything was in Chinese. One guy that we made friends with spoke a little English and would translate to tell us what sights we were passing at that time. At one point we pass a rock and we all started yelling “The cliffs of insanity!” I have no doubt that the Chinese people on the cruise were a little concerned about the white people. When we first got on the boat a girl ripped our tickets and then helped us find our seats. During the ride the girl came and asked for the part she ripped off our tickets. We kept trying to tell her that she'd already ripped them off and that we didn't have them anymore. Then at the end Josh pulled out his ticket and realized he hadn't had his ticket ripped. The girl got super excited and looked like she was about to burst into tears of joy when she finally ripped his ticket. I was so grateful that my mom had sent me a package that I got right before I left with sunscreen because we used a ton of it on this trip. We all got a little pink but not nearly as bad as it might have been without sunscreen. We probably used about half the bottle this trip.

When we got off the boat we went along the dock to an empty spot to take some pictures. We got there and Sarah said “Oh good. We won't be bothered here.” It wasn't even half a second after she said this that we heard in a thick Chinese accent “Hello! Where are you from?” We busted up laughing and talked to this boy for a minute before running for it.

While in Yangshuo someone decided that we needed to try some of the bricks of tofu they were selling on the streets. They had it on a grill thingy and had put seasonings on it. It was super spicy and nasty and all around awful. I was not thrilled with the person that made the decision to eat it, although I can't remember who it was now.

After checking into our hostel we hit the streets of Yangshuo for some serious shopping. Yangshuo was the best place for shopping that I'd ever been. There was also some serious bargaining going on. I was really worried about the bargaining bit but it came quite naturally to me. I was able to get the price I wanted for everything but one item, but even that item I'd gotten way down. Bargaining worked like this every time: You would show any sort of interest in the stall and the person at the stall would attack you and say “You like? Handmade! For you very cheap!” Then you would ask how much. Even if you don't really want it (They will chase you if you don't follow these steps. If you don't want it you say a ridiculous price they get mad and let you leave). You will then proceed to laugh at the price they say and tell them no. They will then hand you either the pad of paper or the calculator they are using to show you the price and say “You say price!” After saying your price they gasp do this funny eye thing and exclaim “No money! No money!” and act really upset. They say another lower price and you laugh again and either stick to your original price or go up a little bit. This passing goes on for quite some time until one of you budges. My favorite is when they don't come down to your price so you start walking away and they yell “Okay okay! Fine!” and act like you insulted them and their ancestors and they got cheated out of something but in reality you are still getting ripped off. One little old lady would not budge and I wasn't going any higher than 50 yuan. She came down to 52 yuan but I still wasn't moving. Then she started yelling at me and pointing at her throat saying “Tumor! Tumor!” I really don't think the extra 2 yuan would go anywhere to helping even if she really did have a tumor. She finally came down to 50 but she was sure ticked. We avoided her stall from then on. Sarah showed a little interest in these red things that you would put on your rear view mirror in a car. Neither Rick or her really wanted it but once you show any interest you just can't escape them. The lady named the price 120 yuan. We all started laughing pretty good at that one and Sarah said she'd only pay 5 for that. After lots of arguing Sarah purchased the stupid thing for 6 yuan. We put in on their backpack as a trophy and a little reminder that you can always get your price. The purchase I'm most excited about is a dress that I bought. During training one of the girls that was teaching wore this super cute dress that I coveted throughout training. I found it at a store and couldn't resist buying it. It's amazing! They also had some cotton candy in Yangshuo. It was kind of a maple syrup flavor but super good none the less.

We called it a fairly early night that night because the guy at our hostel was taking us to hike a peak at 5 the next morning. We had asked the hostel guy how to get to the peak and he told us that he knew a way to sneak us in so we wouldn't have to pay. He reassured us that his government was a if you don't get caught you won't get in trouble. Free sounded amazing to us so we decided to go for it.

The next morning when we woke up to go to the hike we were kind of rethinking it but there were people waiting so we got up. During the trip whenever we had to get up early or something looked like it required more energy then we possessed we'd say “Adventure is out there!” and do it. It actually worked quite well. We went with a group of other English teachers that were ironically from Utah as well. The hike was really difficult. It was straight up, no joke. We were all breathing super heavy and dripping sweat. By the time we finally reached the top we all collapsed on the ground. We had also left that early to see the sun rise but it was too cloudy so we didn't see that. That was a bummer but okay because the view from the top was beautiful anyway. Hiking back down was a joke. I thought I was going to die a couple of times and did end up falling once. I bruised my poor little buttock. One time I slipped and was going down but a tree branch saved my life. I was so sore and tired that I hugged the branch enthusiastically for saving my life.

After the hike the four of us rented mountain bikes from our hostel to bike to Moon Water Caves. It was a beautiful bike ride right in between huge Chinese style mountains and the Yuyong River next to the road. The caves were amazing too. We had to wear hard hats and at first I thought it was kind of stupid but I took my head out on so many low spots that by the end I wanted to hug my hard hat enthusiastically as well. To get into the cave we had to take a little raft through the cave first. It felt very Phantom of the Opera to me. Part of the cave was going to a mud pond and getting really muddy and then going to a hot spring and getting not so dirty. There were three levels of springs. The first level all we did was dip our toes in because it was so hot, the second one was occupied by a Chinese couple (the springs weren't very big) so we didn't really try that one. The last one was just the perfect amount of warm. We finished Monday up with some shopping and then caught a bus back to Guilin.

They weren't selling bus tickets to Guilin because so many people were going there. There was just a huge line that you stood in and when a bus came you pushed and shoved to get on. So it wasn't really a surprise when I got on the bus and realized that my camera was no longer in my front pant pocket. The most ironic part of me being pick pocketed was that during Hong Kong and Shenzhen I was the most paranoid about it. I was the one cradling my bag protectively and everyone made fun of me for it. We got back to our hostel and I sat on the bed moping and eating chocolate that Sarah provided when Josh came into our room and chucked strawberry Oreo s (My favorite flavor. We NEED these in the US) and milk juice at me and said “I'm sorry about your loss.” It was super sweet of him and I was really grateful. Unfortunately I didn't seem very grateful because the milk juice took out my knee and it was painful.

We slept in for a little bit the next morning because we were just planning on going to the Dragon Backbone Rice Terraces. It was about a 45 minute bus ride to the bus station and then a 3 hour bus ride after that to the Terraces. During the bus ride to the terraces the bus stopped and everyone got off. We then proceeded to climb into the forest around a giant rock slide blocking the path. As we were trying to figure out how to get down rocks started falling and we all screamed and just ran down our only goal to get as far from the rock slide as possible. The best was the old ladies with huge bags across their shoulders booking it towards the buses. We rode the bus for a little while longer before it pulled over and they started speaking in Chinese to us and gesturing outside. One person who knew a little English said “Get off bus.” So we did. I showed my ticket to the bus attendant just to double check we were in the right place and she nodded and herded us off the bus. There was not a single rice terrace in sight except for the one random billboard that had a picture of it. The billboard was basically the only thing around except for Chinese people trying to sell us hotel rooms. Across the street there was a white guy who came and explained the situation to us. Apparently the rice terraces are not just a day trip, which explained everyone trying to sell us hotel rooms. It was about 3:00 and the last bus to Guilin was at 4:00 which was an even bigger problem because it was another 1 to 2 hours to the terraces. He got there and was waiting for a bus back to Guilin (Side note: he was from New York). We stood there trying to decide what to do when two other white people showed up looking just as confused as all the other white people here and they were carrying around the Lonely Planet travel guide (They were from Spain). The seven of us put our heads together and decided to bribe off one of the mini vans to take us to the terraces and then drive us to Guilin. It was 420 yuan total which was 60 a person and we all thought that was a great deal and hopped into the mini van to go to the terraces. They were amazing and we were all so glad we went! I had a run in with a horse while we were there and made friends with a cute little pig. I purposely did not eat pork there after that.

We got back to Guilin around 9 and we were starving. We all wanted Chinese food so badly so we found a little restaurant and ordered food. They'd brought out a couple of dishes when something really traumatic happened. Our cute, tiny, young waitress went over to the fish tank that was by our table. Rick and Sarah's backs were turned to it but Josh and I were facing it so we had a perfect view when she caught a fish in the net and began beating it senseless against the floor right by our table. I guess Josh and my face was priceless because Rick and Sarah started laughing hysterically, they were smart enough not to turn around and look. It just got worse after that. I guess the fish just wasn't dead enough so the waitress grabbed the fish with her bare hands and continued beating it against the ground. Every time we passed a picture of a fish or a tank of fish Josh started groaning, he's vegetarian so it really bothered him. We wanted to hike one last peak before heading home the next day and the hostel had told us that we if got to a certain peak before 7 we could get in for free. We were going to call it an early night but at 12:30 we realized just how late it was and went to bed exhausted.

Because of the holiday the peak opened at 6 so we had to pay but we decided it was worth it. Maps in China really stink so we got super lost and ended up deciding to climb up some rocks to the top. Rock climbing isn't really my thing so I was super scared but lack of sleep made me decide to do it. The view was worth climbing up and we saw that we had made the right decision because we were at the highest peak. We met some nice Chinese people who used us to practice their English (You get used to that pretty quickly) and they were really worried about us getting down. For some reason they think white people are strong but fragile and worry more about us. We made the decision to not go with them and stress them out as we got down the mountain. As we were heading down we saw a rainstorm on its way and started hurrying. The rainstorm was quicker than us though so we got caught in it on the way down. Not only we were soaked but the rocks were too which made them more slippery. I was so scared but we made it to the bottom by some miracle where it immediately stopped raining.

We walked around the park some more and found some monkeys in trees. We all thought they were cute and fed them some peanuts that some nice Chinese people provided for us. Sarah wanted a picture next to a monkey eating a banana but he kept hissing at her. She eventually got the picture but she's super far from the monkey and you can tell she's a little worried about being so close to it. We got up so early we didn't have time for breakfast so I pulled out a piece of raisin bread I had in my backpack. This mean monkey decided it was tired of bananas and that raisin bread sounded really quite tasty. It came to me and looked at the bread. It stood on its hind legs which somehow made it more intimidating. It also had a bad eye which made it look deranged and scarier. Thinking I was so smart I ripped off a corner and threw it far away from me. The monkey glanced over at the piece I'd thrown and then looked back at me with an expression that said “Do you think I'm stupid?” I don't really remember what happened after that but Rick, Sarah and Josh said I started screaming...I do remember that I quickly just chucked the entire piece of bread at the monkey, who grabbed it and ran away from me. As soon as the threat was gone I got really angry. I was hungry and that stupid monkey stole my bread! After the loss of my bread I was sick of monkeys and ready to move on. We went and saw camel rock and then decided to head home.

China is a very slippery place. Even dry. It was very wet because of all the rain which made it even more slippery. I had already slipped on stairs that day but because of my mad ninja skills I caught myself on the step above the step my poor already bruised bum would have fallen and avoided disaster. On the walk back to our hostel we ran into the people we met at the top of the peak and they were happy to see that we made it safely down. We decided to walk along the river on the way back to the hostel and that's where tragedy struck. We were walking down the stairs to get to the river path when Sarah slipped and fell down quite a few stairs. She started screaming and my mind went blank. I had no idea what to do, especially since we don't really know a ton of Chinese. Rick and I made eye contact and I said “What do we do?!” He thought for half a second and then starts yelling in Chinese and I started yelling “What are you saying?!” Turns out he was yelling the word for phone. We had quite a crowd around us watching and one of them pulled out a phone and started calling for help we assumed. Our friends from the mountain found us and did a little translating to let us know that someone indeed did call the hospital and an ambulance was coming. Then one of them noticed the gash in my leg from climbing down the mountain and got really concerned. I was kind of thinking “Really? That's what you're concerned about right now?” but I did think it was sweet she was concerned. We heard the ambulance before we saw it and the crowd ran over to the side of the road to call it over. Being white has it advantages in China. We were worried about how to communicate with the doctor when he came over but the first words out of his mouth was “What's wrong?” and we all exclaimed “That was English!” You'd be surprised how necessary it is for us to tell each other when someone is speaking English, often we don't catch it for a few minutes. He felt Sarah's spine to make sure he couldn't feel anything obviously wrong. Rick shooed the crowd away to give Sarah some privacy and they all groaned but left. Rick and Sarah went to the hospital to get an x-ray and Josh and I were left standing there wondering what on earth we were supposed to do. We had to be checked out of the hostel by noon so we went and packed everything up. We sat and stared at nothing for a while too scared to do anything and finally decided we had to get out or we'd go crazy. We ran into Rick and Sarah on our little jaunt and were so relieved to find that nothing was wrong and everything was fine. Sarah was really sore so we didn't do anything super adventurous and caught our train to Shanghai that night with no problems.

Nothing exciting happened on our travels home. We made it back to Zhenjiang Thursday night and had to catch a taxi to Yangzhong. Our taxi driver spoke very little English but when we told him we were American he said Obama and Bin Laden and then made a gun with his hand said “Pew, pew” and said very good in Chinese. Apparently he approves. Then we saw a taxi next to us at a red light and the taxi driver was able to communicate that this taxi was also going to Yangzhong. Still not sure how he knew that. So we started chanting go in Chinese and fast and the race began. I think we won.

We made it home safe and sound. Everyone was sore and exhausted with wallets containing a lot less money than we began with. It was so much fun and so beautiful!

Birthday Cubed and Shanghai Squared

Things have been so crazy that I haven't had time to give an update on Shanghai or my amazing weekend!
Friday was Josh's birthday. He was turning 19! His school was taking us all to dinner and buying him a cake. I was super excited for the party! I ended up going to another birthday party that day. In China they celebrate a baby's one month birthday. Orange took us to her nephew's party. She told us that we would be getting steamed buns. Alyssa and I were both picturing a small gathering of ladies cooing over a baby. Oh no. We went to a fancy hotel and had a fifty course meal. There was also fifty million people there. I had another opportunity to eat the poisonous fish that everyone seems to just love and makes you eat tons of it even though you really just want to vomit. It was a lot of fun though. Lots of drunk people coming over to toast the white people. One of the drunker guys that came over to toast made me laugh super hard, just because of his unique bald spot. It was a perfect circle in the middle of his head. The unique part is that hair was surrounding every side of the bald spot. It was awesome.

Josh's party was even more fun! Orange took the three of us to a restaurant and we got a private room. Orange ordered the most amazing food. My favorite was a dish of chicken that tasted and looked like orange chicken in America. That plate of food got cleaned up the best. The cake was my favorite part. Oh man just thinking about it still makes me drool a little bit. It was a white cake with layers of the pudding stuff they seem to really like in China and whip cream. On the outside was chocolate like you would find on an eclair and almonds. I had two slices. They were pretty little though. Birthdays in China are very different from American birthdays. We ate cake first. I kind of thought that was weird but then I started wondering why don't we do that in America? I never have room for dessert in America but in China I did. It was brilliant! Also, we had traditional Chinese cake and I use the term cake loosely. Mostly I just say cake because that's what they say because it in no way, shape or form resembles cake. Basically it's scrambled eggs except not really very scrambled. It's egg. Very good egg, it was delicious, but not what I would consider cake.

We left early Saturday morning for Shanghai and got there around noon. There was basically no sight seeing that went on the past weekend because we went for a District Conference and that took most of the time we were there. We finished up with meetings around 5:30 and the lady that was housing Alyssa, Josh and I sent her driver (Does that tell you anything about the people we stayed with?) to pick us up. Her and her daughter actually ended up coming with to meet us. Her name is Norma, and I have to admit with a name like Norma I was expecting an older woman and her husband. Norma was actually younger than I expected and had 3 younger kids. She was also Hispanic and made us tacos and Mexican rice for dinner. The tacos were great and so was the rice but I've had A LOT of rice so that one didn't satisfy as much. Her house was amazing. Four floors and everything had been brought from America. I flushed toilet paper AND I was able to rinse my toothbrush with tap water. It was so weird. The mattresses were also from America and so they were a lot softer than what I've been sleeping on. I actually didn't enjoy that one as much. It was hard to roll over!

They had an 18 year old boy from Africa living with them doing an internship in China. He was very nice and took us out that night to look around. We came back to Norma's house and finished up the night by watching Madagascar and eating popcorn. And it was actually American popcorn! It tasted amazing!
Sunday was great and everything went lovely until the last meeting went long and we had to hurry to the train station to make it back in time to catch the last bus to Yangzhong. The subway took us too long so we had to take a G train instead of a K train to make it back in time. The nice thing about this was a K train takes 3 hours and a G train takes an hour and a half. The not so nice thing, a K train is 38 yuan and a G train is 110 yuan. We were able to make it back in time to catch a bus and made it back safe. Poor Rick and Sarah, the married couple living in Yangzhong, did not though. They just barely missed the bus after taking a G train and had to catch a taxi. The bus is 17 yuan and a taxi was 150 yuan. That was an expensive weekend for them.
Andy's birthday was on Tuesday and our school did dinner and bought a cake for him as well. That dinner wasn't super good. Lots of weird foods I didn't really enjoy but the cake tasted amazing. This one had lots of fruits on top and also had chocolate. There were a ton of people at Andy's party, most of whom we didn't actually know. There was one guy that came over to talk to me that I actually did know, what I don't know is why he was there. It was the director of the education department from the high school that I went and visited a few weeks ago. He came over a toasted me and then sent people to get me to come to his table for more toasts and lots of handshakes. He's a funny guy.

After dinner some of the random guys at the party took the 6 foreigners and two teachers from our school to KTV (Karaoke Television, basically the cool thing to do in China. They have KTV places EVERYWHERE!). They opened KTV with my special friend, the director of education, doing Taichi to a song while another guy sang. Even drunk this man had amazing balance and it was awesome to watch him do Taichi. We sang for a long time and it was a ton of fun. I didn't have much of a voice afterwards but it was worth it!

This next week is a holiday so I get Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off from school. I got Thursday off special too. Tomorrow morning I'm heading to Southern China to a city called Guilin. It's a 19 hour train ride there but it will be so worth it.

One of the Dullest Weeks in China

I was really excited about my lesson this week. I was teaching about music genres. I had a scene from "Tangled" to watch, music videos and music to listen to. Almost all of my classes went really well! They went crazy over "Tangled", they were laughing so hard. I just showed them the scene in the village where people are dancing and such. They really got a kick out of it. I found out that the kids in my classes are super talented too! In one class we spent most of the time listening to people sing songs. They were pretty good too! One boy came to the front of the class and danced to Michael Jackson. He had the MJ moves down pat! After that class the boy that danced took me to the dancing room to show me some other moves. That didn't last too long because there was an actual dance class taking place there. The teachers let me stay and watch and it was pretty cool. Chinese traditional dances are way awesome! The had a fan in one hand and a silk scarf in the other as they were dancing. It was beautiful!
Orange taught the four of us how to make dumplings on Wednesday. I'm super excited about that because dumplings are my favorite food here so I'm so excited to be able to make them when I have to leave China to go back to the States. It was actually fairly easy. I don't mean to brag or anything but...I was the best at folding the dumplings (Besides Orange of course). Josh's dumplings were...unique to say the least. Orange looked over at them once and said "Josh! Are you making a flower or dumplings?!" His dumplings really were awesome. Orange took Alyssa and I to the market to buy the ingredients for the dumplings. Markets here are not like anything I've ever really seen before. I saw more inside organs than I ever really wanted to see. Alyssa recently acquired two turtles, Azure and Sheldon (Yes, we might be watching too much Big Bang). While at the market she decided to get some food for them, they supposedly will eat shrimp. We went to the lady selling shrimp and why yes, they were very alive still. The lady picked up a couple and just plopped them still squirming into Alyssa's outstretched hand. One of them jumped right out of her palm. Then the lady asked if she wanted a bag. Surprise, surprise, Alyssa got a bag.
I went for another run this week. There was one guy that was shuffling around the path. One time we crossed paths on the side closer to my school. He pointed at the school and I told him that yes I was an English teacher there (I was pretty proud because I did so in Chinese). The only difficulty was I was nearing the end of my run and was out of breath so it came out rather chopped. Afterwards the man came to talk to me while I was stretching and we used my sorry Chinese and lots of sign language to communicate that I am American, the school is not paying me money to teach, and that my name is Arielle. I also said I don't understand and I don't know and sorry a lot. The really weird thing I've come across in China is that even when the Chinese figure out that you can't really communicate with them in Chinese they still insist on talking to you. Really I don't know how many times I say I don't know and I don't understand. The worst is when they refuse to do any sort of acting out and just start speaking in Chinese really fast. On the way home I didn't put my jacket back on because I was hot and didn't want it. The security guards pantomimed me being cold and I pantomimed me running and being really hot. They started laughing really hard. I love my security guards. They're so cheerful and also have a big"Herrlllo!" for me when I pass by. Then I ran into one of the lunch ladies who gasped at me wearing so little clothes at the end of March (Really if the Chinese came to America and saw what people were wearing at this time of year they would all die of heart attacks). I pantomimed again that I had been running but that wasn't good enough for her. She forced me back into my jacket. That was great. :)
It was a pretty boring week by China standards but this weekend should be exciting! Josh's birthday is tomorrow and the school is buying cake and we're going out to dinner. There's also a district conference in Shanghai this weekend so back to Shanghai I go!

A Fishy Weekend

From Arielle's Mom: I had to add this picture. It really should have gone on the last blog post but it didn't come through and I didn't get it from Arielle until later! Sorry!

This was the first weekend I'd stayed in Yangzhong and no one had offered to feed me. It was a little depressing and I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. So I was really happy when Joan came and sat with Andy and I at lunch and invited me to go and visit a different high school in Yangzhong with her. I was all for that so at one o'clock sharp a car from the other school picked us up and away we went! The guy driving the car was the Director of the Education Department and he took me to see some sites along the Yangtze River before going to the school. They were pretty cool and we took lots of pictures of the white girl standing by the river. Little did I know that this was just the beginning of the picture taking.

We got to the school and the instant I stepped out of the car I could hear the squealing and see the students gathering all around me. Joan told me to go say hi to some and I went over to a group of girls to talk to them. Next thing I knew Joan was gone and I was standing in line with the girls for instructions for gym. The girl that had dragged me over there leaned to me and whispered "Shh! He won't notice!" I was feeling a little skeptical about this and was thinking to myself "One of these things is not like the other!" This school is a lot less strict than my school so the gym teacher okayed the students to just walk around the track with me. Little bit of background information: The school I teach at is the number 1 high school in Yangzhong. Joan told me later that the school she had taken me to was the last ranked school in Yangzhong and that the students there are "rubbish" (as she so eloquently put it). The kids at my school will all go to university while only a few of the kids at that school will go on. Most of them will go straight to their jobs. I could tell that the two schools are different just from walking around the track with them. Their English was not nearly as good as my students who are only in Grade 1. I had lots of people following me taking pictures on their phones. People would grab me and face me towards the phone that they wanted me to look at. This was another difference, my students aren't allowed to have cell phones at school and everyone follows that rule.

I found Joan a little later but she ditched me again and I got dragged to class by some students. Here was another big difference between schools. All my classes have 56 students in them, the classroom I got dragged to had no more than 20 students. They sat me down in an empty chair and waited for the teacher to come to surprise her. Boy was she surprised! Then two other teachers came in and dragged me to their classes to show me off to their students. The first class just asked me questions and that was normal. Where are you from? Do you like China? How long will you be here? Do you like Chinese food? etc. The second class was a little different though. One girl ran up to the front and hugged me really tight then stuck out her hand for a handshake. A few other students would randomly come up and hug me during question and answer. That was kind of a bizarre feeling. The most bizarre thing though is when they said some things in Chinese and then the whole class erupted and rushed at me with papers and pens. I had no idea what was going on and I couldn't see anything through the mob of Chinese kids and papers. I wrote my name more times than I have in my entire life. Sometimes after I would write my name they would grab me and kiss my cheek. That was exciting and I'd never had that one happen before. Then they wanted me to sing a song so I sang Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree because it had hand actions.
After being a big celebrity in the classroom one of the teachers returned me to the class that I had first come from, this didn't really help me because I still had no idea where Joan was. I could tell again the difference between this school and mine because the students were watching a TV show and their school got out at 3 in the afternoon and they didn't have school all weekend like my students do. I was sat down in a desk and the students tried their best to talk to me. They were all pretty cute and I had a good time with them even if I was super lost. Eventually three boys from this class took me to the office that Joan was at. I felt a little less lost then. Joan told me that the school was going to take me to dinner that night and we were having special fish. I wasn't super excited about the fish because supposedly if it's not cooked properly it's poisonous. Great.
Dinner was...different. I've mentioned before that dinner is a time for the Chinese to drink and get drunk and that it doesn't take much for them to become drunk. They gave me orange juice after a little fight about me drinking whatever kind of alcohol they were drinking. It didn't take long before everyone at the table except me and two other ladies not drinking alcohol were very drunk. They kept toasting me and the toasts got more and more ridiculous as the dinner progressed. They tried to say them in English but lots of times I had no idea what they were saying. One guy began his toast by saying "Beautiful girl!" and I have no idea what he said after that.
I sat next to the principal chair which isn't necessarily a good thing. This means that he would dish my food. The first hot dish they brought out was a large platter of fish and the guy in the principal chair made sure I got my fair share of it. Yummy. I don't normally care for fish but this wasn't too bad actually. It was quite fresh. I was worried after he'd dished up the first time but he never dished my food again for which I was grateful. Joan made sure I got lots of the special fish though. She kept saying "It's so expensive. Marie cannot have this fish when she in China. Alyssa cannot have this fish. You are lucky!" and as she would say this she'd spoon more on my plate. I was actually thinking that Alyssa and Marie were the lucky ones. I liked having the opportunity to try it but that was it.  One time Joan served me the entire tail of the special fish and it just flopped around in my bowl and was nasty. Dinner was a bit of a let down because they really just had plates of fish. I like fish more in China but it's still not my favorite thing. Then they brought the rice out and I thought I could fill the empty spots in my stomach with it but Joan dished it up in my bowl with fish juice so even my rice tasted like fish! Gross.
I was very anxious to leave this party. Everyone would point at me say stuff in Chinese and then everyone there would laugh. This happened more frequently the drunker they became. Finally I told Joan I was leaving and she had one of the teachers give us a ride back to school. Luckily it was one of the teachers that didn't drink during dinner. As we were leaving one of the drunker guys that cracked the most jokes about me chased after us and gave me the weirdest hug ever. He just kind of wrapped his arms in the space around my shoulders. It was weird. Dinner was pretty awful and I went straight to bed feeling absolutely exhausted. Being a celebrity will do that to you.

Saturday was a good day though. Joan invited us to her house to use her ping pong machine. It was awesome! Josh was the best at it and after a while Joan took the machine down and Alyssa and I played Josh. He still killed us. I had to use the bathroom while we were there and had a moment of confusion. I couldn't find where to put the toilet paper! In China, you don't flush toilet paper. Ever. That was a really hard habit for me to break. We all kind of looked around and couldn't figure it out! Eventually we determined that we probably were supposed to flush it! This was crazy and I had a hard time doing it. You know you've been in China too long when you can't figure out where to put your toilet paper.
After playing ping pong for a while Joan took us to a badminton club. A random Chinese guy called me over to play with him and I was absolutely humiliated because I've never really played badminton before and it was obvious. I spent five minutes trying to serve the stupid birdie over the net. Once we got things going I did pretty good, we had a couple of good rallies. He had me switch and play with another guy and I actually scored two points with that guy!
Josh was having dinner with Lily that night so Alyssa and I went to a little restaurant to grab some dinner. After dinner we bought a slice of strawberry cake to share. We were so upset about sharing because it was the best cake either of us had eaten since coming to China. It was the best cake ever!
Sunday we went to the park for a little bit to write in our journals. We didn't get a ton written because people kept coming over to look at the Americans. We went and  bought what the Chinese call 'pancakes' for dinner. This was an awesome experience. They make pancakes by putting dough in an extremely hot barrel with their bare hands to cook them. They just stick them right to the side! They tasted amazing!

It was a very exciting weekend and lots of fun!

Sunshine On My Shoulders Makes Me Happy

This week has probably been one of my favorites since coming to China. (Side note from Arielle's mom, I think she has said this before!) Mostly because the sun finally decided to show it's beautiful face and I was able to take some layers off for a few days! What a great way to lose 20 pounds fast.
Since Saturday is St. Patrick's Day I decided to do my lesson on that this week. I had to focus on the wearing green and pinching and such because St. Patrick was a religious figure and I can't talk about religion but they seemed to like it nevertheless. Not a single one of my classes had ever heard of the holiday before but that wasn't much of a surprise. It's not a huge holiday in the Western area either, a huge holiday to me means you get school off. They were a little confused about the green though. They didn't like the answer "I don't know why green. Just accept it okay?" And they didn't know where Ireland was (Well I'm sure they do just not by the English name) and I could not find a good map online, they were all blurry. St. Patrick was sold as a slave when he was 16. I had to explain to them what a slave was and that was pretty fun. I would pick one kid in the class and tell them that they were my slave and must do everything I tell them to do. Some of the kids I would take one of their many books and throw it on the floor and have them pick it up multiple times. One of the boys didn't find that too funny so he put his hand on top of his book to stop me. I went for another pile but he was quicker than me. He wouldn't be a good slave. One girl I had stand in random spots of the room and jump. It was pretty funny.
I did a little listening exercise with them. I wrote a short little blurb about a St. Patrick's Day where I remember my mom dying our milk green and my sisters and I leaving a trap for a leprechaun but ended up getting chocolate instead. I brought a big bag of individually wrapped Starbursts to motivate them to give me answers and participate in class. That did the trick. In one of my classes I gave a boy a piece of candy for giving the right answer and the whole class started yelling protests. "Why did he get candy?!" They were very serious about the candy it was hilarious.
After talking about St. Patrick's Day we played a game called telephone. In telephone one person whispers a phrase to another person and that person whispers it to the next person and so on and so forth until you reach the last person. The last person would then say what they heard and you would see if it matched up with what was originally said. I started it and then I would pick students to start it and take their seat. I liked doing this because then I could talk to the students sitting around me and get to know them better. It was also funny to watch them panic. I was asking this boy something and he turned to his friend muttering rapid Chinese. His friend gets his notebook and shows it to me. On it he has written 'I don't understand'. I kept talking to the boy and he would give me little answers but never look right at me. His friend pulled out the notebook again and this time he had written 'He doesn't understand'. It's funny how nervous I make them because really there's 56 of them and only one of me! I'm just as nervous as they are.
In all of my classes but one the students would start the phrase I love you. The Chinese are very immature so this caused quite a bit of chaos. Especially when a girl had to whisper to a boy. My favorite moment though is when I had to say it to a boy. I turned gave him a flirtatious smile and said "I looooove you!" The entire class went wild and he started blushing like mad! The last person with the I love you one would always be a boy for some reason. So the boy would always blush when they had to tell me I love you. They're so cute. My last class had apparently heard what was happening in class that day because one of the boys stood up and said "She is going to make us say I love you!" Which was funny because I never started the I love you one, I just made them keep going. I've mentioned this boy before, he's one of my favorites because he makes me laugh all the time. In my first class he told me he didn't think any of the girls in his class were cute and disagreed with me when I said that I thought there were lots of cute girls in his class. After he said that I went to him and pointed to the boy sitting next to him and asked "What? You don't love him?" He said "Oh yes I do but some of us would have to say it to a girl!" As if that was the most scandalous thing they've ever done, which it probably is now that I think about it. I nodded my understanding and started walking away but I just couldn't let this moment go. So I stopped at the desk of a girl and asked this boy "You don't love her?" He looked like a deer in the headlights. Oh man it was so funny!
Andy and I co teach an English Corner class. It's a sort of extracurricular class full of 50 girls and 2  boys. This week the weather was so beautiful that we decided to go outside. We played a couple games and then finished with Upset the Fruit Basket, it seems to be a favorite with them. The boys ditched out on class so we just had girls. One of the girls that was it called out "I like people who are beautiful" they all kind of looked at me and nobody ran. So I yelled "You are all beautiful now go!" and still nobody ran. The Chinese really have no sense of self worth and it makes me so sad. Every achievment they receive means nothing because they could have done better. Nobody ever shows pride in anything. They have all been building up my self esteem even though they have none. It was then that I decided that is how I will make a difference for my students. I will let them know how special they are and just how much it they mean to me.
Alyssa's classes went pretty good this week. Well, all except the first class. That one went horrible. We told the kids that if they were good we would go outside and play a game. I know they understood because we had a Chinese teacher tell it to them in Chinese as well! They were really good until the Chinese teacher left the room. I have never seen kids act up so quickly. It was horrible. By the end Alyssa was almost in tears and I was feeling so grateful that I teach high school. Orange could tell that Alyssa was really upset so she was at the next two classes we taught. Both classes were good and we were able to take them outside to play cat cat dog again. One of the little girls who was standing next to me reached up into my pocket and pulled out my camera. They got so excited to see my camera and that ended the game for a few minutes. You can't tell in the picture but really sometimes they are monsters!

Tuesday Josh, Alyssa and I found the most amazing park right by their school. It had a large pond, a pagoda and lots of other cool Chinese things. We messed around for a bit taking pictures. The best part is when Josh decided to hang off the bridge over the rivery thing. He always keeps us on our toes!

Alyssa decided to try and ride on the back of my bike. All the Chinese do it and I've done it before so we decided to have a go. Yeah, that didn't go well. It was really pressuring though having all the Chinese people at the park staring at us!
Spring, Apple and Sheep took Josh, Andy and me to dinner on Tuesday night. Apple asked me if I wanted it hot and silly me I thought she meant temperature. Nope. What she meant was do I want it spicy. I thought that asking if I wanted it hot was a dumb question to be asking in China, especially coming from a Chinese girl. That was an unpleasant surprise. I was doing pretty good until I bit into something that was filled with hot (temperature) liquid. I was trying to cool my already on fire mouth down when some of the liquid went up my nose. Spicy and hot liquid up one's nose is not a pleasant experience. I thought I was going to die. My eyes were just streaming and my nose was screaming and it was horrible. Plus, everyone was staring at me because I'm white. That doesn't help matters.
Wednesday morning was so beautiful that I decided to get up and go for a run. It was a beautiful day and I just wore a t-shirt with running pants. I felt really silly because all the Chinese people I passed on the track had on gloves and snow pants and coats. A couple of them gave me the thumbs up as I passed. I'm not sure if that was a hello or a "You're doing great! Keep it up!" Alyssa thinks it was a "Put on more layers!!"
Wednesday night Alyssa, Sarah and I got together for Visiting Teaching. We went out to dinner at a cute restaurant and then picked up some dessert and went back to Alyssa's to talk. Sarah and I both got something suspicious. It was behind the counter and sometimes they are really good and as yummy as they look and sometimes they're okay and not as yummy as they look. One that I tried looked like pudding with a strawberry syrup. It turned out to be who knows what instead of pudding with a jello on top. Weird but pretty tasty. That night Sarah and I found one that looked like Chocolate pudding with a giant thing of whipped cream on top. We were really worried that it was all going to be the jello stuff. We stared for a long time and tried shaking the counter to see if it jiggled. Eventually we both got one. Best decision ever. The thing that I thought was going to be a cherry on top wasn't, it was the feared jello stuff, but it was whipped cream with a chocolate mousse kind and a white cake in the middle. Delicious! And worth the debate.