A Whole New World

As you all know, Zack and I have been traveling for about a month, looking for a place to work. Zack has been interviewing and trying out for positions at various churches, and as of last week, we have made a final decision.

Next week we will begin working in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The city has about 25,000 people and the congregation has about 20, so there is plenty of room for growth. We consider this to be a good opportunity, and we're very excited about getting started.

If you'd like to keep in touch with us as we begin full-time work in America, you can email us and we'd be happy to let you know how things are going. Alternatively, if you don't have our email address, you can leave a comment here on the blog and we'll try to get into touch with you. Please keep us in your prayers, as well as the work in South Dakota.

The end of the world as we know it

It borders on ridiculous to even bother with writing a final blog post now that we've been back in the USA for over 2 months. By now we've even seen almost everyone who reads this blog. Also, Zack emailed out a final report last month, so perhaps this is redundant. But I would feel bad totally dropping the blog without any sort of finality.

Our last few weeks in China were filled with final exams, lots of packing and cleaning, and many goodbyes. We also spent a lot of our time with our brothers and sisters, trying our best to encourage them to stay faithful and to dedicate themselves to being active members of the Family. They, as well as our other friends, showered us with gifts, goodbye letters, and hugs. It is a huge understatement to say that we will miss them. The small Family we left behind grew to be just that -- family.

Now that we are gone, four new teachers have replaced us in our work, joining our co-worker, Jessica. In some ways, we feel like we've left our children behind to be taken care of by someone else. Still, we know that the new workers will dedicate themselves to the work in China, just as we did. We hope you will keep them in your thoughts like you did for us.

In our short time in China, we were able to see our Father working even in difficult circumstances. We are confident that the work we started will continue to grow in the future. In short, we feel that the two years we spent in Yichang were productive and successful. But, as the Word tells us, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." And for us, the season of China is over, and the season of life in America is beginning. We have begun our job searching, and we expect to be settled in to our new life by the end of October.

Now that all is said and done, we will probably end up closing down this blog. There's also a pretty good chance that we will each end up with a new blog at some point, so anyone who wants to could probably keep up with us that way.

We're so thankful for all the support and encouragement given to us during the past two years. Without all of you, our work would have been extremely difficult, even impossible. So, thank you!!! Lastly, if any of you is interested in continuing to support the work in China, you can contact us. Even if you'd like to send a care package or a note of encouragement, we can point you in the right direction. Blessings to all of you.

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

While I couldn't possibly be any more excited to return to the land of the free and the home of the brave (just in time to celebrate the birthday of said land), there are a handful of things that I'm going to miss about China.  While I'm sure it will be easier to think of the thing I miss about China once I actually leave China, I'm going to list some of them now anyway, so that I will remember to enjoy them in my last five days....

I am going to miss........
- my adorable students (I’ve included a picture)
- my friends!
- Chinglish signs and t-shirts
- not having to pay bills
- milk tea shops
- walking alone at night without fear
- fresh pineapple in the spring
- singing in Chinese
- the plethora of awesome office supplies
- the hilarious clothes
- buying an entire meal for 50 cents
- how easy it is to make friends
- google music
- having a job, pharmacy, convenience store, and supermarket all within walking distance
- the farmers' market every morning
- "friendship shops"
- everyone laughing at my dumb jokes
- people wishing me "happy every day"
- oranges in the fall
- KTV (I’ve included a picture)
.......and, most of all..............
- Shine, Emma, Hailey, Amy, and Howard!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

In just ten short days, I (Elizabeth) will give up my home in China in exchange for my home in America.  Zack will do the same two weeks after me.  We are both filled with excitement, nervousness, nostalgia, uncertainty...the list goes on.  But right now, the emotion I want to focus on is excitement.  As you all know, our life in China is vastly different from our life in America.  There are so many things that I do on a daily basis in America that I never do in China.  So today, I’d like to share with you a list of things that I haven’t done in ONE YEAR (maybe even two for some things) that I can’t wait to do again soon!!!

It’s been a year since I have...
    -  seen my family
    -  driven a car
    -  drunk a Dr. Pepper
    -  eaten salad
    -  been to a movie theater
    -  gone swimming
    -  worn high heels
    -  set foot in a church building
    -  rented a movie
    -  tipped a waiter
    -  held a baby
    -  brushed my teeth with tap water
    -  eaten American Chinese food
    -  bought new clothes or shoes
    -  used facebook without a proxy
    -  used a dryer to dry my clothes
    -  vacuumed
    -  used a dishwasher
    -  had a haircut
    -  eaten fish
    -  listened to the radio
    -  used youtube
    -  spoken spanish
    -  seen people of different races
    -  exercised for the sake of exercise
and, saving the best for last...
    -  hugged my baby sister

晚上 Evening

By now it's getting close to dinner time, so I have to start thinking about whether I'm going to cook or just rummage through the cupboards and end up eating an apple with peanut butter.  Actually, I often end up making breakfast food for dinner, because it's quick and easy, and it's one of the few things I almost always have all the ingredients for.

After cooking and eating my dinner, I have to open the windows in the apartment, for two reasons.  First, to get the smell of my American food out of the apartment.  Our Chinese friends always tell us that our apartment smells strange (actually one of them told us that's why our rabbit died) so I try to avoid giving them extra reasons to tell us how stinky we are.  Secondly, once our neighbors start cooking, the smell of their food somehow makes its way into our apartment.  While our Chinese friends might enjoy that, I don't.  It's not because of the smell, really, it's because what they are cooking is so spicy that when it wafts into our apartment, we instantly begin coughing and sneezing.

Next it is time to get ready for our nightly activities.  (I've included a picture of one night when many of our friends came to sing songs with us.)  Most nights, we have anywhere from 1 to 20 people in our home, so we like to make sure we have some snacks for them.  I go down to the corner store to choose some snacks, where the ladies who work at the store laugh at me...either at what I say to them or which snacks I choose.  It's hard to choose snacks for our Chinese friends, because the snacks that I would choose are not necessarily what they would choose.  So I fill my basket with corn flavored cheetos, corn candies, dried salted apricots, sweet sunflower seeds, and fish flavored potato chips.  For drinks, I skip the pepsi, sprite, and gatorade, and instead I buy flower tea and some horrible concoction called "wang lao ji" that all our friends like.  As I check out, I impulsively buy some M&Ms so that we foreigners will have something to munch on, too.

I have to get home quickly, because even though we won't begin until 7:00, it's not uncommon for people to show up at 6:30.  It's not long before the first person knocks on the door.  Sometimes people ask me, "Elizabeth, what are the differences between China and America?"  Every time I get this question, I am overwhelmed and have no idea how to answer them.  I want to say, "Everything!  Everything is different!"  Instead I just mutter something about individualism and collectivism and wait to tell them specific things until they come up in everyday situations.  One such difference is the way people knock on the door.  When a person knocks, I always know if that person is Chinese or American by the way they knock.  In America, we usually ring the doorbell.  But when we do knock, it is usually three or four solid, loud knocks.  Then we wait for the person to come to the door.  When Chinese people knock on the door, it is totally different.  They knock very timidly and quietly, but continue knocking repeatedly until you answer the door.  To us, it seems impatient and annoying, but to them, knocking quietly is being polite so as not to disturb you.  Before I came to China, I had no idea that people could be so different that even the way they knock on the door could seem foreign to me.

I answer the door, and from that moment on Zack and I are busily serving tea and begging our friends to partake of the snacks we have laid out on the table.  Chinese culture dictates that when you are offered a drink or some food, you must refuse it three times before accepting, whether you want it or not.  After a while of this back and forth, we finally convince our friends to help themselves, and we begin our lesson.  While we teach, our students give us looks of surprise, amusement, and wonder.  Their questions and comments range from funny to insightful, and we're thankful to have the opportunity to teach them.  After about 3 hours, they all filter out of our home, and I survey the damage in our living room.  Every time a lot of people leave our home, it is a disaster zone.  Part of the blame can be placed on the fact that a lot of the snacks Chinese people like are messy, and part of it seems to be that they have a gift for making messes.  The floor is sticky from spilled drinks and the table is covered in sunflower seed shells, peanut shells, candy wrappers, and spit-covered apricot pits.

I spend the next hour cleaning up and then recuperating from a busy day before I collapse into bed, ready to start it all over again tomorrow.  Now you know about what I do on a typical day.  If you want to know what Zack does, you could ask him...but it's basically the same as what I do.  In our line of work, the responsibilities are big, and we do our best to shoulder those responsibilities together.  This summer, three of us will leave China for good, so we have been worried about leaving our one remaining team member to pick up all the slack.  But now, we are happy to report that when we are gone, four new teachers will replace us, dedicating themselves to continuing the work we started.  We hope that you will keep them in your thoughts as much as you have with us.

下午 Afternoon

After lunch, I start doing the laundry.  I have to take the opportunity while I have it; it isn't often enough that the sun is shining hot enough for my clothes to dry.  I do several loads, because our washing machine is so small it can barely contain all of Zack's socks.  In the hour or two that it takes me to wash the clothes and hang them outside our window to dry, I have to tiptoe through the house.  Most Chinese people nap between the hours of 12 and 2, and the woman who lives below us can be a bit sensitive about noise.  Don't get me wrong, it's not that Zack and I are usually stomping through the apartment or blasting techno music, but our wood floors are extremely creaky, hence the tiptoe mandate.  

On a typical day, I have the afternoon free, so I will use that time either to clean or run errands.  On this particular day, lets say it is an errand day.  I have to visit 3 different places to get everything I need:  only one bakery has whole grain bread, only one grocery store has imported pasta and cereal, and only Walmart has a variety of other thing I need.  Armed with the same necessities I take to class, sans books, I head for the bus stop.  When bus 23 pulls up to the stop, I elbow my way through until it's my turn to board and I deposit my one-yuan coin into the money slot.  I avoid the orange seats and choose a blue seat.  The orange seats are supposedly reserved for pregnant women and the elderly.  Of course, if someone does try to give up their seat for an elderly woman, a pseudo-argument will ensue, until the woman has refused to accept, the customary 3 times, and says "谢谢 xie xie" and takes the seat.  I choose one of the blue seats near the middle of the bus, because the back is way too bouncy for me, especially considering the fact that I just ate lunch.  As the bus clatters up the hill and over dozens of speed-bumps, I direct my attention to the bus' TV.  It is almost always playing the same laundry detergent commercial, and I sing along with the little girl on TV, "一比四 yi bi si!"  Fifteen minutes later, we arrive downtown and I get off the bus.

The next two hours are spent with me elbowing my way through crowds (above is a picture of the crowds at walmart), trying to read the Chinese words on my groceries, and walking through the streets from store to store as children point their chubby fingers and me and shout, "外国人 waiguoren! (foreigner!)"  I still don't understand how children that small come to learn such a strange word.  When I'm finished with all my shopping, I carry all my purchases in a reusable canvas bag...so does everyone else.  But it's not because everyone is trying to save the environment; it's because plastic bags cost money, while bringing your own bag from home is free.  Usually at this point I am pretty weighed down with bags...when I go downtown I tend to stock up, since it takes a whole afternoon to go grocery shopping.  And since bus 23 is packed when it goes back to campus, I usually decide to take a taxi rather than stand with my bags on the bus the whole way home.  

So I traipse down the street and try to find the best place on the sidewalk to catch a taxi.  After several taxis drive by and pick up other people who were faster than me or better at waving their hands than me, I get into a taxi with all of my bags and blurt out "三峡大学 san xia da xue" - Three Gorges University.  At this point I figure out what the ride is going to be like.  See, there are two types of taxi drivers:  the kind that see I'm a foreigner and assume that I can't speak or understand a single syllable of Chinese and spend the rest of the ride grunting and pointing, and the kind that heard me say the name of our university and assume I am so fluent in Chinese that I can understand any obscure word they throw at me.  So I'm either stuck for the next 15 minutes in silent frustration, or confused exasperation while repeating "听不动 ting bu dong - I don't understand."  Throughout the course of the ride, there are usually two or three times where my heart nearly stops in fear as the taxi weaves in and out of incoming traffic and narrowly misses smashing into a bus or a bicycle.  Somehow, and what seems at the time like a miracle, we always make it back to campus in one piece.  I fork over the 7 yuan it usually costs, and stumble out of the taxi with my bags, then drag those bags up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment.

For some reason I can't completely understand, this is my favorite part of the day:  putting away the groceries.  Maybe I like it because it's not confusing, exhausting, or foreign to me...I put them away exactly like I put them away in America.  Or maybe it's because it's one of the few things in my day that I have total control over.  Whatever the reason, I happily unload my bags while humming whatever song I last heard...if I was at Walmart last, it's probably a Backstreet Boys song.

早上 Morning

I promised all of you that I would blog more often.  However, I've found this is easier said than done.  I guess it's because we've been here so long.  Two years isn't an exciting experience with new and exciting things to write about.  It has become our regular life.  How do I write about things that have become so ordinary for me?  Maybe I should just describe a typical day in my life here.  For your sake, I will divide this into 3 blog posts so you don’t have to read it all at once.  Welcome to my morning......

I wake up in the morning to the alarm on my cell phone.  We never bought an alarm clock, I'm not sure why.  I wander into the kitchen and look out the window.  Ninety percent of the time, it's cloudy or raining.  However, for the sake of my writing, we'll say that on this particular day it happens to be sunny.  <<insert good mood here>>  I grab my breakfast...in the winter, it's oatmeal; in the summer it's frosted flakes.  I munch on my frosted flakes without milk, because I don't like the taste of Chinese shelf milk.  While I eat my breakfast, I look at my computer, hoping to see an email from home and a good weather report.  I log on to an internet proxy to check Facebook and blogs, because the gov’t has blocked all of these websites on the regular internet.  I usually give up in frustration after about 20 minutes, vowing to take revenge on the Great Firewall.  I get dressed for class.  My shoes depend on the weather...if it's sunny, I can wear my sandals, but if it's raining I have to wear sneakers or else I'll slip on the granite walkways and surely meet my doom.  I’ve included a picture of the building I teach in.

When I'm done getting ready for class, I make sure I have everything I might need to survive the upcoming 4 hours of class:  books, paper, ipod, sunglasses, an apple, a fan, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, a bottle of water, and my camera.  I give myself a pep talk in hopes of energizing myself, even though I'm exhausted, and I head to class.  It takes about 10 minutes to walk to class, and I'm not joking when I say it's all uphill.  Since it's sunny, I'm in a good mood; however, that also means it's hot...by the time I've climbed all the hills and stairs to get to class, I'm panting and sweating.  The students don't seem to notice since they're all happily chattering away in their desks...and why shouldn't they be?  Even though it's only 8 am, most of them have already been awake for 3 hours.  I muster up an appropriate level of gusto, and call out, "Good morning, class!"  They enthusiastically echo, "Good morning!"  After I take roll and listen to several lame excuses like, "my roommate wants to ask for leave because she has to wash her hair," class begins.  To be honest I'm not a fantastic teacher in the grand scheme of things, but the students hang on my words like their lives depend on whatever comes out of my mouth.  I like them that way.  

After 4 hours of me laughing at them and them laughing at me, I head home for lunch.  The streets and sidewalks are packed with students.  Because it's a sunny day, most of them are carrying umbrellas to shield their skin from the sunshine.  In their other hands, they carry their lunch; usually it's something mungbean-related.  On the way home, I stop at the corner store to buy some potato chips.  I get home and make my usual lunch:  potato chips and a peanut butter sandwich.

Nacho Libre

So every once in a while, a teacher gets lazy and decides to show her students a movie instead of teaching.  My students are well aware of this fact.  When I went into class on Friday and said "Your teacher isn't feeling well, so...." I couldn't finish the sentence because the students had already begun cheering.  Boy, do I feel loved.  Anyway, the movie I had decided to show them was Nacho Libre.  Part of their assignment was to write down some words they heard in the movie that they didn’t understand, and to guess the meanings of those words.  Here are some of the words I found in their homework, in their original mistake-ridden format:

lotion  =  a kind of scream
nucleus  =  trousers
sacred  =  deeply frightened
bum  =  bottock
pro  =  frofessor
friar  =  fighter
nun  =  fun
pony  =  small house
orplan  =  a child without parents
celibacy  =  not sexing
slack  =  loozy
pubby  =  a lively dog
bum  =  the part of your body on which we sit
PJs   =  night pub
buttload  =  some animal

And, since I feel like I can’t blog without pictures, I’ve included pictures of my students having class outside

March, April, May

By the time we finished our trip throughout the tourist cities of Beijing it was mid-February.  The first day of second semester was March 1st...considering the fact that we are in the twelfth week of school, I think I've been a little remiss in the blogging.  So here's the question...how do I summarize 12 weeks of our life in China?  I can try, but I'm sure I can't do it justice.  The long and short of it is this:
We pretty much are doing the same things we're always doing.  We spend five nights a week in our study groups, trying to cram in every bit of work we can before we leave in July.  We've had a few let-downs, but we've also had some incredible successes and encouragements.  One of our sisters is even working for us as a translator, which is helping us a lot in our work.  I won't get into too many more details about our work, since I'm sure many of you have heard about it from Zack's emails.
So, let's see...aside from work, has anything else interesting happened?  Maybe, but right now I can't remember any of those things.  Last Thursday, our friend brought a puppy to our door and asked us if we could keep her for him for a month.  We accepted, super excited.  He found her on the street and picked her up, but since dogs aren't allowed in the dorms, he wants us to keep her until he moves out.  So since last week, we've been taking care of a tiny, cute puppy.  Her name is Bingo...which, in Chinese, means "ice dog."  She's a bit of a mutt, but we love her!!!
So here's my plan:  blog more often.  One of our co-workers, Jessica, has made a commitment to write a blog every day from now until the end of the semester.  An admirable goal, but mine is much more vague.  I just don't think I can fulfill such a specific promise like Jessica.  Anyway, I'll do my best to write blogs more frequently.  In the meantime, I'll give you links to the blogs of our coworkers, Katie and Jessica.
Katie:  http://katiemarshall.blogspot.com
Jessica:  http://jesscusterinchina.blogspot.com

Day 7: 杭州 HangZhou

When we went to the train station in Shanghai to buy our tickets to Hangzhou, the woman in the ticket booth told us there were no seats left on the train.  Begrudgingly, we bought standing tickets and made our way through the mob of people to our platform.  For such an international city, Shanghai has an incredibly confusing train station.  In a very foul mood, we eventually boarded the train, prepared to stand in the aisles with our heavy packs for the next few hours.  However, when we got into our car, we were surprised to find that nearly every seat was empty.  We still don't understand why the woman sold us standing tickets, but when we travel, there is a lot we don't understand.

The city we were visiting next is called HangZhou.  Within China, it is very famous for Xi Hu, a beautiful lake that is known for being the inspiration for dozens of famous Chinese poets.  This was actually the place I was looking forward to the most...three days relaxing in a hostel near to a lake so beautiful it is the stuff of poetry.  However, perhaps it would have been best to visit in June, rather than February.  When we arrived, it was pouring rain.  We took a taxi from the train station, but the driver would only take us to the street our hostel was on before dumping us on the sidewalk in the rain to find the hostel on our own.  Each of us carrying two heavy bags and an umbrella, we plodded down the street for what seemed like hours, trying unsuccessfully to find our hostel in a foreign city without a map.  We tried to get another taxi, but they all refused us.  We asked several locals if they knew where it was; none of them had even heard of it.  The situation was hopeless.  We were completely soaked from our knees down, our shoes were filled with water.  As the rain got heavier, so did our bags.  After an hour of this, despair set in.  Zack was furious, I began crying like an infant.  Another 45 minutes passed...what happened next was what I then considered to be nearly miraculous:  somehow, we found the hostel.  Looking back, I don't even remember how it happened.  But we were there.

We spent the next three days traipsing out in the rain and then traipsing back to the hostel to dry our clothes with a hairdryer.  Unfortunately, we didn't see much of the lake at all because of the constant rain, meaning we have no pictures.  The picture I included is one I found on the internet.  The highlight of the trip was our visit to a Brazilian restaurant.  The picture of Zack is him eating a duck head at the Brazilian place.  I realize that I spend a lot of time in my blogging talking about food.  But you don't realize how big a part of your life food is until everything familiar to you disappears.  When we're missing home, nothing provides as much comfort as a taste of home in the form of a Western meal.

After HangZhou, we made a short and rather uninteresting trip to another city to visit a friend before heading back to Yichang.  When we returned to our apartment, we were exhausted, but had gained experiences we will never forget...not to mention an enormous amount of souvenirs.

Day 6 - 上海 Shanghai

The plane from Beijing brought us to Shanghai around 10 pm in the middle of the pouring rain.  Every kind of travel in China is exhausting, so we were beat as we staggered outside the airport hoping to find a taxi.  What we found was a line of hundreds of people wrapped around the front of the airport, waiting for taxis.  Likewise, there were hundreds of taxis waiting in line for passengers.  Three at a time, taxis would pull forward while a security guard waved passengers to their open doors.  After waiting in line for more than an hour in the rain, we finally made it to the front of the line and had our turn in a taxi.

The first taxi driver shooed us away because he'd never heard of the place we wanted to go.  The second driver didn't know either, but he wasn't about to give up his chances to drive us foreigners to our destination.  So, he put our bags in his trunk, called our hostel, and asked for directions.  Eventually he figured it out, and 45 minutes and a rather expensive fare later, we made it to our hostel.

When we woke up in the morning, our sixth day of traveling, we had a goal that had nothing to do with the city of Shanghai:  laundry.  When we left our home city, we only packed enough clothes as would fit in our backpacks, so by the time we hit Shanghai we were rather dirty.  Our hostel in Shanghai happened to have a washer and dryer.  We brought our clothes down to the laundry room to find the machines were full.  We came back an hour later and put our clothes in.  Another hour passed, and we went back, hoping to switch everything to the dryer.  What we found was that someone had put twice as much clothes as they should have in the dryer, with hours left on the timer.  A few hours later, we finally got to put our clothes in the dryer.  They weren't dry after, you guessed it, hours.  By now it was 4 pm and we were starting to worry that we wouldn't get to do anything in Shanghai.  You see, we had spent the entire day in our pajamas because ALL our clothes were in the wash.  Eventually we decided to take matters into our own hands.  We spent the next hour drying our clothes using an iron and a hair dryer.  Ridiculous?  Yes.  But when you live in a foreign country, ridiculous is relative.  Finally we left the hostel and climbed onto the subway wearing our still-damp jeans.

By now it was dinnertime, so we decided to take advantage of the fact that Shanghai has so much to offer in the way of foreign foods.  We went to a mall and witnessed the most incredible array of American restaurants:  Papa John's, Coldstone Creamery, Subway, Carl's Jr., and Starbucks.  (I’ve included a picture.)  As if that wasn't enough, this mall contained what I considered to be the promised land in China:  an American candy store!!!  Hershey's Kisses, Reese's, Twizzlers, Whoppers, chocolate chips, Symphony bars, Heath bars, peppermint patties, chocolate covered pretzels, Milk Duds, Jolly Ranchers, chocolate syrup, and more.  Considering my near obsession with candy and the fact that in our home city I can only buy M&Ms, Skittles, and Snickers, I almost wept tears of joy.  The only downside was the prices...a bag of chocolate chips for nearly $10?  No thanks.  However, I did indulge in some licorice and Whoppers.

After we had our fill of American goodies, we made our way back to the hostel to get some rest, since we were leaving the next morning.  So, all in all, we did two things in Shanghai:  wash our clothes and eat American food.  And while some travelers would gasp in horror at our lack of effort to experience the real Shanghai, I consider our visit to be a success.

Beijing: Days 4-5

On the morning of our fourth day in China's capital city, I stayed in bed (if a plank of plywood with a sheet on it can be called a bed).  Some of the more adventurous travelers in our group set off before dawn to see the flag-raising ceremony at sunrise in Tian'anmen Square.  However, still feeling exhausted from our trek up and down the Great Wall the previous day, and having no desire to find out how cold Beijing must be without sunlight, Zack and I decided to let this experience fall by the wayside.  After breakfast, Zack joined the rest of our friends for a visit to the Forbidden City; I stayed behind, still playing the "too-tired-from-the-Great-Wall" card.  So, if you want to hear about the Forbidden City, you'll have to ask Zack, for I have nothing to say on the matter.

After everyone returned from the Forbidden City, we had lunch and then decided we would go to visit the Temple of Heaven.  We were excited about this particular attraction, because this is the place where the ancient Chinese made sacrifices to the "heavenly emperor," in a way not dissimilar to that of the ancient Israelites.  Unfortunately, we had set our hopes a little too high, and most of us were a bit bored with the temple.  It had been heavily restored, so any of the ancient-ness we had looked forward to was...well, ancient history.  But, I have included a picture so you can at least see what it looks like.

After leaving the Temple of Heaven, we decided our next stop would be Beijing's famous snack street.  Probably most of you saw glimpses of this street on TV when the Olympics were held in Beijing in 2008.  The news anchors showed foods like scorpion shish-kabobs, if you remember.  Well, for such a famous place, it was nearly impossible to find.  After consulting a guidebook, a map, a policeman, and several passersby, and after wandering around for over an hour, we finally found it:  the land overflowing with milk and honey...or rather scorpions and centipedes.  I will try to list for you some of the "foods" we saw that night:  scorpions, centipedes, grasshoppers, starfish, lizards, worms, caterpillars, sea-horses, and sparrows.  Of course, they were also selling more palatable foods, like legs of mutton and fruit on a stick.  None of us dared to try any of the more...exotic cuisine; not even Zack, who claims the only reason he didn't try something was that the prices were too high.  However, we all sampled some of what I believe is the best food in all of China:  candy-coated fruit on a stick.  They dipped all kinds of fruit in a clear, sugary liquid and let it dry, so it looks like glass:  strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, mandarin oranges, even crab apples.  Our favorite was the strawberry; I included a picture of Katie and Jessica and me enjoying our snack.  Even though I felt like I could eat 20 of them, we all tried to curb our eating, because our next destination was a Peking Duck restaurant.

When the waitress brought our food to the table, I nearly wept tears of joy.  An entire meal before us, and not a single appearance of the chili peppers I'm all too familiar with in Yichang.  I am now convinced that Peking Duck is the second-best food in all of China, after the candy-coated strawberries.  Of course, when I shared these feelings with my friends back in Yichang, they looked at me with surprise and told me that they thought that the duck I considered to be mind-blowingly delicious was "bland."  For the first time since we moved to China, I left a restaurant feeling genuinely full.  As I blissfully drifted off to sleep that night, I dreamt of a land full of duck and strawberries, where nobody has heard of chili peppers or tofu.

The next morning, we set off for our final attraction in Beijing:  the Silk Market.  We were very excited about this, because when you think China, you think silk.  Also, our trip to the Pearl Market was so awesome, we figured that the Silk Market would be the same.  We were wrong.  On the one hand, the merchandise was beautiful...silk dresses, robes, ties, scarves, table runners, purses, as well as the usual hodge-podge of tourist souvenirs.  However, the prices were astronomical and the vendors were either extremely rude or annoying.  They refused to budge on their exorbitant prices, possibly because we are foreigners and they assumed we were naive enough to buy their products for ten times what they were worth.  In one particular stall, we spent a few minutes looking at scarves while the sweet salesgirls politely helped us.  Just like we had in every other stall, we told the girls we wanted to have a look around and then maybe we'd come back.  When they heard this, they were incensed, and suddenly transformed from sweet and polite young ladies to vicious fire-breathing hags.  They shouted at us, "you stupid Americans!  you are all the same, you stupid!  stupid!  stupid!"  This is extremely out of character for a Chinese person to shout at a foreigner; usually foreigners are treated with respect and people will fall over themselves trying to leave the foreigners with a good impression of China.  Needless to say, we quickly emptied our hands of the scarves we were considering buying and promptly left, while the silk-hawking hags shouted more insults after us.  

When we left the Silk Market, we had very little in our bags but plenty in our wallets, so we went to Starbucks to recuperate before dinner.  After a hurried dinner, we packed up our completely overloaded backpacks and took the subway to the airport.  We said goodbye to Beijing and started to look forward to our next destination:  Shanghai.

长城 Beijing Day 3

On our third day in Beijing, we set out to accomplish what we had come to Beijing to do in the first place: climb the Great Wall of China.  While I am not particularly fond of traveling long distances, sight-seeing, or hiking, I did all three just to see the world-famous wall.  You may ask, "Elizabeth, why did you even go if you don't like any of those things?"  The answer can be summed up by the picture above. I wanted to be able to say "yes" when I come home and you all ask, "did you see the Great Wall?"  And I wanted to have a picture to prove it.  Now I do.

Getting there was no simple task in itself. Most tourists who come to Beijing to see the Great Wall book a tour. We didn't want to do this for two reasons. Firstly, it costs about double the price to go with a tour. Secondly, we fancy ourselves locals and are constantly trying to avoid being suckered into the overpriced things like the other foreigners.  Of course, the reason most foreigners book a tour is because going on one's own, especially when you are neither fluent in Chinese nor familiar with Beijing, is quite an undertaking.  Armed with a subway map and a guidebook, we were on our way.  When we got to the subway stop the guidebook told us about, we stepped outside and asked some security guards where to go.  They gave us a very confused look, and then unconvincingly pointed, "that-a-way."  We hiked up the street alongside the highway, foolishly confident that we could find the bus stop we were looking for.  After investigating three wrong bus stops, we found what we thought was the right one.  This was when the real pandemonium started.  Allow me to give you a play-by-play:

"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"No...you want the fast bus...it's over there."
We walk "over there."
"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"No...this is the slow bus...that one is the fast bus."
We walk to the second bus in line.
"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"Yes, but..." [insert incoherent babbling] "...go over there" (points to the original stop we were at)
We go back to the original stop.
"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"Yes, but it won't come for 20 more minutes."
20 minutes pass.  The bus pulls up.
"Excuse me, is this the bus to the Great Wall?"
"Yes, but this is the slow bus.  You probably want the fast bus."
"Where is the fast bus?"
"Over there."  [points to one of the buses we've already been to]
"But you can take us to the Great Wall?"
"Yes, it costs 20 yuan per person."
We resign in our efforts to find the elusive "fast bus," pay the fare, and board the "slow bus."

When we finally settled  on the right bus, we realized why it was called the "slow bus."  Apparently, it was simply a city bus that made many stops throughout the city, one of which happened to be near 八达岭 Badaling, a section of the Great Wall.  But, no matter...slowly or not, we were on our way to see the most famous structure in all of China.

As we neared 八达岭 Badaling, we could catch glimpses of the wall through the bus window.  Zack began frantically snapping pictures in spite of the fact that the grimy windows would undoubtedly make for poor photos.  He was effectively announcing to everyone on the bus that we were tourists; of course, if they saw our "is this the bus to the Great Wall" routine, they already knew.

When the bus dumped us off in the center of all the touristy souvenir shops, we began to wander around, looking for the entrance.  After some confusion, we found it and paid the entrance fee of 40 yuan per person (about $5).  First, a little about 八达岭 Badaling, the section of the wall we chose to visit.  Parts of the Great Wall were built as long ago as the 5th century BC, but 八达岭 Badaling was built during the Ming Dynasty, in the 1400s.  The older parts of the wall have mostly been abandoned and left to fall into disrepair, but Badaling has been heavily restored several times.  It was the first section of the wall to be opened to tourists, in 1957.  Some of the more committed tourists don't like it, because it's "not real" anymore.  However, it is the most popular section for most tourists to visit, Chinese and foreign alike.  As we began our ascent, we were acutely aware of this fact.  Because we've been in China for so long and because there are only a handful of foreigners in our home city, we couldn't keep ourselves from staring at every other foreigner we passed.  Eventually, though, we had to tear ourselves away from staring at their strange white or black faces and focus on the wall itself.

In spite of its debatable authenticity, it was awesome.  As we scaled the steep incline, the freezing mountain wind whipping around our faces, we were stunned by the ruggedness of the terrain.  It was unbelievable that people were able to achieve such a feat as this, especially in ancient times.  It's really like an emblem, hailing the determination of the Chinese people, their unyielding willpower.  In any case, we both rather enjoyed the exhausting climb up and down the wall, in spite of the fact that the Coke in Zack's pocket exploded mid-trek.  As I sit here with my computer in front of me, searching for the words to describe the Great Wall of China, I find myself at a loss.  What can I say about the world-famous structure that is so awesome and huge that you can see it from space?  I'm afraid I'm going to have to give up and just insist that each and every one of you go to see it for yourselves.  After all, as Chairman Mao famously said, "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man."  I'm not sure what that says about me.

天安门 Beijing Day 2

On our second day in Beijing, we took our sweet time getting up in the morning.  Actually that's not entirely accurate...we woke up at the crack of dawn due to the harder than granite beds...but we had a leisurely morning sitting around the hostel before we left to do the touristy things.  After lunch, we bundled up and set off for our first tourist destination:  Tian'anmen Square.  It's one of the most famous places in all of China, perhaps second only to the Great Wall...it's the largest public square in the world and home to the tomb of Mao Zedong.  The name means "Gate of Heavenly Peace."  There was nothing special going on when we got there, so we just walked around a bit and took a bunch of pictures while our fingers, toes, and faces slowly froze.  The picture above is Zack standing in front of the famous building in Tian'anmen Square, and even though I've been there, I still don't know exactly what the building is for.  After passing through the square, we decided we would go to the Forbidden City.  Apparently it was even more forbidden than we thought, because when we got up to the entrance at 3:01 the guards informed us that they closed the gates at 3:00 and we were no longer welcome.  Sighing as loudly and obviously as we could, we turned around and marched away, trying to decide what to do next.  We (the girls) eventually decided we would go to Beijing's famous Pearl Market.  The boys followed, obviously bored but without anything better to do.  

The Pearl Market was sensational, stupendous, and spectacular.  All the touristy shopping I could ever ask for in one single building!  The place was packed with merchandise and hawkers shouting from their stalls in both Chinese and English, touting their wares.  Their tactics are numerous, from offering special deals "only for you" to trying to inflict guilt by claiming you are pushing their children into starvation if you don't pay their ridiculously high price.  The first floor contained everything you imagine of China...silk scarves, chopsticks, fans, tea, and knock-off rolexes.  After a while, we figured out that the pearls were upstairs and made our way up to what we had been looking forward to for so long.  Each stall had hundreds of strands of pearls, some as cheap as 30 yuan -- just over 4 dollars.  Some were fake, but many were real.  Delighted, we girls scooped up as many pearls as we could without feeling guilty before we realized that the boys had almost died of boredom and we all decided to leave.  We went to a place nearby in search of food and found a Dairy Queen...while we had intended to eat Chinese food for dinner, it proved to be impossible to turn down the prospect of a true American hotdog for only 8 yuan.  Never before has a hotdog seemed like a gourmet meal to me.  It was fantastic.  Thoroughly satisfied with our purchases and our full stomachs, we traipsed back to the hostel and hit the hay, dreaming of our third day in Beijing.

Travels day 1

Since the last time I wrote, we have finished our travels through
China, celebrated the Chinese New Year, rested for two weeks, and begun
a new semester. True, that I had plenty of time to write; however, I felt
as though writing was work, and because I was on vacation, I put off writing
until now. The last you all heard from me, we were sitting in a
Starbucks in Beijing. Soon after, we plunged ourselves into all the
excitement and wonder (not to mention pain and travail) that traveling
in China had to offer us. Since it's hard for me to catalogue
everything that happened in an intelligible fashion, I will break it
down into days.

Day 1- Arrive in Beijing. At this point we were a little worried about
finding our hostel. We were in one of the biggest cities on planet
earth, and didn't know what we were doing. We could try a taxi, but
that would be expensive and there was no guarantee that the driver
would have ever even heard of the place. Eventually we decided to take a
bus from the airport to the train station, where we bought subway
tickets. For the first time in our lives, we rode a subway! After
getting off the subway, we wandered around the streets and hutongs
until we miraculously stumbled upon our hostel. After a short respite,
we left the hostel in search of lunch. I was so excited to finally
experience the food in a different part of China! In our home city,
about 99% of the food is blow-your-head-off spicy, which I loathe.
Everybody had been telling me that I would love the food in other
cities, and for a year and a half I had been waiting for this day.
With an empty stomach and a heart full of confidence, I followed Zack
and a Chinese friend out on to the streets, looking for a restaurant.
If only I could warn poor past-Elizabeth, "Don't get your hopes up! Failure
is imminent!". But foolishly, we went in the first restaurant we saw,
only to find after we had already sat down, that we had entered a
Hunan restaurant. Hunan's claim to fame is their tongue-scorchingly
spicy cuisine. The waitress assured us that the cook could make us
some food that wasn't spicy. LIES! After a few minutes, the waitress
brought out three dishes chock-full of chili peppers. I tell you all
of this to say that my first meal in Beijing was a bag of Lays potato
chips, which I ate defiantly in front of the lying waitress while Zack
and the Chinese friend gobbled up the fire-food. After "lunch," we
spent the rest of the day wandering through the streets, shopping and
bartering with the local vendors. To our surprise, nearly all of them
spoke a reasonable amount of English. "Hello friend, you want silk
scarf? I give you discount on chopsticks because we friends!" Soon
enough, we tired of both the hassling and the cold, and returned to
our hostel to rest for the evening. I'm quite sure that I've already
mentioned that sleeping on a Chinese bed is like cuddling up to a slab
of concrete. It's no wonder I always see people falling asleep on the
bus; it must be more comfortable than their beds. At least in Beijing they
use heaters.

北京 Beijing, baby!

That's right, at this very moment I am sitting at Starbucks in
Beijing...drinking a something-ccino and stuffing a blueberry muffin
in my mouth as fast as I can. It's not because I'm hungry or in a
hurry; I just want to inhale all of the American-ness at once before
it slips through my fingers. (yes, even though we're in the most
famous city in China, to us it is like a taste of home.). We left on
Tuesday afternoon, and already we have seen Starbucks, Dairy Queen, 7-
Eleven, Papa John's, Walmart, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Hooters. (we
skipped visiting the latter.) But please don't misunderstand, we
intend to experience all we can of real Beijing...the great wall,
Tiananmen Square, Peking duck, the silk market, and the gleaming new
subway system. After we finish our rounds through Beijing, we plan
to visit Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wenzhou, more famous places in
China. After what I'm certain will be an exhausting 2 weeks, we will
return to our apartment in Yichang, hopefully with a few good stories
and great pictures to share with you.

Merry Belated Christmas?

Here's the thing.  It's not that I didn't want to update all of you on our lives during the holidays...it's just that I didn't feel it was all that exciting.  And to tell you the truth, a ho-hum holiday is exactly what we wanted.  You see, excitement isn't always good when you're in a foreign country.  Sure, if we ate roast dog for Christmas dinner or had a bamboo Christmas tree or had a Christmas morning earthquake...we’d have some very fascinating stories to tell.  But, while excitement and stories are great for any other day, it’s the last thing we wanted on Christmas.  So, perhaps you can understand why I’m thrilled to report that we have nothing to report.  We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with our closest friends, Katie and Jessica.  We holed up in our apartment and gathered around the Christmas tree, ate Christmas cookies, watched It’s a Wonderful Life, stuffed stockings, opened gifts, and enjoyed a Christmas dinner.  Just like you!  There’s nothing better than having a few days when you feel like you’re at home.  The day after Christmas, it was back to reality, and we had a huge Christmas party for all of our friends...the final count was 31 people.  We ate store-bought cookies (shaped like snowmen, flavored like beans), listened to Christmas music, read the Christmas story, and played white elephant/dirty Santa.  The pictures above are of our Christmas tree and of some of our friends at our Christmas party.  I wish I could put several more pictures up, but alas, I am still extremely limited by the “Great Firewall.”  But as always, if you want to see more of our pictures, you can go to our Picasa page...I just put up pictures from the month of December.
Our Picasa page:   http://picasaweb.google.com/elizabethopheim/

For New Year’s Eve, our school took all of the foreigners out to eat.  We all got on a bus and drove for about an hour to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.  During the bus ride, somebody shouted to our boss, “Jian, where are we going?”  Jian responded, “to a slave market!”  While we love his sense of humor, the whole night was a little unbearable.  The food was super weird, the restaurant felt like it was in the middle of Antarctica, and the drunkenness of the other foreigners made us embarrassed and uncomfortable.  After it was finally over, we got home and Zack bought a giant pack of fireworks to try to redeem the evening, and we rang in the New Year with the explosives...of course, we had our New Year about 14 hours before you all did.

Now we are just finishing up the semester, getting into our final exams at last.  We are exhausted, and definitely ready for classes to be finished so that we can have a rest.  But, we are also extremely optimistic about next semester and what is in store for us and our work here.  We hope you can keep us and our Family here in your thoughts as we prepare for a New Year of work.