Wo ai nin zhong guo

Saturday was the 8th annual tourism festival in Yichang.  We were invited to go to the festival by the Yichang Foreign Affairs office, so we loaded onto a bus with foreigners from all different countries...America, Britain, France, Norway, Romania, Australia, and Japan...and of course China.  We spoke in five different languages yesterday, even if it was just a few words in each.  After an hour long bus ride, we went to a show/performance in front of the Three Gorges Dam.  Almost all of the songs were specifically written for the event about the dam.  We were seated relatively close to the front, while all of the Chinese people with us had to go and sit in the back...we were supposed to be "special guests."  Apparently, special guests is way of saying, "we're going to put you in these seats so that all the photographers and news crews can harass you."  So many people were shoving cameras in our faces, it was ridiculous.  Katie counted once and said that in one minute, six people took pictures of us.  And it was like that for almost the entire 2 1/2 hours.  The performances were...interesting.  And loud.  Some of the singers were obviously just doing the lip sync along to a CD thing.  Some of them were famous people.  One of the last songs was sung by someone we think was famous, and the words we understood were "wo ai nin zhong guo"... "i love you, China."  To better describe our time, I'll show some pictures.

Police officers marching to the performance

This is the man who was sitting in front of us posing with a dolphin mascot.  This is about 15 seconds after he was hitting the dolphin on the head with a toy inflatable hammer.  Yes, he's an adult, but he was acting more like a six year old.

Cool colored smoke and confetti

Some drummers during the opening performance

You can see this large drum hanging over the stage in the colored smoke picture.  Later in the show, the drum was lowered to be level and a man came out of it and started dancing.

We have some videos of some of the performances that I am trying to upload to the internet, but as of now, it's not working.  Perhaps in the future.  After the show, we went to dinner with the Foreign Affairs Office, and then to a fireworks show at the river.  The fireworks were incredible.  The Chinese invented fireworks, so they really know how to do it right.  Our only complaint was that our seats were right at the front which happened to be right next to the speakers that were blasting Chinese operatic music so loud that we had to shove toilet paper in our ears.  But, the fireworks were like I've never seen in America...it was sublime.

Beyond the tourism festival, we don't have much to say.  We have settled into a routine of going to class, spending time with friends, and eating at the same restaurants.  Our students continue to amaze us with how happy and willing they are to spend time with us.  One girl approached me the other day out of nowhere, saying that she wasn't my student but she wished she was and wanted to be my friend.  Later that day she sent me a text message that said, "Hi, I am Snowy.so happy to meet you today .you are really friendly and beautiful.I like talking with people and making friends.I also want to have insights into your culture.I beleive we can bridge the gap between the granite and form unforgettale friendship."  We're so lucky to be here with such fantastic people.

This week we are off from school, because Wednesday is Chinese National Day.  Some Friends of ours from another city are in Yichang with us and tomorrow we will leave for a 3-day cruise through the Three Gorges.  I'm certain we will be posting pictures of this in the near future.

Mooncakes and Tea Leaves

Today marks two weeks of being in China. With the exception of some seemingly irreconcilable culinary differences between China and us (mostly me), we are settling in and living comfortably here in Yichang. One piece of good news is that we have managed to find a few american foods: oreos, skippy peanut butter, lays potato chips, and some coffee for Zack. We exaggerate, of course, but here are some pictures related to our eating experiences:

It's not that Zack was so hungry he had to eat a grasshopper...it's just that it was the biggest grasshopper we'd ever seen.

Today, in an attempt to buy chicken to make chicken noodle soup, we ended up with a frozen cornish hen...head, beak, toes, and all. Zack is teaching little Corny to perch on his finger.

In case you were wondering, the soup was delicious. After two weeks, we have begun almost all of our classes. Our schedules are final, as far as we know. Zack has 16 hours -- five video-audio classes and two listening classes. Elizabeth has 14 hours -- three audio-video classes, two listening classes, and two American film and music classes. We both have Thursday off, which is excellent. For the most part, our students are the sweetest and funniest people. Most of them, especially the freshmen, are so excited to have American teachers that they can't seem to take their eyes off of us. Both Zack and I have had to spend time after our classes while our students take pictures of and with us. We are constantly hearing things like, "I am so happy to have you as my teacher" and "I am so excited to have foreign friends" and "You are a beautiful teacher." They also open up to us quite readily. When we ask them to tell us something about themselves, instead of saying "my favorite color is blue" they give a speech about their hopes and dreams and are always offering to be our guides should we ever choose to come to their hometown. One thing we are doing with all of our classes is inviting them to come over to our apartment. When we suggest this in class, the students all beam and start whispering excitedly to each other. We have had a few troubles with our classes, but only in terms of broken computers or technical misunderstandings; the students are all awesome. We have heard so many times in the past week from our students, "I want to have foreign friends. Maybe I can be your Chinese friend."

This is one of the groups that came over to our apartment. We have had four groups so far; 24 people. Every time a group comes over, we serve them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and play the Un-game. The un-game is just that...not a game. It is actually just a deck of cards with conversational questions, which we play as a way to get to know people. In this picture, everyone is saying "qie zi" (chee-ay zuh) which means eggplant. (Their version of saying, "cheese!")

After just two weeks of school, our first break is this weekend. Sunday is mid-autumn festival, so we have Monday off. It will be nice to have a short break; we hope we can spend some of the time getting to know some of our students better. As far as we can tell, mid-autumn festival is just a day when they look at the moon, spend time with family, and eat mooncakes. Zack and I were each presented with a box of mooncakes from our school. They were described to us as fig newtons...which was true in appearance, but far from true in taste. I guess the more weird things we eat, the more we learn about China. We didn't know until we got to class today, but today was Teachers' Day! I actually didn't find out immediately because my students either forgot or they just don't like me...Zack came to find me during the break between classes to show me the cards that his students hand-made for him. Throughout the rest of the day, we both received about a dozen "happy teachers' day" text messages from our students. Even so, by the end of the day I was feeling a little jealous of Zack because of all the cards his students made him. However, we had a group of students come this evening and as they walked in the door they presented me with a large stuffed animal dog. I was delighted, and now Zack is the jealous one.

Teachers' Day gift and a box of Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes.

The best way for us to describe our experiences here is that we are excited. We love the people here and are so glad that we are able to get to know them as the opportunities present themselves.

A difficult life

We are having an awesome experience in China.  Our hosts treat us exceptionally well.  All of the people we've met have been very kind.  After having met some people from different places in the past few years, I've got to say there is something special about the Chinese.  Both acquaintances and complete strangers have treated us as welcomed guests, and we are thankful for that.    

Today we spent time with some of our co-teachers who have been here in Yichang for a few years.  We had a good time encouraging one another for the upcoming year, eating spaghetti, drinking green tea and getting to know each other.  Our friends have totally helped to make us comfortable, showing us around the city and helping to equip us with cell phones (I got a phone with 4000 use-as-you-please minutes for only $50!).  I really am looking forward to meeting my English students next week.  The plan is for Elizabeth and I to invite all of our students to our apartment in small groups to enjoy peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches (a treat most of them have never heard of).  We'll be sure to post pictures of this happy event in the weeks to come.  I think Elizabeth will be eating a lot of PBJ's while we are in China, since she hates virtually all Chinese food save rice.  

So excited,

Zack 

"Like it or not, you're in China."

That's what our boss said to us during our "orientation" meeting.  We now have our class schedules, have settled into our apartment, and are adjusting to the food.  But, today is not a blog day, today is a picture day.

This is the dinner we ate with our boss (the chinese man with the blue shirt sitting between two white guys) and other foreign teachers.  There was definitely some weird food, but thankfully, since there was so much food, there was also some edible food.  Zack ate raw fish skin and a frog, but I ate bamboo and green beans.  Maybe you can tell from the picture...in China, when you go to a restaurant, everyone shares the food.  Instead of each person ordering one thing, many dishes are ordered and everyone scoops what they want on to their own small plate.  If it is a big group, they put all the dishes on a huge lazy susan (as you see in the picture) and you just spin it to get the food you want.

This is one of the dishes that came around the lazy susan to look at us.

And now, pictures of our apartment...in a strange order.

This is our bathroom...the thing on the left is a washing machine, the toilet is in the shower.

This is our dining room/refridgerator

Eating Chinese ramen noodles and Chinese grape juice

This is the view from one of our windows...more campus apartments.

This is not of our apartment, obviously...this is the library at our school.

This is what you see when you first walk in the door of our house.

Zack making dinner in our stinky kitchen.

Our living room

Our bedroom

So, that's it.  In some ways, living here is like we are celebrities.  When we were walking around campus yesterday, a student and her mom or aunt saw us walking and stopped us so that they could take pictures with us.  The woman just grabbed us by the arms and drug us around the sidewalk for various poses with her and her daughter.  When she decided she had enough, she told us "i love you!" and walked away laughing.  Because of things like this and other reasons, China is still a very strange place to us.

Wo yao shui

Well, it is the fourth day of our journey to China.  We spent the first three days getting here, so today (thursday) was our first full day.  After an excruciatingly long trip, it feels great to be here in our own home in China.

Highlights of our trip:

 - finally learning to count to 10 in Chinese

 - man in front of me on the plane spilling wine on my things

 - eating some strange food in a restaurant outside the airport

 - using my first "squatty potty"

 - riding with three people, two backpacks, and a suitcase in the backseat of a car for four hours

I'm not sure we have ever been as relieved as we were coming into our apartment last night.  It was clean and full of furniture for us to rest on.  Our apartment is really quite large...probably bigger than our house was in America even.  We have a living room with a TV and a nice leather couch and loveseat and chair.  We have a kitchen table that is really nice and a kitchen complete with microwave, stove, toaster oven, and regular oven (!!!!), even if it is a bit odiferous.  We have a nice hot shower and a washing machine, both of which we couldn't appreciate more.  There are three bedrooms in our apartment, a big surprise to us, and plenty of places to put all of our clothes.  And, our bedroom has a hardwood floor!  There is an air conditioner in both the living room and our bedroom, which is great when we can figure out how to use them.  

After a short look in our apartment, we all met for dinner at a restaurant nearby.  The food was.....strange.  Everything was very spicy, and to my chagrin, we learned that Yichang is famous for its spicy food.  I'm preparing myself for a year of plain rice.  Some things were even too weird for Zack...he tried some eel and I was shocked to find out he didn't like it.  It probably didn't help that we had no more than 7 hours of sleep each in over 40 hours.  To say that we were exhausted is an understatement...we were zombies.

Ten wonderful delightful hours of sleep later, we woke up to get ready for our day.  Ravenous due to the strange foods the night before, I immediately broke into my oatmeal stash we brought from home.  No food has ever tasted so good.  Our first activity for the day was to meet Jian (our foreign affairs helper) in order to go to the hospital to have our physicals.  We were expecting a physical like one you would get in the U.S....check your height, weight, blood pressure, heartbeat, etc.  What we got was strange, awkward, terrifying, and for me, traumatic.  The nurses gave us a paper with a list of the places we were to go inside the hospital and with our names on the back side.  I glanced down at one side of the paper and everything was in Chinese leaving me totally clueless except for one single horrifying word in English: BLOOD.  I held back the tears until it was actually my turn.  As the nurse grabbed my hand through the small hole in the glass separating us, I lost it.  I'm sure all the Chinese around me were in hysterics watching this foreigner bury her face in her husband's belly and sob all because of a small needle and an ounce of blood.  After I recovered and the nurses stopped laughing, we embarked on our 2 hour journey to different rooms all around the hospital.  We had what was similar to an American physical, an eye exam, chest X-rays, some sort of ultrasound thing, and something that we are still not sure about involving electric wires and suction cups.  

Relieved to be done with the hospital, we went to one bank to exchange our money into Chinese yuan (6.8 yuan to the USD), and then to a different bank on campus to open bank accounts.  When Zack and I asked Jian if we could get a joint account, he looked at us like we were nuts for wanting to combine our money, so we ended up with separate accounts.  At about noon, we went to the grocery store to find umbrellas because it had been raining all day long.  We bought a few things from the grocery store...bread, strawberry jam, bao ze (like a peruski), water, and "sesame jam."  We asked for peanut butter and ended up with sesame jam...it looked and smelled similar to peanut butter...until we stirred it.  Then it looked like glue and Zack said it tasted awful.  I don't think I'll be trying that one; hopefully we will be able to find peanut butter at a different supermarket.  After lunch, we had a rest (common in China) and then found out where some offices are on campus so that we will be able to find them when we need them.  Then, Zack and I and Katie (another teacher who came with us from OC), went to find water.  Everyone here has water coolers to get their water since we can't drink tap water.  Jian didn't come with us this time, so we were on our own.  When we got to the water store, Katie and I stood back in amazement as Zack managed to buy 10 gallons of water and convince them to deliver the water to our apartments two hours later.  He insists his Chinese is terrible, but it was good enough to get us what we needed, so I am sold.  All I knew how to say was "wo yao shui" (I want water).

Now, at long last, we are at our home to rest until tomorrow.  Although we have only been here a day and a half, there are a few things we have noticed.  One thing is the driving.  Driving is scary in every foreign country, but here it isn't so much the speed as the lanes.  In America, lanes are there to guide you and keep you where you need to be.  In China, lanes are just vague suggestions.  It really isn't important to follow the lines to mark the lanes; as long as you don't crash into anyone then you are good.  Another thing we noticed was the tea in the restaurants.  Both restaurants we went to we ordered water to drink.  We didn't get it either time.  When we ask for water, they refill our cup with hot tea.  We asked Jian a second time for water, and he said "you have water" as he pointed to the teapot on the table.  We said, "no, water."  He replied, "you mean you want pure water?"  "YES."  Apparently some people have the idea that tea and water are the same thing.

Well, the sun just went down (at 7:30 pm) and the jet lag sure isn't helping me to think.  Thanks for reading and for thinking of us...we'll try to post pictures soon of our apartment.  Until then, zaijian.