Foreigner(s)!

Wai Guo Ren!  It's a phrase we hear no less than half a dozen times a day.  Sometimes muttered, sometimes with shock, sometimes shouted, sometimes with humor, and sometimes with mere observation.  The literal translation of the term (outside country person/people) is somewhat reminiscent of Jewish tradition where you're either Jew or Gentile, nothing in between.  Here, you're either an insider or outsider, a Chinese or a foreigner.  Now, that's not to say that the culture denigrates foreigners in any way.  Chinese hospitality is certainly well-known and celebrated for a reason. However, it is becoming increasingly clear, especially the longer we stay, that our differences are well noted and observed.

When I posted the pictures of our apartment, I joked about the eyes on our patio door (above), saying that we really didn't need any additional reminders about how very watched we are.  Sometimes we are watched with care - such as the student Friday who was concerned we weren't familiar with how to cross the street and that the stop lights might be different here than they are in America.  Sometimes it is with curiosity - such as the sweet elderly couple at the street market that tried to chit chat in the local dialect, or the drunk on the bus last night who made it oh so clear that he felt our Mandarin needs severe improvement.  However, the observation is seldom without comment.

Seemingly everywhere we go, we (unintentionally) cause a bit of a ruckus.  If I go to the department store to purchase a cell phone, or the market to buy eggs, my broken Mandarin causes a host of individuals to gather around out of a sense of personal confidence that they will suddenly be the magic gateway to clear communication.  If we go to the local mall to find bedding, the bored shopkeepers follow from store to store actively discussing amongst themselves what they think we might best like to purchase, only to have all their conjectures turned completely inside out when all we find (and purchase) is one measly pillow cover.

So, it came as little surprise that the students filled us in on the latest foreigner scoop at their first opportunity, which happened to be last Thursday night at English Corner.  It soon came to be known that we are no longer the only foreigners in town...in fact, a massive total of FIVE German individuals exists at a nearby university campus.  The town is all abuzz with the news.  What did, however, come as a surprise was that we actually ran into two of said German individuals last Friday at the gym.  Apparently, the gym is the unofficial hub for the Western foreigners here in our fair city.

In my experience, having similar pigmentation has never been reason enough to strike up a conversation, or even more so, a friendship.  However, the student accompanying us saw no reason as to why it shouldn't be.  So, with wide eyes she promptly informed me - in the presence of the two guys - that we "should talk!"  Thankfully, they were as baffled and amused at her reaction to the situation as I was and lighthearted conversation followed.  At the student's insistence, we made plans to meet up at another time.  In fact, a group of our foreign teachers at this campus met with them for dinner last night.  I must say, it was my first experience of going to hot pot where there were not any Chinese people with me.  In China, no less.  Who knows what might happen if the Swedish ever come to town.

First Class(es)

Last week was the official start date of classes for the university.  However, I didn't have my first class until yesterday.  For the foreign teachers, many of the days last week were spent in the main city nearby, working out various paperwork issues, making sure that we are all foreign experts who qualify to be legal residents, and are thereby legally able to teach.  Also, the freshmen students begin their classes two weeks later than the rest of the school in order to fulfill their military training duty.  I'll refrain from going into detail about how intimidating it can be to see waves upon waves of camo marching toward you (as they yell in a foreign language, in unison) when you just want to quietly sneak out the side gate and grab a mango milk tea.

So, yesterday I had my first two sophomore classes.  The classes themselves were fairly uneventful.  The students here, overall, are so respectful and polite that the greatest challenge (at least thus far) seems to be pulling them out of their shell enough that they're willing to speak English.  You know, for their Spoken English class.

Getting to class, on the other hand, has proven to be a bit more of a challenge.  At least in comparison to my alma mater of good ol' WT.  The classrooms are kept fully closed and locked when not in use.  The keys are kept in building 7 and it is each individual teacher's responsibility to sign out their key in advance of class and return it promptly as soon as class is dismissed (in case there is another teacher in that room for the next class period).  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, my morning session went fairly easily.  I went to the key room in building 7, told the key lady the room number in building 8 that I needed - she seemed quite surprised that I could ask for it in Chinese because she had just been muttering about "those foreigners" and, presumably, their non-Chinese-speaking ways.  I understood her frustration - some of them have been here a whole two weeks and still aren't fluent - tsk, tsk.  I thanked her and went on my way.  I hiked up to my classroom on the 4th floor, unlocked the doors, switched on the breakers, opened the windows, started the fans (only the 5th floor has AC), booted up the computer, and greeted my students as they arrived.  Once class was over, I did everything in reverse including the return of the keys.

When I arrived to pick up the keys for my afternoon class (5th floor! AC! Woohoo!), the key lady went into a bit of a tizzy at the room number.  Quite the discussion ensued.  Apparently the computers in the room were broken and she wanted me to use another, nearby classroom.  She then appointed a room on the 3rd floor for me (ok, so not exactly nearby).  At that point, an individual walked in and they had a discussion which she ended by asking him if he speaks English.  He responded with an affirming "Uh...maybe?"  Seeing a window of opportunity, she seized it and asked him to both explain to me everything the two of us had just discussed in English and to confirm my response.  Unsure of his English, once he realized I could speak/understand a little Chinese, most of his conversation was also in Chinese.  The result was the same, though the key lady appeared to feel much more satisfied.  Signing off, I scurried away to prepare for my class in the new room.  Thankfully, after setting up, I found a student to corner and ask if she was in my class.  She recognized me as her teacher (perhaps from one of the handy fliers circulating campus, like the one pictured below) and agreed to let her classmates know about the room change.

Dear America, Please Send Bleach.

Ok, so my title for this post was a bit of a joke...until I walked into the kitchen tonight and found roaches.  That's right, plural.  And then I died.  Anyway, without much further adieu, here are the initial photos of our place.  I do plan to update once further cleaning and decorating have happened.

This is the entry up to our apartment.  We're on the first floor, but it's still about 6 or 7 steps up.  To the left of the stairwell is where people tend to store their bikes, strollers, etc.

The door to the left belongs to the two single guys and the door to the right is ours.  The three married couples are in the same building, but they get a different wing and top sheets (I don't know why, but single beds only get a fitted sheet and duvet cover here - no flat sheets).

Entry view to our apartment - the kitchen is the door just inside to the right.

Kitchen view...

Washing machine - woot!  We may have to unplug our water heater in order to plug in the washing machine, and it may all be in code (or Chinese - you say tomato...), and we may have to hook up the hose to a weird nozzle in the sink, but it works!  And with the help of one of the nationals, we found some great-smelling detergent.

Isn't our little purple and gray refrigerator cute?

Here's part one of our big common area...the dining set.

Part two...the living room type space.  And yes, that lovely stripe on floral pattern mix?  Why, that's what we refer to as "double pretty" here in the middle kingdom.

As if we don't have enough reminders of how very watched we are here, we found these lovely stickers on our patio door.

Our cute, little bathroom...

My cell...errr, room!

 All of my clothes fit easily into this wardrobe after I downsized for the move.

That's it for now - we found a mall here in town and have been busy shopping and redecorating.  So, maybe I'll get some of those pictures up soon.  The place already looks a lot better than in the photos above.

But seriously, the first person to figure out how to get us gallons of bleach and/or bug bombs will be my hero. Forever.

A few of my favorite things...

Beijing

~Traffic in Beijing, like most large, international cities, can be a bit intense.  We ran into a few gridlocked situations ourselves.  It was most impressive to witness, during these occurrences, how the drivers would not only refrain from cursing, but from getting upset entirely.  Rather, in near unison, they would leave their vehicles altogether and take advantage of the unscheduled smoke break.  Three or four drivers stopped near each other would gather around a tailgate like old friends to discuss the latest goings on while puffing away contentedly.  Once traffic starting freeing up ahead, each would return to his respective taxi or bus and carry on as though nothing were amiss.

~As many of you know, this is a very community-minded/oriented society.  However, it's one thing to hear that and quite another to experience it at times.  When our driver picked us up at the hotel in Beijing to go to the airport, he was a bit amazed at the amount of luggage we were bringing.  Somehow, he was not nearly as amazed as another driver waiting at the hotel that had nothing to do with us, our luggage, or our transportation.  The second driver (Mr. BlueShirt) was heavily involved in making sure the bellhops, our driver and anyone within earshot heard his thoughts on the situation.  When I thanked the bellhop that had been helping us in Chinese, Mr. BlueShirt looked taken aback and asked "She can understand all this??"  Which, to be fair, given his expressions and the accompanying gesticulations, one need not be proficient in Mandarin to have understood what the man was trying to convey.  Of course, he then took the opportunity to approach me and tell me that our poor driver's car was probably much too small for our things as he pointed to an empty bus and suggested we take it instead.  I assured him that we had come to the hotel in a small car with our belongings and the return was also quite feasible.  He continued to supervise the situation, offering none but the most helpful of suggestions to our beleaguered driver.  As Arianne and I piled into the backseat (the front carried one suitcase) - she with her guitar stowed in front of her, me gesturing for her pack to be handed to me, Mr. BlueShirt repeatedly asked if I was absolutely certain I could handle riding all the way to the airport with that bag in my lap.  I assured him I was.  He was incredulous.  He insisted everyone around him share his incredulity.  Meanwhile, our driver was most concerned that his car was entirely out of sorts.  He had to move his tea canister from the trunk to the front seat floorboard, for Petie's sake!  Though, he, unlike Mr. BS, chose to bear his burden in silence, ever so stoically.

~The hotel in Beijing was super swank.  A massive breakfast buffet was included with our room.  One morning I was finishing up my juice after Arianne went back to the room and the guys behind me were covertly trying to practice their English, but not brave enough to approach me.  One of their group would walk away, act like he was just approaching them for the first time and regale them with "Hello!  Good morning, heh."  Then they would all echo the same lines before cracking up.  Boy, was I ever impressed.

CQ

~After arriving in our new city, one of the teachers graciously offered to take us to the bank to exchange some currency.  Apparently the currency exchange is separate from the normal hubbub of the rest of the bank operations.  It happens to be upstairs at the VIP counter.  While we were waiting for the teller to complete Arianne's exchange (and hearing about how she simply could not accept a $50 bill because it had a slight tear), I looked over to see a small little boy wearing the infamous split pants.  He was adorable!  He was having  a ball making his way around the large, lovely carpeted room while his mom was distracted by her business at the counter next to ours.  When next I looked up, he was across the room, right in the middle of it, and was just on the closing end of leaving a large puddle right there on the carpet!  His mom, then finished with her transaction, turned to quickly scoop him up and away they went.  I'm pretty sure my eyes turned into saucers.  As we turned to leave and walk across that very same room, I quickly warned my companions to watch their step.

~Sometime last Friday afternoon, we were informed that the president of the college would be hosting a dinner for us.  I'm pretty sure we were all relieved to see that our beverage choices were between Pepsi and warm soy milk, as opposed to cases of Tsingdao beer or the driest red wine you can imagine.  Although, considering this particular feast only included three or four proclamations of "Gan bei!" ("Bottoms up!") instead of the normal 218,345,676...we might would have been ok.  Considering that some of the other foreign teachers don't have much experience with Asia (and thereby chopsticks), this was a great opportunity to practice.  Especially considering they were the only utensils provided.  One of the guys was excited to have been able to pick up a piece of what may or may not have been some kind of jerky.  It made it quite nearly all the way to his plate before flailing out of his chopstick grasp, landing quite perfectly in his lovely glass stemware.

Over the years, I have learned that Chinese banquet food is simply not my favorite.  For some reason, the special and honorable food that is presented at these events (such as fish eyes, octopus salad, or mountain frog uterus soup) is just not as appealing to me as the ho-hum everyday offerings of chicken and rice or fried noodles.  In a lot of ways, this particular event was no different.  However, we had just been to a local restaurant the day before and enjoyed a most delectable dish of garlic-fried eggplant.  I was quite happy to see a similar-looking dish in front of me.  Fortunately, due to the banquets of the past I have attended, I have learned to always take just a bite of each dish and wait for it to come around the lazy susan again if it turns out to be delicious.  So, I grabbed my small portion of what I hoped to be as tasty as the previous day's eggplant  and excitedly bit into it.  It was both softer and chewier than I expected...causing me to think that perhaps I had misjudged and it was actually some kind of chopped mushroom.  I continued to chew, working my way down to the end of the piece when suddenly my teeth encountered a most unsettling crunch, accompanied by further crunching (and involuntary cringing).  It was apparent to me, at this point, that there were bones (albeit small ones) involved.  There also seemed to be some kind of small hook (talon?!) at the very end.  I began hastily searching my memory in an effort to uncover what could possibly be roving around my mouth.  This served as an entirely necessary distraction in order to occupy my mental faculties just long enough to allow me to swallow the thing without thinking too long or hard about it.  The only comparable thing my mind could come up with was a time when I had unknowingly been served stewed baby duck feet.  It was quite possible that what I had ingested was a full-sized duck foot that had been chopped length-wise into sections.  Oy, oh boy. Arianne, who had the pleasure of sitting next to some nationals, told me later that they were relatively certain that dish was actually small eels.  Either way, I'd be content to never experience that one again.

Chinese Takeout

During our stopover in Beijing, one night Arianne and I were suddenly famished.  Deciding that we'd likely have plenty of Chinese food over the course of the next year, we decided not to feel bad about prolonging the inevitable and opted to stop at KFC.  While standing in line, I was carefully practicing how to order the meal number we wanted.  We hadn't even made it to the counter before the cashier saw us coming and whipped out a very specific picture menu and directed us to just point out our order rather than try to understand us.  I still had a chance to confuse her when I ordered a Sprite for each of us.  Since they use Pepsi products, they only had 7up...which I don't know how to say.  Confusion abounded, but somehow, in the end, we all got what we wanted.

Our second night in Beijing, we (again) did not feel bad about getting one last bite of western food before heading out.  We made it back to the hotel before deciding on the nearby Pizza Hut.  I volunteered to be the gopher after we agreed that a veggie pizza would be quite tasty.  Pizza Hut is kind of a big deal here - it is a nice, sit down restaurant with a hostess, wait staff, etc, etc.  I successfully informed the hostess that I wanted to order "wai dai" (to go).  She directed me to a server just inside the door and the fun began.  The server handed me a (bilingual!!) picture menu.  I flipped past the seemingly limitless drink selection, the burgers, and who knows what all else until I found what I was looking for - Pizza!  I quickly scrolled through until I found the garden veggie pizza and noted all that was on it: bell peppers - both green and red, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, corn, and pineapple.  Uhhh, yeah, ok.  Arianne had informed me that she was not a fan of mushrooms and I had informed her that I wasn't sure how to say mushroom in Chinese, but that I would do my best.  So, the dialogue with the server began.  Loosely translated, it went something like this:

Me: I would like this one (pointing to veggie pizza).

Server: ' "" ' '' "

M: Uh, yeah, I would like this one, but I don't want...something (pointing to mushroom on picture).

S: Ok, you'd like this one.  But what is it you don't want?

M: I don't know how to say it in Chinese, but it's this (pointing to mushroom).

S: " ' " '''

M: I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

S: This is called "' ' " '

M: Uh..muo....g...?

S: No, muogu.

M: Muo...goo...?

S: Sure! What else would you like?

M: Ok, so, I want this pizza with no muogu.  Hmm.  And I'm not sure if my friend likes this stuff (pointing to pineapple).

S: Oh! That's ' "" '' "" '.  (Apparently she had felt enough success at teaching me muogu. Oy.)

M: Uhh..luo...???

S: ' "" '' "" '

M: Ok, well, yes it's yellow.  So, I feel like I want this pizza with no mushroom and no yellow stuff.

S: ' "" '' "" '

M: Yeah, I don't want that - it's the big, yellow stuff, right?

S: Right.  What size do you want?

M: Well, there are two of us.  So, I don't want a small and I don't want a large, maybe a center.  (I had no clue how to say medium!)

S: I think you should get the one that is 58 RMB.  It is great for two people.

M: Ok!

S: So what kind of ' " '' ' do you want (pointing at crust)?

M: (Under my breath) Good lord! (Out loud) Uh, this one...?

S: Oh, but this one is very good and so is this one and "" "" '' ' '' ' " '' ' '.

M: (Seeing one filled with cheese and pointing to it) Ok, this one! I want this one.

S: Ok, please wait 20 minutes and we'll have your order ready.

M: Phew.

Even with corn on it, that pizza was SO worth it - no one knows when we'll see cheese again (cue heart-wrenching music and fade).

Settlers of CQ

As we circled the CQ airport, I could already see the beautiful, tree-covered hills.  The nearly hour long drive from the airport to the university was not a scenic disappointment either.  We wound along roads through highly urbanized areas as well as countryside.  If I had known we would pass through and over so many, I would have kept count of the number of tunnels and bridges.  When we arrived on campus, we were immediately greeted by a group who helped lug our suitcases up the short set of stairs to our new apartment.

Our new apartment!!  Arianne and I have both been impressed with the digs.  Now that I believe the internet connection might, maybe, possibly be established (enough), I'll try to get some pictures up (as soon as I take some...).  When you come in the front door, there is a kitchen on the right, outfitted with a fridge, a washing machine, a tankless water heater, sink, microwave, and double burner hot plate.  The previous tenants left us a wok, pan, chopsticks, and some dishes.  Straight through the front door is a large, long room that has a space to the side for a table and chairs.  It's also our living room complete with a sofa, table, tv with stand, and an amazing swing chair that we inherited.  You can either go straight through the living room, and reach our lovely patio, or turn to the right and have the entrance to the bathroom in front of you and the doors to our respective bedrooms on either side.

Word on the street is that there's an IKEA in a nearby city (about a 2 hour train ride away), so we plan to make a day trip and get this place feeling cozy as soon as possible!

Getting There

So many planes, trains, and automobiles...but we're here!  Well, in country that is - we leave for our university Thursday afternoon (not sure if that counts as today or tomorrow since it's sometime after 3 am and jet lag has mercilessly made me wide awake).  So, we hope to be settled in our new home soon.

Today was a great day of learning from an amazing woman who has been involved with English education here for 27 years.  It was also a great day of sampling TexMex this side of the Pacific.  Surprisingly tasty!

It probably goes without saying, but one of the biggest challenges for me is definitely the language.  Even words or phrases that I was  previously comfortable with have been lost on me and are having a hard time finding their way back from the long-abandoned crevices of my mind.  For example, I was trying to think of how I could tell the front desk that we would like a wake up call at 7 am.  Instead of remembering the phrase "wake up" (chi chuang), all that would come to mind was the phrase for "mentally insane" (xin jin bing).  Thankfully, I was able to sit and think for awhile before calling down and telling any hotel personnel that "We would like to be mentally insane at 7 am!"  Oh, language.