You might live in China if...(2nd Edition!)

~you honestly find yourself thinking, "What an enjoyable ride!" because your taxi only has an overacted movie playing on the dash, the latest ballads coming from the radio, and one incessantly ringing cell phone simultaneously vying for your ears' attention.

~on a trip to the nearby(ish) city of 30 million people, with the intent of seeking out western food, you still only see a total of maybe 10 other wai guo ren.

~while on a bus or sharing a cab, the driver excitedly tells every other passenger he picks up/drops off the life story he's already pulled from you.  (She's American! She's a teacher!  She's lived here two years!)

~you find yourself teaching your weekday classes on a weekend to "make up" for the holiday in the coming week.

~finding a seat on the subway and riding it for an hour feels like a mini vacation.

~you feel perfectly safe, as a single woman, walking up to a group of sketchy looking fellas late at night to ask if any of them drive to your city.  In fact, you know this is probably the best way home as well as the safest and most organized after the trains stop running.

~you realize that the long hours of studying Chinese characters have finally paid off because you recognize every single one in a phrase...but you still have no idea what it's actually trying to communicate.

~you no longer think twice when a driver boldly barrels up the wrong side of the street and have utmost confidence that either he or the oncoming truck will avert the seemingly inevitable impact.

~you still curse the stairs of death after an added year of "acclimating" to them.

~sometimes dinner just doesn't taste right because there isn't enough numbing pepper in it.

~deciding between taking advantage of the rare sunshine outside or the rare internet connection inside feels like an overwhelming choice, and almost a moral dilemma.

~your day off is decidedly more busy with students popping over or organizing projects than your regular working schedule.

~you feel like you could live here a million years and still not understand some everyday occurrences. 

An Accidental Date

"What exactly is an accidental date?" you may find yourself asking.  "And just how does it happen?"

Just a few short hours ago, I may have very well asked the same innocent questions.  Now I can only mourn the loss of such wide-eyed innocence.

Here's how it all went down.  Every Saturday I head into the city to tutor a middle school student.  This Saturday was a little different because there's a holiday next week.  Here, that translates into "making up" the classes over the weekend.  And, apparently, having an uncooperative American brain that screams, "But NO - weekends are sacred, people, SACRED!!!" is of no help in finding the motivation to wake up extra early on a Saturday/Sunday and face a roomful of students.  So, after wrapping up a day full of Saturday classes I hurriedly jumped in a cab to even more hurriedly jump on a train to the city.  I texted my student on the way to see if they wanted to meet me at the train station, as usual, or if I should just get a cab to their place.  Whoops - turns out she also had make up classes and wouldn't have time for tutoring at all this weekend.

Not being one to waste a trip to the city, I headed for the subway and planned the best use of my time.  Pizza, obviously.  Unwilling to settle for Chinese style Pizza Hut knowing there's a Papa John's in a far off district, and a commitment-free night ahead to track it down, I set off with great expectations and visions of garlic butter sauce dancing in my head.

After reaching the subway stop, I was excited to find the name of the plaza I was looking for on the exit sign - how fortuitous!  I could almost taste the melted cheese.  I immediately recognized the tell-tale Starbucks and set out directly across from it, sure I'd be mentally chanting "Better ingredients, better pizza!" in no time at all.  I walked around the plaza.  I walked through the plaza.  I walked above it and below it.  Growing perplexed, I decided to enlist the help of the locals.  A few seemed to have never heard of pizza in their lives (poor dears), but one uniformed guy called his colleague over and basically instructed him to personally guide me to a pizza restaurant on his way off work.  Excellent! Or so I thought.

We walked around the plaza.  We walked through the plaza.  We did not, however, walk above it or below it.  He finally told me he knew a great hamburger restaurant.  Fine.

While we were walking, he asked typical questions like where I'm from and what my salary is (yeah, that one barely even causes my eyebrow to raise anymore).  He also ventured into somewhat newer territory by asking the places I'd like to travel in China.  He boldly led me across a traffic-ridden street and verbally incited me to have faith in his protective ability.  How ke qi, I thought.

At the restaurant, he wanted to know if I'd eat there or have it to go.  Trying to find a way out and thinking he still had to return to work, I said I'd probably just eat there (I still wanted the ever elusive pizza, darnit!).  He then declared he also wanted to eat there.  Lovely.  I ordered and he insisted on paying.  When the food came, he regaled me with stories of his expensive watch and his hopes to one day travel to America.  Cool.  As I picked at the strange, little chicken strips, he then asked if all Americans are bigger than all Chinese people while complaining that I wasn't eating enough.  Charming.  Upon finishing his snack, he belched appreciatively and politely offered me a cigarette.  No thanks, bro.

Being in an unfamiliar district, I'd asked earlier if he also knew a place that I could catch a car back to my city since it'd be too late for any trains or busses to be running.  Naturally, after dinner he offered to show me the way.  Oy.  As we walked, he drew pretty close a few times - not hard to do in the land of a billion plus, so I tried not to think anything of it.  Until his gesticulating hand unceremoniously grazed areas that I prefer left ungrazed during such encounters.  Ahem.

A few days earlier, while walking with a local colleague of mine, we discussed humorous aspects of directly translating some phrases between Chinese and English.  One such phrase that came up was "chicken breast" - while a benign cut/order of meat in English, it sounds pretty...unsettling in Mandarin.  In Chinese, the proper description of the meat would translate more like "chicken chest."  Considering the more vulgar Mandarin option is not a word I typically use in daily conversation, I was surprised to hear him utter it while accompanying it with a more prolonged, um, graze.  Not ok.  So not ok.  A 5RMB order of chicken strips (less than $1 USD) is never worth that.  In any country.

So, yeah.  Worst (and hopefully only). Accidental. Date. Ever.

The Day the Earth was Shaking

This past week has been full of eventful news the world over, it seems.  On Friday night I was chatting with a friend of mine that grew up near Boston.  She quickly reassured me that her friends and family were all safe, even those who'd been at the marathon.  Considering a mutual friend of ours just recently relocated to Waco - near the small town of West - she admonished me before I was (unintentionally) disconnected with a sweet, "You be careful, you hear me??"  I had (and still have!) every intention of honoring that request.  I did not, however, expect it to be challenged quite so soon.

Saturday morning, my alarm went off at 6:30, as usual.  I turned it off and drifted back to sleep, as usual.  (I think it's now official that despite all my hopes, jet lag failed - yet again - to make me a morning person.)  Some time later I grew a little perplexed at the construction going on outside my window.  Wait, not outside my window, perhaps on my porch....or...in my bed.  What?!  In my dreary state of semi-consciousness, I slowly realized that construction, early morning calisthenics, the upstairs neighbors chopping their vegetables, or any of the normal things here that might disturb my restful slumber could not possibly be responsible for the jostling my bed was undergoing.  A single word flashed through my head, "earthquake."

Not fully trusting my-not-quite-cognitive-self's conclusion, I decided to seek out my roommate's opinion on the matter in order to determine if we were, indeed, experiencing our first earthquake here.  I opened my bedroom door and saw her standing directly across from me, excitedly bracing herself in her own bedroom doorframe.  "Isn't this what you're supposed to do in an earthquake?" she queried.  I still couldn't form complete thoughts, but flashes of other things danced across my mind - Japan, tsunami, earthquake - hadn't that been what proved so deadly a couple of years ago, that everyone calmly walked outside to protect themselves from potential debris/collapsing structures only to be caught off guard by the approaching waves?  "I don't think it will help if the building falls in on us," I replied.  Right.

She headed to the front door and noticed several of the aunties rushing down the stairs with babies in their arms, confirming that going outside would be our best course of action, while I quickly grabbed jackets to make our pajamas more...presentable.  Good thing, too - most of the others we joined outside were also in their sleepwear, but a few early risers were raring to go, namely, one lady with an elaborate updo, shiny leggings, and dangerously high heels.

We checked to make sure the other foreign teachers were safe (some opted not to even get out of bed) and all waited out in the parking lot until everyone seemed to reach the consensus it was safe to return inside.  As news of the day's events unfolded, we learned that the magnitude was estimated to be 7.0 and we were (fortunately) a few hundred kilometers from the epicenter.  Sadly, current estimates are that about 200 have lost their lives to this disaster, and more than 11,000 are injured.  Last I heard, aftershocks are still happening and even the lives of some emergency personnel have been lost due to continuing hazardous conditions.  For many in our area, it's been a tragic reminder of the 2008 earthquake that claimed nearly 90,000 lives.

I believe the foundations already established for Boston survivors and the fact that officials in West had to turn away help and supplies because they were offered more than could be used is an indication of how Americans, at least in general, have a tradition of being generous when lending a hand to those experiencing disaster.  It makes my heart swell for the people who truly live out the idea of being "blessed to be a blessing."  Sunday afternoon, a group of us decided to try and get our students involved, even in some small way, in offering relief to their neighbors suffering in just the next province over.  We're still not entirely sure how all the details will be coordinated yet, but already I've been touched by the eagerness of my students, some who don't have much themselves, to provide a new toothbrush or a pair of socks to those currently experiencing a greater need.

I know there are terrible things that are happening in so many places, and so many people that are badly  hurting.  Yet, I can't help but be encouraged by the love outpoured by/to perfect strangers in the face of so much pain.

How Fortuitous

The way the education system works here is really quite different from that of the United States.  For example, students are assigned a class group that will share all of their classes together for all four years of university.  Therefore, the school creates each schedule and informs the respective class group (and teachers) what it will be.  When I received my schedule at the beginning of this semester, I noticed an unprecedented anomaly - a late Wednesday night class.  

This time slot provided a few obstacles, namely that my students find it terribly difficult to listen to and concentrate on an all-English lecture after a full day of classes.  I tried to work within the system to have the schedule revised, but (due to the different methods) it was all to no avail.  So, after the discouraging meetings and then informing my disappointed students, I set out to make the best of our Wednesday night situation.  

When I first arrived at the (5th floor) classroom, I realized my USB (with the lecture's accompanying PowerPoint) had fallen out of my bag.  After offering a quick word of thanks that I'm in the habit of allotting a good bit of extra time before each class, I hurriedly ran back down all the stairs and rushed back to my apartment to either find the missing flash drive or grab a replacement.  I quickly (you weren't there...you can't prove otherwise) returned up the five flights of stairs and greeted my class.

Somewhere around the second or third slide of the lecture, several of my students pointed to the screen behind me while offering up a lamented "No, no."  Considering the topic at hand included discrimination, I wisely surmised that they were (finally! after all this time) so moved by both my lecture and my inspired teaching that they simply could not keep silent in their seats any longer.  Indeed, I was fully in my element, passionately motivating the next generation to advocate for the oppressed and less fortunate around the world.  Their pointing only grew more emphatic.

I turned around.  

Oh.  The screen had gone blank.

I tried to restart the equipment a few more times and was as successful in that as I was in changing the schedule.  After the final round of discouragement, we finally opted to change to another classroom, which involved (of course) checking with the key steward to find which room might be available and checking out the new key.  Upon entering the new classroom, this is what awaited us on the board:

"Make the best/most of"

I'm still left with just this one question: How did they know?!

In my Daily Life

In my experience, language learners tend to absorb the patterns and pronunciations they find themselves surrounded by - perhaps explaining why my Texas drawl grows noticeably thicker each time I talk to my Grandma on the phone or take a visit to the panhandle.  Living here has proved no different, in some regards.  We all had a good laugh when a student said "As the going says, ..." but now I have to deliberately consider the accurate way to say the phrase Each. And. Every. Time.

Another example lies in the nation just north of my  home country (no, I'm not talking about Oklahoma).  After a student's mispronunciation, Arianne got in the habit of playfully calling the country by the name "Canadia."  Now I can't even begin to count how many times I've been in the middle of a lecture and have had to stop myself mid sentence to ensure proper pronunciation of the word.  Shameful.

However, perhaps my favorite linguistic adjustment is one that belongs primarily to Arianne.  The phrase that most grated on her nerves after moving here was "in my daily life."  She vehemently declared that we do not use such a phrase and adamantly advocated for her students to eliminate it from their vocabulary.  She was able to successfully fight off the urge to utter those words aloud for quite some time, up until they became an inseparable part of, well, her daily life.

So, I thought I'd use this post as a celebration of things that have become a part of my daily life.

Character practice and repetition.  (For those that can read Chinese - please don't judge me!)

Far from our normal daily weather, our campus really is quite lovely in the sunshine.

It's entirely common (and I'd say even expected, judging by those that brought their own stools) to encounter a costumed and choreographed dance routine while on a stroll through town.

The groups even provide their own music and sound system.

Passersby come and go at will to look on whatever may be happening, while you can see that the older generation of men still commonly dress in the style of clothing that was characteristic of New China. 

Food cart outside the train - contains goodies like instant noodles and spicy tofu.

Precious little boy trying to figure out why this aunty looks so different.

On the back of a motorcycle taxi, just cruising up the sidewalk.

Typical train station - everyone going every which way, all at once.

View from my favorite tea stand....wait...those aren't usually there!

Expecting the unexpected -
a man and his bulls just going for a walk outside our university.

Part of the beauty of living in another culture, for me, means not only finding the differences compared to how I grew up, but finding the ones worth appreciating.

And the Answer is...

Uh, E. All of the above.  Obviously, right?

Oh, the City Life

I've gotta say, I love my job and I love the people I get to work with and all the ways we share life.  And yet, it took moving to a country of more than a billion people to irrefutably confirm that I decidedly lean more towards the introvert side of any kind of -vert scale.  So, as much as I love my students, my team, and even the cute little aunties at the supermarket, sometimes living here is just plain hard - you know, in the being-totally-overwhelmed sense of the word.  I have a friend who lives in a nearby country who may have put it best when he said that the culture basically "stampedes" us.

I've learned that in order to keep any semblance of sanity, sometimes it's necessary for me to just get away and have a little alone time.  Thankfully, working on a university schedule affords many such opportunities.  This week, for example, is Tomb Sweeping Day and so I was able to sneak off to a nearby-ish city for a couple of days before meeting up with a few of the other foreign teachers to check out a glacier park.  (Seriously.  Checking out glaciers.  In China.  How is this my life?!)  It's crazy how refreshing it is just to eat an omelet, drink non-instant coffee, and overhear English conversations in Irish, American, British, and even Polish accents.  I spent the whole afternoon yesterday on a comfortable sofa with a fresh cup of coffee, studying my Chinese characters in peace - pure bliss.  Last night I was able to talk to a handful of people back home that I hadn't been able to connect with due to a poor connection.  Few things are better (or more homesick-inducing) that hearing the voices of the ones I love.

On a different note, many times waiguoren choose not to acknowledge each other in China, like some kind of unspoken rule that this Texas girl just hasn't quite figured out yet.  However, when we're on our own and in a western business/setting, somehow it seems to make us more susceptible to speaking to each other.  It's always interesting to see the different personalities and hear their stories.  Whether it's a couple from Europe taking a four month holiday to travel the world or an organizer of an Ethiopian benefit concert wrapping up some real estate deals, I'm always fascinated to hear what could have brought them here.  With the (extremely odd/rare) exception of the random Frenchman who quite literally showed up on my doorstep last year, this kind of thing only ever happens on a trip into the city.  Sometimes just a reminder of international diversity is all I need to feel reenergized enough to dive back into the life of my city and appreciate the unique culture it has to offer.

A Colorful Box, eh?

Such flowery words with such little meaning.