How you know a Chinese summer has arrived.....

**Split pants. These never go away but when they wear the big snowsuits you don't see little butts and private parts as often.

**Short shorts / skirts.  Back home some of these outfits would be considered trashy - here it's the fashion.

**Ugly Chinese bellies. In the summer Chinese men think this will keep them cool. They come in all shapes, sizes, and ages.  I've heard the bigger the belly the better....shows they have money. I'd prefer if they kept their shirts down.

**Little girls with short hair. This one gets me every time if they're not wearing a dress. Luckily they don't seem to care if you call their girl a boy.

**冰峰 is back and it's cold.  This is a local Xi'an drink.  It's cheap and tastes just like orange soda.  Normally I hate orange soda but this isn't too sweet and when you come into a hot restaurant from the hot outside, nothing tastes better.

**Truckloads of watermelons.  I'm not exaggerating.  There are truckloads of watermelons everywhere.  There's a guy that sits out side my apartment and sells them.  They're sweet and cheap.

**Foreigners!  I miss people that don't look Chinese. There are lots of traveling foreigners around now and sometimes I catch myself staring at them and reaching for my camera. 

**Umbrellas - in the sun, in the shade, in the rain, on the bus (sun comes in the windows).  Is there ever a time NOT to use one??  Personally I hate carrying an umbrella, even in the rain, so you won't see me with one of these 'fashionable' accessories.

And finally I know it's summer because it's HOT....everywhere. This summer I will be fighting the heat with only a fan.  I have no air-conditioning in my new 21st floor apartment.  So far it's manageable.  However, I remember the summer being unbearable around the end of August, beginning of September of last year.   Something to look forward to!

Traffic light chaos

There are many intersections that look like this all the time so I don't think this is that bad, but this is what happens when a traffic light goes out.  It made me think of America and how organized we are when the lights aren't working. Everyone knows what to do and takes turns.  It's so calm!  In China everyone just goes and it causes a jam in the middle.  I realized as I was crossing this intersection when the traffic light was working that it's really not that much different.  This is one of the things I dislike about China - the lack of traffic rules.  Pedestrians have no right of way.  Motorbikes act like pedestrians, cars, buses, or whatever is most convenient for them.  All forms of transportation just do whatever they want and no one cares. When crossing the street there are buses, bikes, motorbikes, and cars going in all different directions so you always have to be careful.  To top it off they are unbelievably bad drivers. 

An IV drip for trees?

It doesn't matter what you're sick with the Chinese think all medicines should be administered through an IV.  Sometimes you go back every day for about 3 days to get it.    I was shocked when I went to the hospital and that wasn't the first thing they prescribed for me.  They did say if I wasn't better after I took the pills then I should come back for an IV. Despite still being sick, I didn't go back.

I've been here for 15 months and I still see things that surprise me on a daily basis.  Near my apartment there is a street with lots of newly planted trees.  They are being held up by branches and given an IV for nourishment! 

A Chinese teaching competition....

This week I was forced to participate in a teaching competition.  The Chinese love anything that has to do with competition.  To prepare for it I had to make a power point presentation.  I decided to talk about teaching body parts because it's an easy and fun lesson.  I thought my power point was cute so even if I was boring they'd have that to look at.  I wasn't happy about doing this and tried my hardest to get out of it.  I also had an exam that morning so I knew I couldn't get there at the beginning.   Of course I was supposed to be the 4th person......

Unfortunately they were able to get me a new number and I made it in plenty of time after my exam.

The 3 Chinese teachers I work with also participated and went 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.  In their 8 minutes they talked about teaching a lesson - everyone after them actually taught the lesson and had their coworkers act as students.  When I arrived we put together a new plan for my presentation.  One of the judges (that works at our school) was texting my manager about what I needed to do inorder to get a high score.  The Chinese love their competitions but are not against cheating to win. 

As we were waiting this guy decided to clean the floor.  He moved the signs out of the way and started washing the floor.  All I could think about was walking through this 1/2 inch of dirty water to get to the room and then falling once I got in there.  That's all I needed. 

Once he was done with the dirty water he got out a really noisy vacuum.  A few people, including us, told him we were having a competition and could he come back in 10 minutes.  He said no!  He was cleaning the floor.  Of all the places he needed to clean in the entire hotel - it had to be right outside the door of the competition.  Typical Chinese. 

My presentation ended up being ok, I suppose.  The power point that I thought was so cute couldn't even be seen by the judges.  So it was all me and my Chinese teacher 'students'.

I don't think they've announced the winner yet.  I really don't care about winning since I didn't want to do this in the first place.  I think it would be hilarious if I did win though.  Supposedly there was another foreign teacher competing but when I was there I didn't see any other foreigners.

LoveLY Notebooks

The Chinese have some very sappy notebooks. They are all about love, beautiful things, and over the top inspirational sayings. This is how the Chinese seem to be at times but I find it ironic. Love doesn't seem to be an important part of their relationships. They are very practical when choosing a partner yet their songs, notebooks, clothes, etc. are very passionate. 

All English in China is full of grammatical / spelling errors - notebooks are no exception.

'Don't stop, never give up. LOVE STORY'

'Believe.  Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.'

'Whisper.  A heart that loves is always young.'

'Honey Honey.  I always be with you.'

'The more one learns, the more one wants to know.'

'Dreams come true.  Though it is sick and tiring for you to listen to studying everyday.  The hardship you are facing now will reward you as a precious present.  Why don't you enjoy the moment now?'

This is my current notebook.  I thought it was appropriate to use for some inspiration at 8am.

'Enjoy this morning'

University Midterm

This is my midterm exam.  I got a 91%!  For some reason she printed the exam on huge paper.  It was a bit overwhelming at first but I made it through each section with no big problems. 

In the first section we had to combine characters to make words.  There are a lot of characters that can mean different things or slightly different things when combined with a different character.
For example:  如 with 果 means 'if'.  苹 with 果 means 'apple'. 

 

The next few sections were constructing sentences using different grammar points.

The final section was writing a letter using 150 characters.  I wrote a letter to my mom and talked about a trip I had gone on the week before.

Lately I've gotten pretty frustrated with University actually.  My reading and writing is good but my speaking is really weak.  They don't have us speak enough in class.  When it is time to speak I feel like I'm in a class of the 8 year olds I teach on the weekends.  There's a certain group in class that has to be the first to answer every question and when we're reading they will jump in if anyone pauses to remember the character. It's incredibly annoying!  I've realized that whatever I can do I should feel good about though.  Some people in class are really good at speaking but can't read and write very well.  After University is over I'll probably enroll in a class that is mostly speaking and hopefully it will come. 

Getting away from the city...

The Chinese teachers at my school organized a trip to the mountains this week.  There aren't very many mountains foreigners can go to (due to military stuff happening in and around them) but they found a great one to spend the day 'climbing'.

To get there we took 3 buses, and a tuk tuk.

At lunch the bowl of chicken soup contained the entire chicken.  In this picture Crystal is eating the head (including the little brain) and Will is eating the foot.  The neck was quickly snatched up by Smilie (sitting next to Will).

There were lots of signs with English spelling mistakes.  This one says 'Sky Poo'. 

After lunch we rented paddle boats and took them out around the Sky Poo.  This is me and the other Joy.  We're enjoying while the guys paddle....  

These are the guys paddling -  Andy (from Scotland) and Brian (from Ireland).

It was a fun day and so nice to be outside of the city getting some exercise and hanging out with some of my favorite people!

Annoying elevator rides

Lately I've been feeling annoyed with Chinese people.  I'm trying to get past it because it's really hard to live in a land of all Chinese people if I don't like Chinese people. 

One thing that bothers me is riding in the elevators with them. Now that I have an elevator in my building I ride it at least a couple times a day. 

Annoyance #1:  Smoking in the elevator.  Yuck.  There's not much more to say about it - it's just gross.

Annoyance #2:  Pushing the open and close button.  Maybe I've been away for too long but I think in most elevators back home we don't know where these buttons are unless someone is running for it as the doors are going to close.  Even then we can't seem to find the right button and often push close instead of open. Am I right or have I been away for too long??  I think I'm right - I lived in a high rise in downtown Chicago before coming here and I would have remembered this.  The Chinese press the close button over and over.  MAYBE this makes the doors close 1/2 a second sooner.  They do this so much that the button is already broken in my brand new building....

Finally what annoys me with elevators is that they're in such a ruch to open and close the doors and then they exit the elevator and walk slowly down the dark narrow hallway. 

I guess the reason for this goes back to them not wanting to feel left behind.  Though, they have no problem leaving other people behind. 

Unfortunately I'VE started doing it even when I'm in the elevator alone and I know no one is going to knock me out of the way to press the button. Ahh!!

Come on! Come on!

When I'm 'teaching' (ie playing games) the kids always yell 'COME ON! COME ON!' to their team members.  If they forget they're in English class they say '加油！加油！(jia you, jia you)'.

Today I wanted to Skype a message of encouragement to my friend studying for a Chinese exam.  I found the characters and read the definition of 加油 － 1: oil; lubricate.  2: refuel  3: make an extra effort.  If you look at the characters separately 加 means to add something, 油 means oil, fat, grease; to apply oil, fat, or grease; oily, greasy, stained or smeared with oil or grease.    Basically you're saying 'add some oil!  add some oil!'.  In a way it sort of makes sense.  I hear it so often I think I will forever say '加油 加油‘ to myself when I need some extra encouragement. 

Chinese home #2

For the past year I've been living in an apartment provided by the school I work for.  I've had 2 great roommates but I didn't want to play roommate roulette for a third time.  I decided to look for my own place.

One of the Chinese teachers at my school knew of a great place for me.  It's one of her uncle's apartments and she lives 4 floors above me.  It's brand new - which has one draw back - I've had no heat for the last month of winter.  When buildings are first built they usually don't turn on the heat right away because there aren't enough people living in the building. I survived.

There are 32 floors in this building (it's 1 of 4 buildings in the complex) with about 12 apartments on each floor.  I have 2 bedrooms.  One is small and now houses the refrigerator.  
The other is a good size with a rack to hang my wet clothes on by the window.  It is close to work and close to school.  I'm near a park, a cafe, a Walmart, and lots of buses.

In China you have to pay 6 months upfront.  The apartment costs 1300RMB / month ($216).   My work pays me 1,000RMB/month for living expenses. Hopefully when summer hits I won't want to jump out my 21st floor window because there's no AC.