Where I Am

Dear imaginary readers,

I deeply apologized for my delinquency. Not that you've necessarily noticed, but I've been away for a WHILE. I've been living here now for about 2.5 months. The Blonde Man and I have battled bugs,teens and bureaucratic nonsense, but we've come out alive. As I said in my last post, I now teach Art to high schoolers (grades 10, 11 & 12). The younger ones are pretty okay for the most part, the seniors are pretty much devil spawn right now. Not really,.... but I kind of hate them. But not really...well, maybe a little.

The school we're teaching at is located in Dujiangyan, a 'suburb' (ahem, if you call a pop. of 800,000 a suburb)of Chengdu. Chengdu (pronounced Chung-doo) is the capital city of Sichuan Province. Some of you may have heard of Szechuan Kitchen, or Szechuan chicken or Szechuan peppercorns. No. It is Sichuan. It's the home of the panda and Kung Pow Chicken (gung bao jiding). The characaters for Sichuan (四川) mean four rivers, and it's regarded as a land of plenty. It's subtropical (read: HUMID) and very, very green. Even now, in October flowers are still blooming, though I wouldn't say it's warm.

Chengdu is big, grey, green and has a lot of motorbikes/motorcylces. It's unfortunate, but I would have to say it's...kind of ugly. Dujiangyan, where I live and spend 98.9% of my time, however is a bit better. The sunny days are few, but when it is...

...When it is sunny, it's pretty nice. Most of the time is a bit gray around here, and it rains at night pretty often. The town though is pretty modern, and cute. Dujiangyan has spent the last few years repairing damages from the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. There are still parts of the city with condemned apartment complexes, but the Shanghainese government has given a lot of aid to the city, so clean up and beautification of the city has really taken off. Later, I'll show you some of the local markets and things, I'll tell you about the food, and the trip I went on the first week of October, but for now I need to make some dinner!

Reporting For Duty

To answer your question: Yes, I made it back to China in one piece. I've been here for about a week and a half now and have been back to teaching for three days. I forgot my beloved sweatshirt at home, and probably should have brought tons more stuff with me (not), but I'm here. Upon arriving, we had to decide between the apartment with terrible floors, broken sink, and awful/death trap stove, or the apartment with a liiiittle bit of mold happening on the walls in the corners and a shower...which sounds like a metal grinder and spits out alternately boiling hot water or ice. We went with the mold apartment, because overall, it was actually CLEANER, and had three bedrooms with beds, plus bathroom, living room and kitchen with lovely floors. We're very sparsely furnished and kitchen equipped right now, but we'll succumb to material overload soon enough I'm sure.

I am now officially an High School Art Teacher. This is perhaps the last thing I thought I'd ever be, but it's turning out okay. I teach 10th, 11th and 12th grades, the 12th graders being an A.P. class I'm still writing a syllabus for. Whenever I demo anything on the board, I am instantly an artistic goddess, mostly due to their lack of exposure to Western/any art, but also because I'm kind of awesome, or at least that's what I like to tell myself. The Blonde Man is teaching A.P. and non-A.P. World History to a whooping 2 kids at a time. That's right, four hours a day, with two kids each hour. Talk about small classes. Soon I'll have pictures to post, so I'll wait to further comment on the state of the school until I have those to show you, but I just thought I should report in for blogging duty. There will be more... so much more, later.

Packing Up is Hard to Do

My suitcase(s) and I are in not getting along. They hate me and I hate them. How am I supposed to get everything I'll really want from the West to the East in 2 measly suitcases and a backpack? If I were moving within the States, that'd be easy. I could buy shampoo and soap that smelled not like sewer, soap and flowers. Or chemical bubble gum fruits. If I needed face wash or face moisturizer or sunscreen or body lotion that DIDN'T chemically whiten my skin, that'd be easy to get at the grocery store. In China..not so much. I'd be able to find Tapatio hot sauce and Mexican oregano, and if I needed clothes I'd just go to whatever store was nearby to procure some hot new duds.

But in a land of small Asian women who wear the most outrageously... well, ugly clothing, it's hard for a short, buxom lass to get along. Most things are cut to emphasize or, alternately, completely diminish their meager assets. Skirts are extremely long, because every women wears heels most days no matter where or what she is doing. I wear petite here in the US because I am short. The skirts and dress in China are either as long as I am tall, or absurdly and obscenely small. That's not even mentioning the anxiety that my bra situation is raising in me. I once walked by a lingerie shop in Beijing, and paused to consider why a woman would want to wear teddy bear and lace covered, silk floral teddy.I wasn't even shopping there, because that's just not my style. The shop girl who was working looked out at me through the display window, though. She considered the manikin, considered her wares, considered my sizable assets... then, looked me straight in the eyes and shook her head. And that's just mentioning the undergarments.

My friend and I in Beijing came up with 2 game show ideas while we were there. One was called Name That Smell, which I think is straightforward and easy for everyone to play, and could be a fun China roadtrip game as well as a gameshow. I'm sure there will be repeated episodes of it here. The other is titled The Fairy SwapMother. In this game, you pick three lovely local ladies or gentlemen or a combination, and consider which articles of clothing should be swapped between them to make at least 1 legitimate outfit. It's harder than you think considering that high fashion here is essential the gross 80's leftovers from Europe and the US.

Needless to say, my bags are revolting. I am flustered and everyone really just needs a break. Packing up is hard to do.

Hurricane Linnea

You don't think about the weather.

At least, I never did much. Medford, Oregon is not the prettiest town. It grew too fast, allowing ugly subdivisions to start multiplying on the edges of town while still supplying its residents with the agricultural equipment they needed and the cars they wanted. Yep, we're a gross car lot town. Of course, it's not the car lots and tractor stores I miss when I'm away. It's the hills of the valley, the orchards, the river and the weather.

It is never humid in Medford. It is never dry. It is always just the right humidity percentage. If it's humid, it will rain almost immediately and will soon be forgotten. Summers reach 100 F degrees and more, but if it's not too dry or too humid, your biggest problem is deciding which body of water to jump in first. Lakes and rivers abound, and the ocean is just a 2 hour drive away through the Redwoods. You don't have to worry about mosquitoes much here.

Spring's not too boggy. Fall's not too cold or muddy. And both creep slowly unto the preceding season so it's never a surprise, just a gradual shift.

In the winter, it snows rarely and rains just enough. Medford has the highest highs in temperature, and some low lows, but it is temperate and gradual. I never understood what people really meant by a bitter winter until I arrived in Beijing on the first day of snow. It was dry. It was windy. It was so cold, I wore long underwear, two pairs of socks, mittens, 2 shirts, a fleece lined rain and wind proof coat, and a scarf around my face so my nose wouldn't get frost bite. I was still cold.

When I arrived in Chengdu, I thought I knew what humid was after experienceing Beijing's summer. No. It's the perfect concentration of humidity to breed the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen. Both places have nonstop cicadas going day and night. Medford is blissfully quiet except for the occasional cricket and nights here are cool and breezy.

Right now, I'm trying to decide what to pack with me when I go back to Chengdu. There's no central air conditioning or heating there. I need clothes for humidity that soaks your clothes and sheets and EVERYTHING in your apartment, not to mention once you get outside. I need clothes for cold, cooold winter in cement buildings without real heaters. For winters where everyone is using their electric heaters so much, the city schedules black out periods do conserve energy.
I'm knitting scarves for myself and the Blonde Man currently. I have gloves for him and plans for mittens for me. I have my sweaters out. I heard someone who lives there where's two scarves at a time. Someone want to knit me a hat?

A Breakfast Nazi in China

Now, I am not picky in the traditional sense of the word... I will eat anything three times. Yes, three times. Never judge a food by its chef. I love Italian, Mexican, South American, Spanish, German, Japanese, French and Middle Eastern foods. Let's face it, I love food in many of its incarnations from around the globe. For some reason though, (most likely the Universe's prank on the Blonde Man, my friends and family, AND me) I've never been the biggest fan of Chinese food..or Thai food.

I know.

....no, really.

I KNOW!

Everyone likes Thai food! I've never met someone who doesn't like a nice Thai curry. But really. Of the maybe 10 things I, as a rule, don't like, broccoli, peanuts, and sweet and salty dinner foods are in the top 5 and at least one of those things is true about Thai food at any given time.

'What about Breakfast-for-Dinner?', you say. 'That's a sweet and salty dinner food! Heck, that's a sweet and salty any time food! Pancakes and sausage are great!'

The answer to that is...no. Just no. I eat omelettes. I eat bacon or sausage. I eat eggs benedict with spinach. I eat buttered toast. I eat pancakes, french toast, waffles, and yogurt too. But I do not eat those things all together.
Sorry, Breakfast Nazi here.

...Glad we got that settled.

What does this have to do with China? Well, as I mentioned before my Thai food inspired breakfast rules tangent, I don't like Chinese food. Or, there was a long tradition of my disliking it before I went. So much so, that a friend said in response to me telling her my new China life plan 'But you HATE Chinese food!!'

Yes. But, I didn't go to China for the food, and I wasn't going to not go because of the food either. IT DOESN'T SCARE ME! Me and China haven't always seen eye to eye though. Sometimes things like Chou Doufu (literally Ugly Tofu, I'm pretty sure)could convince me that Chinese food and I wouldn't ever get along. I mean, it's tofu fermented in old cabbage water. Who eats old cabbage water? Why would you save old cabbage water? The smell is enough to melt your nose hairs.

Most of the time, though, we had meals like this:

Clockwise starting at the left: Zucchini with Wood Ear Mushrooms, Ziran Yangrou 'Cumin Seed Lamb' (Pieces of lamb fried with salt, chile powder and whole cumin seeds served on a bed of green onions and cilantro), Gungbao Jiding 'Kung Pao Chicken' (Chicken in a sweet and sour sauce fried with chiles, garlic, green onions, zucchini and peanuts) and last, but definitely not least (actually my fav) Xiang La Tudou Si 'Crispy Spicy Potato Pieces' (shredded potatoes fried, then tossed with dried chiles, salt, green onions, ginger and cilantro) which we affectionately called Potato Tower, due to the sometimes ridiculously high stacks this was served in. It's really just a spicy french fry salad, and how could you not love that?

Almost every single thing I had in China was unlike things I expected to find there based on my limited Chinese food experiences in the States. (Except Kung Pao Chicken, the ubiquitous Western/foreigner friendly favorite served in virtually every restaurant here AND there. Yes, it's sweet... No, I don't like it. Give up.) I got over my hatred of Chinese food, and have really enjoyed trying all the different dishes and regional cuisines. I do get a little restless sometimes. A girl can only go so long without a slice of cheese here or there or a nice fajita.

Once I get back, I'll be in Sichuan province, land of the Sichuan peppercorn, a floral tasting, hot peppercorn that makes your mouth go numb. It's said that they eat the peppercorns in their food so they can eat even spicier meals. Interesting. Bring it on.

I'm Baaack!

In China, there are no ovens or clothes dryers. A severe lack of cheese and don't get me started on the state of Mexican food there. And also there is no blogspot. More specifically, there IS the Great Firewall of China, which hates porn, Gmail and blogs. While I knew this beforehand, and attempted to prepare myself for it by setting up my blog specifically for that.... no, I didn't e-mail in my infrequent musings. When it's hard to go from your house to the store, things like blogs don't stand a chance in the face of bug repellent, detergent and granola bars. But that's okay, because I can update you now. Plus, I'm going back to the Land of No Driers, a.k.a China, for a whole 10 months more.

I got back from my 5 month stint in Beijing, China about a week ago. There, I taught some of the cutest first graders I know, and I have known some cute ones. We all called a large, nicely groomed campus about 30 miles outside Beijing proper home for the last few months, me full-time and them Monday-Friday. Immediately upon arriving, I took a TEFL class in downtown, just a frisbee throw from the Olympic stadium and grounds. I held my breath while I waited for Culture Shock to hit. Oddly, I waited a long time. A long, long time. While I, OF COURSE, noticed things that were different... nothing knocked the wind out of me until 3 days before I left China on vacation. (If you must know, it was the live toads being sold in the meat section of Walmart...)

China is a developing nation and as such, it has its graceful and not so graceful movements. On the one hand, Beijing's public transportation isn't something to sneeze at. It's awesome. But on the other hand, the sewer system could be slightly upgraded to allow the occasional air quality problem to go from 'my ears are bleeding it smells so bad' to 'cabbage farts'.


I was there through the bitter winter of Beijing, with its manmade weather patterns and air so dry my face cried:

Through the day long spring season
to the cloying summer and the joy of subways in a country with no deodorant.

And, as you can see, despite my commentary, it was beautiful and strange and sometimes frustrating, but all of the time entertaining. I was rarely bored.

Overall, I enjoyed Beijing very, VERY much, and if I ever live in the North of China again, that will be my go to city. I loved the school I was at because the children were so cute, and because my fellow teachers were so funny, nice, interesting and often odd. If I ever do go back to Beijing, it won't be the same without the people I met there. I miss them now, and I'll miss them next year too, because though I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to China or better people to hang out with in Beijing, the Blonde Man and I decided to get a change of scenery. This time to we'll be in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Home of the panda and the spiciest food in China. I'm home in Oregon for one month, but then it's back to the P.R.C.

Eastward Ho!

So, this is West Case Scenario. I'm 22 and off to China for 6 months to teach English and generally have a good time (hopefully). Wednesday is our take off day, and we've been packing all night, trying to make sure we've got everything we could ever want, but nothing we won't want. It's a difficult balancing act. I'm finding that I'm obsessing about dumb things and can't focus on the important things... like how much yarn to bring as opposed to will my computer fit... I'm sure I'll forget something vital. I'll keep you updated on travelling progress and how Beijing welcomes the unprepared foreigner.