China vs America

I am sick of being asked the question “Do you like America or China more?”

I swear, every other Chinese person I meet that is not a student or teacher asks me this. I’ve been asked by bus drivers, fruit stand sellers, jian bing guo zi makers, cab drivers… the list goes on. Call it a cultural difference, but it’s just annoying right now. I don’t think anyone in America would ever ask a foreigner a question like this.

Which leads me to think – why am I getting defensive in the first place? Granted, I do like China, but more in a sarcastic ‘oh-hey-I-got-dust-in-my-face-and-I’m-kind-of-sick-but-I-still-think-this-is-fun’ kind of way. I’ve discussed this with my fellow Sinophiles and we actually have concluded that none of us actually likes China. We’re not quite sure why we’re back here either. It’s not like you can actually be excited about squatty potties, getting shoved onto buses, and children wearing assless pants. Anyone saying that they actually love China is either completely out of their minds or has just convinced themselves that they love China so that they don’t run around screaming in the streets about how crazy their lives are.

Also, when you gather a bunch of China kids in a room the first thing we talk about is how sick we got. I mean, besides the ‘oh hey where were you? Did you like it’ sorts of questions. This always devolves into pretty horrific stories about how sick we got in China. For me, I tell my Shanxi province 4- day bus trip sickness story… oh man, it was bad. Ethan and Andrew were worse off, actually.

Anywho…

I began to appreciate America a lot more when I was here in 2007 and have no problem saying I am an American now. Nevertheless, I always tell the Chinese people that I like both countries so that I don’t get (a) ripped off, (b) dropped on the side of the road, or (c) lectured in rapid-fire Chinese.

But YES I do like America more. The country where I can drink water without boiling it (debatable in DC, actually), find toilet paper in the stalls, and have uncensored internet. End of story. Stop asking me, Chinese people.

PS: Sorry about the lack of posting. My proxy and internet (and gmail!) was on the fritz this last week. Happy belated Thanksgiving!

I just want to say, "Pound it!"

 

I've been wanting gloves like this for a while now.  A lot of the girls in my classes have them and they come in a variety of cute animals.  I bought this pair on the street in LiCun for 15RMB and they are incredibly warm because they are wool and lined with fleece.

I'm going to start wearing these in public.  It should be more acceptable in America to be wearing things like this out!

Clarification on the Backstreet Boys

I need to clarify that the students really wanted to sing the Backstreet Boys.  I did not force or coerce them into singing the song.  Many of them requested it and have it on their phones.  The students were very excited to learn the song and finally know more than the refrain.  They just look so serious in the video, but I promise it is because they really wanted to learn it!  The boys are often more excited about singing the song than the girls and get totally into the song.  It's rather funny and I wish I could have captured more on video before my battery died.

I'm a student again!

I started Chinese tutoring today. As in, I am the student and I have a teacher. Woohoo! It’s very exciting to be learning Chinese again with a formal teacher. I am doing one-on-one tutoring for two hours twice a week. Each session is 60RMB, which is pretty affordable for me and definitely worth the money.

My Friday teacher is named 田老师 (Tian Laoshi) and he is very nice. We started today on a book called 发展汉语 which is different than my old one. This is actually pretty good for me because it expands my vocabulary and grammar instead of just learning ridiculous advanced words I don’t really need.

It was interesting to be on the other side of the table, especially since I have been a teacher for about a month now (weird, right?). I can empathize with my teacher when he tries to explain a word I don’t know and ends up restating it in a sentence or describing it like twenty times before I get it. I just want to say, “Tian laoshi, I totally get how frustrated you are right now and appreciate that you are not losing your shit explaining ‘TV commercial’ to me in Chinese.”

This was a nice change of pace in my schedule, especially since this means I will be going into town twice a week and getting out of the college campus! This works out for me because the other days I can do lesson planning for my TEN classes and such.

I’m getting to do the other half of what I came here to do: learn more Chinese. I am both student and teacher!

Lesson Planning

This week’s lesson plan was the most fun I’ve had so far. Here are the basics of my lesson plan:

Week Four – Congratulations and Thanks

Attendance (10 minutes)
Reading Unit 2 Dialogue (10 minutes)
- When can you congratulate others?
o Graduation
o Engagement/ marriage/ having a baby
o New job
o Pasing a test
o Promotion at a job
Reading Unit 3 Dialogue (10 minutes)
- How do you tell someone that something bad has happened?
o I’m not sure how to put this but…
o I’m sorry, but…
o This is hard to explain, but…
Create a Dialogue (10 minutes prep + 25 minutes performing)
With your language partner, create a dialogue like the ones in the book. Please use congratulatory phrases and express your thanks. You may also apoligize or break the news to someone that something bad has happened. You can make up your own scenario, but be sure to act it all out!
Song
“As Long As You Love Me” – The Backstreet Boys

I got some really great dialogues from the students, including:
- “Oh no! I have H1N1!”
- “I lost my dog!”; “I think I ate your dog.”
- “I lost my son in the park.”


The funniest were actually the sad ones and there was also an overwhelming number of “I passed my English exam” dialogues. Apparently they are all worried about some English exam, which is clearly not coming from Miss Alison. 






The class really enjoys singing the Backstreet Boys and I filmed a video of them singing. It is actually the boys that enjoy singing the Backstreet Boys the most! 


Here is a picture of my Wednesday class from 1:30 – 3:10pm. They are a riot!

Some of the funniest dialogues today went something like this:

(two girls)
A: I fell in love with a boy today.
B: Congratulations!
A: No, it is bad news. He has a girlfriend.
B: That is too bad. Maybe you can just be friends.
A: I hope so, he has a good heart!


(two boys)
A: My girlfriend broke up with me. I am broken hearted.
B: I’m sorry to hear that. Forget about it.
A: Thanks.
B: We will go and find you a more beautiful girlfriend now.


(two boys)
A: Why are you so happy?
B: The Lakers won a basketball game! [Student then launches into a play-by-play speech on how Kobe Bryant saved the game]

After all the crappy internet, lack of a real heater, and funk pockets, the students really make teaching here worthwhile and I am looking forward to many more fun days with them. Except that they really want to sing “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson… that might be the end of me.

Helen

I tutor a 14-year-old Chinese girl named Helen on the weekends. The hourly pay is double what I get normally, so it’s nice to have a little extra cash on the weekends. In my contract, I am actually prohibited taking outside jobs, but the director of the Foreign Affairs office gave me the job. Helen is the daughter of her friend, apparently. It’s pretty China-tastic.

I have met with Helen three times now, the first time at the Shangri-La hotel in downtown Qingdao where I ate at an all-you-can-eat buffet called Café Yum. It was so good and I had all sorts of yummy food, including bread for the first time since leaving the States. I also had a freshly made chocolate crepe, marble-slab style ice cream, and real coffee! I basically got paid to eat and make little chatter with Helen.

Did I mention that her family is quite wealthy? Her dad is a bank executive with one of the larger banks over here and her mom works at the police station. She also has drivers, one of which is her uncle with a sweet mini van with a DVD player and GPS system built into the dash. And power doors! Her family owns several apartments/ homes throughout the city and seems to be very well off…. Understatement.

The second time I met with Helen, we watched “Twilight” and talked about the movie afterwards. This Saturday I made a little vocab and question worksheet for “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” which she also enjoyed. However, I think I have started a Twilight trend in her school.

She told her class monitor about the gloriousness that is Twilight and he watched it and had his parents buy the DVD for him. Now their entire class is watching the movie on Monday together. Helen’s parents purchased all four books for her (in English!) to read. This cracks me up, excites me, and scares me all at the same time.

Twilight is invading a middle school in Qingdao. Six days until New Moon! I mean, uh, what are you talking about?

Eating Diaries, Part 1

I take photos of food.  Is this weird?  I've only come to realize recently that no one else outside my family takes photos of food.  Well, here goes my food tour of the weekend in Beijing.

Lush Cafe

I've dreamed about their fresh foccacia bread for two years now and finally got to enjoy a grilled vegetable sandwich with mozarella, tomato, and basil.  It tasted even better since I hadn't had Western food since being in China!  Lush is one of my favorite cafes of all time.

Wangfujing Snack Street

I had two 串 (chuan-r: kebabs), one was freshly made fishballs, I think.  I'm a big fan of eating anything from the sea and this fishball was really delicious.  They poured the mixture on a giant waffle-iron thing with 1" indentations and the person swiveled the balls every few seconds while they cooked in order to make the sphere of the fish ball.

Then I ate a octopus tentacle chuanr.  Roasted tentacles ranks pretty high on my list of favorite seafoods and while this one could have been cooked just a little longer, it wasn't too bad.

Then there are the things I did not eat at Wangfujing snack street:  starfish

seahorses and scorpions (still moving!)

Ganges Indian Food

This place has some of the best Indian food I've ever had.  This is a statement considering that I grew up in Dallas which has a huge Indian population.  Anywho, I made a mistake ordering my own curry but I did get a really yummy Vegetable Pakora for an appetizer.

TianChu MiaoXiang Vegan Restaurant

This may have been the best vegan restaurant I've ever been to!  It was so yummy and here are my favorite dishes from the dinner:

This was fried mushrooms in a salt/pepper chili batter.  It was really good and was a vegan version of a dish that is often  made with octopus tentacles (shocking that I like it either way, ha!).  Definitely the winner of the meal!

Sizzling beef was definitely my second favorite dish and was a textured veggie protein cut like beef (really weirded us out) and served on a sizzling iron platter.  An impressive display since vegetarian dishes usually lack this flair!

Airline Snack

I flew back to Qingdao and got a little surprise snack on my 1 hour 10 minute flight.  Dried dates!  Definitely one of my least favorite chinese "snacks" but only outranked by those dried plum things that my dad eats.

And that was my food tour of the weekend.  I should actually blog about what my apartment and campus looks like soon.  Oh, and the kids.  Right.  They're singing "As long as you love me" by the Backstreet Boys this week in my classes because they LOVE them.  Chinese kids also love Westlife.  It's really odd.  I had them singing "Umbrella" by Rihanna this week and it didn't go over so well with some of them, because it's not the type of music they listen to, but it was really amusing to  me to see them get into the 'ella ella eh eh eh' part of the song.  Until the next post...

Beijing Weekend

I made a weekend trip to Beijing and it reminded me how much I enjoy that city, but at the same time, made me appreciate Qingdao a little more. Beijing fascinates me because of its history, sheer size and population, and the multitude of things to do and eat. At the same time, it is so jam-packed with people constantly shoving and pushing that it can be overwhelming. Nevertheless, I miss it a lot and had a great time this weekend.
I went with another teacher, Jenna, to visit my good pal Charlie who has been living in Beijing since February studying Chinese and will finally be returning at the end of December. The rest of us thought he might never return!

It was really nice to get out of Qingdao because it is such a smaller town over here. I feel like I’m going to run out of things to do and see soon. I’m already kind of over the “scene” and fear the day when I run out of things to do on the weekends or foods that interest me. Anyway….

Jenna and I took the bullet train to Beijing and it was really cool. It was completed before the Olympics and has made the ~888 km trip under six hours long. The train went up to 243 km/hr at some points and was just amazing to watch out the window. It also had airplane-style seats and tray tables, which was nicer than Amtrak!

After dumping our stuff at Charlie’s apartment and leaving him to take a phone interview with the States, Jenna and I went to Lush in Wudaokou for dinner because I was really craving their foccacia sandwich, which turned out to be just as good as I remembered it!

Saturday we got up early and went to meet my old teacher, Linda, at Peking University. The campus is beautiful and is possibly one of my favorite spots in Beijing. Imagine going to a campus that looks like this:

Then we headed over to 789 Art Space which is actually located in an old factory center that has been converted to several art spaces. It’s a really great location and has some really interesting pieces to look at.

We then went to the famous Wangfujing Snack Street, where you can eat things like, seahorses, scorpions, and starfish on sticks. I stayed with fresh made fishballs and a delicious skewer of octopus tentacles, my favorite!

On the obligatory tourist destinations, we visited the Forbidden City, which never fails to amaze me because of how intricate and HUGE the place is. It’s really a trek across the thing and I can only imagine those poor guys running around the place with cymbals and stuff (I have a very Last Emperor imagination, ha).

Tiananmen was overrun with 60th anniversary propaganda, including giant pillars depicting the fifty-one minority groups as cartoonish dancing figures. It’s not exactly what I would consider pretty either.

There are also the giant screens on the Square, playing a rolling loop of inspirational music, dancing people, and panoramic scenery from around the country. Oh and don’t forget the recap of the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Happy 60th Birthday, China.

I also made an obligatory Silk Market trip on Sunday and emerged with these goods: a grey Jimmy Choo hobo purse, Longchamp purse, LeSportsac satchels, Black boots, and a scarf. Not too bad but I was definitely restrained. I really want a Mulberry purse next time I go back!

Food post next time… yeah go ahead and laugh at me always taking pictures of food.

Me as an LOLcat

Why wasn't this posted two weeks ago?!  I'll forgive you, Icanhascheezburger, I still love you.

Why is there always a line?!

Saturday evening I tutored Helen, a 14-year old girl who is the daughter of my program director's friend.  I'm still not sure if private tutoring is allowed, but I'll take it since they pay me and it came from the director herself.  More about this story later, it's actually quite funny.

Wan Sheng Jie (万圣节）

Halloween in China is when the Americans all get dressed up and go to expat bars to pay for overpriced alcohol and/or cover charges.  This being said, it is a lot of fun.  When I was in Beijing, we forked over 100RMB for tickets to a sold-out warehouse rave party downtown.  It was a blast and I don't know if I'll eve be able to have a better Halloween.

This being said, my expectations were pretty high and I just had to get over myself and realize that I wouldn't be able to replicate the Beijing experience at all.  Costume shopping proved to be difficult but I managed to throw together the Chinglish version of an 80's costume, complete with bright purple tights, a horrible purple scrunchie, and my own Chucks.

It was a fun night overall and the other teachers and I had a good time dancing and drinking those overpriced Tsingtaos.  I actually said "真的吗？！" ("Really?!?!") to the bartender when he said my small bottle of Tsingtao was 30RMB.

Sunday Adventures

The other teachers and I stay at a hostel when we go out in the city over the weekend because it is only 25RMB for a bed there and it is about 45RMB to take a cab back to our school.  Plus, this way we can wake up on Sunday and do more adventuring downtown before taking a bus back to our school.

Sunday morning I got up and walked down the alley from the hostel to get a yummy 包子 for breakfast and the lady let me take a picture of her.

I like her veggie and egg baozi's a lot and she also does a pretty great youtiao (fried dough).  I enjoy walking around alley markets because there is always so many things to look at, like live seafood, fresh vegetables, and made-to-order food.

I also walked over to the Old German Cathedral, that was built in the early 20th century by the Germans (Qingdao was a German colony until the Sino-Japanese war), destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and rebuilt in the 80's.  I also attended Catholic Mass in Korean, complete with drum performance right after communion.  It was an interesting experience!

I also went to TaiDong, a shopping center in Qingdao and bought some things, mainly at Wal-Mart, funnily enough.  Jenna was with me and we had a conversation like this:

Jenna: You know what shopping in China is like?  Black Friday.
Me: Or preparing for the zombie apocalypse.
Jenna: Yeah, you know, there's people pushing and shoving... terrible lines... and even worse service.
Me: Yeah, it is pretty much Black Friday every day.  Why are we here again?

This is a picture of Tai Dong street from the escalator (yeah, not kidding) bridge that connects it to the other side of the street.   There are just so many people in China it never fails to amaze me.  I forget that there are 1.3 billion people in this country and they have to be somewhere.  This means more of everything: hair cutters (at least 2 on each block), mini-marts (probably 3 on each block), cell phone stores (5 on each block), restaurants (oh man...), and shoe repair men/ ladies who etch sparkles on your cell phone (everywhere).  I don't think I will ever get used to the sheer numbers of people here. 

As you can see, I have a proxy server that allows me to post to my blog, finally.  I no longer have to pay Matt in Chinese jiao (10 cents) and day old rice to post for me.