laughing traveler

One of the Chinese teachers at my school asked me if I wanted to go shopping with her. She knew of a place that sells American clothes not far from the school. I was excited that I may be able to find something in my size, which is a true battle in China. However, while most Chinese people are very small I have noticed a lot more large children. I am shocked when I walk through my elementary to middle school and the boys tower over me! I was suposta be tall in China! For the first time in my life I am average height rather than short by American standards. I guess I will have to be happy with what I have. I look at girls my size or bigger and I always want to ask where on earth they buy clothes. I know my students’ families don’t have the money to get tailor clothes made, which seems to be my only option. The tailor prices are not bad, about what I would pay for clothes in the US, 300rmb for a dress ($45) or 260rmb for dress pants ($40). But on a Chinese salary 560rmb buys food for a m...

Weird Al’s “Another one bites the dust” parody must have been written about China buses. I cannot imagine people in the US EVER being ok with that kind of crowds. Today on the way home from Heidi’s in the hardcore country I thought I was going to die. I literally get on the bus at the second stop on the route and there are literally no seats left. So I wrap myself around the pole near the door and hold on for dear life. Longhua is forever under construction; every time you go outside another road has been dug up and covered with bamboo. The US has orange caution cones, China has bamboo. However, in China no one is afraid of off-roading short cuts. So my huge bus decided they will detour THROUGH the construction sites! I am literally airborne on each bump. I look around and I’m deeply concerned that no one else is surprised by this; just part of china rush hour! So at each of the next stops a flood of people stampede onto the bus , ripping me from my safety pole and further down to the ...

I always said that I never really got into Halloween until college. That Radford made grown up Halloween so much more fun. Well China even tops that! This no Party City or Costume stores in China so you have to get a little more creative. However, you can take a picture to the tailor and she will make you the exact some dress or outfit. I went as Rainbow Brite, So I picked out the loudest blue fabric I could find and had the tailor make me a dress. It cost 300 kuai, which is about $45 but a nice dress I can wear again. I was worried that I wouldn’t be about to find rainbow accessories but then I remembered its CHINA! They have everything. Annarae took us to the PIT in Dongmen, which is under a mall area, super dirty with tons of random crap. And we were on the Halloween hunt. You would not believe that things we found. Leg warmers and hand warmers on every row! And no shortage of rainbows, rainbow leg warmers, rainbow hair ties, rainbow earrings, rainbow necklace! I bought them all...

I have had a grumpy day and have sentences myself to a 1000 word essay on why I hate China to get it out of my system. So be forewarned. My students had gotten out of control. At the beginning I saw they were all doing other homework and not paying attention and spent a lot of time walking around telling each student “put it away put it away”. Then I decided that was a pain in the butt and if they didn’t want to pay attention then I don’t care as long as they are quite. But then it turned into little groups doing their homework together and talking and running around to give each other different papers, then they began throwing things. And then there is the punk kids that knows everything already and yells out everything they are thinking because they are bored. SO I am literally screaming at the top of my lungs to the 5 kids that are listening. So I had a kick ass speech that I gave to each of my classes the last 2 weeks and things seemed to be improving. I was so proud of myself. I e...

So the past few weeks I have been feeling really guilty about missing church. I have gotten to where I spend most weekends in Longhua with Heidi and our new Chinese friends. So I have to wake up by 6am to catch the bus to get to shekou in time for church. But last Sunday I finally woke up at 6am and made the trip back. I was so glad I did. The Church is called a Fellowship because it is not recognized by the Chinese government so it cannot be called a church. It is more like an underground church that is purely word of mouth. We meet at the gym of an international school and the church is run completely by volunteer lay leaders who take turns giving the message each Sunday. So the church has grown so much that every time I go they literally run out of chairs and it is standing room only in the back. The church elders have been told that it is too many people for the gym and the school does not want us there long term. When they announced this on Sunday he said, “What a great problem to...

So on a great hair day I set out to see the famous rice terrace! Which are beautiful mountains covered in rice fields as far as you can see and little villages where the farmers live. It’s about a 2 hour bus ride to the rice terrace and we were in a group of all Chinese except for one couple from Portugal. So the tour guide spoke in Chinese first and then did a quick translation for us. I don’t remember the guides name, he was no Young-young but still cracked me up. So he tells us, “70% of the money you paid for the tour pays for the bus, so no sleeping! look at all the beautiful mountains everywhere we go and get your moneys worth, when it gets dark then you can sleep!” we unload the huge tour bus and stand around careful not to lose sight of the tour flag (red and yellow just like 10 other tours had!) waiting for a small bus to take us up the whiney mountain. While we are waiting we find my Aussie friend! Her tour was mostly foreigners but she had been standing around waiting about...

Our second day in Guilin we had another full day planed. Colin was able to hook us up with an English tour group for a boat cruise down the Li River to Yangshao. The saying is, “Guilin is the most beautiful place in china, and Yangshao is the most beautiful part of Guilin.” So expectations were high! We were the first ones on the bus at the butt crack of dawn. For some reason the second we picked up another blonde foreigner I was suddenly a social butterfly. China’s blonde obsession had rubbed off on me. There was a guy about our age working at the world expo and taking a short break with his Dad and sister. His name was…. Umm maybe I am not so good at the introductions we referred to him as Mr. Finland. He said he had been in China for about 4months so he had pretty much master the language, I laughed assuming it was a joke. But then he started talking to the driver in prefect Chinese and I was shocked. Especially since it has taken me 2 months to master hello and thank you! It wasn’...