laughing traveler

It still hits me so hard every time I realize how different life is here. Its hard for me to imagine a place where people have never heard the name of Jesus but its true. I am living there! The Shekou fellowship, underground church had the children’s Christmas play and it brought me to tears. I don’t know why an Indian girl playing Mary is so much more moving next to a Chinese Gabriel and an Australian Joseph. But it was! It was beautiful and unexpected. Almost as cute was one of my friends who was sitting behind me with her student that just become a Christian. I could hear her say, “so this is a play? Jesus is a baby? Her mom is very lucky, look how happy!” The preacher got up to speak and pointed out a boy my age in the audience that was a first time visitor. He said that he had spoken to him before the service and the boy asked what the sermon was about and then responded, “Who is Joseph?” The speaker was an American and talked about how he knew the story of Christmas long before h...

So for Christmas this year we find out at the last minute that the Chinese education bureau wants to throw a Christmas party for all the foreign teachers. They have rented out a hotel and a santa suite for the occasion. So I went with a few friends to get hair washes to relax before the party. The guys there let us give them English names. We took our responsibility very seriously and want them to have cool names not the standard John and Matt like every other Chinese man. So in honor of my favorite Christmas song the crazy haired guy is now DOMINIC ( like the donkey hee hee) and the other guy had the pucker lips so he needed a gangster name, JAMAL! So if you are ever in Shenzhen and meet 2 Chinese men named Dominic and Jamal you can know I have left my mark! Apparently our contact teachers were invited to the dinner as well and were encouraged to drive us. My teacher however was relieved when I said I was meeting up with friends earlier, to which she responded, “good I won’t have to ...

Let me start by saying this weekend I saw a black bear ride a motorcycle on a tight rope with a man hanging below on a ribbon swing. And before you say yea right this is not possible, I have pictures to prove it! So yes, I went to the zoo thinking I would see a bunch of cages with one or 2 animals in each. But everything in China has to have some shock value. One word - Liger! In America we think of this lion-tiger mix as a myth! But in China they make it happen! There were literally 20 ligers in this zoo! And pictures of how they were made if you were unsure! As always, the monkeys where very entertaining. This one jerk man was holding a banana in front of the monkeys to make them reach out of the cage right before he pulled it away at the last minute. We all called him an ass in English, but that didn’t stop me from taking a picture. So the bear exhibit had 3 bears and 2 of them were fighting! That’s right I saw a real live bear fight! I was promised that you can pay extra to be dr...

So this last weekend I experienced my first Chinese Wedding. I didn’t know what to expect, so I searched for the nicest dress I own. One of my Chinese friends asked me and Heidi both to accompany him to his friends “happiness day.” We asked if we were dressed ok when he picked us up and he was in a hurry since we were late so said yes and rushed us out of the door. I felt like a fool when we show up and everyone is in jeans as to not upstage the bride! She and the wedding party were at the entrance welcoming everyone. She saw us and said so beautiful! The bride isn’t supposed to tell anyone else they are beautiful! It is her day! She is supposed to be getting all the compliments! So I find out that the actual ceremony is a small private event and everyone is invited to a dinner after to celebrate. The best part was the slide show of the wedding shots! I literally cried they were so beautiful. It was all the bride and groom running around China being in love! Splashing each other in t...

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’...

I don’t know where to start. It was simply gorgeous! The city is known for its Osmanthis trees which happened to be in full bloom while we were there which made the whole place smell like perfume. Which made for a rude awakening when we loaded back on to the crowded bus for Shenzhen and realized that it too had a distinctive smell, garbage! So the bus miraculously makes the 12 hour trip in 9 hours so we get there about 8 am which was an awesome surprise. Luckily, the hotel let us check in early and leave our bags at the hotel while we went in search for the only thing that would make it worth walking around in public after only 6 hours of sleep on a bus; McDonald’s breakfast! It was a long walk but even in my morning funk, I have to be excited about the beautiful scenery. Every block there would a clearing through all the large buildings and you would see the wild mountains in the distance. There was an amazing breeze that made it about 20 degrees cooler than the blistering heat in S...

This weekend I have had my feet washed, my back massages, my feet and legs massaged, my hair washed and scalp massage. A girl could get used to this! I met up with a few friends who had done the project last year and we ate a baked spaghetti dinner, not the same in China but they sure tried. We walked around to find a tailor to order some tailor made clothes since my clothes are falling off of me I have lost so much weight the last 2 months here. Everything is fresh here, even the fried noodles are light and not greasy. Plus they don’t sell all the salty snack foods that I crave so I just don’t snack . And I sweat buckets just walking down the street or up 5 flights of stairs to my apartment. But anyway we decided to waste some time since everything is closed for the holiday. We find this hole in the wall place advertising food washes and take a crowded elevator up to another world! This wooden smelly elevator dropped us off in this huge hardwood floored, chandeliered, matching furni...

I am finally settling into the teaching routine. I teach 15 classes a week; 10 classes of 7th graders every week and 10 classes of 8th graders every other week. Each class has 50-60 students so I literally have over a thousand students! After this realization and the first class I quickly decided there is no way I am going to be able to take pictures of each students and memorize their names. So far I have taught 5 classes and only one was awful! And luckily that is an 8th grade class that I only have to see every other week. I walked into the class and this boy in the back row stands up and says, “oh foreign teacher, so beautiful!” in English. So I said, “Thank you.” And the class went crazy! I guess he didn’t think I would hear him or that I wouldn’t understand his English, I don’t know. I thought that thank you was the correct response. But the rest of the class was constant chatter and my angry teacher look apparently needs work. So maybe I introduced myself as Ms. Christy from W...

So 2 days after my internet got hooked up in my apartment it stopped working again. So once again I am at the mercy of friends to relay my group messages. I feel very lucky to have American friends here. It is incredible how much better it feels to laugh with people going through the same thing after a CHINA RAGE day like my last blog. I must tell the story much better in person. Bc on paper everyone said it made them cry which was no my intent! Hanging out with American friends also helps you meet people. I had been in my apartment for 2 weeks and was almost convinced the rest of the rooms were abandoned. I never saw anyone in the hallways or with the doors open, understandable it’s hot as crap! Yet when 3 blondes are laughing all night long my neighbors came to introduce themselves. He was smoking a cigarette, which are seriously less than a $1 a pack here no wonder everyone smokes, outside my room and hear us. Then he went and got his roommate, who woke up my other neighbor who wor...

Today was quite possible the worst day of my life. I am dieing without internet! The group of teachers are emailing events back and forth and then I will get a text 5 mins before the meeting saying “Hey are you coming to dinner?” No! I didn’t get the memo! Then it’s “oh just take the 334 to the k115 to SeaWorld, they will know what you mean if you say Sea World, it’s a huge fancy area.” Well how about I just cry in my room alone because that was actually happens. So I text my contact teacher and say I am going to SeaWorld and just wanted to double check my directions. And she texts back “this is not possible.” Thanks for clearing that up, do you know the best way to get there? “22” I hate texting! 22 from where? Which direction? How long dose it take? Is there a McDonalds? These are the answers I was looking for. So I walk down to the bus stop and see if maybe there are signs or something. Oh there are signs alright, in all Chinese characters, none of which include the 4 characters ...