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Showing posts from May, 2015

Don’t nobody wanna see that

So a few grievances I have with my school. The top of the list would be the bathroom situation. They do have a teachers’ bathroom, which is quite a nice upgrade from my past schools. However, this bathroom, like many Chinese bathrooms, has no toilet paper or soap. Grr. But on top of that there are no lights! There is one window at the end of the room and 8 stalls. So if you close the stall door there is no light! Also of the 8 stalls only 2 have working locks. I have figured this out by accidently opening the stall door to find one of my co workers crouched down inside. And then they wanna talk about it later! No thanks I am working as hard as I can to erase the entire memory. So the unspoken rule is that you never open a stall door, ever. If they are all closed you assume they are all full and wait for someone to leave the one with the lock. But even with this fool-proof system, yesterday I walk in to the bathroom with all the doors swung open and one of my coworkers doing her...

The China Scurry

My entire childhood I was teased for my run. Always on my tiptoes with my arms to my side, and flat hands pointed out. Almost as if I were skipping while wearing a tight mermaid-style dress. Earning me the superlative “most likely to prance” from my soccer team; mostly accredited to my blonde, valley-girl tendencies. However, I now realize the true reason for my prance. Deep down, I am a Chinese girl in my natural state of the China scurry. The China scurry can be seen everywhere by all walks of life; the Grandma fighting for a seat on the metro, a man hurrying to catch a bus,   a mother with her baby crossing the street in front of on-coming traffic, or two excited students rushing towards something shinny.   Another unspoken rule in China seems to be that the scurry combine with linking arms with a friend can stop traffic. The thing that strikes me about the scurry is that it seems to be a lot of effort for very little progress. The arms and legs are shuffling so qu...