Finally...

It's time; I'm outta here. See you in 19 days China. I hope your frozen spit decorating the sidewalks has melted by then.

Zaijian!

Anna

A far ra ra rar holiday.

I'm not sure how to spell the Chinese botchery of fa la la la la that occurs on A Christmas Story (you know the scene at the Chinese restaurant), however, I do understand the meaning of the added r (pander, bananar, Chiner) and now, what it means to be in China for the Christmas season.

The P.R.C. is a religious wasteland, that is, it's almost entirely devoid of religion. Sure, there are a few monks, Buddhist temples, but by and large, they're tourist traps and the population as a whole avoids the mess of picking a religion. It's not taboo to talk about, unless you're speaking about the two largest fractions of religion that have a tumultuous past with the government of China. Then, you're questioning the government and you don't want to do that. Those being the Muslim Uighurs of northwestern China and the Buddhist Tibetans.

For these reasons, I expected Christmas to come and go, without a Santa or snowflake to recognize it. China isn't Christian, I would have understood and respected that. In Zhengzhou many times I'm the first non-Chinese person they've met and I'm an oddity they don't get. How would they understand Christmas?

I first noticed it on the first of December, a Santa hat. As I was purchasing my yogurt at Zendo, a mini-market near my apartment where I regularly go, I looked up to pay. Atop the cashier's black hair sat a red velvety hat.

At the time, I thought it had been a unique exception and I believe I acknowledged it with a weird smile. Huh? Since then, however, it's been an explosion of confused yuletide spirit. "Merry Christmas" has popped up on almost every available window store front. On one display, Santa's riding a jet airplane exclaiming, ho, ho, ho. I've seen more than one life-size Santa shaking it. Most of all, large wire Christmas trees have made company with the trash on the street. It's almost frightening, really. I'm not sure if I want to welcome it or curse it. It's not that they have it so wrong, but because they have it almost admittedly right (in the Chinese landscape). I must consent that its my terrible egotistical inclinations that don't want it that way. They can't have Christmas; they don't understand it!

In reality, Christmas in China, even if it is Zhengzhou, shouldn't have shocked me. China has embraced the commercialism of the new world to the upteemth degree. They are pioneers, the creators of it all. The world's factories claim the Chinese countryside. Look at the t-shirt you're wearing, unless you purposely purchased something that was USA made, I think we both would be surprised if "Made in China" wasn't stamped onto its tag.

When I first started teaching, I would ask, "How was your weekend? What did you do?" Every time the answer remained the same, "Shopping." I wasn't sure if it was the limitation of their vocabulary so I would press further, but after several months and many classes, it still hasn't changed. China's economy is booming. You don't have to be in China to know this. However, my relocation has shown me the great depth of what that sentence means. Clothing boutiques swallow up entire blocks in every direction; sometimes I wonder how they survive, but then I see the masses and hear their answers. The Yuan is accelerating in value and while the Chinese have it, they love to spend it by shopping. Exporting a shopping holiday like Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate and exploit that.

Yet, my opinion remains unchanged. Christmas stripped of its core values, family, friends, and yes, Jesus, is a Christmas that I don't want and I hope never seizes the U.S., even as much as I do love the presents.

In China, the magic of the season fades quite quickly. Fa rar rar ra rar.

"I have what you call, KTV fever."

One of my favorite Zhengzhou quotes. 

Refreshment.

"Shanghai is the new America, the new L.A.--the new land of opportunity," Jack, one of the other teachers who joined the same program as me, Go China, Appalachians Abroad, (which is a great falsehood of a lie, clearly, as I'm not from Appalachia, but I digress). He wasn't directly referring to the other 20,000+ Americans sharing the city of Shanghai with him, though it was true; Jack was quoting the Chinese and their realization of China's forthcoming dominance. The Shanghainese, unlike those in Henan province, knew.

I listened as I clutched the hang bars of Shanghai's immaculate and extensive 14 line metro system. I already felt a world apart from the China I thought I was beginning to understand, the agricultural Henan province that still teemed with an alarming amount of people and money. My travel companion of the weekend, Wes, and I knew instantaneously once we exited the train from Zhengzhou; we were in Shanghai. It wasn't the sudden immensity of tall buildings, we still had quite of few of those in Zhengzhou. No, it was the great blanketing of English--what my job was doing to create--it was everywhere, or so it seemed in comparison. And while Shanghai didn't have the cleanest air of the country, in fact, the China Daily recently showed the smog to be at a recording setting high, it did have streets that were undeniably clean. Something else Zhengzhou lacked.

"Here," Jack continued, popping my thoughts, "you can be an English teacher by day and anyone you choose by night."

I imagined the possibilities for a moment, what it all could mean for me. What my experience could have been reversely instead had I applied early and selected Shanghai as my new home. In fact, Jack told me, so L.A. it was he had already auditioned for a small role in a movie. He didn't have to be good, he continued. I knew, face. Even Shanghai still revolved around the foreign face, for now. At the young age of 22 and a recent graduate just like me, Jack already had a Chinese business card. He wanted to be a part of China's next wave.

It was weird, but as I listened to this and more Shanghai talk, I felt more out of touch and out of place. As I savored the familiar food at an American chain restaurant based in Iowa's neighboring, Chicago, Illinois, called Morton's, with Wes' visiting grandparents, the feeling continued. As we talked about country club arguments and college basketball, neither of which I had any strong opinions about, the itch persisted. As I danced for hours to American imported club songs with some of our Shanghai acquaintances, all fellow AAers--Appalachians Abroad, who again, weren't from Appalachia. The nagging remained.

I felt overwhelmed and in shock. Was it possible to get culture shock in the same country? In reality, the truth was, the Shanghai I was experiencing wasn't the China that I had categorized in my mind based from my past 3 1/2 month time here. I was in an American sense of place, which included a dappling of Chinese characteristics. However, I felt if one blinked hard enough (and lived in downtown Pudong), one wouldn't even notice the Chinese nature of it all. Pudong is the financial district of Shanghai; it's new, sparkly and littered with Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Also calling it home are Shanghai's Pearl Tower and the world's third tallest building, the World Financial Center. I felt as foreign as I ever have here in China. I tossed my head back in an awkward neck extension. I was transfixed by all the imposing tall buildings. I imagined I was in a time machine to the future, even though I knew I was here in the now. Culture shock, in China, oh my Lady Gaga, it was true.

(Yes, that cut off picture is a store for Prada.)

I continued to be perplexed as I tried to respond to the Chinese waiters with a polite xiexie. "You're welcome," most everyone, it seemed, replied back.

I was confused. Where was I?

To no surprise, there is a KFC (in fact, there are more KFCs in China than in the U.S.) and a Starbucks on every corner, or so it seemed, again. However, on Saturday afternoon, I chose to get my caffeine kick from another locale, something more original Shanghai. So instead, I sipped my cafe latte on the top deck of the Signal Tower. It's a historic building from 1907, just like it's called, it used to be a signal tower for the important port town Shanghai used to be during that time. The signal tower is the only one of its kind in the far east that still retains a Spanish style of architecture. Shanghai's old European influence is still very evident today, especially on the Bund, where I was sitting. I opened my English book and relaxed. I had decided to venture the city solo for the day and wanted to unwind with the words of Kurt Vonnegut. Yet, I didn't protest when the man next to me prodded, where are you from? The question a traveler can never avoid.

Though quite older, he too was a traveler and as he later revealed, from Taiwan (or Chinese Taipei as the people of mainland China will tell you officially). Now, however, he lived in Beijing. Before that he had been a Los Angeles resident of 6 years. He knew Iowa, he said. I responded, yes, undoubtedly you've probably driven through it like so many have, but few know or truly understand Iowa.

He did, however, understand the grandness of Shanghai and how different it was from the rest of the country. Even its second largest city and capital to the north, Beijing, was a great contrast. We both knew.

I told him I was here to meet up with some friends, escape from Zhengzhou, and relax in the big city. As he told me, he was there for refreshment. Refreshment from Beijing? Yes, indeed, he said.

I continued to ignore Vonnegut and listened to Edward, as he told me his English name was, regale me with tales of how he thought China had changed, just in the past 10 years. Half a century ago you wouldn't even be able to recognize it now. I nodded, while my emphasis in Asian studies hadn't quite made sense to my Iowa college mates or me, to be frank; back in China, it did. I imagined the Cultural Revolution, the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Leap Forward and all the cultural repercussions of these historical events. Occasionally I still think about the stories some of the older people I pass in the streets have to tell.

Edward chatted with an enthusiasm I couldn't help but catch. Indeed, we were living in an exciting time to be in China.

As he said, I already felt refreshed.

Then the weekend was gone and I was very aware of my position, on a train heading back to Zhengzhou. As we emerged from the train station's exit, we looked at Zhengzhou and its lack of English or pinyin with fresh eyes, "Welcome back to China."

As I take stock now, of my own time thus far in China, I imagine how my life would be different if I was living in Shanghai. I've realized I'm actually quite thankful for where I am. Zhengzhou may be the backwater to Shanghai, but I've actually grown to love it. Maybe. I do know this, when I reflect back on my experience as an English professor, it will have been different and perhaps refreshing in its own sense.

A "Thanksgiving" like no other.

I count myself lucky as one of the few Americans abroad to celebrate Thanksgiving with a glorified day off.

However, HMC wasn't about to just count that as their thanks. Rather, when President Li found out that we already had plans for Thursday afternoon, he felt embarrassed. The digitaries of HMC wanted to personally thank us for our hard work in China. We were soon notified by several emails and a face-to-face chat that we would be having a Thanksgiving feast with Mr. Li and the rest of the gang. The President had created an opening in his busy schedule, just for us.

I was intrigued. What would a Chinese Thanksgiving feast entail? Would the cooks attempt to Americanize their classic Chinese fare?

Perplexed, I sat down to a table of thousand-year-old eggs, green matter and muck. My table, which consisted exclusively of foreign teachers, ate little to none. I like Chinese food, don't get me wrong. I eat it everyday, but these choices were not among my favorites. Instead, we feasted on the Tsingtao beer that was getting passed out like water bottles.

Yet, or perhaps because of the empty stomaches and full beers, the atmosphere was light-hearted and joyous. It was (almost) Thanksgiving and we were free, for a least a few days.

However, I should have known, all Chinese banquets, whether originally American-inspired or not, end with a surprise---the baijiu surprise.

Thanksgiving was no exception.

I looked at Gill, "Oh no, not again."

Gao Wen, our waiban and boss, had a curious bottle of spirits in her hand. It could be only one thing. The Chinese call it a white wine, but by most countries' standards, that's a bold lie. By now, however, I was a China veteran and knew how to deflect. At a table of cheers, I strategized. Take a nip, never down the entire goblet, especially if no one is watching.

I felt a wiggle pulse through my body as I sniffed the potent crystal clear jiu. I still remembered the baijiu burps that remained long after my first banquet with HMC.

As Gao Wen refilled everyone's glasses for round two, Gill and I swished some Sprite in for a slightly enhanced taste. We knew it was questionable and perhaps even traceable with its newly clouded appearance, but it was certainly worth a shot, I reasoned.

Maybe I added too much or more likely, President Li could smell my fear, because as he made his guided way to me for his individual baijiu rounds, he took one look at me and said what I can only imagine to be, I don't think so. I protested to no avail. This, however, only attracted the entire room's attention. As he sniffed it for clarification, Mr. Li knew, this was no baijiu.

"NO!" I tried to wail.

I wouldn't go down without a fight. I detest the white spirit, just as a some Christians abhor alcohol of any form. I persuaded him to take a sip. Then, without a pause, President Li threw the liquor mix directly into my soup bowl and refilled the wine glass. This time it was more than half-full. He nudged me and I knew, I had to drink all of it.

"Happy--you must drink more alcohol--Thanksgiving Day!" he cheered.

I couldn't stop laughing at the hilarity of it all. Seriously, I couldn't. As I tried to force the baijiu down my throat like a big pill, I felt everyone's eyes on me and then the sting of the baijiu smell and taste. Then, moments later, another taste, that of the few contents within my stomach coming back up. My throat burned as I tried to chock it all down. Blllllahhhhh....it felt terrible and my face burned with laughter and contortion. Confused eyes bore down on me and I knew what they were thinking. Ew...I'm pretty sure she's not only laughing anymore. Actually, I know this because Gill told me that's what she was thinking.

As I attempted to sit down, my body gave an uncontrolled wiggle and finally I chocked down the last shallow of baijiu barf.

Never again.

Turkey. Gobble, Gobble.

While the fourth of July may be the nation's holiday, I believe Thanksgiving is what it's all about.

To me, Thanksgiving is America and it's my favorite.

However, I've realized as I've spent the past T-day with friends, not family (last year I was Chile, we had salmon) and soon to be this year's blessing of Thanksgiving (we'll have chicken, again, there is no turkey) that my idea of Thanksgiving is extremely skewed whether I'm in the country or not.

See, for me, it's about the Swedish meatballs, the Red Oak and Bishop Hill.

Still, I was determined to teach my students about the great Thanksgiving, the one where most people relish the great turkey. I made it simple. I excluded details of my own celebrations, i.e. chasing tomtes, yulebuks and drinking lingonberry creme coffee (something most Americans don't really understand either, I get it!).

To my students, however, simple is relative. Just as America is as different as the language that defines it.

I tried to explain "mash" potatoes, but without a dictionary of simple vocabulary at hand, most of my students just looked dazed as if they too understood the spell of a turkey coma, which they didn't either. See, they thought the white outline of food filling the bowl signaled rice.

As an ESL (English as a second language) teacher, suddenly you realize the limits and great expansions of your own language. Why does that word mean that? I've had to question myself on a better way to explain something several times over. Luckily and not so luckily, I have 6 classes and 6 times to attempt my explanations.

"Carrot, you know, it's orange, a vegetable, you eat it here in China."

"Huh?"

Sometimes teaching English as a second language is like a long, never-ending game of charades. Of course, when you are not playing charades, you also find yourself doing all sorts of weird things at the expense of understanding. Like today, I found myself using baby talk to illustrate slang. Why? Only a student in that classroom could explain, but oddly enough to the Chinese mind, it worked, I think. As so, I've also scared some students silly in trying to get them to truly understand the element of surprise; they didn't see it coming-- BOO! I'm sure this has never happened in their Chinese classes and only enhanced their joy, confusion and hopefully--surprise.

Yet when it comes to teaching English abroad, it can be a weird sort of therapy.

Language and your knowledge of it, can either sprout a wall blocking you out of a culture or usher you in to its most intimate circumstances. My Chinese is such that without my student's English striving, I would only be tapping on the window display glass of understanding into the Zhengzhou lifestyle.

However, once the bell rings, it's my time. English is the mode of communication and I can revel in stories about vampires and ghosts (if Halloween is our muse), songs that teach like Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days, episodes of Friends that exemplify the inevitable failures of Thanksgiving, and the like.

It's therapeutic in a world where most girls enjoy gnawing on the talons of chicken feet. I'm still observing that one. Not all interests to human beings are universal.

So, while I can't eat turkey yet again this Thanksgiving (or Swedish meatballs). In China, I can at least hear its name and talk about its grave absence from my new world.

"Hmmm....sounds delircous," my students chime (in their traditional Chinese accent of an added r).

"Yes, yes it is," I assure them. "It's deLICious."

Yet, this also means I can't stop thinking about America and all that I am missing in the holiday season.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to the land of unlimited freedoms and wild turkeys. I'll be thinking about you all week long with chicken cordon bleu and imported apple pie as my Thanksgiving imitators.

We do what we can ;)

"Oh my Lady Gaga."

It's a favorite expression among my students and the greater Zhengzhou population alike. While we were sipping on our mango milkshakes at the Christmas tree (a real & amazing place), we overheard the older man behind us mumble it.

"Oh my lady gaga," indeed.

This was the great inspiration for my Halloween costume.

Shanghai!

Next Friday morning at 7:55 a.m. I'm heading to Shanghai!

I'm trying to save money, be responsible, you know all those grown-up things you're suppose to master once you join the 'real world', but the way I see it, I haven't joined that yet.

I'm in Chinaland, where you skip class (all approved by the boss, of course) buy fast-speed train tickets to visit friends and the big city.

I think Peter Pan had his thoughts just right.

Zhengzhou reality: Fitting in is hard to do.

"You live in a village, right?" Joe asked over skype.

Zhengzhou doesn't make most notable maps of China, unless you're counting all the capitals of the PRC's provinces. Even the Chinese that live outside Henan consider the province and its capital, Zhengzhou, to be dirty backwater that is better to be forgotten.

I laughed. I was one in a city of 5 million. Subtract 2 million and you have the population of Iowa. It's huge, just not for China's standards.

But, if you think in the mind of an expat English teacher, Zhengzhou feels just like that, a small village with few worldly options.


Friday, I was feeling what I must call the Zhengzhou blues. A wave of depression swept over me in a not-so-subtle way.

I was bitter and a little sad and I only wanted one of Zhengzhou's little pleasures--a night out at a "fancy" Italian restaurant that a ZZ food blog had highly recommended. I eat rice two times a day, everyday. Many of life's culinary delights have escaped me since my arrival here. Avocados, cheese, limes, milk, cereal are available if you're willing to fork over half your month's salary. I'm not trying to complain here on Blogger, but just to say, variety is the spice of life that I needed right then. I thought it would be the cure all to my sullen mental state. So, Gill and I pulled out dresses fresh from the U.S. (in Zhengzhou there is hardly ever a reason to don one--classy Zhengzhou, mheh, no.) and Joe even flashed a tie.

The Italian restaurant was a flop. It was underwhelming, at best. Neon colored pink, yellow and orange plastic beads hung from the ceiling, creating a half-circle enclosure around each table. To complete the brightly-lit 70s porn-star den, the multi-mirrored wall read, exotica pizza. What?!

I went with the recommendation, a thin crust veggie pizza. It wasn't exotica, instead it had corn on it, something that wasn't promised in the short English description. I like my corn on the cob and in my backyard, but I thought I had left Iowa. The warm beer did little to swing my own spirit. I felt down and as I reached for another we found out the restaurant had run out of pijiu. Every last bottle. The last few were apparently already sitting on our table. Another ZZ disappointment. If we would have written the review, it would have been dramatically different; a missed opportunity of a Chinese Pizza Hut knock-off was more appropriate. If we would have known, we would've crossed the street to go to the real deal. (To understand, the Chinese don't understand the concept of cold beer. They might even tell you that you shouldn't drink it as it will most likely make you sick. Getting a cold one is like winning at the penny slots, you do your own happy dance when your small payday arrives. Ice cubes are an equally rare thing here, unless you're at McDonalds.)

We slunk back to our apartments, changed out of our fine ware and finally forced ourselves out for a drink. It was Friday night and it had been a week deserving of some kind of unwinding release. However, the Zhengzhou nightlife for a laowai consists of 2 bars, both luckily a 10 minute walk down the smelly Jingliu Lu. We bucked up and followed the usual stink. Not wanting to see, let alone talk to some of Zhengzhou's weirder characters or creeps, we chose Reds. It's a make-shift bar found on the 6th floor of a hotel and is the only place where you can get a real margarita, for a price. For a much smaller yuan note, however, they have an always on special shot of Jameson. The owner is super friendly and his girlfriend speaks perfect English as she studied in England for six years. When we arrived, the characters met us in the elevator.

It's weird, but in Zhengzhou because of the great absence of foreigners, you feel obligated to acknowledge one another. Be it on the streets, the Indian restaurant (a usual foreigner escape), Metro (the exclusive, member-only import shop) or the elevator to Reds. You want to know their story. Why Zhengzhou? But to be frank, our temporary travel companions were straight-up Zhengzhou trash. Individuals that we would later see drinking out of their own handles of vodka a table over (there are only 5 small tables in the whole place), whilst taking what I must call the MySpace sleaze photo. China attracts some weird people. This we all know. As someone returning for a second dose, I must count myself in this judgement. Being called weird lost its sting in second grade. Zhengzhou, however, brings the oddest, I swear. Last year one of the HMC teachers was a mid-thirties man who would occasionally wear a pj onesie to work in the teacher offices. To complete the look, the onesie had bear ears attached to its hood. Imagine walking in on that. He's gone now, but the sentiment still rings true. For this reason, I have few friends outside my small HMC teacher circle. This, I'm okay with as it means I'll save more yuan and when this semester times out, I'll be able to escape for a full 8 weeks and do what I truly came to Asia to do, travel.

This is the Zhengzhou Reality. You're not supposed to be too comfortable, nor or you suppose to fit in. Though, you know you'll always be remembered with more camera phone pictures than one knows what to do with. It's part of the exploration and awkwardness of being a laowai in China.

(To note, I'm doing fine. There should be no worries about me. It's just frustrating being without the comforts of home as well as the many friends I'm accustomed to and miss.)

The dust of Zhengzhou is here.

It never rains here. Of the almost three months I've been here, we've had 5 or 6 days of rain, leaving the flat wonderland of Zhengzhou a comparable Kansas during the dust bowl. As so, the fall winds have churned up the dust and blown it into my eyes, nose and mouth.

Today, however, I found the perfect solution.



hah...imagine me wearing this on the streets of weiwu and jingliu lu, I don't think I could take myself seriously ever again.

U.S.A. #1, no?

Time flies.

It's 5 weeks until break. The first semester--almost done.

Sometimes time freaks me out. It passes so quickly and life's far distant plans are poof--------gone.


Usually, I want to slow life all the way down to pause. You know, stir it, sip it and add a little milk, just like a cup of my favorite joe, while I bask in the coffee house atmosphere and aromas. hmmm, delicious.

This, however, is the point in my China stint that I get restless, I want my holidays to come, now. I want to fly away and see new places and people. Remind myself how small I am in this crazy, diverse world.

....and then there is the other part of me that says, or you really could get that cup of joe and feel cozy in that dungeon like cave you like to call Java House, for example, sipping in all that is caffeine and comfort of familiarity.

As I plan my future away, making goals for the next few years, I think I'll always be tied between these two tugging strings. Home or life abroad?

"Travelling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station."

Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

(I've been looking at too many travel quotes lately.)

For now, I'll just dream about Australian espresso and a much needed Frisky sister reunion, while I eat Chinese food until I explode.

The next big adventure.

-----------------> Spain.

I'm in the midst of applying for a teaching grant in Spain. If I can, I'll teach my way around the world and hopefully I'll gleam a little more language ability myself along the way.


Live in North America, South America, Asia: check, check and check!
Visit New Zealand and Australia: check and (soon to be) check!
Live in Europe: pending.
Visit Africa: dreaming...

If only I could count Antarctica. I was close, but unfortunately although Tierra del Fuego, Argentina may call itself the end of the world, it's not, just like those black and white birds weren't penguins (big disappointment).

To all the fellow travel dreamers, a quote by the famous photographer Diane Arbus.

"My favorite thing is to go where I have never been"

Normal blogging will resume soon-ish.

Halloween.

A few photos from my school's Halloween party, words to follow soon enough.

No where will you feel cooler than in Zhengzhou as a foreigner teaching English at a college in the middle of China.

As you can probably see, it means a lot of camera phone pictures (those are indeed our students) and more compliments on your beauty and white skin than are healthy for anyone's self-esteem. Though, I also think I could stop showering, create raccoon-esqe eyes, and wear fashion of questionable sense and it would be the same.

8 weeks.

8 weeks of classes until the semester's end

& then...8 weeks of paid vacay.


Rather than turn on the heat, the school is cutting two weeks of school for extended leave from the frigid tundra Zhengzhou is about to become (to my Iowa friends, I'll let you know which is worst). This means more class hours now, but luckily we talked our way out of Saturday morning work (we are only contracted to work Monday-Friday). Tuesday office hours have turned into real class time, I'll sacrifice that for two more weeks of island time. Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand...here I come. I'm going to begin my scheming plans soon. If only tickets to Australia weren't soo expensive.

The ZZ life. Part One.

If you give a mouse a cookie, it'll probably want a glass of milk...

Unless you're in China, where people don't like milk, then you're shit out of luck.



What am I talking about?

Let me try to explain...

Maarten Troost authored a book titled, "Lost on Planet China." A name, at times, that is all too appropriate. I can't try to make sense for you all the strangeness of my day-to-day life here in China. However, I can write random disjointed tidbits. So that's what this post will be. Enjoy.

To begin, of the roughly 240 students I teach each week, in 6 different classes of Speaking and Listening Freshmen English, I have a few favorites and a few favorite names. It starts with Number One, then of course, there's Pull, Egypt, Cinderella, Pander, Smelily, Youngel, Fancy and Lady Gaga. I gave up trying to pronounce their Chinese names when my attendance roll call ended in giggles every time.

If you want to a see a smell (as the Chinese will pronounce the word smile in the worst habit possible) break across a Chinese student's face, attempt Chinese. They love to laugh at you, as a result, I've given up on learning to speak. I am a shibai (Or in other words, a Mandarin language failure.)

As so, apparently, Mao means cat in pinyin. I, however, didn't realize this until after I wrote Mao on a piece of paper over one student's forehead for her to guess based from her classmates' descriptions. I listened as the class described Mao, the former Communist leader of China, with whispered meows and pretend kitty cat ears. I didn't realize why until two days later. Wrongly I wrote on the board, Mao = Zedong, Meow=Cat.

One of Joe's students turned in his "creative" writing essay, he titled it, A Story about Two Friends, Tom and Jerry. Then he preceded to write, "This story is about a cartoon cat and mouse. It was added to Wikipedia in 1997. Feel free to add anything to the story to make it better..."

"You're alive. Congratulations! You're a hero now." Words spoken after climbing a military-esque wall at the ostrich farm, wearing a matching military jacket. Then of course there was the actual riding of the ostrich...

During "sports day," all the professors, foreign and Chinese, gathered together for an afternoon of friendly competition. I prepared with tennies, assuming sports meant some kind of showing of athletic abilities, after all, there were official timers. Instead, the afternoon brought a three part series of oddity, part one, suspending a drum in the air, jointly held by 8 people attempting to bounce a volleyball multiple times in a row. Part two is what I will call the human-hamster ribbon wheel, basically this feat required us to quickly march 50 meters inside a ribbon circle. Lastly, part three, we balanced iron rods in an ever-rotating circle. I pinched myself as the other professors yelled the Chinese words of encouragement, Jia You, which literally means add oil!

If you walk the road Jingliu Lu that connects old campus to Zhengzhou's expat bar hotspot anytime after 2 a.m. you'll see pig carcasses lining the street and occupying the trunks of vans, alleys and backpacks. Just pigs, every night, it smells as foul as it sounds. I've accidentally stepped in a questionable dark red puddle twice.

You can rent Lady Gaga-esque Halloween costumes for less than $8 USD, I'll post a picture of the atrocity after the 31st.

Foreigners are almost always described as those with very long noses.

Our school decided to cancel the final two weeks of school this term, cutting class during the coldest time of the year, rather than turn on the heat. This, they decided, 12 hours before our newly installed Saturday work day. I'm not trying to complain, but this was a swift change from our day trip to Kaifeng, the ancient capital of old China for the Chrysanthemum festival. Everyone woke up at 6 a.m. for work a little angry, to say the least.

This is an excerpt from a note I received in one of my classes, "Dear Anna: My name is Amy. I love you very much, because you are very beautiful. Do you know? I admire you. When I know you are only two years senior to I, I feel I am tiny.....In a word, we all like your class. Can we have a request? Please speak slowly when you teach our. Please slowly, it is our thinking. Anna, can you help us? In the end, I hope Anna is happy every day!" I found it sweet, where as when I told my sister Ingrid, she responded with the word creepy.

The Chinese love to inflict punishment whenever they deem it slightly appropriate. This usually involves song and/or dance. During the first office hours, one of the crowds convinced Wes to sing jingle bells. "Since we are all here, it would be okay for you to sing for us." Oh, really?

During our first school banquet, the Party Secretary toasted us to baijou, the much dreaded rice vinegar. His wise words,"Drink alcohol because it makes you pleasing and pretty." This he repeated to each teacher in varying words until his face turned a rosy red and I had what they call the baijou burps. An experience, I can tell you that I never want to happen again.

Two months gone, the journey continues. Until I remember to add more, here's a video about my travels in Guangxi. There's some oddness involved, of course.

At the end of the day, most days, I do love China, quirkiness in all.

Big noses.

He Dan asked us the inevitable question during our first Chinese language lesson. "Where are you from?" Since we had just learned the Chinese equivalent of mother and father, simply said, ma ma and pa pa, she wanted to know where our parents were from also.

"Tamen shi meiguoren," I replied in mangled tones, but with an air that didn't suppress my over-achieving high school self. Nick scowled, he still didn't understand the definition of the word meiguoren, which I quickly explained meant beautiful (mei) + country (guo) + person (ren). Then I went silent, the Chinese classroom was not a place to show off, as I've learned, you will pay the consequences later on with confused looks as a result of assumed understanding. It was no accident that I also knew the phrase ting bu dong, or simply, I don't understand.

He Dan smiled. Ah yes, American. The first assumption of the Chinese. Stressed as the U.S. Chinese relations may increasingly be at the moment, Americans still dominate the foreign work force. Like it or leave it (USA no. 1? Maybe...not) As so, today after class, a timid student who I didn't know approached me asking, "Are you America?" Well, technically, I smiled and said yes, I am an American. Apparently I had a teacher voice and it was currently set to the on mode. "Wow," she exclaimed. Then I heard the ever common phrase again, I was the first foreigner she had ever talked to and I felt a little bad. Then she gestured to me, big noses. Was it a compliment or criticism? I needed a mirror to inspect the comparison.

After 2 months in Zhengzhou, my perspective had become skewed wildly. After all, today's reality revealed that a clean Western toilet was the opposite equivalent of finding bean paste hiding in your dumpling. You exalted the first and feared the second to equal extremes. Bean paste was the worst that could happen, like falling into a dirty pool of Chinese water at an ostrich farm or botching an American culture lecture about Harry Potter, some could say. As I exclaimed to Gillian at lunch, "Did you use the bathrooms on the speed train? You didn't?! They were so nice!" I continued silently to myself, I even used it twice. Then I paused. This was a bathroom I was talking about.

Perspective. Perspective. Perspective. Like Beetle Juice, I tried to repeat this word while we practiced our tones and syllables, zzzzz, szzzzz, czzzz, but it all sounded the same to me. More over, we just sounded ridiculous, like a hive of buzzing, deaf-toned bees about to meet their death. Again, our teacher intoned.

He Dan turned to Nick.

"Ni na?" (And you?)

"Well, I'd like to think my parents were from Hell," he said only somewhat jokingly. He Dan looked blankly, she didn't understand and Nick smiled in an apprehensive 'it's complicated' way. I'm from no where, he offered, trying to explain that he was retired, but had just ended a 25 year stint working the oil fields of Saudi Arabia as an engineer for Saudi ArabiCo.

"Meiguoren?" she asked, looking for simplicity. Born in Italy and raised there until his high school years, Nick only moved to America late in his teenage years. Sort of, he said.

Satisfied, she turned to Joe, the third and last student in our beginner's class.

"Meiguoren," he replied simply and succinctly.

"But," she raised a hand signaling her protest. "She is from America," pointing sharply at me. "You can't be from America also."

She persisted in English, "Where are your parents from?"

"Meiguo," Joe repeated, hinting at his growing annoyance.

We may not understand the rapid fire of Mandarin on the streets and especially not the Zhengzhou drawl, but we did know the word for our home country, after all, walking through the streets of Zhengzhou we usually overheard people muttering meiguoren, meiguoren. As for the other thousands of words, they were still tonal jibberish.

However, in He Dan's critical eye, Joe with his dark contrasting skin and long dreads looked nothing like me. So, compared to the Chinese standard of homogonity, how could we be from the same country? It was preposterous.

We tried to explain, that's the thing about America, we are very diverse, but stating "we're a melting pot of cultures" doesn't really translate.

She blinked twice. "China is diverse." I inferred from her lack of continuation that she was stating that America, in comparison, was not.

If America was a melting pot then China was the next best thing, a spicy hot pot brewing with variety. She pointed for us to reread the previous paragraph. Yes, we nodded in acknowledgment, China has 56 minorities, the official Chinese government line to feed the world with the idea that China is diverse, perhaps even more so than any other country, even if 95 percent of its population was Han Chinese, just like He Dan happened to be.

Very diverse, she repeated. "How many Indians does America have?"

We twitched. "American Indians or people from India?" Joe bit back as Nick started rattling off tribes, "Well, Cherokee, Blackfoot, the Sioux..."

Again, this was going nowhere.

He Dan turned back to Joe, asking relentlessly, "Where are your parents from?" She refused to accept Meiguo as an answer.

Joe finally lamented after a rambling struggle, my dad's dad, dad, dad is from Africa, I think?

Perspective. We were each learning from each other, our flat tones signaled to her just like her ignorance of America's diversity that we each had a distance to go before we could begin to understand the other.

Ni hao ma?

I start my Chinese language classes tonight, 2 hours of tonal slaughter.

I'm terrible at learning languages. I think there's a Great Wall barrier in my brain.

Zaijian!

To all those things you never knew existed.

Today's ZZ forecast-- a high of 77 degrees with a current status of SMOKE.

That is according to Yahoo's weather page on its Los Angeles server. Seriously.

As I jogged outside during my daily pavement grind today, I didn't see billowing gray plumes representing a burning building or fields aflame, only the characteristically gray sky of Zhengzhou. I swallowed and imagined a thickening of the tar inevitably coating my lungs. Ah, what a wonderfully ashy day, perfect for an afternoon run, I thought with sarcasm that only seems to grow with each day in China. I may now be able to dip, dodge, duck and dive a honking car or charging e-bike without a feeling of constant terror, but I suspect that China's ever-present smog will never urge me to start up my marathon training.

Smoke means fire, unless you're in the haze of Zhengzhou's urban chamber, then it means you should wear a Hello Kitty mask protecting your inhalations--like far too many do here.

Wonderful.

The Golden Week; The ultimate test of a traveler in China.

They say you can see the Great Wall of China from space.

Whoever they is didn't observe the world from afar on a typical smog ridden day in the Red Jungle. As I landed from my bird's eye view from my rectangular airplane window, I saw another wall, the dense gray smog and finally the ground as we thudded to a skittering stop, welcome back to Beijing, the great capital of the industrial kingdom.

The plan, conquer Beijing in three days and the coastal German beer town, Qingdao, for two.

We landed just in time for dinner, and since our relative isolation of Zhengzhou deprives us of most things Western, including my favorite, cereal (which kills me, I can certainly tell you), we decided to indulge ourselves with the capital's finest offerings. Wood-fired pizza and Belgian beer. I reasoned the hefty yuan price as solace for my occasional homesickness. Zhengzhou's closet is Pizza Hut, which offers more Asian cuisine than saucy pizza. I haven't dared.

Being the usual organizer of all things travel, I spearheaded the trek. I knew the perfect place, after all, I had lived in Beijing for two and a half months two summers before. Did I remember it? Sure, I confidently reassured my companions.

I didn't though, as I walked three strides ahead trying to peer around the corner for reassurance, I realized I hadn't ever been to our destination, the TREE, which was becoming more elusive with each city stride. We walked for hours, 3 1/2 to be exact, through the dark lonely alleys and unfamiliar streets, past a drunk foreigner peeing between cars, which was foul. She wasn't a 3 year-old Chinese toddler squatting on the streets spreading her split pants, which is all too usual. By then, it was 1 a.m. and we needed that pizza, just as I needed my dignity. I pride myself on my travels, sidetracked or not, they are (almost) always accomplished.

Then it began to rain, thick cold droplets. I had promised Belgian beer, but really any liquor would do at this point, my companions prodded. No, I said stubbornly, I didn't want to give up. It seemed like the black omen that had followed all of our plans for a destination. It had been something only slightly smaller than a miracle that we had managed to escape Zhengzhou for the holiday. We were damned if that would happen.

We hadn't intended on visiting Beijing during the first week of October, also known as the Golden Week, a time when normal life ceases and the population of China does a big swap. It's been compared to the travel congestion during Thanksgiving in the U.S., if you magnify that to a country the size of 1.3 billion, give or take a few million. Chaos naturally reaches epic proportions.

We found out three days too late that our original destination of Urumqi, the wild West of China had been sold out. The province, Xinjiang, promised adventure, if not a little controversy. Google the region in the U.S. and you'll find mention of the riots between the government and its dissenting Muslim population, the Uighurs. Facebook restriction was just one result of the sparring. Yet, the land holds a gold dollar for China, beyond the religious underpinnings, there's most importantly oil fields, desserts, mountains, lakes, and for tourists, the Silk Road and even the chance to stay in a yurt. I was excited. Yet, each class of China's train system, the soft sleepers, hard sleepers, soft seats, hard seats and the no seat option of a standing ticket, bought. Though, anyone who can stand for 33 1/2 hours must be devoid of feeling pain and suffering, I swear.

Instead, I was tromping around the urban jungle of Beijing, soaking, in search of pizza. The dark angel of travel had descended. Only at 2 in the morning did we find pizza, not at the mysterious TREE, of course. To my frustration, Beijing had changed in my memory. Sanlitun, the infamous night district, still could be spotted from afar in the night neon glow with green, red, purple, yellow trees weeping in the colors of the electronic rainbow, I hadn't forgotten that, but as it was turning out, my trek back in my memory was shrouded greatly. Beijing had changed and so had I.

Then, the next morning, like a gift from the blessed Monkey King of old, powerful China, the smog parted and the clearest blue sky I've ever seen on a Beijing day arrived.

Smog? What smog? For all I knew, we were in Iowa on a perfect, crisp fall day. I could even feel the cool wind breeze.

Beijing certainly had changed.

I was giddy with the fresh air, Fall. I had missed the last season when I skipped hemispheres last summer and I was ready to seize it, though the traditional accomplices of football, vivid kaleidoscopic changing leaves, pumpkin cravings and extreme Halloween extravaganza would be missing.




We started the day with Beijing's most defining monument, Tiananmen Square and its neighbor, the Forbidden City. Staring out upon the world's largest public square, Tianamen, Mao's portrait still hangs on the blood red walls of the Palace with an unchanged stoic look, apparently the people's opinion still hadn't changed either. Ask most Chinese. He is still the beloved dictator and most likely always will be. Homework answers assure me of this. "Who is the great leader that saved China?" "Mao Zedong was the perfect leader because he was fearless and everyone liked him." The masses of the Golden Week equally loved him as they snapped their Nikons in timely fashion, peace and Mao, oh the great man. We followed the herd inside the gates, a few feet from the life size portrait and emerged into the red majesty that is the Forbidden City. Kept apart from the world for 500 years, the well preserved palace is one of the largest and most mysterious in the world. Eunuchs presided as servants and upwards of a 1,000 or more concubines kept the emperor quite busy in his off time. The emperor who marched the imperial family up north, Zhu Di, to its perch in Beijing now is known as a man that held his chopped off penis in a box next to him, at all times, in his palace and his travels at sea. He ruled a tough land, defending the Mongols to the North while simultaneously building his dream playhouse of the Forbidden City.

We moved on quickly, as a Beijinger of before, I had already had my tour of the palace anyway. Luckily my companions didn't feel the need to pay the 60 kuai ticket price to see the snaking walled interiors either. After a refueling of dumplings, we set our sights on Jingshan Park. A green space that takes advantage of a hill that overlooks the majestic gold roofed maze-like wonder of the Forbidden City. As the sun set, I couldn't believe the magic of it all. It's vistas like this that make you appreciate the moments of life abroad, even if it is broken with a phlegm hack, which is all too often here in China.

Like travel so often does to a soul after many days away, our time in Beijing seemed to blur together, but each morning was dually noted as an azul sky like no other before. We ate the famous Peking duck, a necessity in the capital, we rode the subway from one end of the city to another, we shopped for fake goods, ate meals from food served only on a stick or napkin and felt the good life of expats in China. We could live grandly or skimp frugally. Unlike so many, we had the ability to transcend. It was then that we found the evasive Tree, of course. Belgian beers, yes please, I'll have three.

I couldn't, of course, re-visit Beijing without a trip to the Olympic venues. They were high priority on any Chinese tourist's BJ destination list and especially mine. Beijing wasn't the same and either was I, but what about the Bird's Nest? I smiled with anticipation, I had timed our day's plan so that we would arrive exactly at dusk to catch the sunset (again, that wonderful blue sky?!) and the see the change in the venues as they lit up in their brilliant blue and orange twinkle.

While there, among the hoards, I noticed Mickey and Minnie roaming about in overstuffed costumes. This was not part of my Olympic experience. The five anime-like mascots, known as the Fuwas, had been replaced with American imported Disney tycoons.

But, I had to get my picture with them. At one time during my youth, I was a part of the Mouseketeers Club. Not of Brittany Spears fame, but Carol Spooner's Dance Corner, oh yeah, that big time. I had the Mickey ears, tap shoes, the red polka dot dress and a voice that could barely squeak my name for the onstage Mickey Mouse Roll Call.

If anything, this picture would merge my life from long ago past to the present, I waited in turn after the young boy of 10 and smiling big, I wedged my body between the two mice. It was fine until I realized with horror that I was expected to pay dividends of 10 kuai. Disney did not need my petty cash, I reasoned. Plus, in embarrassment, I never would have volunteered myself for that had I known there was a fee, I dashed, like the immature version of the 10 year old that went before me.

I lost my friends for a moment, getting engulfed in the sea of Chinese tourists. "Hello," I squeaked over my Chinese cell phone like my Mickey Mouseketeer voice of my youth, "yeah, I'm still here." Though, we all knew, it was time to go.

We departed as the sun dipped below the skyline and we headed to the train station, the most dreaded portion of our trip. Transport in the hot box of misery with the masses.


I've now suffered three different train rides in China, only one was the soft bunker. It was from Beijing to Inner Mongolia, my first one. Imagine a closed closet with six bunk beds, three atop, tightly fit side by side, each with a thin, but measurable pad. After a full day's ride in solace, I didn't understand what the hoopla of train pain was. I felt great, I had even drooled a little on my pillow from my day's nap. So on the ride back, I opted for the much cheaper hard seat. Over the 12 hour ride, I had maybe slept 3 hours through the night. In the open cabin of hard seats, my train companions never stopped staring, muttering or pointing. "Hallow!" This word never changes in pronunciation nor its sing-songy trance that every Chinese person uses to utter it. So when the older man beside us offered a shot of baijo, the diesel rice alcohol I mentioned before, my travel companion knocked back more than a few shots without restraint. What else could one do? It's no accident that vendors sell the potent liquor five or few steps outside the departing train doors. In the purgatory of a Chinese hard seat, one must remember Sanity and Survival.

My third voyage, solo, 20 hours, only reinforced that. For these reasons, I greatly feared what the National Holiday would bring.

Yet the fact that we had even been able to purchase train tickets from Beijing to Qingdao was a miracle in itself.

When do you want leave, our hostel helper in Beijing asked. The third, we responded, devoid of emotion, let alone anxiety, even though we knew we were gambling with the likes of the Chinese bureaucracy in trying to leave on such short notice. Despite the blue skies of Beijing, the black angel of travel had been hovering over our heads for long enough not to forget.

"TOMORROW NIGHT? Are you crazy?" he replied with perfect English.

Um, we shrugged our shoulders, yes?

His brief phone conversation which again revealed that it's so much easier to conduct travel plans through the mother tongue surprised him more than us. He exhaled a big cheer, then shook our hands in congratulations, I believe he looked more shell shocked then I've ever seen any Chinese before as he said, "WOW, I cannot believe it. 4 hard seat tickets for you tomorrow night."

Except, we only had a one-way ticket to Qingdao. Not return. Apparently as I understand, each departing station holds 90% of the tickets leaving its station. So if you were departing from Qingdao, after arriving from Beijing, you'd still have to wait until you arrived in that city and pray that not all the tickets were sold out.

Our hostel helper warned, remarking about Qingdao's drinking draw, "Remember, tickets are not like beer, this is not fun games. Tickets first, beer next."

We concocted a strategy for the hard seats. Wine and beer. Baijo still wasn't my speed, even if whiskey had crept into my preferred rack of guises.

While idly waiting in the station, I had time to think, too much time while awaiting my fate. That's when the magnitude of the masses of China truly sinks in. For some time, I had been staring at the mini wooden benches a family of four was grasping in anticipation. It was obvious, they had standing tickets. Undoubtedly, the mini benches would be used as temporary hard seats of their own in the crowded aisles of the train car, that is, if one got a spot. Sharp elbow manuring and proper body jostling was key to the success of a premium space or you would end up leaning against a hard seater and ticketers (like me) didn't like that. I knew.

On my one quest to find the w.c. as the bathroom is called here (the watering closet), I felt like I has tromping through a deserted war zone. Bodies filled every available space and arms, legs and heads seemed contorted in ways that seemed unattached to a living human. I watched as only an occasional head bobbed showing signs of life.


We arrived to Qingdao, elated. It had been a long night, but we had a full beach-beer day ahead of us.

In China, everyone drinks one beer, or a cheaper imitation of it, Tsingtao. It's known as China's first beer and Qingdao is its birthplace, thanks to the Germans that settled in the seaside village in the early 1900s, it was the Tsingtao beer factory that was their last installment before getting kicked out as a result of their devastating loss in WWI and the consequential Versailles Treaty relinquishing the port town to another owner. The Japanese soon replaced the Germans until the end of WWII, but kept the factory and its German architecture. Tsingtao, not only survived, but thrived. Over the years, the Japanese were forced to release the port and its belongings, including the German influenced cathedrals, naval bases and its golden brew, Tsingtao.

Today Qingdao is a microcosm of beers. On Beer Street, found directly out the exit of the Tsingtao factory, one can sample coffee beer (tastes like watered down powder Nescafe, not stout), stout (delicious), tang beer (as I call it, tastes similar), green tea beer (didn't try it, but can only imagine), raw beer and beer in a bag. The last being my favorite oddity. I have always been a fan of wine in a bag or even a box, but this was wildly different. The bag was a thin shopping sack and required a straw to sip its contents. Slap the bag was out, unless one wanted a shower of raw beer. We sipped our day's end with a bag, each day. I couldn't help but always repeat myself, "Ah, why couldn't I have lived by the sea in Qingdao?" as I plucked at a fresh mussel with my chopsticks.

Qingdao seemed like a weird dream filled with beer bags, ocean vistas and the best seafood you can capture in China. Like I so often do, I wished for time to stop and the National Holiday to stay put.

It passed before we could do all we wanted, arguably I had managed to escape the "real world", but I still had obligations in China, such as college English classes to teach in two days time. We boarded the express train (we had gotten so lucky again!) that ushered us back to our working life as we rode back to Beijing like a bullet and flew back to Zhengzhou.

I shut my eyes and started mentally plotting my winter holiday plans. Vietnam? Laos? Bali?

I'm BAaCk!

If you don't hear the scream of that title, you must be mistaken at who I am.


More blog posts/pictures to come.

Extremes.

On my walk to the gym today, I saw two furry creatures. It was the golden retriever puppy tied to the bicycle that caught my eye. Two feet away, its companion, a chicken, bobbed in the neon light glow.

Odd, I thought. One a pet, the other, food.

Yet, in my mind, this scene so perfectly captured China.

China is in the midst of reform. Gone are the days of Red Coats and clear communist agenda, instead, clean energy initiatives, electric car innovation and strides in stem cell research blanket the headlines of international newspapers, China has been busy. They're taking our technology and actually using it. According to the NYT, stem cell research has magnified to a record setting scale. A research center in Beijing holds the largest concentrated number of stem cells. What's more, China is leading all of these technological advancements. The result, a large middle class is emerging and given the sheer magnitude of China's vast population, this is HUGE. Welcoming with this new status is "new China". Golden retriever puppies, iPhones (& foreign teachers) imported from the U.S., anything one could want.

It's not just Beijing and Shanghai that have reflected this, even relatively rural Zhengzhou has wealth exploding like Old Faithful. New development is constant. For want of land, the new campus of my school has been pushed away from its central downtown location to the outskirts. Evidence of Zhengzhou's rapid sprawl is gleamed every commute, peasants rake the corn harvest over the empty road lanes while their crops border the concrete. Once inside the campus, our second apartments represent the new world, one with flat screen tvs and dishwashers.

YET, the past still lingers. The Luo Cheng Rock Climbing Tourist Festival showed me that first hand. Rural farmers don't know what an iPhone is, they have yet to use a computer.

Chicken meets pure bred and its all Made in China.

(If you want to read more about China's emerging power, turn to the NYT's recent article about China's three faces.)

Groggy and confused.

It's 6 a.m. and I'm up on a Sunday for my second day of work. Yes, work for me starts on the weekend. The Chinese like to give you holidays off, but don't be confused, you'll make it up, on your weekend.

So, anyway, as I finally roll awake, I see an email from one of my traveling friends from the rock climbing competition. The results were unsurprising, the Chinese won, no question. I had already assumed that. However, what I didn't expect (AT A "CLIMBING" EVENT) that they would have a beauty contest also. They chose 10 confused maidens and mates as the winners, oddly enough I was one of them, and as Leah told me, had I not left early I too would have been leaving with 500 yuan in my pocket.

Odd? Yes, very. Only in China.

Good morning!

My address.

Here's a paste of my address in Zhengzhou. I like mail. muahaha

I have postcards to send out in return, that is once I figure out the Chinese mail system. Just be warned, after I get a Chinese helper to assist me, it can take upwards of 10 weeks to arrive in the good ol' USA. That's five weeks longer than I've been here.


Henan College of Education
21 WeiWu Lu
ZhengZhou, Henan 450014
People’s Republic of China

Banquet--Yanhui.

(Photo from a banquet in Beijing, words about Zhengzhou to come soon.)

"Rock Clibming"

"You've got to be careful," warned the man in charge of the festival, a foreigner.

"They don't know how to handle you. It's like the officials have brought in a cage of tigers and have just let them loose. They're scared of what you may do."

They, was the rural town of Luo Cheng in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi. Only six months prior, the first foreigner had entered the region. A white faced waiguoren was still an enigma here.

As one of the poorest regions in China, especially for the province, the Chinese government was looking to sprinkle some of its excess funds to the local economy. Rather than deposit a lump dollop of yuan directly in the farmers' pockets, the government was looking to the future--tourism.

However, the small town of a few thousand, small for any country's comparison, but especially China's, had no infrastructure. What it had, authenticity and the surrounding karst mountains--a climber's dream.

So, the "2010 Guangxi Luo Cheng 'Rock Clibming' Tourist Festival" was born. With a cash reward of 5,000 yuan for both the top male and female climber, a sum many times more than the local farmer's annual salary of 350 yuan, any serious Chinese climber came.




I had been in Yangshuo for a day too long. I had ticked off the list of my "must-do's." Bike and hike Moon Hill, jump off the bridge on the Lijong River, rock climb, and drift down the Li River in a bamboo boat, as well as unexpectedly swim across the same river (much to the surprise of the boat master, when he refused to lower his bargain price of 50 yuan per head to drift us across, we jumped in and swam the length instead). I'm fairly confident I won't grow an extra toe.

On the travel scale, it had been an 8. Yet, I still wanted something more.


"Free food, free stay and climbing. No catches," read a poster hanging on the city wall across from my hostel.

Centered on the poster a hill greater than Yangshuo's famed Moon Hill, noted equally for its unique shape and location, as well as its visitors, including President Nixon, dominated the gloss. I didn't know what the "2010 Guangxi Luocheng Rock-Clibming Tourist Festival" was, but the post-it attached held the subliminal message that said, "Come climb." My mind stuck on one word, FREE.

I had only two days left in my travel time in Guangxi province before my plane was scheduled to take off from Guilin back to Zhengzhou, but as if I already knew the competition's slogan, Think less, climb more, I set my alarm for the 9 a.m. bus.

I'd figure out the rest of the details later I thought as I drifted to sleep on the hard bunk bed.


An hour after the planned time ("China time" usually happens fashionably late), we disembarked and I, along with 30 other climbers, from the professional to the novice, were sharing a gravel road with a water oxen and its owner in the middle of karst country. We were an odd sort, representing 17 different nationalities to be exact, and looked the rough and dirty shape of a backpacker. In Luo Cheng, our arrival caused a minor traffic jam. As people grabbed their ropes and quick draws from below the bus, equipment as odd as we were, the officials swiftly instructed us to step inside.

We were the tigers.



Not until 1987 did climbing, the way we know it, arrive in China. Since then, Yangshuo has become a climbing mecca, with over 600 bolted routes, it easily ranks as the country's best place to climb on. Chris Sharma has even touched rock here.

Five hours away, accessed by single lane gravel roads, at times, Luo Cheng had the same karst mountains, but none of the bolts. Where people are more concerned about food for tonight's dinner, the pronation of one's climbing shoes becomes a moo point, if they even understood why you would want to crunch your foot at all. Foot binding is recognized as illegal here now.

Unlike the history of China, a long and complex tale, China's climbing history is similarly as short as the Qin dynasty, its reign lasting only a mere 15 years on the long line of emperors. Yet the effects of the Qin Dynasty still define China today, the construction of the Great Wall in the North and the 7,500 unearthed life-size terracotta warriors in Xi'an. For Luo Cheng, the new sport of climbing in China was going to define the area and at the same right, be the spring board for its rise to success. Naturally, the only way to mark this was with a festival equal to the inauguration of a president.

Obviously when I had hopped the bus to Luo Cheng, I hadn't anticipated the significance of the event. The presence of our foreign faces was the catch to "free".



As a guest, I was declared a foreign VIP. As an English teacher in China, I am also a "Foreign Expert" in a week I'll have the documentation to prove it. If you want attention, come to Asia, your need to feel special will dissipate fast with each flash of a Nikon, usually inches from your face. Being a foreign volunteer for the Olympics prepared me for this kind of assaulting attention, my first full day in China started with a front page photo in Tsinghua University's campus newspaper, an unflattering picture of our arrival at the airport. Yet, I still had a lot to learn about China and its face to the world.

Things were about to get weird.


It began with our gift packages, a quick drying bright blue shirt emblazoned with the words, I (heart, in the pattern of the Chinese flag) Luo Cheng, along with a matching red hat adorned with the climbing logo and a polo of the same color, sized from XXXL to XXXXL. Apparently part of their assumptions about foreigners included a notion that we were all sumo wrestler trainees. We took our bags to our free hotel rooms and rushed to our free hotel buffet lunch that would prelude our free dinner banquet that would start an hour later, down the street in another hotel.

If you've never been to a Chinese banquet, set your mind open. It's the center stone of Chinese business and is a practiced tradition that usually involves Chinese people attempting to drink their guests under the table. Gan bei, China's version of cheers, literally means "bottoms up!" (I'll write more about this later in a separate blog post detailing HMC's first banquet. It involved many shots of baijo and a few trips to the bathroom for one unfortunate victim.)

Complete with chicken feet and Peking duck, the banquet featured the usual Chinese delicacies, however, as I was leaving I spotted the unusual visitor, a tall, tall man. In China, I'm a giant, in the metro I can usually peer over the black sea of heads. The hushed voices surrounding me said, that's the tallest man in the world.

What was he doing here? I had no idea, but I snapped a picture regardless. Time for the prey to become the predator, it only seemed fair that it was my turn to take a picture.

Next, we walked along with the masses to the headline event,"Enjoy the fun: Township of Melao Ethnic Minority", hosted by the Luo Cheng Communist Party Committee. As it turned out, the festival wasn't about climbing. The reality, It was a showcase of Luo Cheng for the sake of tourism. When we arrived, several thousand already sat occupying the sea of plastic stools. The fifteen part act included songs and dance by many of the minority groups within China, including a solo sung in Mongolian by the tallest man I had spotted earlier. During act 11, two of the foreign "VIPs" clapped on stage to It's a big, big world and the crowd roared. Three hours later, the madness finally ended with a short show of fireworks.

We were then instructed to go directly back to our hotel and sleep. Tomorrow would bring more of the same, another banquet and a "friendship building" tree planting ceremony. Climbing wouldn't actually start until the third day of the festival. By then I would be back in my bed in Zhengzhou, or so I thought.

More to come.

Travels: Part One

Traveling alone in Guangxi province, I had booked an airplane ticket expecting anything, well, I was mentally prepared for anything. The itinerary was pretty open, it included a hike through the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces, followed by a quick tour of the sights of Guilin and a chunk of time in Yangshuo. Then, of course, the best rock climbing of China beckoned.

The other teachers were jealous of my time off, with good reason. They had sophomores to entertain, while I was spending my days sleeping in, sending emails, working out and planning my travels to southern China.

The freshmen I was teaching were still in military training and if the rumors were true that the incoming students only had an English vocabulary that extended to "What's your name?" I needed this holiday--I justified.

So after a dorm night stay in Guilin with five boys that snored in a off-beat rythum most of the sweaty night, I left Guilin in a rush and headed to the famed Dragon's Backbone.

Ping' an, arguably the most beautiful village in the area, as well as the one closest to a road (and buses), was a tourist clusterfuck. With my full pack loaded on my back, I hiked the steep steps away from the crowds, restraunts touting "Local and Western food" combos and the few tourists being carried (literally) on beds up the high stone steps. Farther up the hill, in the shade, I found a Yao woman selling postcards and minority flair. Target--I was about to be accosted for yuan--I knew the routine all too well.

"Sleeping? Sleeping?" she asked instead.

I had read in my Lonely Planet guidebook that homestays were possible in some of the remote villages, but instead I just walked away. I had finally found the path for the hike that linked the villages of the Dragon's Backbone that LP had also recommended.

But the woman dressed in a traditional black skirt with black hair that reached equally long, persisted.

"No, come stay with me. Sleeping, yes! You can meet my beibei." She motioned the pillow with her head resting on her hands, dare she risk that I didn't understand.

I weighed the idea, 20 yuan (~$3 U.S.D.), an experience. I had no friends in Guangxi province, but for tonight I'd have an adopted Yao Chinese family, complete with a baby who happened to have a shaved head with a hair tuft fluff on his crown and a curiosity in me that never dissipated.

I agreed, after much silence, carpe diem and all that. She followed me closely, satisfied with her day's earnings as she corralled me, the foreigner, her night's guarantee bonus. As we walked, she pointed out the crops we passed, potatoes, chilies, rice, shouting out both their English and Chinese aliases. She pointed, "Maize, you know?" I laughed, oh yes, I knew that one well. We continued in this way, chatting sporadically, as a rural minority woman, she knew a good smattering of English, I not so secretly hoped my students would compare.

Three hours later, my calves burned from climbing the steep steps, and my clothes hung damp from the mix of sweat and rain, but we had arrived to her house--a wooden structure supported small wooden slits, little toothpicks I wouldn't have trusted for my own house. A hand full of gaping holes in the floor hinted to the great distance that separated the wooden board floor to the dirt/trash ground below.

Yet with so little, the Yao family shared the spirit of unending hospitality.

Upon arrival, the woman pushed me into the outside room that functioned equally as a laundry room, bathroom and shower. The cold water felt refreshing and when I exited, food lit up the table. Rice, vegetables and no meat, the distinguisher of money and class in China. If you can afford it, you eat meat, even if it may be dog.

I ate to my satisfaction. I knew the truth that what I didn't finish would be the family's dinner. Besides, the night before in Guilin produced enough attention to hint to me that my body didn't fit in China and didn't need that extra rice. "If you like, we can find your size, much bigger."

I soon left the home and hiked the two hours back to road traffic, I had other things on my mind. I was heading to Yangshuo, where I read that foreigners were as abundant as the towering karst mountains.

More to come...