Fake Out

Today, Time came home from his latest adventure (this time hanging out with a Chinese engineering student – fascinating, right), waving around a 20元 bill. Apparently, the grocery store had given him a fake 20 as part of his change, so he couldn’t buy anything all day because no one would accept it. His fake bill was my first experience with counterfeit money, and it was pretty pathetic. It looked and felt like a double-sided, color photocopy of a 20元 bill – the two sides weren’t even perfectly matched up. I am pretty surprised that the grocery store accepted it in the first place, but maybe the cashier had realized that she had accidently accepted a fake bill and chose Tim , a foreigner, as the perfect recipient for it since he probably wouldn’t notice right away. On the plus side, he did get a great little souvenir from China for under $3. Granted, by the time Angie and I had returned from dinner, all that was left of his bill was a charred corner where he had clearly been holding the bill to the flame. He let his inner pyromaniac take over…

"Please buy my flowers"

So we Americans have acquired a new hobby: watching the Flower Girls at work in Hankou. There is a phenomenon in Wuhan's Hankou District known plainly as Flower Girls; they are girls aged 5-10 who attempt to sell flowers to couples, and if the couple stays in the same spot for more than 5 seconds, the little girl wraps herself around the knee of the male and refuses to let go until he buys the wilting flowers from her. Some of the girls are pretty driven and are dragged along until they successfully sell flowers while other girls either never latch on or are easily removed by their victim. We spent approximately 20 minutes watching this spectacle (after Robert screamed like a girl at the sight of them, of course). On this particular afternoon, there were four of them patrolling the same area, so we were able to catch quite a few successful latches, but an equal number of dirty bottoms from where they had been dragged for a few meters.
It's actually really wrong of us to be laughing at all of this since the children are often covered in bruises that they did not receive while on the job, but later at home when their boss lady beats them for not making enough sales. There are so many things in China that are comical on the outside, but really have a harsh and heartbreaking back story. Another example of that is the 8-year-old contortionist who folds herself into a human pretzel not far from the main headquarters of New Oriental. We often see her on a cardboard met near the mall and from time to time she is given food or drink by a sympathizer who cannot stand to see her discomfort and refuses to give her money that she'll never spend herself.
Wuhan is a mystery.

Galmour Shots

In China, there is this phenomenon that closely resembles shopping mall Glamour Shots of the 1990s. There are tons of boutiques set up all over Wuhan (and the rest of China) where you go in, get your hair and makeup done, and then take pictures in clothes that they provide for you. Since our arrival, we have all been joking about going and getting our pictures taken in traditional Chinese outfits before we leave. Well, Olga left on Friday, July 20^th, so we finally took the pictures.
Four of us ended up in the studio: Olga, Erin, Angie and me. Olga dressed herself in a Manchurian style blue outfit, Erin was in a sea foam green qipao, Angie wore a red and black dress in the traditional Han Chinese style, and I wore the orange version of Olga’s outfit. These outfits would have been more varied if Chinese people were built with hips or buts, yet, seeing how that was not the case, Erin’s narrow hips were the only ones that could shimmy into a qipao. Angie’s dress didn’t actually zip up the back, so the ladies in the studio pinned it together with a neon pink scarf and hoped that no one would notice. Me and Olga? Well, we were wearing the traditional Chinese versions of potato sacks, so squeezing in wasn’t really an issue.
After costume selection, we each sat in the magical chair and had our makeup professionally applied and our hair gelled, twisted, prodded, and bee-hived to perfection. One of the makeup artist’s techniques was to match the eye makeup to the color of our dresses. She put white and green on Erin’s dark brown skin; not the best plan. She had to do Erin’s eye makeup twice since between the poor color choices and Erin’s fear of having her eye gauged out, the whole thing was a mess. On my eyes, the orange is less obvious than Olga’s blue, but she did use a Chinese eye technique on me. In China, there is a beauty characteristic that has become prized above others- the double eyelid (which non-Asians have). I guess one of my eyes was not pronounced enough, so she used a thin piece of plastic tape to create a crease. I didn’t realize what she was doing until after the shoot and I was taking my makeup (mostly my neon pink lipstick) off.
In terms of hair, she took my freshly washed and dried hair, combed it with gel and made what can only be described as an ancient Chinese “poof.” Using my somewhat backwards Chinese skills, I explained that I thought it looked a bit strange, and hoped for something different. You may notice that my hair is nice and flat in the final pictures. Also, on my head was a rolled piece of wig and a number of little Chinese braids – two of which create the lovely rattail affect. I got off easy, Olga got 4 or 5 little braids!

Taking the pictures was a feat on its own. The photographer kept telling me to open my eyes more – make them BIGGER, and to close my mouth a bit when I smiled, because a big smile was not attractive. I could see why he wouldn’t want to show his teeth since they were a strange color and all crooked, but every time he gave me the instruction, I would laugh and cause a bigger smile. With Angie, who was dressed more elegantly than the rest of us, he kept telling her to open her mouth for the photos. Not so that we could see her tonsils, but so that she looked more seductive – this process ultimately had the same result as me - laughter. Erin’s (equally ineffective) tactic to get Angie to look seductive was “Imagine I’m Leon (Angie’s boyfriend). Imagine you are taking these pictures for Leon.” He was also big into using props; I had an umbrella, a fan, a basket, a “lucky” Chinese golden nugget, and firecrackers – Erin even had a flute!

Overall, the experience is one that is unforgettable. We paid a mere 88 元 per person and received 8 Photoshop-ed prints of our choosing (from 20 poses), 2 Photoshop-ed prints of our group poses and a disc with those 10 poses on it. Points of interest: they airbrushed away my freckles, but left my hair out of place. Well, that’s not entirely true… When Erin and Angie went back to the place to pick up our discs, Erin distracted the shop girls and Angie copied the rest of our photos onto a thumb drive. So we cheat a bit? What were they going to do with those photos anyway??

Bountiful Beijing, Baby

With the Girls on the Great Wall of CHINA

I just recently returned from an amazing weekend in Beijing and the whole thing was a nice vacation from the hub-bub and monotony of Wuhan. The trek began with a last minute scramble for tickets only three days before we planned to leave. We ended up enlisting the help of our colleagues at New Oriental to help us find tickets when the travel agents all claimed to be sold out. We ended up spending 430 元 for soft sleepers on the way to Beijing and 250 元 for hard sleepers on the way back, all thanks to the powerful name of New Oriental on our side.

Once we prepared to leave we piled into the cab with our backpacks and headed off for the Wuchang train station. I was warned ahead of time that the station was under construction, so thins might be hard to find. “Under construction” was a gross understatement – the train station is actually still being constructed.

The Wuchang Train Station: Note the exposed beams

There was scaffolding up all along the outside, and I could have sworn that the floor was made of packed dirt. We played a quick game of match the characters to figure out which gate our train was leaving from and were off to train security. Security was very harsh: Erin with her mini duffel, Rachel with her large duffel and me with my stuffed backpack sped through, but Tim, with his very small backpack was called out and had to put his bag through the x-ray machine, which no one was actually watching. We arrived at our gate which was directly beside the VIP section and included leather chairs and decorated with flowers. I’m not quite sure why our gate was fancy and others had hard plastic chairs with broken fans. After a stampede to the train, the four of us were finally able to relax in our cabin. The cabin was kind of amazing. It had four beds, which were set up as two bunks and were pillow soft, much better than the wood planks that Tim sleeps on nicely and the box-spring that us girls sleep on. There was a vase with a white flower in it and a pitcher of water sitting on the table between the beds, on the wall was a personalized video screen that played new movies (in Chinese, clearly), and a door that we could close if we felt like it.

Reclining in my top bunk soft bed

Leo Hostel was located on a great shopping street that had so many vendors on each side of the street and a number of other hostels, too. It was kind of funny when we arrived because just about everyone stopped driving, working, talking or to look at Erin, the resident “celebrity” because most Chinese have never seen a black person before. Upon arrival in our hostel in Beijing, Erin and I left with Nina and Olga on a trek to the Great Wall. We had planned on taking the subway to a bus station where we could get to the great wall for 10 元 a person, but clearly we got lost and ended up taking a taxi. The taxi was a bit like a near death experience because he did not exactly follow basic traffic laws like sticking to just one side of the road and letting vehicles with the green light proceed first.

People all over the Great Wall

Once we actually got to Badaling, it was simply breathtaking. Even in the nearby areas, the landscape was beautiful and the architecture akin to that in the movies. The wall itself was covered in tourists from all over the world, most wearing walking shoes, but some were braving the steep inclines in flip-flops, canvas Chinese shoes, or (as we have begun to affectionately refer to the sparkly heeled sandals popular in China) their Easter Sunday best. People were streaming in both directions along the wall stopping for picture breaks, water breaks or to take a closer look at the wares being peddled on either side. We of course stopped at every vendor to practice our improving bargaining skills; we bought “pee-pee” dolls, scrolls, t-shirts and arm loads of other “must haves” from the wall and the surrounding vendors.

Merchants and shops near the wall

After making our way down the wall and into the tourist section of shops and ATMs, we were rewarded with the first Starbucks that I’d seen since my arrival in China. We rested our legs and reveled in the familiar café atmosphere with our cardboard cups of coffee. Nina, who works at Starbucks back in Ohio, bought all kinds of paraphernalia to show the folks at home in a way that sincerely reminded me of Melissa and me in the HRC Chicago buying retail to show everyone in DC. After Starbucks we commenced our trip back to the city in an unmarked taxi cab for considerably less than we had paid to get out to the wall in the first place.

Upon arrival back at the hostel, Erin and I bid farewell to Nina and Olga and set off for dinner at a nearby hostel, 365 Inn. The two of us inhaled a couple of cheeseburgers and were quickly off to find our next bargain on the market street where we were staying. We found lots of expensive gifts, and just as our frustration reached its pinnacle, we stumbled into yet another t-shirt shop. Erin, who was sick of being poked, prodded and photographed by strangers all day long was surprised to see a two year old hurl herself at Erin’s legs and hug them tightly. A grin spread across Erin’s face as the little girl left and returned with a small t-shirt in her hand and held it up to Erin. Once she noticed me, she toddled back to the storeroom and returned with another small t-shirt for me to inspect. The two of us returned the t-shirts, but were enthralled with the little girl who was now busying herself with a screwdriver and some electrical wire. Between her hugs and calling me “A’yi,” auntie in Mandarin, I was reluctant to leave the overpriced store without a purchase, but in the end, the cuteness of the daughter did not override the indulgent prices. We didn’t see the little girl again until we were talking our final walk down the alleyway on our last day all packed up for the train station. Erin told me to look to my right, and sure enough, the little girl was in her mom’s arms, holding her arms to me and saying “A’yi!!” I’m telling you, that toddler won my heart for Beijing more than the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace combined, but that is another story all together.

After wandering the market street, Erin, Tim and I decided to sign up for a tour from the 365 Inn that went to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace, covered entrance fees, transportation and provided an English speaking tour guide. We met with Jennifer our tour guide at 7:30 the next morning and the four of us began our tour. We piled into a small white van and headed off to the Temple of Heaven. Jennifer was a bit of a crack up; she asked us if any of us had studied Chinese history, so I let her know that I had a general idea of the history. For every bit of information that she decided to share with us, obscure or obvious, she would turn to me and ask if I knew of it, which wouldn’t have been so bad if they weren’t questions like, “Do you know the color associated with favorite concubine of the fifth emperor of the Tang dynasty?” Pretty much every question was answered with, “uh, I don’t think so,” so she’d turn to Tim and Erin and ask them, after they started the tour by saying they knew nothing of Chinese history.

Anyway, we arrived at the Temple of Heaven at 8am and were delighted to see a new Chinese pastime that wasn’t ping pong or badminton, but a happy hybrid of the two. Erin ended up trying to play with a couple of old ladies who had a mean volley going before we arrived, but her backhand was nothing compared to the swings that the ladies had mastered. Also on the temple grounds were scores of people practicing Tai Qi, walking briskly, and, of course, playing ping pong. One of the chambers in the Temple of Heaven featured both Echo Stones and a Speaking Wall. The Echo Stones were pretty cool and completely unintentional. If a person stands on the third stone from thesteps, and claps one time, the echo will ring three times, on the second stone it rings twice and on the first stone it echoes once. Erin tried and was pretty successful; her first stone echo was louder than the rest.

Erin clapping

The Speaking Wall, however, is like a less effective version of the Whispering Wall in the mezzanine of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The idea is that if one person stands on one end of the circular wall and speaks to it, the person on the other end should be able to hear what was said. When it didn’t work, the tour guide blamed it on the weather. After our allotted 45 min at the temple and Erin accidently bargaining some hacky sacks down to 5 for 10 元, we were piled into the van and off to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.

Tiananmen Square was a bit surreal. Having had seen pictures from the protests in 1989, it was strange to see families, school groups and individuals enjoying the afternoon. Kites were flying high in the sky and umbrellas were everywhere shielding the evil sunrays. In the center of the square is Mao’s mausoleum (which was closed for cleaning) and off to the side is some kind of legislative building (I think, by this point I had pretty much zoned out the tour guide). On the far side of the square was a building with a countdown to the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games that Jennifer pointed to and asked us, “Do you know that in 2008 the Olympics will be here, in Beijing?” Erin (being a jerk) responded with, “What? Really?? I had no idea!!” Jennifer, of course, took this as her queue to explain that the Olympics were, in fact, going to be in Beijing and that the Chinese were very proud. After the three of us regained composure, Erin finally cut her off and explained that we did know. After a few more giggles, we followed her teal umbrella to the main gate of the Forbidden City (apparently the portrait of Mao is replaced every year on the anniversary of the founding of the PRC).

Tiananmen Square

The Forbidden City was a sea of tourists, mostly school groups, but wall to wall with tourists. During the fifteen minutes that it took for Jennifer to get our tickets, Erin and Tim had countless pictures taken of them with or without another person beside them. I have included some of the best pictures as examples. The obvious question is “What will they do with these pictures now that they have them??”

The Forbidden City itself is really remarkable. It’s easy to imagine the emperors of centuries past wandering the grounds and the complete isolation that they felt day to day without being able to leave. Unfortunately, one of the main buildings was under renovation or refurbishment so there was scaffolding covering it but it was painted to look like the building underneath. With Jennifer, the Forbidden City was a fountain of obscure questions like “Do you know why the tops of buildings have different numbers of animals on them?” or “Do you know what this building was used for in the Ming dynasty?” It’s hard to explain the vast beauty of the palace; from the worn bricks underfoot to the red tiles on the roofs, the city can’t help but remind you what just how young you are in comparison with the extensive Chinese history that is being forgotten everyday. On a humorous note, within the walls of the Forbidden City I was hit square in the head with an umbrella once and hit in the shoulder and brushed by with umbrellas more times than I can count. Unfortunately, for our caffeine levels, Jennifer managed to disregard our request for the Starbucks in the Forbidden City and ushered us out to the street.

An Imperial Building...

Tangent: In Beijing, the peddlers see tourists and run at them like a mob and don’t really let up until you are out of range of their turf or you buy something. So when we exited the Forbidden City and walked down a nearby street, we were approached by a number of ladies who were selling goods at the stores lining the sidewalk. Tim, after observing Erin and me throw absurdly low prices at them, yelped like a little girl and took off running down the street when an old lady tried to sell him a silk purse. Tim, by the way, is 6’3 and roughly 200 lbs.

We took a brief lunch at a buffet style restaurant and were off to the Summer Palace. Before even entering the complex, I bought 50 postcards for 10 元; this was a good start. Honestly, by the time we started wandering the grounds, every building looked the same, since the ancient Chinese styles only differ slightly from dynasty to dynasty to the untrained eye. One of the best things that I saw was the Long Corridor which is (clearly a corridor) outside and runs along the waterfront for 2,388 ft and is decorated with 14,000+ intricate paintings. Each painting correlated with a well known Chinese story, like the Monkey King and Dream of the Red Chamber. It was pretty phenomenal to see a story I had read for school unfold in illustrations along the beams.

The Long Corridor

Also in the Summer Palace was an enclosed square that was once open to the rest of the compound until one of the final royals of the Qing dynasty was imprisoned there by his own family. Standing inside the square, you can actually see through a window to where bricks were laid to keep him in. The heir committed suicide for obvious reasons. All of this is not out of a history book, but the tour guide’s answer to her question of, “so who knows why this square is special?” After the square of doom, we took a boat to the other side of the lake, and fled the grounds as it started to rain.

The Ox that guards the palace from floods

The next part of the tour was the bit that Erin and I were most excited for: scheduled shopping at the pearl market, silk market and a teahouse. I can sum up the experience in 3 words: NOT SO MUCH. The “markets” were actually high end manufacturers and retailers where the tour guide received a commission on all of our purchases and we were required to stay in each location for at least 30 minutes. Erin and I almost got guilt-ed into buying some pearls, Tim bought a silk tie, and I dropped 120 元 on some lychee green tea and rosebuds at the teahouse. The teahouse was the only place that was actually interesting. While each location has a small demonstration of how pearls were harvested or how to make silk blankets, the teahouse was the most rewarding, and consumed twenty minutes. We tried the lychee rose water green tea first, followed by jasmine tea and finished up with some strong oolong. The teas were all really good, and there was less pressure to buy than at the other places. We were, of course, irritated that we had been used as the tour guide’s own personal money makers, and returned home in foul moods.

To turn those frowns upside down, the three of us treated ourselves to American food at the HRC with a nice little discount on food (damn the retail shops that are simply not interested in helping me out). The place was pretty cool, and Tim sang his heart out to “Dark Africa” before we found our way out. Once outside, Erin and I were again drawn to the man selling jewelry and Tim was again sprinting down the block after an old woman approached him. Really, though, who can blame Tim? I would have been running down the block and yelling for us to follow if an old Chinese woman with very few teeth approached me and said, “Hello. Would you like massage? Make love to a beautiful woman?” then smiled at me with a jack-o-lantern grin. Tim’s response was “OH, GOD, NO!” followed by “Erin! Kelsey! Help! Let’s gooooooo!!”

The next morning Rachel rejoined us after a trek to the Great Wall the day before and we were off for the real Silk Market that she and Ben had discovered two days prior. Rachel’s sense of direction is, regrettably, awful. After about 45 min of wandering the streets, we gave in and asked some tourists where to go. They pointed us towards the Pearl Market instead and we were off. We finally arrived, Starbucks in hand, nearly two hours later, but it was completely worth it. We used every technique from “but we’re teachers from Wuhan” to sending me in first to Erin’s “I’m planning my wedding and these wallets are for all of my bridesmaids – Tim, honey, do you think the girls would like these?” Tim sunk his teeth into a 75 元 Transformer belt buckle as soon as we arrived and Rachel was unable to decide if 20 元 was too much to pay for jewelry boxes, but overall, it was a good time. Rachel is the opposite style of shopper than me. I will pick a price and if I can get them to it, I’ll buy it, and probably two or three if I can get a further discount. Rachel will pick a price that is almost insultingly low, then decide that she set her price too high if they come down to it. She ultimately ended up with 4 scarves and 2 dolls after our many hours of shopping. She did make a final attempt at bargaining as we arrived on our market street. She had been hoping to buy one of the many kites that have been on sale across the city. Rachel set her sights on a frog kite, but the price of course was too much. So she moved onto plan B: finding a flaw in the product and focusing on it until the seller gives you your desired price. After a few minutes of fussing, I turn around to hear an exasperated Rachel saying (on the verge of yelling) with arms flailing, "It's too expensive!! It only has 3 legs! It's MISSING a LEG!" Needless to say, we went back to Wuhan without a kite, but with a pretty good story.

Leo's Hostel

That’s pretty much the trip to Beijing. After we finished buying everything in Beijing, we packed up our stuff, grabbed a bite to eat and headed off to the train station. The Beijing station has the same made rush of people and mob-like mentality that we experienced in Wuhan, but this time with AC. We were all pretty worried about our hard beds, but they were actually pretty good. The mattresses were a bit thinner than the soft beds, but the biggest change was that there were 3 beds on each wall, rather than the typical 2 bed bunks in the soft bed. This meant that we were able to watch two Chinese men in slacks and button-downs scale the wall of cabin, Spiderman-style, to get to their beds at the very top. Also different was the lack of a door to our cabin. This allowed every person walking to the bathroom (which was beside us) to look into our room and gawk at Erin asleep on the middle bed. It was also key in disturbing our sleep as people ran to the sinks to spit phlegm while making the disgusting sound that occurs during that process – gross, right? Oh, and the toilet made this awful howling sound every time it was flushed, so Erin legitimately dreamt about elephants. We arrived safely, fought to get into a taxi and all promptly took naps when we arrived back at home.

Erin and Rachel squished into their middle bunks

What do you mean I've been in China for 3 weeks??

So back when I first started writing this post, it began with “I can’t believe that I’ve really been here for over a week!” at this point, however, I’ve actually been here for over three weeks and it still doesn’t really feel like I’m in China just yet. I know that sounds strange, especially since I only eat Chinese food and am constantly surrounded by Chinese people. Matt summed it up best: “Do you ever forget you’re in China and think to yourself, ‘Wow, there are a lot of Asian people around!’” Of course he said this on the bus while surrounded with Chinese people and looking out at more Chinese… I am having a great time though! For those without a ton of time on their hands, this email is kinda long, so I’m summing up the key points in a “Late Night with Letterman” style top ten list:

1. Wuhan is like the Twin Cities of China: It has 3 cities that have been connected to form Wuhan – Hanyang (Industrial), Hankou (Commercial), and Wuchang (Educational & where I live). The cities are separated by the ChangJiang (Yangtze River) and a smaller river. Lastly, Hubei is littered with lakes, just like Minnesota! (The mosquitoes are about the size of those at home, too)

2. I look 100% Chinese and shock people when I insist that I am American. This is only useful when I’m trying to not get pickpocketed, but not when I am trying to use my limited Chinese to get anywhere or buy anything.

3. While the Chinese sense of fashion is a bit shaky, it is still better than the British. No explanation necessary – have you seen the outfits that the British wear??

4. A really good Chinese meal should not cost more than $5 and a good Western meal should not cost more than $8, if so, the restaurant is taking you for a ride. Types of decent Western food we have found: Tacos and Pizza. I don’t count KFC, McDonald’s or Pizza Hut (which actually serves escargot!)

5. Americans tan, Chinese whiten. Walking down the street on a sunny day more closely resembles an obstacle course than a sidewalk. The number of glittery, iridescent and metallic umbrellas floating along (or poking you in the head) is astounding. These Chinese girls really don’t want to be tan; so much so, that they have sunblock with skin whitening technology, and they use their boyfriends as both purse holders and umbrella stands.

6. An American passport is akin to a free drink card at bars. All of my American friends are bombarded with middle-aged Chinese men who want to buy drinks for the group (they are especially drawn to Bob, Charlie and Tim). When we go out together, Matt, Kari and I hide just outside the group until a blond friend is offered free drinks then, we join in the fun. Queen’s, a bar that we seem to find ourselves at constantly, actually gave us free beer cards and we have been invited to private tables run by the bar’s owner. Oh, the dance floor in Queen’s bounces, there are laser cages, sparklers every night at midnight, and there is a transvestite on payroll who has better moves than Shakira.

Charlie and a new friend

Jack with her sparklers

Matt "hanging" out in the laser cage

7. Tourists make the best Charades partners. I’m convinced that after this trip, anyone of us (The Real World Wuhan Cast) would be able to kick butt in a Charades tournament. We have mastered the skills of sign language and acting out a bowl of noodles, a glass of bubble tea, and just how much we’d like to pay for our knock-offs.

8. Stoplights and traffic laws are optional. Some people skydive, others bungee jump, but we in China, we prefer extreme taxi rides. Weaving in and out of lanes or not signaling is like kids’ stuff in Wuhan; Drivers here prefer running red lights and driving on sidewalks. Bus drivers are also free to get off the bus and argue with passengers – in the middle of the road!

9. Always inspect your food before eating it – you never know what kinds of complementary ingredients the restaurant is giving you. The other night at dinner, Jaclyn (a particularly prissy group member) nearly ate a small cooked caterpillar that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the cook made our vegetable dish. Luckily, she noticed it before putting it in her mouth, and of course, we will not let her forget the incident!

10. Never underestimate the luxury of a Western toilet! The first week in Wuhan was rough, but those of us who live in the Hong Fu Jia Yuan apartment complex have the luxury of a Western toilet. Granted, the one in my bathroom isn’t exactly secure to the ground, but at least it’s a bit of a respite from the dirty, public, doors-optional, squatty potties that are so popular in China.

So that’s Wuhan, China in a nutshell. For those of you with a bit more time, continue reading. The stories only get stranger!

New Oriental:

Technically I have completed training and am now a full-fledged English teacher, but in reality, my training has consisted of a couple of meetings with my boss, a really laid back Wuhanese woman who is about 24 years old name Jolie. She has opened our eyes to a coffeeshop that actually makes a latte and a mocha correctly with free wireless and to a nice little pizza place not far from the main office. She also taught us a little something about bargaining and where to shop – the only training that I was really looking for anyway! I have not yet taught a class, and I’m kind of wondering if that is ever going to really happen. At the moment, Matt, Jack, Charlie and I are testing the oral English skills of Chinese kids ages 11-20 to place them in various levels of English classes. Of course on my first day I made a little 12-year-old boy so nervous that he started to sweat and stutter (in English and Chinese!). Granted, it probably didn’t help that his mother was standing in the doorway glaring at him, but I felt bad anyway.

Since I’ve been a bit bored lately, I actually volunteered to go help Rachel and Tim with their class on evening and I had a blast. We did a little bit of Hangman, Act Out Your Own Commercial, The Hopping Game (which is two teams answering questions, and eventually the losing team ends up hopping on one foot), and a little bit of art before the power went out – a common occurrence during my time here. I helped them improvise a short round of Revolving Ghost Stories before class was finally cancelled, but it was a lot of fun, and I’m a bit jealous that I don’t get to do a bit more of that.

Once I start teaching classes, I am going to be teaching secondary school English all by myself. It should be pretty fun and I already have a few lesson plans figured out, but I’m still a bit intimidated!

AIESEC:

The latest AIESEC activities have been somewhat limited since they are all in the middle of exams, but one even that stands out was lunch with Christine during the Dragon Boat Festival. I met up with her and some of her friends for lunch, and she brought the traditional food of Zong Zi, which is either a meat or a sweet bean paste wrapped in sticky rice and cooked in a lotus leaf. Over all the lunch was uneventful; I ended up at a table with all of her friends who wished to practice their English with me. Coincidentally, the other table was filled with a bunch of boys who began drinking Chinese white wine – which tastes more like cheap pineapple vodka than wine. By the end of lunch, the table of boys was loud, drunk and trying to get the girls at my table to drink with them. It got to the point where a girl would give in and drink a bit of the wine, but insist that her drinking partner would drink 3-5 times more than what she was drinking. Needless to say, two hours into lunch, there were two Chinese boys asleep with their heads on the table and four or five who swayed while standing still.

The highlight of the afternoon for me was singing karaoke with Christine and her girlfriends on stage in the emptying restaurant at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. By the end of our 4-5 songs and the guys’ 4-5 songs, the restaurant was near empty, and who could blame the other patrons? The Chinese boys sang a single boy song in a style that more closely resembled ancient war cries than actual melodic singing. It was a great time though!

The New Apartment!

After five long days in the office, Rachel, Robert, Tim and I moved in with Erin into a beautiful, although dirty, four bedroom, two bathroom apartment that was complete with a Western toilet, internet, leather couches, a big screen TV and air conditioning. I live by myself, on a queen bed (which I might be sharing with a friend who is sick of her homestay); Erin and Rachel share a bedroom, but have separate full beds; and Tim and Robert both live alone on bed frames without mattresses, but their backs are adjusting to the lightly padded wood. Since we have moved into the apartment before most of the apartments in the complex are ready, we are woken at dawn by the pleasant sound of banging, yelling and drilling. The banging generally subsides by noon, which is perfect timing for us all to be leaving the apartment. On an upside, or at least a weird side, at approximately 6-8pm every night, the complex plays music over a massive stereo system. My favorite speakers are the ones that are designed as strategically placed mushrooms across the landscaping. The other day there was a great mix of traditional Chinese orchestral pieces and Britney Spears.

Out and About in Wuhan

Every outing to a restaurant is an adventure and a test of both my oral Chinese skills and my character recognition skills. Most of the time I can point at dishes and instruct that we don’t want out food to be too spicy and everyone is happy. Other times, I order things like beef cartilage and chicken livers – those are the nights that I tell those who complain that if they think they can do better, they should step up… We’ve actually had some great stuff here though – there is a great hotpot/steamboat place not far from the apartment which we have been to a couple of times. The street food (eaten with a Pepto Bismol tablet in hand) is really good, too. The Wuhanese Hot Dry Noodles are a favorite of locals and tourists, it’s like peanut butter and noodles, but people love it. The dumplings and fried flat bread are common breakfast foods and there is a man selling fresh corn on just about every corner. I have taken to eating Liang Mian when ever I am near New Oriental because I’ve never had anything like it. Granted, if our stomachs are on the fritz, we head for the University cafeteria where a large bowl of fried rice is only 5 yuan or to the “Singapore” Food court near New Oriental which serves everything from Hainanese Chicken Rice to KFC.

We met up with an AIESECer from Canada who was doing a traineeship in Beijing and she wanted to do some of the touristy stuff. So we (Matt, Abreheme, Carol and I) went to Guiyuan Temple in Hanyang and a market in Hankou. The temple was beautiful; it has 500 gold arhats that all have an individual personality. There is also a jade Buddha that is carved from a single piece of stone and man made ponds that have at least a hundred turtles of different sizes swimming around.

Shopping in Wuhan is phenomenal; the Yuan is weak and the cost of living here is low, so in addition to bargaining every purchase down from the "is she a foreigner price?" the established prices are generally low. We have bought shirts for $4, shoes for $10 and were tempted to buy a puppy for $5. While the street stores offer good deals, we stumbled across what might be the largest market I have ever imagined in the heart of Hankou (conveniently located 15 min from where I work). There are blocks of everything imaginable, separated by department: shoes, shirts, toys, food, trinkets, house wares, skirts, etc. I bargained a lady into 12 wooden fans for a total of 20 Yuan (originally 3 Yuan each); I helped a friend get 2 pairs of shoes for 25 Yuan (after a friend paid 30 per pair); and I bought a frou-frou sun umbrella for 20 Yuan (originally 35 Yuan). All of this bargaining, for me and others, is really pushing my Chinese to improve, and I'm not just talking about my numbers. I have learned to explain our reasoning on how we don't like being ripped off, and I can understand about half of the rapid fire Chinese that the shopkeepers respond with. The shopping should be even better in Beijing though, so I'll keep you all posted on my success this weekend.

Well, I'm off to pack for four days of touristing at the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and hopefully a Beijing Opera!

PS- Did I mention that I managed to buy a cell phone all by myself and managed to get a good price? 370 Yuan for a phone, a SIM card and 50 Yuan of minutes, I'm proud! I got a Chinese price – not a foreigner price!!

Temple Food

Tonight one of the New Interchange teachers, Jocelyn, introduced us to a restaurant inside a Buddhist temple near the main building of New Oriental. The place was pretty cool and since it was inside a temple, the whole menu was vegetarian. This isn’t saying that we ate stir fried vegetables and rice for our whole dinner; there were “meat” dishes offered, but they were all made of tofu. We got a handful of “meat” dishes to try and got some vegetable dishes, too (in case the tofu was gross). Fortunately, the fake meat was pretty tasty – it was hard to distinguish if they were serving us real meat or not! The ground “chicken” and vegetable dish was gone within minutes, and I could have eaten the dumpling soup everyday. On the other hand, the cold cuts tasted a bit like flavored cardboard and had the appetizing texture of an old shoe. Also, the fried wontons were smothered in a strange honey coating and were too oily and cold to be delicious. Some of the vegetable dishes offered were really good, too (no surprise there, it is a vegetarian restaurant after all). We had a fried or roasted corn dish with peppers, bok choi (a favorite of mine), and some sweet potatoes with cinnamon that tasted like they came right out of the kitchen of Georgia Brown’s (a Southern cooking restaurant in DC).

It was a really great experience, but I don’t think I’ll be going back again. I prefer meat to “meat” and I’d rather try out new places in Wuhan than being a repeat customer. I’m glad that we branched out and tried something completely new to all of us – if you ever get the chance to eat in a temple, make sure to take advantage of that opportunity!