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!!