Christmas Hiatus

Hello all!


Don't worry, I know how painfully I've been lagging on the posts lately.  It's been busy here!  The school term is almost over, but since Christmas isn't a holiday here we don't get any time off at all.  So planning parties, buying gifts, decorating cookies and seeing friends all has had to overlap with making lessons, figuring out how to control 50 excitable 9 year olds at a time, and remembering the strange rules of English grammar.


It's all happened though, and I write to you now on Christmas night in between planning more lessons for tomorrow morning.


Christmas is not the same here without family and friends and traditions from back home.  They kind of know what it is, and Christmas trees and Santa hats are everything, but it's not at all the same.  It's a strange bastardized version of gaudy trees for the sake of taking pictures near them.  I guess it's good that it doesn't feel like the holidays usually do because I can avoid some of the homesickness that would be there if it were painfully obvious.


My school was very kind yet again and lots of people unexpectedly brought me Christmas gifts!  My headmaster brought me a fancy tea set, my neighbors a snow globe, one colleague a beautiful scarf, another some chocolate...  I didn't have anything to reciprocate with because since it's not a holiday here I only got some things for my contact teacher and neighbor family! I'll have to do something for New Years maybe.


The foreign teachers have celebrated in our own ways though.  We had a small Christmas white elephant party with some friends last week.  And today CTLC and the education bureau had a big event for us in the form of a banquet and a booked hotel so we could all stay together and celebrate.  It was a lot of fun and most of us, myself painfully included, overindulged a bit.


We got dim sum in the morning today.  I hadn't had it before (think Chinese tapas or afternoon tea) so it was exciting and of course China did what China does best -- food -- and it was delicious.  I failed to take pictures of this food because the previously stated overindulgence was taking its toll...


Afterwards I tagged along with Thomas to his church and saw my first Catholic mass.  It was really interesting to watch, and we got to sing some Christmas songs which was my favorite part. I can't compare the service to what it would be like in the states, because like I said it was my first experience!  It wasn't very similar to the services I have been to in past years though so it was fun to drill Thomas for explanations of what was happening.


And lastly we met up with a couple friends, Christiane and Carrie, and got dinner at a Malaysian restaurant and had delicious curry.


If it sounds like I'm describing everything in terms of foods we ate, that's because I've been living in China!  Sinification is occurring (^.^)


It was a lovely time and I am so glad I got to spend it with friends here.  But I miss my home and family!  A tragedy struck when I woke up to an email from my parents saying I missed a skype meeting.  Apparently some miscommunication happened and they were expecting me a day earlier than I was able to talk with them, so I missed being able to see everyone.  I am very sad about that, but hopefully we'll be able to catch each other soon.


Love and miss you all.  I hope the holidays are bringing you joy and togetherness, feel blessed to be with the friends and family you are spending it with!

Decorating cookies at our party

The banquet

Thomas and me 

Merry Christmas :)

Eat Slowly -- Hot Pot

I've been diligently taking photos of the food I eat, so I bring to you one of my favorite forms of cook-your-own-meal dining here:  Hot pot.
There are variations as you will see in the picture, but the premise is the same.  You have a bowl of boiling stock, you order pieces of meat and veggies, put them in the stock, let them cook and eat at your leisure.  There is a set seasoning to it, I think, because a lot of them taste very similar ( = delicious ).
I've had hot pot in it's birthplace (don't quote me on that, but it's at least the most famous) in Chengdu, where the pandas are.  There is the spicy capital of China, and it was much to hot to eat and enjoy.  China spicy doesn't mean Mexican delicious flavor spicy, it means your mouth will literally go numb.  Luckily there is almost no spicy in Shenzhen.
The pictures I have include: a super awesome hot pot place where the pots look like wizard hats and are also very dangerous because you have to navigate the large burning structure to retrieve food; the lovely miss Christiane modeling a standard hot pot table; and a close up view of a potato retrieval out of a hot pot where one side is spicy stock and one is standard soup.

Super awesome "wizard hat" hot pot place. 

The lovely Miss Christiane modeling a hot pot table with plates of meat slices, lettuce, and tree ear mushrooms.

Up close and personal with a spicy potato.

So there you have it.  Let your mouth water and be jealous, this stuff is delicious.

A Night at the Opera

(found from the internet, not my camera)

I got to check something off my need-to-do-in-my-life-but-only-once-list yesterday.

Thomas and I went to a Kunqu opera at the Grand Theater downtown.

Sounds cool, yes?  And it was.  I feel more cultured than ever before because Kunqu Opera is one of the oldest forms of opera in China.  As you know, China is pretty old.  UNESCO has even proclaimed this form of opera to be " a masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of humanity".  

::whistles::

Unfortunately, it is also renowned amongst everyone not a 80 year old Chinese person to be one of the most tedious experiences of your life.

The shows for over two hours, and as Thomas and I discovered whilst struggling with trying to read the program, there is no intermission.  The conversation went something like this:

"Oh, oh, this is in English -- 135.  What's after that?  135 minutes?  Is this 135 minutes long?"

"Yeah, that's what is says.  But look, this character means rest!"

"The one before it says no.  No rest.  135 minutes, no rest."

"... you're joking."

We had forseen this kind of thing happening.  What we had not anticipated was that the more than two hour opera would almost solely consist of two people singing, with no set but a chair and a table, with no plot cues, or plot summary (assuming there was a plot, going out on a limb there) in English anywhere.  The theater was kind enough to provide Chinese subtitles, but to us that was the equivalent of being fed Italian subtitles at a Western opera.  Not much use.

The text I could figure out led me to believe that the entire 40 min first act consisted of the young lady's maid convincing her to go on a walk in the park, them going on a walk in the park, and them commenting on how they were walking in the park.  I mostly stopped trying after that.

It was beautiful, the singers were clearly talented, and the costumes were amazing.

But not gonna lie, it was a bit hard to stay awake.

Please, watch a ten minute sample of the kind of opera here.  (<- click on the word "here", you non-computer-savvy darlings)

The stage setup here is twice as elaborate than the rest of the opera.

Curtain call, you can see some of the costumes.

So again, happy I went and conquered, not likely to repeat!

Surprise, Monsoon! video

A video from about a month ago during what I like to call "flash monsoon season", when intense rains would come and go as quickly as you please.  As a Coloradan, I was a bit taken aback and had some trouble guessing when these anomalies would strike.  Here, I am again thwarted during an attempt to dry laundry.

TYNKWD -- Competitive Pricing

In this edition of Things You Never Knew Were Dangerous, cheap vegetables!

It has been an ongoing news story here that a company, apparently government sponsored, called Shenzhen Central Kitchen Logistics, has been setting up mobile vans selling super cheap produce around the city.  The idea is to feed people for less money, which seems pretty good.
However, stores already selling produce for pretty cheap are unable to match the vans' prices.  They have become less than pleased as punch.  How would this be handled in the US?  I'm guessing some sort of legal battle, but I'm pretty sure the government wouldn't be allowed to pull this anyways.
How is it handled in China?  Read on.

Paraphrased Shenzhen Daily report from 10.17:


Two employees of Shenzhen Central Kitchen Logistics were beaten by employees of a nearby shopping center and forced to leave the area for selling cheaper vegetables.  Chairman of the shopping center the attackers work at later states in an interview, "It is illegal but reasonable to slap the van employees because the vans have taken our business.  He is lucky he didn't die."

!!  Lucky he didn't die?!  Yep.  These beatings have been going on with fair frequency, and from what I've read since this October article there are only about half the vans there were supposed to be by this time.  Well, I guess the "reasonable" beatings are working.

Read an article from the end of October here.  I can't find a link to a more recent article at the moment, but things haven't gotten any better for the poor van workers!  I'll keep following the story and let you know what happens.

In the meantime, remember that Competitive Pricing is a Thing-You-Never-Knew-Was-Dangerous!

New hat

Thanks to wonderful Thomas, I have crochet hooks and was able to forsake my sad knitting for a while.  So I've been back at work with my hobby just in time for the cool season in Shenzhen. I present to you my latest project:

My School Again

Some more pictures of my school and "village" (It's called Meilin Village, but don't let that fool you, it's a city!), so you guys can get a better idea of where I am!

View of my area from the fourth floor of my school

One of my classes during "protect eyesight exercise"

MeiShan Road, down the hill from my school

Eat Slowly -- Homemade

I know I've been promising all along to do some food posts, but haven't gotten there yet.  You really cannot overstress the importance of food in this culture.  If you see a friend, you don't ask "how are you?"  you ask "have you eaten?"  And the food is delicious, if not the healthiest!  Instead of "enjoy your meal", they will tell you to 慢慢吃, or "eat slowly".

The variety is different than in Beijing, and many of my favorite dishes from there aren't here. More to explore!  Some of my favorites include Chinese eggplant, dumplings, tree ear mushrooms, BBQ sticks, and noodles (there are too many different kinds to count).

Well, with much ado I now bring you Eat Slowly!  This post is dedicated to some homemade foods, (since I've been slacking on breaking out my camera in restaurants ;) ).  I will bring you more photos from restaurants, street food, and produce soon! 

Homemade is difficult for me here, because of the limited cooking supplies and area.  I only have a hotplate and microwave to cook with and have never appreciated a stove and oven more!  Hot plates are awful as far as cooking goes.  I've managed to burn rice and noodles that were still boiling in water!  Not to mention the only sink in my apartment is tiny and I miss my disposal...  I could do more on my end for sure but I haven't decided it's worth the effort yet.  My neighbor, on the other hand, is a very adept cook.  They have a gas stove and a small oven, and she knows how to use it!  So the few home cooked good meals I've had here have come from her.  Here I've included the dumplings and crab meals, as well as my own boiled dumplings, mushrooms, and a creative East-meets-West lunch I made with Thomas.  

Eat slowly!

Homemade dumplings, of course!

Dumplings with tree-ear mushrooms

Dinner at my neighbor's -- crab, fish, beef with peppers, cabbage, and rice.

And just for fun, our most inspired cross-cultural meal thus far -- fried noodles, steamed buns, chicken wings, and grilled cheeses :D

No commercials?!

Something that can happen in China and not in the US -- commercial free TV.  This newspaper (Shenzhen Daily) is not known for its accuracy, specificity, or understandibility, but that seems to be the gist of the article.  In fact, since this article actually names the firm it is far ahead of most that I read in this paper.  Newspaper flaws aside, I know the Americans reading this will be jealous and I had to share:

Ads to be banned during TV dramas

2011-November-29  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

CHINA’S top broadcasting watchdog has ordered a national ban on all TV stations airing commercials during TV dramas. The new ban will take effect Jan. 1, and all TV stations must rearrange their programs to delete all commercials during TV dramas or face strict punishment, said the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) on its Web site yesterday. A microblog survey conducted by Sina.com showed the majority of people are in favor of the ban. About 85 percent of nearly 10,000 respondents say TV commercials are so annoying that they support the ban. Some advocates complain there are now so many commercials that sometimes it’s like fragmented TV dramas are inserted into a nonstop relay of advertisements, ruining the viewing experience. Still, 11 percent of respondents opposed the ban saying the market should not be subject to excessive administrative regulations. Some questioned whether local TV stations would abide by the ban because it would allegedly cost 20 billion yuan (US$3.13 billion) in lost advertising revenue. The ban is among SARFT’s latest efforts to regulate the country’s once-rampant TV commercials. Last month, SARFT ordered a ban on sex-related commercials on radio and TV. The administration also said commercial advertisements should not be aired under the guise of a news report, or in the form of a news interview. (SD-Agencies)

Happy Fire-Chicken Day

I'll preface this with the explanation, your welcome.  In Chinese the direct translation of "turkey" is "fire-chicken", so it is not uncommon, I've found, that students will shout the latter when presented with a picture of the former.  If you don't know that that's why that's happening, this can be a very confusing experience.  Now that I've figured it out I don't think I'll ever say "turkey" again.
In summary, Happy Thanksgiving!!
I've been very blessed this year and have an awful lot to be thankful for.  Among these things -- the amazing opportunity to live in China again, my hilarious and poorly suited job, my loving family, my gets-me-by income, my cute apartment, my wonderful school, taste buds, the friends I've made here, the opportunities to travel around this side of the world, my French press to make coffee, etc. etc. etc.  And of course being able to blog and hearing from so many of you that you enjoying reading it and following my antics.  I'm very appreciative of feeling relevant and having so many people share in my victories and frustrations.  (In fact, the blog view count is fast approaching 1,000.  It will happen soon!)
And of course, I'm thankful for being able to find a real Thanksgiving meal in the middle of China!  A group of us foreign teachers went to a restaurant and chowed down on turkey and the fixings.  Four days later I think I'm still full!  But maybe that's from the second dinner we enjoyed on Saturday, when all the teachers got together with homemade dishes and giant plates of turkey.  I brought cans of cranberry sauce, but had some issue with presentation -- my serving bowl is silver metal and the sauce came out of the can in the shape of the can, hellooo dog food aesthetic! There was a large variety of dishes to be enjoyed, and of course some sports and games to play afterwards.  We even had the rare treat of a frisbee!
I've discovered a similarity between our countries though -- Christmas decorations are already up in the mall! I thought it would be difficult to make malls in China more flashy and lit up than they already are, but there they go proving me wrong.  Some of the decorations are questionably misguided, like a giant purple witch hat with light up "Merry Christmas" on it, but most are reminiscent of home.  Starbucks even has holiday flavors out now (^.^)
The holiday season's begun!

Fire drills in China are AWESOME.

American school kids have found memories of fire drills because we got to line up and file out in the middle of class, to stand somewhere far away from the school and wait to be let back in.  Mostly, we were happy that we missed five or ten minutes of class every month.
Fire drills in China are apparently a little bit different.
This morning I'm working in my office when all of a sudden a loud alarm starts going off.  I am less alarmed than one might imagine because the alarm is less of a shock than the air-raid sirens that went off last month (I think that was an earthquake drill?), and more just in the mood of oh-boy-what-now.
I walk outside and into a cloud of billowing orange smoke. Yup.  And children sprinting by towards the field.  At fire drills here they literally set off smoke bombs to make a more realistic effect, and the students are encouraged to get to the field as fast as possible.  It was so much more exciting than back home.
On the field, they even did a fire demo where they repeatedly lit a can of wood on fire and let the administration try to put it out with fire extinguishers.
The timing for every student to get there little butts on the field was 24 seconds.  24 seconds for a school of about 800-1,000 students (still not sure on the count) to empty out.  I was extremely impressed, but apparently that was a whole 7 seconds slower than they had done last term, so the kids got criticized haha.
So, in summary, fire drills here are awesome.

Also, thank you mom for my camera phone, without which I wouldn't have been able to capture this surprise.

Sprinting through one of the smoke bombs

Hurrying down the stairs

Fire demo on the field

TYNKWD -- Foreign women. All of them.

This edition of Thing You Never Knew Were Dangerous:

The warning signs at the metro crack me up every time I see them, because 1. they are very melodramatic 2.  I don't know what have of them are actually warning against, and 3. the most dangerous thing in the metro seems to be foreign women.

Our favorite hysteric blonde mother

I think the warning is about watching your head, but frankly as a foreign woman I think this creepy guy is the dangerous item.  

I don't even know what's happening here.  Is it the the creepy guy in the back?  The kid with the balloons that seems to be having an asthma attack, the women chatting at the top of the escalator, or simply the naughty blonde herself?

That's right.  In a country that is 95% Han Chinese, and maybe .5% foreigners, at least half of the warning signs in the metro feature foreign women.  We just be trouble makers, I guess.

More pictures of my school

To give a better visual of my daily life, here are a couple more pics of my school.  The first is the students lined up on the field, either a marching drill or their getting speeched at, not sure which haha.  The second is the view of the court yard.  Never gonna get over how cute the kids can be.

BiRtHdAy Shenanigans

The festivities were started a week early by my school, which throws a little make-the-people-with-birthdays-this-month-sing-and-eat-cake party.  We got the customary cake smeared on our faces (traditional to do to birthday celebrators) and gift cards to a local bakery to get our own cakes (I think, though honestly the card doesn't say and I have no idea).  I managed to make a fool of myself as usual by dropping the piece of cake they handed me while everyone watched.  It was cute and luckily only lasted for an half hour.

We (me and a couple friends) celebrated the first part of my birthday week with an excursion to Hong Kong.  We consequentially learned to never try to cross the border on a Saturday morning.  From my apartment to where we were meeting for breakfast took me a good 5 hours, where it normally would only take 2.  So breakfast became lunch, but tasted just as amazing because the Flying Pan has incredible breakfast -- and bottomless coffee!! -- all day long.  After stuffing ourselves silly, we went to try to find the Hong Kong Pride parade that was going on that day.  We knew the generally area where it was supposed to be, but not the actual place.  However, usually that would be enough because Pride parades are huge and flamboyant and very hard to miss.  Not true in Hong Kong.  We saw a guy wearing a giant Queen of Hearts (from Alice in Wonderland) costume and thought, hey, that must be it let's follow him.  So we did.  And he led us straight to... a park that looked like it was having a celebration.  That must be it!  So we went in to find... a kids Mardi Gras festival?  I think?  There was face painting (only for the kiddos, we tried :(  ), dancing talent show, booths, etc.  We hung around for a couple minutes and were given giant pink leis.  Then we headed out to resume our quest.  Eventually we ran into it, but like I said Hong Kong Pride is disappointing as far as Pride goes.  There in fact was no parade, just a march.  I saw only one or two queens, and the highlight was the group of men advocating "Sex work is work".  But we marched for a while, then casually exited and went to get cocktails.
Burgers and more drinks and quests for the last few minutes of happy hours ensued, then we crashed at our friend's apartment.  In the morning Christiane and I went wondering down to the piers then grocery shopping for delicious western foods.  Several hours and wayyyy to much money spent later, we returned home.

On my actually birthday day, we went and got Cold Stone ice cream and then happened upon a bar that does salsa dancing, which turns out is less fun when you have no idea how to salsa dance and didn't bring a partner.  I called it a night pretty early with mild ambitions to return someday and be able to dance :P

This weekend we are planning a KTV excursion, so I will have updates later.

And THANK YOU everyone who sent birthday cards/wishes/skype calls.  It was so kind of everyone to keep in touch!  I truly appreciate it.

Materialism in China

Materialism is a big thing around here.  Every time a teacher has a new dress, it's the talk of the dining hall.  If you ask a student what they'd like to do in America, they'll say "buy an ipad!"  The teachers are found of specifying things like "You have a lot of pretty jewelry and I only wear this necklace, but mine is much more expensive I think."  When a coworker and I met a guy who speaks English in line at the supermarket, her first question when he said he was a lawyer was "Oh, then you are a very rich man?" And what would the students bring if they were stranded on a desert island?  "Money!"
I realize that the U.S. tends to be seen as the mother of all consumerism, but what I see here is on an entirely different level.  I will spend money, yes, but I would rather spend money on a trip somewhere rather than a Gucci handbag.  And they cost about the same.
This morning, while reading my favorite newspaper I found this gem of an article that perfectly demonstrates my point:

Shenzhen Daily, November 15, 2011
Shopping bags with luxury brands in vogue

An increasing number of white collar workers are following an emerging fashion trend in Shenzhen by carrying paper shopping bags with designer names to indicate they had bought luxury goods to show off to their co-workers.  

The bags, with designer logos such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, or Cartier, are mostly replicas purchased from online stores, yesterday's Shenzhen ecoonomic daily reported.

This new trend was spawning a booming business for paper bag makers, the paper said.

A 24-year-old woman surnamed Gao carries two such bags to work every day, a bronze-colored bag with a Gucci logo for her lunch box and a red one with the Cartier logo for daily necessities, the report said.

She told the paper she bought the shopping bags online and the Gucci bag cost her Y120 (US$19) while the Cariter bag cost Y180.

"A few women co-workers fomr the rich families often show off their luxury acessories in the office and look down on us new graduates," the woman was quoted as saying.  "I'm not a show-off person by nature, but I feel I have to adjust myself in this environment."

To save her face, she sometimes loosens her purse strings for a few small luxury accessories, but can't afford large items like handbags or clothing.

"Now I found a better way," Gao said. "Carrying such a shopping bag to work, other people often thing I bought luxury gooss and I feel good about myself."

....

That's right.  Carrying your things in paper bags with designer logos so your co-workers will think (your lunchbox?) came from LV.  This is so ridiculous I couldn't believe it.  I admit, if these women really feel like they are looked down on for not having bought their handbag from Gucci then I feel sorry for them.  But I just can't bring myself to sympathize. 

My next obvious question being:  communism?

When life won't give you lemons, decide you like iced tea instead.

Some of you may know, and the rest of you will by the end of this sentence, I love to crochet.  My Nana taught me when I was little and my family was plagued by my new obsession, all of them receiving hand-made hats (pom pom on top, of course) for that year's Christmas.  I started an afghan for my mother-- which has yet to be finished, in my defense afghans are huge -- and many other projects.  I forgot about it for several years, found my projects again with renewed fever, forgot them again, started new projects, etc.  I actually got pretty good this last year and hand-crafted a stuffed Totoro, and made my sister a "hover bee" pillow (long story).
So here in China I recently found that I was in need of a meditation-inducing hobby again.  I decided it was time to return to my hook.  There was one little problem.  Crochet apparently doesn't exist here.  Everywhere I found that sold yarn had knitting needles, but no one had hooks.  I even found a great little yarn shop not to far from my apartment, but still no hooks.  After several dead ends, it became apparent that I had a decision to make.
 I had avoided knitting forever because I had always known and done crochet, but now I found myself in the same situation I faced as a child trying to play Power Rangers with my mom and friends in the park.  All the other girls wanted to be my favorite ranger -- the pink ranger, of course -- so I strategized and became the yellow ranger.  From then on, I owned that ranger.
Sometimes life won't give you lemons, and that's when it's time to decide you'd rather have ice tea instead.

I bought needles, a beautiful colored yarn, googled a how-to site, and buckled down.

An hour later...

Halloween

What do they do for Halloween in China, you ask?
Well, not much.
If you recall, in Beijing we had a massive party and everyone was in costume and crazy.  It was a good time.  But Shenzhen is smaller, newer, and with fewer foreigners.  That said, the holiday did not go uncelebrated.
While costume supplies were short and good parties were fewer we still managed with what we could.  The bar district was crowded to capacity.  And while most costumes were hand down and low maintenance the creative level was high.
I was also put in charge of throwing a Halloween party for my school.  Sounds terrifying, right?  Well it was up until it happened.  Because in typical China style I was given no details whatsoever.  Initially my instructions were to have a Halloween party on either Thursday or Friday after school for somewhere between 25 - 1,000 kids.  Ahh!  Luckily it turned out that what they really meant was "We want a Halloween party, but we want you to do it.  So pick a day and whatever and  make it happen."  So I was able to reign it in to throwing parties for my interesting groups.  The school was very kind and bought costumes, candies, and decorations for us.
I had a "yep, I'm still in China" moment when we were shopping for the supplies.  I of course wanted the masks, vampires, skeletons, spider webs, etc.  But my colleagues vetoed because, and I quote, "no!  it's scary!"  So we ended up with lots of feathery sequined nonsense. A lot of it looked more like Carnival than Halloween. I think the concept of Halloween got lost in translation somewhere!
The parties were pretty fun.  My costume relay race failed due to either over excitement, misunderstandings or mistranslations (Me:  "Ok,  when I say 'go', run around the circle and come back.  Then give your costume to the second person.  Then they run around the circle and come back.  Then they give it to the third person.  Ok?"  Colleague's translation: "Put on the costumes and walk very slowly, don't run!  Show everyone what your costume looks like.").  But I had a word search and pictures to draw, and at the very end right before they went home to their parents, I gave them candy.  The older kids got super whiney because only the race winners got a prize for the race, they wanted more candy, they wanted more to colors, etc.  Oy.  There are definitely some spoiled children here, good thing they're cute.  This week I'm showing them The Great Pumpkin, so I hope they enjoy it :)

Christiane and me in costume.  It's supposed to be a yin yang (get it??) but we're also accepting batman villains and black swan.  We are not accepting raccoons.

Halloween party for interesting group

An interlude...

The view from a pedestrian bridge at night.

Taking a minute to add a picture of daily life in Shenzhen.

TYNKWD -- Escalators

This week's addition to Things You Never Knew Were Dangerous can be summed up by this warning poster I saw at the metro station.

 

Please note the hysterical white lady screaming "quick, someone help my child!".  Like, that child's leg is literally being torn off and eaten by this escalator.  Are you skeptical this could happen?  Me too, but after all, this is China.

TYNKWD - Touching Lamp Posts

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce a new series of posts.  Living here, I have become increasingly aware of the imminent danger we live in.  However, more and more I am finding that this danger comes from not only the obvious sources -- for example, the exposed and violently sparking electric line on a metro a couple weeks ago -- but also from things you never knew were dangerous (hereafter: TYNKWD).  

I will start this series with a special gem I found in the newspaper:

Touching lamp posts.  

The following is a snippet from the Shenzhen Daily.

"A teenager was eletrocuted on his way home in a lane in Huangbeiling Village in Luhou on Saturday.  he accidentally touched a lamp post and was electrocuted.  He was pronounced dead by doctors at the scene."

No, I assure I am not cut and pasting this to sound the way it does.  That is the information given.  A teenager "accidentally touched a lamp post" and died immediately.  Why? From what? No clue.  Seriously, no more info was given than that, and the ambiguously haunting article is now causing myself and those I've shared it with to live in fear of accidentally touching the wrong lamp post.  

Happy Birthday Dad!

Since I miserably failed at being home and celebrating dad's birthday, I recruited some of my screaming mimis to help.  This is my lower interesting group.

Happy birthday, dad!  Sorry I can't be there, and even sorrier I can't be there with good beer and real chocolate cake, with chocolate chips inside, and chocolate icing, and some chocolate ice cream on the side!  :)

Love you all back home and miss you bunches.

Drills and jingle bells

Every (single) morning, I wake up to... wait for it... jingle bells.  Yeah, not joking.  The christmas song.  It is played throughout the day, varying with non-recognizable kinds tunes. For you see, Chinese schools are run differently than American ones.  Bells do not exist.  Songs, including jingle bells, usher in every thinkable event at the school.  Arriving, period starting, period ending, flag ceremony beginning, flag ceremony ending, break time, protect eye exercise time, broadcasting time, practice handwriting time, lunch starting, nap time starting, nap time ending, lunch ending, etc etc etc.  While this used to drive me crazy, it's become a part of the day and every now and then I can actually recognize which song is playing for what event.
To add to this gem of hilarity (I asked, they don't know they're playing christmas music), the kids are also constantly drilled to exercise and prepare for military training -- which every person goes through even though there's not mandatory service.  This means that the highlight of my week days is at 9am, when the entire primary school marches outside (yes, to music) to practice marching and drills.  Why is this the highlight?  Because they're 7-11 years old, and therefore adorable.  I finally snuck a picture this week to share my enjoyment with you.

This is the view from my office.  Frankly, I have no idea what they're doing half the time but I love it anyways.  Just try and picture 500 primary students trying to march in neat little rows for the flag ceremony.  Haha!

Hong Kong weekend

Because I have apparently forsaken sleep, I rejoined the Xi'an friends and went to Hong Kong for the weekend. It was a short trip so I'll have to go back a few times, but there was more than enough time to stuff ourselves with Western food (the first American food I've had since July), including TGI Fridays, eggs benedict and bottomless coffee, cheese and crackers, and pizza.  We also took the tram up Victoria Peak, the highest point on the island, to see the view.

HK is insane, it doesn't feel like the China I know at all.  It is a really Western city, complete with other foreigners and people who speak English!  The streets are narrow and the lanes are backwards, the language is Cantonese (of which I speak not a word), the buses are narrow double deckers, the metro stops sound like a pirate ride at disney world (admiralty, fortress hill, etc), and the color of choice is neon.  I was very overwhelmed.  It was so expensive too!  Surprisingly, I'm feeling more comfortable back on the mainland!
Again, fun times.  That said, I'm ready to take it easy for a few days!  Whew.

The view of the island from Kowloon
(the biggest building is the one batman jumped from in the last movie)

Xi'an -- Good Company

Ok, sorry for the short hiatus.  I got thwarted by the great firewall for a time and haven't been able to get on this site, much less post.  China always keeps you on your toes.

Now, for the long awaited photos and stories from my National Day trip to Xi'an.

I went with three friends for the week we get off, you already heard about the god forsaken train ride, but the actual time there was great.  No lesson planning, no screaming 9 year olds (don't get me wrong, I love them, but, you know...)...  We still had to wake up bright and early but it was to see cool things, and we were all in the same place which is one of the more obnoxious parts of Shenzhen (it takes me 45 min to 1.5 hour to get to my friends).

I'm having trouble getting the photos to stay in the right order and I don't want to push my luck too far, so I present in no particular order documentation of the trip:

Xi'an noodles.  A single wide 3.8m long noodle with dipping soup.
Possibly the most difficult thing to eat with chopsticks so far.

Big Goose Pagoda and practicing Asian photo poses

The terra-cotta warriors of Qin in their massive airplane hanger type museum

Thomas and me in front of the Drum Tower.
We look pretty good considering this is right after the first train leg

Possibly the highlight of the trip for me, possibly because I sorely miss biking.
Biking on the city wall, 13km long encircling the inner city.

A display of terra-cotta figurines in the various hats of the era, of which there are many.

"The most beautiful beauty"
(description by our hired driver/guide)

Well, there you go. As far as description goes, it was very, very crowded.  We had to continuously change our plans to accommodate how very crowded it was, but we still managed to see a lot of things, most of which I had missed on my first trip.  Xi'an was the capital of China for like 2,000 years, so there is a lot of old things buried around that you can go see.  Also, a lot of museums with old pottery.  So much pottery.  We feasted on delicious things, like fancy dumplings, that long noodle I showed you, and various Muslim BBQ from the popular Muslim Quarter.  And we found bumper cars, which are the most terrifying thing in China because there are no regulations and they go super fast.

Good trip, good friends, good vacation.  Yay.

And I'll leave you with this gem:

 

The highlight of the train ride, and I mean only highlight of the train ride, was the guy coming through selling shamwows with a megaphone.