Firsts for Christmas...

This has most certainly been a year of firsts for so many things, Christmas seems like the smallest of them all in some respects but in many ways this was the time which made being in China, being out of college, and everything feel real for me.

Christmas has always been a chaotic time for me, but for all the added stress and confusion I have always found a warmth and acceptance in this time of year. It comes from the very physical parts of the season: It has been getting colder but not for long enough for people to have truely begun to dislike the cold. This year I've experienced that more than others since it has been getting genuinely cold, and having lived my whole like if San Diego I certainly have not felt the warmth of a hot radiator after walking in, out of the near frozen air.

This year for the first time I decorated my own place, my own apartment/room/house on my own and only with things that I got through borrowing or buying them. It is a completely different feeling to revel in another person's festivities than to celebrate your own fortunes in your own way. The more of life I see the more I become convinced that there is little in this world worth gaining through the hands of others.

Personal Acheivement is such a valuble thing that I when I turn on the lights in my flat I feel more relaxed than I can remeber, though there is very little awe in my lights. Back home people really strive to out do one another and their efforts I feel are worthy of awe, mine on the other hand just create a sense of home in my flat, a world away from the competition.

Sandy, one of the teachers bought me this stuffed panda and dressed him up for the holidays, he's not just an ordinary Panda though... ... Stay tuned as the story breaks.

In years past I have made special baked things and such for Christmas, some of my family knows that I have a flair for the dramatic and enjoy spending the time to make food which can be enjoyed before it is eaten. Of course most of the time I genuinely care about how it tastes too.

This year for the first time I decided to make gingerbread on my own, but in China there are some things that make this a little bit of a problem.

To start with, the Chinese don't bake, so all of the little things, like ovens, are not common out here. Include with the lack of ovens and lack of ingredients normally reserved for baking, like Vanilla for the cookies I wanted to make, and a complete lack of measuring cups.

Armed with an 8oz. drinking cup and a couple of different sized spoons which had been collected over the last two years be the flat's previous residents, I set out to bake in a toaster oven. I made peanut butter cookies topped with peices of Dove Chocolate and Gingerbread... well Gingerbread shapes. They started with Gingerbread men, and then I got bored and playful.

To the right you'll notice that the gingerbread woman on the right has a bun in the oven. Lisa is one of the teachers at work and she is expecting in March, so I make a cookie for her that she could relate to.

To the left you'll notice a cat person. Cathy the head teacher took on the nick-name "Super Cat" to try to keep her class from becoming too in love with their "Super Panda", me. The effort didn't work but she got her cat person cookie out of the deal.

On the far right you'll see a gingerbread rat... yes thats right, a gingerbread rat. The word for Rat and Mouse is the same in China and on top of that they are considered cute (when not actually seen alive). Sissy is rather fond of drawings of mice and so I did what I could with a knife to make a gingerbread rat for her to enjoy. If your wondering if I did this just because the girl in question is beautiful and single, I will admit that those facts didn't hurt the motivation. In truth she has become a friend of mine, and even if nothing else comes of it I will do nice things for my friends from time to time when I can.

Thats the real key, my motivation was exceedingly simply... I can.

Jessica is another of my new friends, and with her cookie I made a slight logisitcal mistake. Some of you will be looking at the cookie right now tring to figure out what you are looking for. Its a G and an h.

Jessica has a new class of students one of which did not get the smart genes in the family. In his latest exam he couldn't remember which small letter went with which big letter, his exam actually read "Gf" but I misremembered the exam while I was making the cookies. She enjoyed it anyways.

On the right now is the last of the special cookies that I made, this one was for Sandy who absolutely loved pictures of San Diego's beaches (because they are Sandy too).

More that that, she took the time to make a present which is still one of my absolute favorities that I have ever gotten. You saw the front of him above and you saw that he was wearing a tie.

This is part of his secret Identity as the seemingly normal Hughbert Hewer. In reality he is:

Did you see that comming? Really?

Of all these firsts there is another one which is small but very, very fun. This is the first year I have a looked out my window and heard something which is in all the songs about this time of year. This picture was taken on the morning of Christmas Eve, and while I don't think I will get a repeat show tomorrow, this still makes it officially my first White Christmas.

There wasn't more snow than just enough to look at, but that still makes it more than enough for me. I went out for a walk in the snow. I much advise this over walks in the rain, properly secured from the cold it is actually very pleasant. Rain tends to be much more wet while with the snow i stayed rather dry the whole time.

My firsts didn't end there, I just had my first Christmas party which I hosted. It was a small get together, light and fun with friends. I spent much of my energy in preparing cookies (Mom's recipes modified for lack of certain things), hot apple cider (Stef's recipie but with half a lemon peel in place of an orange peel because I was too lazy to go by an orange), and collecting movies that are fun for the background like Home Alone.

To the left are (left to right) Chrissy, Jessica, Sissy, and Maggie.

I topped the cookies with an attempt at Royal icing, it didn't come out to bad though I didn't get the liquid to solid ratio quiet right. I also didn't expect the various teachers to bring me presents, especially since I had only bought small gifts for them (apart from the four I am good friends with). The collection of gifts was actually very thoughtful and made me feel a little embarrassed that I didn't go find more for them than I actually had.

To the right are (left to right) Grace in the background, Vicky, Sandy, and Chrissie. I think its a safe bet that Vicky didn't know she was in the picture.

So on top of my other firsts this the first year that I was truly surprised by receiving gifts. I got an assortment of things not the least of which included a new pair of shoes all the way from America.

The foot belongs to Cathy, the head teacher of Xi Gong school.

I also got some new tea from Vickey, some Charlie brown drinking cups from Sissy (with hearts on them which I am hoping is a good sign), a bottle of paper stars from Jessica so that I can make a wish (If she didn't have a boyfriend I would take that as a clear sign of interest), a nice journal and day planner from Lily, and a little red lantern for candles from Cathy.

My christmas isn't quiet over, but this year, Christmas came early. Tomorrow I have work in the evening but I will be calling my family in the morning (their Christmas Eve). I work on New Years Eve, but I have the following three days off so I am going to start planning something. I might choose to go visit the Shaolin temple, you know... make sure the New Year is really kick ass or something? Maybe I'll find out if the girls want to go dancing. I'm 20 pounds lighter than when I got her, and have much more energy... I should have a few moves to bust out thanks to my year of Lindy-Hop.

I'm dreaming of an Ireverant Christmas.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas,
Where everybody looks like me,
Where the talks of money,
And hows the honey?
And hey, cuz lo-ong time no see.
no see.

I'm dreaming of a white, Christmas.
Just like the ones I used to know,
Where the store fronts glisten,
And children listen, to hear:
Whose folks spent more dough.
Fo' Sho'

I'm dreaming of a white, Christmas.
With people spending all they can,
While the shops we're blaming,
The banks are gaining,
And lights, the whole ci-i-ty will span.
Oh Man.

I'm dreaming of a white, Christmas,
With all the bounced checks that I'll writes
Take your wallet from Heavy
To light...

And my all your Christmases
Be White.

Chronicles of the Dragon of Unhapiness

Many of you will have noticed a sharp decline in the rate which I have been updating this web log of my journies. Part of this is due to an increase in my work load as many of my fellow Lao Wai (foreigners) head home for the holidays, but the true reason has been from added work loads from other sources.

First I have been attempting to develope a social life with the many lovely ladies at work. While this is a very rewarding pursuit I can hardly justify it as taking up my time for writing short diddys about my times in China though as I have only met marginal success to date and all of it has been recent.

Second I am preparing to have a big Christmas party and so there has been a goodly amout of time spent running to stores trying to find the various things I need to make cookies, cider, and decorate my flat for christmas (I will take pictures when it is set up). But again much of the time involved baking durring which there is plenty of time to post something here, and the rest of it met with little success.

Lastly this brings me to the final and true reason for my lack of attention to this log, the visiting of the Dragon of Unhappiness upon my flatmate up until his return to the states.

Just a little over a month ago the dire events were set in motion, events that would cost Nico a great deal of money and wear my patients somewhat thin despite the swelling of sympathy his plight would create in me.

Nico's friend Mark took Nico out to dinner on a Sunday night and introduced him to a local brand of Baijo (Chinese alcohol ~112 proof) which Nico actually enjoyed. It was cheap and had actual flavor according to Nico, I never contested the point as a simple smell of the liquid was enough to repulse me. I will never understand the appeal of drinking alcohol even if I understand the appeal of the effects. Close to nothing in this world is worth drinking something which tastes as vile as that smells.

The following day Nico set off to buy a bottle of about 500ml of this same alcohol for about .80 cents. The Alcohol might have had nothing to do with the following events, and it might have started it, since I can't tell I include it.

That night Nico drank what I would estimate to be about 70ml of the bottle and then we went out to a resturant with friends. The resturant served traditional, local, food which we had never eaten before and featured rarities in China such as large peices of tender beef. Everything tasted very good and Nico ate a fair amount more than I did.

With Chinese food I find that the variety of flavors and sensations overwhelms my sense of taste after a while and causes me to be very satisfied with eating much less than I otherwise would. This might be part of the reason why I have lost considerable weight since being here.

The day following our dinner outing Nico became very ill. Indegestion mixed with digestive disfunction and all kinds of unpleasant things. He continued to be very ill for two and a half days and then slowly recovered somewhat apart from a soreness around his bottom.

He did not know it but the Dragon of Unhappiness had flown up his bottom.

Each day the pain got worse and when he couldn't quiet stand alone he decided it was time to ask if the people from work could get him some pain killers. When they couldn't do that without taking him to the hospital he agreed to go.

This started three weeks of hospitalization and two surgurys in which they had to releive the preassure cause by two sizeable infections in either half of his rear. The process left him immobile and me as his go-to guy for refilling his Mp3 player and other errands which he didn't know how to ask other people to do in Chinese, or when he just wanted to speak in Enlgish for a while.

Over the course of those three weeks I made it to see him on each day that I had time, which averaged out to everyother day or once every three days. I built up a little sleep debt from running my errands and caught a couple of colds durring that time also, but am now doing very well.

The passing of the Dragon of Unhappiness may very well have left a physical scar upon the unfortunate soul it visited, but it certainly made my life difficult for a while.

Imagine having to go a whole month with a friend in the hospital constantly calling you and not being able to use any variation of the phrase "pain in the ass"...

You know I really feel like some Chinese food today...

Now I cannot in good faith say that on the whole Chinese food will always be healthier to eat than American food, I can only say that it tastes better as a rule. On the right is a picture of some various dishes and I have no idea what their names are. I know that in the middle is a soup made with fish and in the top right corner is a dish which is like a boiled pork dumpling. Apart from that the only name these foods need is good.


Most Chinese food stresses the freshness of the ingredients to accentuate the flavors that they prefer to use. On top of this, the Chinese love to eat and won't travel anywhere that does not include the possibility of food. On the left are several absolutely divine dishes. The red and white dish just behind the duck is Mapoa Dofu (Tofu in a spicy sauce) which is perhaps of the best commonly prepared dishes in china and is a hallmark of the Sichuan cuisine. All of these dishes are in fact Sichuan ones, the duck is called Tea Smoked Duck which has a rich flavor while being somewhat mild at the same time. On the far left is an Eel and peers dish in which fresh peices of eel (the same used in Japaneses sushi) is stirfried with various peppers to give it a spiced flavor along with the natural sweetness of the meat. On the right is a delicate soup made with pork and winter melon which made for a subtle yet exquisite treat. In Sichuan, the province ChengDu is in, much of the food was reliably like this.

Still if Restaurants aren't your thing Chengdu has a rich food culture for something that doesn't really translate well into English. ShauChi (you need to tones to really hear the word since Chi in fourth tone sounds more like Chur) really means small eats, but it is the local street food. You walk from vendor to vendor buying small things that they specialize in.

These dishes varried from roasted chicken, spicy boiled meats, and pineapple rice to Stinky tofu, "Three Big Bombs" a dish with doughy rice in a sweet sauce, and various juices. The above picture is of one of the many traditional streets littered throughout he city of Chengdu where you can go shopping, have and drink, and be relatively close to a place to buy ShauChi.

Eventually however you are done eating, for the moment, and something else is in order. Drinking tea is a nice calming way to pass the time. There are several places from the tea market, a district of the town devoted to tea shops and paraphernalia of all levels of quality, to small shops that will give you a cup of tea to drink while you look at the local scenery or just relax.

This tea spot was actually located within one of the old Taoist Temples in the city. I will put up pictures of the breath taking surrounds of the temple itself soon enough. The tea was a little strongly brewed and as you can see was completely loose leaf. Apart from a Korean "tea" called DaMaiChe (roasted wheat tea) no one in china uses those sissy little tea bags you American's are so keen on.

Now the tea shown in the picture above is a great deal more common in its quality and mode of consumption than what I partake of on my free Mondays. Above we have a simple Jasmine Green tea which was over steeped by virtue of how it was served. This tea was served to us in a larger cup which was filled with hot water whenever it ran out, the tea would steep while we talked and was a little too strong because they included more tea than was really necessary in the cup to insure that it would last over many infusions.

When I drink tea and home or on my Monday outings to a shop with some very attractive and friendly young women working in it we drink it in a more, well Americans would consider it more ceremonial, but really in a more high class manner. The tea is steeped in something about the size of the cups above (actually it is one of the cups above) and then poured into a glass teapot where we can admire the color. After this it is poured into small cups which hold about a mouthful at a time because with a really good tea you don't need more than a little bit to get the experience. This is not to say that the good teas have strong or distinctive flavors, far from it in fact, but rather the experience than really separates tea from other beverages is the way it lingers in the mouth after you drink it. Today I bought myself a very nice tea set (6 small cups, 1 large cup like the one above for steeping the tea in and a ceramic pot for pouring the tea all done in very nice Chinese ceramics and delicately painted). I also bought some Chinese white and red teas (black teas for you english speakers. The Chinese term from what we call black tea is red tea, this is very different from the African red teas). These teas should fit nicely with my DaMaiChe and green Oolong tea that I had previously bought. The white tea is of a very high quality and has been aged for 6 years (aged teas almost always have much improved tastes), and the red teas are separated to the cheap batch which I bought for a breakfast tea and the more delicate one for an after work relaxation tea or a midday tea and snacks tea.

Getting back to ChengDu and other parts of China however and away from my recent absorbtion into the tea High Culture, one of the places I ate and drank while on my trip at the begining of October was in a theater which put on a variety show showcasing many local traditional arts. The tea was also a decent quality green jasmine which was drank right out of the steeping cup but the overall food experience was wonderful. For 80RMB extra we had full neck and uper body massages and ear cleanings while we drank tea.

After wards we were placed at a table with snacks which included wafers made out of dried cherries and some kind of dried pea. The snacks were pretty good and the show was quite entertaining especially because there was little speaking that was needed to understand what was going on. For myself and my friends one of the highlights of the night were the folk dancers simply because they were simply divine looking young women. The city of ChengDu in particular and the province of Sichuan at large is known for producing some very beautiful women and I will allow you to be the judge of how well it holds up to this criteria. I honestly can say that I can count the women I have known who were as attractive as many of the women I saw on my trip on my hands.
Food wise though I am loving China. I will have more food related posts in the future especially when I start learning to cook more than I am. Currently I occasionally fry some eggs or go buy stuff for my roommate to cook.

Halloween followed me.

That's right, halfway across the world and into a land known to most people back home only through movies depicting slow boats or flying monks and the strangely American tradition of dressing up and demanding candy is still alive and well. Halloween lives mostly because my school really teaches American English and American Culture over other places and regions.

The teachers here got very into the festive spirit because for them this is only the second year they have ever celebrated the holiday and so the whole idea is still very new to them. They spent the whole week before hand listening to ghost stories and planning our school's outing. In the first picture, in the foreground we have Cathy(left) and Maggie(right), Cathy being the head teacher of XiGong school. In the back, left to right are Grace, Lisa, and Lily.


The school, for the second year had arranged with some local business to host a place for the students to go Trick-Or_Treating though in a format far more in line with a business. Instead of walking door to door the students marched with their classes and looked for Jack-O-Lanterns placed in the doorways of local retail shops in a well-to-do part of town. There the students had to sing a song in English to get their candy. In the Second photo on the left is me in a costume the teachers made for me the day of and on the right is Sean the new recruit from Tasmania.

After this was done we all gathered to take some pictures. Trick-Or-Treating did not stop on Halloween however, instead the teachers arranged for various classes to interact with each other at school. Students brought candy for each other and then gave each other gifts of sweets in exchange for songs. This made all of the students very generous in a way not seen in America, they gave their Candy away freely.




For the many students who did not participate in the the Halloween March, as the school was calling it, there was a small Halloween party being held at the school where the best stereo system they could set up was playing spooky ghost stories in Chinese and they teachers had various activities for them. I don't know too much of what they were doing since I was well away dressed as some skeletal bat person thing.

On November first it was back to classes as normal except for the inter-class trick or treating which frequently happened during my classes. This resulted in me being given many candies because the students wanted to share with me even when I could not give them any candy in return. One student would have earned an instant A if I did the grading for him when he gave me a small dove bar...

In other news we have been having some new teachers come through our school though there is no guarantee that they will stay very long because the school has very high expectations of its Chinese teachers. Before it was Lenny and Susan of whom Lenny lasted through the first month of the three month training program. This last week Jessica and Sissy joined the "Joy Family" and I personally am glad for this as both of them are rather good looking. Now as all of you know I really wouldn't know how to be a hound dog of a man if I wanted to be, but I certainly don't mind adding a few stunningly attractive young women to my list of friends or to the room of mostly very attractive teachers already there. I know its not kosher to date people you work with (though this has not been expressly forbidden) but I am starting to think this is more a guideline than a rule... savy?

Anyways, this is my Halloween blog, in keeping with the season. You might even get something at Thanksgiving but I am not eating Turkey this year (I will take pictures of dinner though). I will post up more pictures from ChengDu as well as some of the cute kids from school over the next few weeks. If I don't get busy I plan to have a Cheng Du recap post up tomorrow.

Lastly... I have found a way to read comments you send me, they interest me so I would like to hear them again. Alternately you can email me at loch.ness003@gmail.com because I would like to hear from you and whats going on in your lives.

My Flat

This is a quick picture blog of my apartment, all the pictures were taken with the new Canon powershot that I bought this afternoon. I will get more of my ChengDu pictures and stories up soon and will include more stories with kids next time.
This is our living room which at one point had been filled with 11 Chinese girls, myself and my roommate.
This is a further shot of our Kitchenette.
This is the kitchen up close, it is certainly not large and has a complete lack of an oven, but it more than serves our needs for the time being.
My roommate's traditional tea tray and accessories, I still have not bought a tea set, but mostly because I hesitate before making purchases here (now that I have the money to do so).
We don't have an upstairs, but the bedrooms and den are on a slightly differrent level, makes you feel more decadent that way.
My roommate got the better of the two bedrooms, but I get it from him when he leaves in January.

Just so mom would know it really was my room, I left the bed messy.
And then the computer room. That's where I am right now (at the time of writing not reading).

Rost in Tlansgration

I do promise for those of you who are picture starved I will have another post with pictures up soon, but before that I thought you would appriciate something small while I have a break at work.

For those of you who do not understand the title of this post, let me assure you that it translates to "Lost in translation" for those of you who do let me similarly assure you that I am fully aware that the l/r confusion is primarily a Japanese language difficultly and that I am more than aware of the different difficulties in the Chinese language. In many ways that is what this particular post is about.

The Chinese, just like American's have a strange habit of directly translating things in English sometimes and getting creative other times. This combined with a wide variety of typos and simple ignorance have lead to a number of amusing signs and phrases that I have heard here.

Firstly one of these signs that I think fully expresses what I am trying to express was the name of a bakery I saw on my trip to ChengDu, "Juicy Bread." Now it is possible to get inside the head of the person who wrote this down at some point and then to try to extract what marketing scheme they had in mind from it, but regardless of your efforts the name does not encourage someone to eat there.

Another local store that is almost finished being made is "Good Cafe." Now this alone is an interesting marketing plan, to name your Cafe good so that people know it is and also to do so in tall english letters without any chinese on the exterior in a city with extremely limited numbers of English Speakers. To make matters worse, they meant to name the store Good Coffee, but the chinese say Cafe when they talk about Coffee.

Similar stores have caught my eye such as "Splendid Mall" which is really more like a wallmart on the second floor and a Grocery Store on the first; "The Chinese Arrogant Men's Clothing Brand" which I did not go into despite the fact that I was very tempted; and the district in LuoYang called "Computer City" because it has electronics shops.

Flat out amusing typo's have lead to signs such as No Snoking! being posted in the local hospital, this of course has made me wonder what Snoking is and why the Hospital doesn't want it done in the halls.

The one that floored me however is the name of a very respectible clothing and accessory brand that is mostly for teenage boys. "Playboy" complete witht he bunny logo was bought, the name and logo only not the magazine as such things are illegal here, and have been used for watches, clothing, belts, and the such. It really plays with your brain to see a 13 year old boy who still thinks girls are icky to be wearing a belt with the Playboy Bunny logo on it.

--------------

Lastly you will have noticed that the title of this blog has changed from the rather droll: Behind the Iron Fortune Cookie, to the enigmaticly amusing "Super Panda and the Children's Table"!

Over the last two weeks I have had plently of wonderful kid moments including one student who burst out saying "I don't love you mom, I love you Scott!" while we were teaching them to write a letter for their mother (he was 4). I have had the treat to see two K level classes have talent shows in which they go to a McDonalds and order food in English (though the teachers wrote it down in chinese for the clerks to understand). But this change of title comes from a game I had been playing yesterday.

I would ask the class to give each student a second name, so we had Donna the Smile and Iris the Flower, and Jack the Moneky, and Peter the Spiderman, and the like all day long.

In my first class I was almost Scott/Voldemort but instead became Scott the Vampire. This followed less than a week about me joking with my co-workers that I should make my chinese surname Hu (pronounced Who?) so that I can study hard and become Doctor Who. I found out later that a PhD is actually called Master, so I cannot be the Doctor, only one of the bad guys... such is life.

Still my last class of the day could not decide between Superman and Panda, so I was Scott the Super Panda! Dah da da dah dah *chomp... music pauses while he eats* da da da Dah Dah da Daaa- *chomp* -aaa.

Later that night I went to a gathering of people who wanted to practice their English and wound up in charge of the kids table. So that is the adventure of Super Panda and the Children's Table!

You travel half way around the world but you still wind up at the children's table...

I'm the national treasure and I hate noise.

When visiting the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in ChengDu I came across this sign.

Signs in Chinese are often very funny because of a combination of factors. First there is the fact that most of Chinese does not directly translate to English because of various cognitive and grammatic structures at the foundation of the Chinese language and Latin or Germanic based languages. This sign reflects the cognitive differences between the cultures, and it is simply amusing.

The Chinese people are very loud most of the time, I have not yet been able to figure out why, but this is unarguably so.
A simple sign along the lines of "quiet please" or "the animals require quiet" is not flashy enough to catch the eye of the average person in China and so more grandeur statements are needed. Needless to say I am considering getting a print of this and placing it on my door.

Far from being nearly magical creatures of legend, the Giant Panda (Da Xiong Mao or big bear cat) is a cute, lumbering testemant against the normal arguments for Natural Selection. This large, once carnivorous species has adapted itself to feed on bamboo but will only eat 40 of the 300 species of bamboo found in the world. It's home climate is occasionally snowy and occasionally lush green, but mostly it is misty. The mists might give some excuse for its appearance. The Giant Panda eats and sleeps as its primary activities. It is only able to process a small fraction of what it eats and so most of its weight is actually left over fiber which it has eaten that day. While pregnant Panda's will still occasionally consume carrion, it is mostly for the Iron and not for the sake of protein. Panda's are extremely sensitive to environmental fluctuations and mass starvations have been recorded when one type of their bamboo failed to flower in the wild that year. For the most part these creatures are incredibly docile and they are in fact very attending to their youth.





Giant Panda's naturally are very solitary creatures and live a great distance apart from one another. So when the season comes for mating it is some chore for two prospective partners to find one another. First, the female is only in the mood, as it were, for a very brief time. Sometime a month, sometimes only a few days. Secondly she can be very picky about who she is interested in. Lastly even if they have a child, the mother Panda can only care for one, so if twins are born she crushes one in its sleep rather than let it starve to death. The surviving child however is carried at all times for its first two weeks of like and kept completely clean at all times. Once it starts developing fur she will let it walk around a little. I do not have any pictures but I was able to visit the Breeding center during August which is the season for new cubs.

There five cubs in all in the nursery at the time I was there. Four small ones, maybe 30 days old and about the size of a terrier and one larger one which looked the size of a koala. The four smaller ones were soundly sleeping but the big one was still awake. It kept trying to stand on its four paws, but the wood of the play-pen they were in was too slippery so it looked more like it was trying to swim.

After seeing the baby Panda swimming on wood, I began to seriously question one of the old Chinese legends. By legend the yellow emperor the emperor who first united China, trained Tigers and Panda's to fight along with his armies. Such a story seems wholly unbelievable, and did to me until I witnessed the Panda Wrestling Foundation present King of the Hill.


















The full match went on for three rounds with the victor being a surprise entry into the contest, the Large, awake, one looking in on the other two. We only thought to snap a video towards the very end of the second first round and since the camera didn't have enough memory we didn't get any more.

I will soon have more pictures from ChengDu up for everyone and some stories from there. This blog was more of an amateur editorial than a first hand account, but now and then the change of pace can be entertaining.

Who you gonna call?

*This is the blog that should have appeared before I left for ChengDu, the stories from ChengDu will be appearing with pictures over the next few weeks.*

Being a foreigner in LouYang is a unique experience to be sure. I have already told you many times about the children being excited as can be about meeting an American or another person from another country but really this is understandably. Mom loves to tell the story of Stef meeting a black person for the first time and being captivated by the color of his skin because it was unlike anything she had ever seen. To really express just how strange it is to be white in LouYang I need to tell you some stories that happened to me the week before I left for ChengDu simply because of how I look.

"You can just drink water?"

Nico and I left for lunch on Tuesday eating at the same establishment we usually frequent as it offers the most varied menu (not that we vary what we order a terrible amount) and is close enough to where we are now. The restaurant is on the second floor and this is the first time that I had left my new bicycle outside and out of my sight. I spent half the meal with my neck craning to look out the window to see if anyone was industrious to pick up my bike and run try to dart off with it. This is not a wholly unreasonable fear as this has been known to happen with the brand I bought since the brand I bought has a very good reputation in China.

The meal passed without incident and I honestly couldn't tell you what we ate even if had written this last week. At the end of the meal while we were waiting for the check five Chinese men came over to our table and began eagerly speaking at us. They would have been speaking with us if I could understand them and if my flatmate's Chinese was at a level where he could respond fluidly. They were explaining to us that in China people share a drink to signal that they are both part of the same community, sort of like welcoming us to China. This is also a sign of friendship and done because they find it fun to see white people drink.

When my roommate told them that I don't drink beer the more drunk ones in the group began protesting that I certainly must and the more coherent one's told me that I could just drink water (or tea as it happened to be).

The largest of the five of them kept trying to shake our hands or poor a cup of teas and would up invariably knocking things over every time his hands got anywhere near the table. In the end to thank us for sharing a drink with us they picked up our lunch and walked out with us where I got on my bike and went off to work.

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"Hello English!"

Two days later I would experience the same thing, but without anyone who spoke Chinese to help me.

I was riding my bike home after a long day at work and had made it about a third of the way. There is a stretch of my path that comes along the river which normally has a moist and cool breeze to it which pleasantly reminds me of the sea air which I so seldom took advantage of back home. Tonight in a break from my routine I had not waited for me coworkers to ride with me back home, I don't really need to wait for them but often it is pleasant to have company on the ride which can range from 45 minutes to 25 minutes depending on how energetic I am.

This night as I rode by the river a taxi drove by me. Now this happens frequently every night so I thought nothing of it until a man who can only be described as ox like in girth stuck his head out yelling Hello! I thought nothing of it and waved back shouting "Ni Hao."

The next thing I know the cab had slowed down because of traffic and we repeated this exchange while I passed him. The difference was this time he yelled "Hello English!" I didn't take this opportunity to reflect on the fact that in High School everyone I knew was convinced that I was secretly British, instead I simply thought that this was odd. I thought it was more odd when the person had his cab driver slow down to the speed of my bike to talk to me and even more so when he got out of the cab to walk when I encountered a Red Light.

After he talked with me for a while he asked me to go have a drink with him. I told him in my very broken Chinese that I don't drink and he seemed to understand enough to suggest that we go drink water. Also since he kept saying the Chinese word for friend I was certain that he was not dangerous. When I agreed four more people got out of a second cab and we made our way to a place where we could drink tea, and beer for the others, in a secluded area. Over the next two hours I continued to convince them that I did not drink and was shown some of the Ox man's KungFu. His girth turned out to be entirely muscular and he introduced himself as the Chinese Mike Tyson.

During these two hours I met a few of their friends and ate my first fresh Kiwi straight from peeling it. It was about as fun as you might imagine sitting around a group of 40 year old men who don't speak your language to be, but it was interesting. There was one point in the evening where one of the men's wife was present and so when they asked me I told them that she was very beautiful. The ox man then quickly asked me if he was very handsome and I answered with enough wit to make the other men laugh. First I said I don't know, which they wouldn't let me get away with so I said, "Women, yes I know beautiful, Men I don't know." Ox didn't enjoy this too much but the others thought is was funny. Again they would not let me pay for anything as in many ways it was their honor for meeting me.

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Now my cute story and title story for two weeks ago isn't about my students. This one is actually about my fellow teachers, but I think it deserves the cute story award anyways.

"Who you gonna call?"

As I finished my work day I left straight from the classroom and down a long cooridor to turn into my office. Two of the teachers, Sandy and Cathy (the head teacher) screamed when I opened the door causing me to jump a little as well. No one expects two terrified women to scream when they walk into the room and it doesn't boost your self esteem either...

"Scott! Where were you just now?" Cathy asks brandishing a toy hammer that squeaks like a dog toy it you hit something with it. The hammer is bright pink on the ends and I failed to see how anything neon pink was suppose to intimidate a person, especially if it squeaked.

"I just finished teaching Cecilia's class." I said putting my hands up while noticing that Cathy was brandishing her hammer at me from behind Sandy who was likewise a holding the implement of squeaking.

"What classroom were you in?"

"305 down the hall."

"So you weren't in the next room?" (310)

"No, was I suppose to be?"

"Scott." She said with a scared tremor to her voice now that she trusted me again and she pointed a trembling hand in the direction of room 310. "There's a ghost!"

"A ghost I asked?"

"Yes, go look."

More than willing, and honestly a little hopeful that they were right I went with both Sandy and Cathy hiding behind me with their squeaky hammers held tightly for protection. It took a great deal of self discipline not to laugh at them at the moment but their fear seemed real enough that I decided to respect it until I knew what had scared them... then all bets would be off.

Going to Room 310 I paused while Cathy pointed to the door with her hammer. "Go on." She said while stepping back. I lightly gripped the door expecting it to harmlessly swing all the way open. Instead the door opened partway and stopped with a very physical force opposing it. Now I was intrigued as I tried using a little more force to find that whatever was opposing me could easily match the strength I felt comfortable using without fearing falling into the room when the opposition gave out. "Turn on the light." She told me which I did only to reveal no one in the room at all. Sandy and Cathy both made random frightened noises that would have been cute it they weren't hiding behind me with squeaky weapons.

Looking down through the one sided mirrors in place on the classroom doors for parents to watch their children during class I noticed that the classroom Hula Hoop (does anyone remember these?) had fallen over and was blocking the door. Cathy must have noticed me peering down at the area behind the door.

"What is it?" She asked trembling behind her hammer.

"It is a Hula Hoop." I said collapsing into laughter while I reached around the door and picked up the Hula Hoop to allow us into the room.

Apparently from what of the story I heard through my gasps of laughter Cathy had been leaving the room when the door suddenly slammed behind her and then Sandy had been unable to open the door. All I know is that for the next few days every time I saw them I would point behind them and look scared before I said, "Oh no! The Hula Hoop Ghost is back!" Then I would need to run as they tried to retaliate.

So even though no one said it that week,
Who you gonna call?
Ghost Busters! ... ... ...

In your mouth!

*Re:Disclaimer... Okay, so I have been abnormally lazy about getting pictures, but I've also had some software trouble on my end which I am fixing. Middle of October at the latest and I will also send everything out in an email*

This week has passed rather quickly compared to the others but this is mostly because I have settled into the groove of teaching rather well. This week saw the first week when I actually needed to prepare warm up exercises instead of having a mostly scripted introduction act for the students because this week I only had classes which I had previously taught.

My schedule is actually two weeks of classes which then repeat, so I essentially have 2 classes Tuesday-Thursday and 4-5 classes on Sat and Sun with different classes every night for two weeks and then I repeat. More than that I have been widely accepted by the other teachers at work and so I have no awkwardness around them from what language barrier exists or from being unfamiliar with them.

I know now that Maggie, Sandy, Hebbe, and Vickey all are the trouble makers at work because they are simply more outgoing and playful than the other teachers. I also know which of them have boyfriends, husbands, or are single with the exception of Hebbe and the secretaries.

Nicco, my flatmate, is a pretty relaxed person and had definitely been a great help while I get set up. Along with introducing me to good places to eat and dishes in the area he has been sharing his personal interest in Economic theory with me. While I find myself agreeing with many of the assertions he makes, our conversations are laced with the almost legalese of our combined majors of Philosophy and Literature and so much of the conversation is either purely theoretical or in non committal. As such I am in no danger of becoming a Libertarian, in fact the suggestions he makes seems to be so completely grounded in an paradigm of market dynamics that I find the very basis for the beliefs flawed when they move beyond the narrow foci of supply and demand.


On a completely different note, I have a bike now. As investments go with my expected stay in LouYang it really won't benefit me enough to by one of the electric bikes or scooters. Buses are everywhere and if I truly want to go somewhere which is out of comfortable biking I can hope a bus for very cheap or take a Taxi without feeling the punch too much. The biggest feeling of elation from owning my transportation comes from not being restricted to Bus schedules anymore. From the bottom floor of my apartment to the curb of work by bicycle is about the same amount of time that the bus took me to get to the bus stop near work. In all I actually save an average of 5-10min using my Bicycle not to mention the fact that I am getting exercise if I ride for 30min to work and back.

I bought my bicycle on Friday for ~530 RMB (Yuan or Kuai). 7.5RMB=$1.00
RMB is the international designation for the People's Republic Money Bill.
Yuan is the normal Chinese word for 1 RMB, the equivalent of Dollar in English.
Kuai is the Chinese colloquial term for Yuan, it is more equivalent to Buck in English.


I bought the bike on Friday and it is a decently large framed normal city bike in a silvery gray tone. It came with two locks built into the bike itself, one locks the back wheel so that it can't turn and the other locks the handlebars at an angle so that they can't turn. The frame is pretty light and has a cargo area behind the main seat in case I buy milk or something else which is bulky and need to carry it home. The bike also came with a thumb bell and a basket on front because "In China real men have baskets on their bikes." Which Mike told me as he handled the speaking part of the purchase for me. He followed this up with, "You know, if we get you pink streamers from the handlebars you would officially that would officially be a pimp bike." He of course said this with a wide impish smile, an expression he practices frequently.

That night I rode home with some of the girls who had their electric bikes and raced them for a bit on the more open stretch of the path home easily keeping pace and occasionally outstretching them which impressed them a good deal since both of them had electric motors and pedals to get extra speed from. Still it felt good to be out an active, even if my legs ache a bit now. Between the biking an a gym membership which I had set up and now need to work into my schedule I should have no trouble getting in shape while here... well apart from how many tasty foods there are here.

Chinese roads are interesting places, they feel like some strange combination of college campus paths and the I-5. On the open straights everyone is weaving through everyone else and going as fast as they feel like (well for the bikes anyways, the cars keep pretty slow by our standards). Then randomly there will be five people in a row, taking up the either passage while they talk, all moving so slow that is is amazing they stay on the bikes at all. Overall I can normally make pretty good time on the straights, but traffic can add as much as 10 minutes to my trips (so far they have ranged from 25-40min by bike).


Now I appreciate that most of you don't read this page because the world of Chinese pedestrian traffic is all that interesting. It is mildly chaotic and likely a field day for a social scientist or anthropologist, but to your normal person there is nothing about Chinese roads that can compete with stories about the class room. This brings me to my Kid stories of the week.

Now my teaching doesn't involve weaving through oncoming traffic, something getting to work occasionally does involve, but I find it far more exciting. This week was more of week 1 of my schedule (week 2 of my blog) and as such my classes were more with the Y and R kids with several S classes but I didn't actually have class with my cute K kiddies this week. I had plenty of fun teasing my Y and R classes by getting them to use grammar in ways that they both understood and were amused by. Today I had the class which had one my cutest kids of the week two weeks ago with "Annie, I'm so cold," and they came in a close second.

I had decided to be one of them while remaining a teacher and I considered the end result a complete success because they demonstrated a very high level of understanding. I asked one of the students "Did you go to your boyfriends house yesterday?" Mostly because I knew that they find such questions very funny. From the other side of the class I heard one of my students yell out, "Teacher! We're just students we don't have boyfriends yet." But several of the students laughed and asked each other similar questions so I waited until the seemed like they were getting bored and asked one of the boys, "Did you kiss Annie last week?" at which point the same girl from before yelled out, "Ahh, Teacher so dirty." Despite this, she was laughing along with all the others.

In some of my others classes I had tried out funny sentence contests to see what they could think of using the grammar that they knew. For the most part the result was something like the insult contest in the movie hook with everyone trying to use disgusting things for humor. One of the students show himself very clever however and while motioning to his Chinese teacher, Maggie, he asked with the air of a salesman, "Do you want a girlfriend?" I myself found this not only funny because it was well presented, but it because it displayed an excellent command of his vocabulary and grammar.

But this week my cute kid winners were the "No Goodbye" kids again. I passed their class after one of theirs while both they and myself were on break and they ran out to hang on my arms or otherwise play with me. One of the little girls who is completely enamored with me came up and offered me a piece of pomegranates. After offering it to me she became impatient waiting for
me to eat it which I had intended to do after I got into my break room, she picked it out of my hand and put it in my mouth and then started rubbing my cheeks to tell me to chew it. When I told her thank you and told her that it tastes good, she ran back for another. From that point on every time I saw her she was putting a small piece in my hand a running back for more. One of the other girls saw this and thought it was funny so she kept taking them from my hand and putting them in my mouth.

Now the problem with Pomegranate is that the pieces are small and surround a sizable seed. So here I am with cheeks that are beginning to feel like chipmunks and unable to get rid of the seeds because I am surrounded by 4-5 year olds. Instead of letting them continue to feed me I stood up well out of reach of the little girl feeding me but still amassing a collection of Pomegranate in my hand from the smaller one. Then, realizing she couldn't reach my mouth even while holding the little piece between her fingers and stretching she pouted up at me and in a strong, authoritarian voice told me, "In your mouth!"

I have a Big Big Monkey!

*Disclaimer* I forgot to take pictures this week, so you will all have to keep waiting a little more. Sorry.


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So I am sure that all of you are more than a little curious about how the subject of big monkey's got brought up out here in China. I will be getting to that in a moment, but I will tell you that it is a work related story and that the two competing titles I had for this week were "No Goodbye, No Goodbye!" and "My name is Piggy!"

In Joy English schools we have four levels of classes. K classes are the smallest children, their ages can run from 4-7 and they all speak very little English. S classes are the next highest, they cover some more difficult English but mostly the difference between S and K is that S classes are learning to read and write. Y classes are where students begins learning more complex grammar and to spell more complex things. Spelling is a big part of Y classes. R classes are the highest levels of the Joy program and they deal in complex grammar and words (well for English as a Second Language that is).

"My Name is Piggy" comes from one of my K classes. I start the class by going around and asking everyone's name so that I can start to learn the children's names (I have 49 classes which range from 3 to 18 students each and see each class only once every two weeks, the rest of the time they have a Chinese teacher). I had gotten to the end of the class and a little girl dressed in black cloth pants and a black and white polka-dot shirt looks up at me and says "My name is piggy!" It turned out that this was a joke between her and the Chinese teacher because her English name for in class was Judy and Ju is the Chinese word for pig so her teacher calls her JuJu." Our new phrases for the week were "Shrug your shoulders", "Pull your ears", "Rub my back" and "Massage my neck."
With each of these phrases we teach a motion to the children to help reinforce it, in this we use verbal, visual (flashcards), and kinesthetic (movement) instruction styles. The motion for
Rub my back) was to turn to the person to their right (class in a big horseshoe) and rub that person's back. JuJu didn't have anyone's back to rub so half way through the lesson she started rubbing the teacher's desk and laughing the whole time. With one look I knew that she knew exactly what she was doing. She had the "I'm being cute and you can't stop me" face.

My next Kiddy story comes from the budding adolescents of one of my R classes. The grammar point were were working on was: "I have a ________, so I will _______." Alternately I would ask them the questions "What do you have?" "And what will you do with it?" These students were particularly playful on the day I was teaching the lesson so I got answers ranging from "I have a ball, so I will play ball" to "I have Billy (a girl pointing at one of the boys in class) so I will eat Billly."
As the class wore on, one of the boys chimmed in with the title of the week. "What do you have?" I asked him. "I have a big, big Monkey!" he said trying not to laugh while he used his hands to show just how big his Monkey was. "And what will you do with your big big Monkey?" I asked him allowing myself to laugh. "I will have it eat Vicky(their Chinese teacher)." At this point Vicky looks up and at the class. "Hey who said that?" She asks while I pantomime cooking and pointing at her and then feeding the cooking to the Monkey. While she tried to act upset she was also trying not to laugh even while the children rolled in their seats.

This week hasn't brought me many new shocks about China in general. One new thing I learned is about married life hear in Henan (our province which is similar to our state by American standards). I was talking to Vicky who has become my Chinese big sister since I got here since she is easy to talk to, likes to have fun, speaks English very well, and is married. The fact that she is married is actually important in establishing a free friendship because if I know she is attached I don't feel awkward around her. I don't have to worry about trying to woo a married woman.
Anyway, she and I were talking today and she told me that in China a couple's finances are managed by the woman even though people work. The custom here is that both husband and wife work and then the wife gets all the money. After planning out their spending and savings she gives her husband his allowance for the month. It struck me as interesting with how strongly male-dominated the west thinks every aspect of Chinese culture is. It is true that the society is very Patriarchal, but I am beginning to suspect even more than I did back home that women have a great deal of power in non apparent ways.

For the last two days I have been celebrating my birthday in various ways. Yesterday, on my birthday here in China, the teachers got me a cake. Cakes in china are sweet bread with very fluffy frosting and bits of fruit in between the sweet breads. Really they don't hold a candle to good old fashion cakes. Following that class I had a K class which simply adored me. After class they followed me into the hall on what was suppose to be my break and crowded around me. I played with them for a few more minutes but I had a very sore throat and wanted to get some tea to calm it. After a while I looked down at their darling faces, Millie in a white dress that could have been out of a western wedding; Shirley, in her red and white striped dress; Mark in his red shirt; Frank in his blue top and shorts; and Cissy in a yellow shirt, and none of them older than 5. I told them all goodbye and their bright faces dropped and they all shouted in unison, "No goodbye! No goodbye!" This was perhaps the best birthday present I can ever remember getting because it was genuine, it was not prompted, and no one at the school teaches them to say that phrase so it means that all of them thought it up themselves. They got me to stay another minute before I needed to go to their chorus of disappointed voices... I think I was smiling until I went to sleep.
Today I took a bunch of the teachers out for Chinese hot pot just like last time, but before that one of the teacher's who couldn't go convinced their K class to give me a group hug and sing me happy birthday. So today I got tackled by 11 small children who all wanted to play with me for their whole 10 minute break. Then later that night while I was being shown where a good place for Hot Pot was that was nicer than the last place we had went I admitted to Vicky that I thought all the girls at XiGong were pretty. The truth is that I think most of them are Pretty but I would never tell the one's who aren't that I don't find them such. "Its a shame everyone has a boyfriend." I said, a point which she only nodded at. Then at dinner she told everyone at the table that I had called all the teachers pretty in Chinese and I knew enough of the words to know exactly what was being said. After that Vicky turned to me with an imp like smile and asked, "So which teacher is the most pretty?"
Almost before the question was finished I looked at her and said, "Oh no. I'm to smart for that one, I know better."
Vicky's gleeful response was, "Ah you have an opinion, I'll get it later."
Really I have found a school full of Chinese sisters complete with the teasing.