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.

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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! ... ... ...