The Mao who stole Christmas

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Listening to Pandora's Christmas radio station, polishing off some Christmas Eve tacos, and looking forward to teaching tomorrow. Happy Holidays to everyone at home and abroad!

Yushu, redux

Back home, grateful for showers and toilets and bagels with cream cheese, but cursing the end of the semester and the many, many ways the Internet enables even the laziest of cheaters.

Yaks, goats and dogs that look like bears

What is it about Yushu that makes me want to forgive the distressing absence of toilets and showers, the bone-chilling cold, the lack of running water or any plumbing whatsoever?

It might be the mangy mobs of goats that wander the streets, rooting through the ample supply of roadside garbage and ducking into your yard whenever you forget to shut the gate, refusing to allow angry and horn-happy drivers to disrupt a casual afternoon stroll down the center of the street.

It could be the slow-witted yaks who lumber around town, and graze at the school next door. (I know, I know: What is this inexplicable fascination with yaks, you ask?)


Maybe it's the monks on motorcycles, the hive-drone of the Buddhist chants that are broadcast over loudspeakers twice a day, or the fresh yak yogurt sold in plastic buckets by robed women in Yak Square or served in restaurants with a side order of sugar and tiny sweet potatoes. Might be the fact that the world's most expensive dog -- one of the fierce, bear-like Tibetan mastiffs that are in every yard here -- hails from Yushu.

It could even be the students here, who are oddly enthusiastic, a little boisterous and more than a little punk rock (if largely unconcerned with regular bathing), and shout "Hello Teacher!" without discernible irony when I walk in the room.

Even the accomodations have improved significantly, ever since I found the showers downtown, and a six-fingered man showed up to "fix" the electricity (which as far as I can tell meant rigging up some wires to steal from the orphanage next door), so I could terminate my tumultuous relationship with the yak stove once and for all.

It's the little things.

Cold and dirty, but alive in Yushu

Arrived in Yushu on Saturday morning, after 15 of the longest hours of my life on an overnight bus. You would think that packing us in like steamed dumplings (there are three rows of bunk 'beds,' tiny platforms about one-and-a-half feet wide, and the head area inclines, so the next person's lower legs slide underneath you) would keep the ride warm, but when I finally crawled out from under six blankets in the morning, the windows were iced over from the inside. I'm told the scenery is beautiful, though.

I was not destined to warm up any time soon. Turns out the electricity at Brendan's house, where I'm staying, is broken. That means no heat, except for a tiny yak stove that I am not currently getting along with (although I no longer mind the human-high pile of yak dung in the corner of one of the rooms), and no light past 6:30 or so. So I sleep in my down jacket, long underwear, jeans, gloves and a scarf under three blankets, a sleeping bag, some kind of fur thing and a pile of my sweaters. The school says its on their radar, but the electrician is 'busy.' So one of my students came over to play with some live wires and see what he could do. At last he shrugged and announced that he believes there is a "serious problem."

Not that I was expecting the Ritz. I knew there was no running water, I just didn't quite realize what that would mean at 7 a.m. when you want to wash your face. And I knew that Brendan had an outhouse, I just didn't realize that meant two boards a foot off the ground in a corner of the yard. On the bright side, I haven't missed showering as much as I thought I would, since showering would require undressing, and I don't even like to take off my fur boots when I go to sleep at night. The Tibetans are not big bathers, and I now have no problem understanding why.

And despite all this, I am in love with Yushu.

More on that later.

Into the wild

By this time tomorrow, I'll be in Yushu.

I'm boarding an overnight bus in a few hours that will hopefully deposit me in the tiny Tibetan village sometime tomorrow morning. The altitude is almost 13,000 feet, and, I'm told, it's a bit chilly this time of year.

When the Shem girls heard I was going to Yushu, they looked at my knee-length quilted down jacket with the fur hood doubtfully, and said I would need to find some warm clothes to bring. I pointed to my jacket. They laughed.

One of my students stopped by yesterday and gave me a package of something that might be roots, and might be dried bits of yak dung. Make a tea and drink this, she said. It will help with the vomiting.

Er, what?

(I'm drinking it right now, though. It smells a little suspect but doesn't taste like it'll kill me. The Tibetans know their traditional medicines, so who am I to argue?)

I'll be in Yushu for a week, teaching grammar to middle school students and living with no running water, a three-walled outhouse, and no heat except a yak dung stove. And apparently the electricity is on the fritz.

Awesome.

It wasn't the worst Thanksgiving ever

You know what's funny? I have, on more than one occasion, had Chinese takeout for Thanksgiving. Then I move to China, and it's turkey-and-stuffing all the way.


Well, fried chicken was as close as we could get, actually. We were going to go with KFC for an extra dollop of Americana, but scrapped that plan after an unfortunate scouting mission last week that I swear included my first encounter with dog meat. (I don't want to talk about it. I just want to forget.)

There was cranberry sauce and genuine Stovetop stuffing, kindly schlepped from the States by our program director, who was making her annual rounds of all the China posts. Beth mashed up some potatoes, and I trekked to the import store for a can of pumpkin puree, which we baked into one helluva delicious pumpkin pie in the toaster oven with a crust of crumbled crackers that we usually eat with our coffee.

There was also salsa and guacamole, because our intrepid program director also smuggled us a few avocados, bless her heart. You haven't lived until you've had salsa on mashed potatoes.

Lucy and Star came over to help us celebrate, highly entertained by our stories of birds so big they barely fit in the oven, and were downright intoxicated by the utterly foreign taste of avocados.

So, you know I avoid the schmaltz like cancer, but I think my defenses have been weakened by a week's worth of listening to my students' "What I'm grateful for" speeches, and maybe just a little sprinkling of homesickness ... In any case, here's what I'm thankful for:

That I haven't been hauled off to a Chinese labor camp (yet). That the mercury finally cracked 40F today. That I can still watch American TV, thanks to the witchcraft of the Internets and China's ultra-relaxed attitude toward copyright. Also: That my family still puts up with me. That I have a solid handful of friends who stuck with me through some bad times, and a growing handful of friends to share the (hopefully) better times to come.

A divine profession: Engineer of the soul

Well, I could wax eloquent about how bloody frickin cold it is -- (On the four-minute walk to class this morning, for instance, the snot actually froze inside my nose) -- but instead I will share some uplifting excerpts from my students' essays on their future goals:

"Dream is a ship, it can bring me to successful bank; dream is a mental power, it can promote me to be an excellent girl ... Teacher, what a great career! Even though I can't get much salary, I still think it is very meaningful ... As the word saying,'Teacher is the engineer of the soul.'" - Allison

"Dream, this is a big word! I feeling it's very trouble. Everyone has a dream, but many people's dreams don't come true ... Please don't have many dreams, because this is a pain. Dream is a source for pain." - Jack

"I want to be a good woman in my family. I want to make my family happy. This is my dream. So simple and so difficult." - Christina

"When I was a child, my dream is become a teacher ... As time went by, my dream has changed. I want make more money, in order to support my family and pay for my college tuition fee. Money is so important for me that I have to own much money." - Jessica

"I want to be a soldier, not only it an protect my motherland, but also it give me a strong power to strive for my goal." - Sally

"I have a dream that I'm always young ... I don't have to worry about the old age during which I even can't take care of myself. I know that my dream will not come true. However, I think it is lucky that I'm young now." - Mandy

"Well, I want been a teacher. It can help many people to learn knowledge. It a divine profession. I want change the world myself. I know it so bad. But I want to try. No illiterate in the world. This is my dream." - Derek

"Society is not like my image, it is not very beautiful, it is full of dangerous. Today, my dream is graduation can be very successful and I can find a good job to repay my parents." - Vickey

"I want to be a leader of government ... I can earn much money, and I can buy a big house and a beautiful car ... I also hope I can play computer game forever." - Lincoln

"I believe my life will be wonderful with my head. Also, I didn't have the clear goal. So. The dream is vague. It's bad?" - Agatha

Ode to an ex-roommate

Forecast for Sunday night: 0 degrees

First hair cut in China = disaster

We took Star with us to the salon to ward off potential mullets, but apparently there was some confusion between "shorter" and "short," and somehow I ended up with Jim Carrey's bangs from "Dumb and Dumber." It's taken a beer and two and a half chocolate bars to recover my sense of humor.

Otherwise, it was a highly entertaining outing. The stylists - two young men with the Asian bouffants that all the truly hip kids sport here - were all kinds of intrigued by us. First of all, they wanted to know, if both Beth and I were from America, why wasn't our hair the same color? (Star explained this one by saying that Beth was a "mixed-blood," hence the dark hair.)

Even better was when my stylist called half the salon over to peer at my scalp. "He says you have some white hairs," Star explained. "But I don't think so. They must be blonde." Love that girl. Sigh. Yes, it's true: China is giving me gray hair.

Big, fat cheaters!

First big test today = disaster.

Though I had been warned that students in this country view tests as a legitimate opportunity for group work, I was still taken aback by the rampant cheating.

I explained very clearly that there was to be no talking, no looking at other people's papers, no cheating whatsoever. I made them spread out and put away all their books; they professed to be shocked and wounded by my mistrust. I gave out two versions of the test; they were downright resentful of the implications (or at the impediment to collaboration, more likely).

And then the whispering began! It wasn't even high-tech cheating -- right in front of me, with no shame whatsoever, if they didn't know the answer, they just asked their neighbor! "No talking!" I said furiously, about 432 times. Some of them smiled apologetically, others looked annoyed and rolled their eyes, but all of them merely waited until I'd turned my back to chastise the next miscreant to start comparing answers again.

These are college kids, for crying out loud!

But, as I mentioned before, cheating is so common in Chinese universities, the students almost seem surprised that I object to it. The Christian Science Monitor had a good article about the subject:

Beijing - Three professors at a leading Chinese university – including one of the country's top experts in traditional medicine – have lost their jobs in a new plagiarism scandal. And the government finally seems to have been jolted into tackling the academic dishonesty that plagues many faculties here.

Experts are not holding their breath, though. In a culture where knockoffs are normal, from sportswear to DVDs, it will not be easy to expunge deep-rooted academic habits, they warn. But some say hope may lie with a new generation of internationally trained teachers ... (more)

And whether its really a consequence of China's lax approach to copyright issues, or another offshoot of the Communist "all for one, one for all" credo, I'm certainly not the only teacher plagued by cheating. Down in Yushu, Brendan has declared all out war on the little scammers, with mixed results:

Cheating continues to be a large issue. Fed up with failing quiz grades, I have decided to make students who earn less than 80 percent on a quiz retake it. The two words my students are most afraid to hear in my class are “zai kao.” Unfortunately, this led to a veritable orgy of cheating during the retake. They literally attempted everything in the book. One of my students tried to get out of the retaking by erasing the grade I have given him, a 38.5, and writing in “41.5.” Note to self – do not grade quizzes in pencil... I laughed at him and said, “zai kao.” The students also embedded the answers within a bunch of Tibetan script that they had written on the chalkboard, thinking I would not notice it. I did. Some of the students wrote the answers on the paper that covers their desks, hidden within designs. I tore these off. They also hid copies of the quiz on various parts of their person. I collected them all. One student even tried writing on his hand. I watched him read off his hand during the entire quiz, collected the quiz, then asked him to show me his hand. He tried to cover up everything but his fingertips with his sleeve. I crumpled up his quiz and said, “zai kao.” . . .

China hates the blues. (And don't even get them started on the White Stripes)

(I know, don't you enjoy my rampant generalizations for an entire people based on my very narrow experiences in the classroom? In my defense, collectivity is a prized element of the Communist credo.)

We've been studying music for the last few weeks, so one of the things I did was put together an audio slide show of different musical genres, from jazz, blues and bluegrass to rock, rap and reggae. (On a side note: Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a somewhat inoffensive clip of rap music? Happily, I don't think a single student knew what 'ejaculation' was.)

So I threw a little Muddy Waters in there to illustrate the blues, and almost without exception, the students would shudder and wince and write down words like 'strange' and 'ugly' when asked to respond. Finally, in one class I pleaded, "Doesn't anybody like the blues?" Silent stares. "You guys are breaking my frickin' heart."

This, they found hilarious. Hearty-guffaw, slap-eachother-on-the-back funny.

(I should explain, to this point they have largely ignored my muttered asides. Sample monologue: "Can anybody tell me the answer to such-and-such? Raise your hand. I'll give someone 100 yuan to raise your hand right now. Who am I kidding, you're not going to raise your hands. You never raise your hands. You're just not big hand-raisers."

They don't even blink.)

The White Stripes represented for rock'n'roll, and aside from a few rebel rockers in the class, mostly earned looks of dismay. A few girls in the front put their hands over their ears. 'Too loud,' they wrote.

Now, bluegrass they absolutely loved. Give those kids a little hillbilly banjo music, and they'll rock out in their seats all day. Johnny Cash was also a big hit, though Bob Marley and reggae were not.

When asked who they thought was the best musical performer of all time, about 80 percent of the students said Michael Jackson, followed by some unexpectedly robust support for Ludwig Van Beethoven, and a few dark-horse votes for John Denver ("Country Road" is a karaoke favorite out here.)

Most popular of all? A screening of "School of Rock," on the somewhat shaky justification that it was about music, and was in English, hence belonged in the music unit of my oral English class. And it wasn't the 'humorfulness' that won them over, it was the heart-wrenching tale of a young man's struggle to overcome obstacles in pursuit of his dream -- a fresh interpretation of the Jack Black classic, if ever I heard one. (Although, when asked, most of them wrote that the character they liked the best was the "class monitor.")

Here's a musical sampling from the last few weeks: The funeral horn players; a student named Allen who can't speak a word of English but turns out to have this amazing voice; the Shem women, who sing plateau songs in the office all day every day; and an in-class rendition of "We Will Rock You" that didn't quite get to the heart of the assignment, but was entertaining enough to get a passing grade anyway.

The corpse in the courtyard

Actually, it's gone now. But for four days, I was living smack in the center of a Chinese funeral.

It started with several big tourist vans rolling up to eject crowds of people, some wearing wacky white Ku-Kluxy hats (which turned out to signify family members of the deceased), who promptly erected a tent village in the courtyard. Myself, I would have thought the ambiance in my apartment complex, which is the apex of that celebrated Soviet style of architecture that prominently features gray concrete boxes, would be a bit lacking for funeral festivities.

There was a veritable field of enormous paper wreaths, an all-purpose celebratory decoration for events ranging from weddings to, apparently, funerals. And of course the kazoo corps - two very old men who sat at a card table set up directly under Beth's window, and somehow managed to wring the sound of a duck's death squalls from their battered horns. All day. Every day. Starting at 7 a.m.

On the second day, there was a procession wherein the entire group lined up with a long white sheet held over their heads and, led by the trumpet-kazoos, paraded 200 yards down the street to the exercise yard, where someone lit a bonfire of yellow cloth, as well as smaller fires up and down the street. (Why, yes, it would have been quite the fire hazard, if not for all that excellent concrete).

I figured that would about wrap up the merry-making, but they camped out in my courtyard for two more days, kazoos and all. And, according to the infallible wisdom of the Internets, the body is usually kept outside with the mourning party during these shindigs.

Which is not creepy at all, of course.

Dismembering a chicken, riding a yak and other Harvest Holiday adventures

After all the paranoia, nothing at all happened on National Day, except for the day-long, mildly menacing display of military prowess in Beijing.

But that doesn't mean the holiday has been a complete loss. China turned off the rain machines, so I went exploring ... (And yep, I finally got to ride a yak. More on that later.)

Spent Sunday at Ta'er Si (or Kumbum, in T*b&tan), a monastery outside town that is the home of the Yellow Hat Sect, and the former home of the DL. It's one of the most important Buddhist monasteries, so the place was overrun with tourists.

We spun the pretty painted prayer wheels, stuck a yuan to a ghee-covered sacred rock (an offering that is supposed to ward of disaster, so fingers crossed), watched a monk in a temple courtyard making a mandala of dirt and seeds that would be washed away as soon as it was finished, a symbol of the impermanence of, I don't know, something or other ...

Then came Taco Night. (God, I miss tacos. Because you know who has never heard of the delicious perfection that is a taco? China, that's who. Pizza they can do. Hamburgers and KFC, they're all over it. I even had a bagel with cream cheese the other day. But tacos? Absolutely not.)

So we trekked to the foreign import store and spent a mini fortune on tortillas and black beans, made two kinds of salsa (tomato and mango!), dipped into Beth's supply of Spanish rice mix, and started a small toaster-oven fire in an ill-fated attempt to make chips. And I finally gave up my fruitless quest for meat that doesn't still have its head attached, and bought a chicken. At least they chopped off his feet, I thought. That was before I found his severed limbs conveniently tucked up, you know, inside him.

We named him Wesley. The 15 minutes or so I spent butchering Wesley (who I'd guess, judging from his scrawny physique, lived a life in somewhat less than the lap of luxury), trying to avoid his accusatory gaze, still haunts my dreams.

However, the tacos were freakin' delicious.

Alright, don't get impatient, I'm getting to the yak.

Monday, we headed to Qinghai Lake with a taxi driver who was swilling barley wine from a can while he drove. It was the first time that we've really gotten out onto the plateau, which felt a lot more like the rural China that I'd been expecting. The barley fields are in harvest, the hills are swamped in fall colors, and great herds of sheep and yaks are everywhere. As we set out, I told Beth that my mission for the day was to ride a yak. Truthfully, I was envisioning striking up a friendship with a random wild yak, hopping aboard, and perhaps riding off into the sunset. Turns out, though, I'm not the first tourist with a yen for yak-riding, so they were ready for me.

Oh, well. It was totally worth it.

And, yeah, the lake was beautiful, too.

Yay! I'm getting a puppy!

My Indonesia-based former roommate Carolyn (who has in the past professed herself dubious about my affection for rabid dogs) has finally come around!

Such a thoughtful housewarming gift ... (A quick reminder, however: Packages take forever to arrive in China, so don't forget to poke a few air holes for the little fellow.)



In other news ... Today is a very special day in China, as it marks the 60th anniversary of the Uncle Mao's great revolution. It also marks the start of a 10-day holiday for us (though 'holiday' is stretching it a bit: We have to make up the classes we miss by teaching on the weekends).

On Monday, we noticed that our cell phone rings have been switched to a patriotic song sung by Jackie Chan (no, really, I'm not kidding).

The excitement for the festivities are only matched by the paranoia about potential problems arising from those segments of the population who find a little less to celebrate in the anniversary. Hence, security is on full alert, they've shut down T*b8t, and are asking residents to "stay home and watch the festivities on TV." (In preparation for the fun, and its possible fallout, we've been told to update our emergency evacuation plans.)

A sampling of excerpts from the news about National Day:

• "Meteorologists said their efforts to prevent foul weather on Oct. 1 involved satellites, 400 scientists, cloud-probing lasers and a squadron of transport planes capable of sprinkling liquid nitrogen into pregnant clouds." (China hopes, tries for rain-free festivities, NY Times)

• "The media have been under tighter control, with stern injunctions not to play up bad news. One organisation reportedly set a quota of no more than 30% "negative" news ... And in Chongqing, couples will be unable to divorce on National Day, local media warned." (China's National Day parade: Public barred from celebrations, UK Guardian)

• "The Japanese Kyodo news agency has reported that unidentified authorities in Beijing stormed the hotel room of three visiting journalists (who were trying to cover the parade rehearsal), beat them and damaged two computers." (Beijing authorities beat Kyodo journalists)

• "Nearly 5,000 of China’s 2.3 million soldiers will march past the nation’s leaders ... They have trained to stand motionless for a solid hour, to refrain from swaying during the second hour and not to collapse after three hours ... They are also expected not to blink for 40 seconds at a time ... Mental-health professionals have been called in to help those whose performance is not up to snuff. As of Sept. 12, 1,300 soldiers had received counseling." (No Detail Is Overlooked as China Prepares to Celebrate, NY Times)

Q&A: This American Life

I finally set up the Web site where we'll be posting the students' questions about the finer points of American culture (and let me just warn you now, the questions run the gamut from 'What do you think of the current global financial crisis?' to 'Do you think Michael Jackson is really dead?').

I've posted about a dozen questions already, with many more to come. So if you don't see any interesting questions this time around, never fear, we're slowly working our way through my 200+ students.

There are a couple of questions that I'm hoping to get several responses to, so I can put together a little presentation. There's a question about what Western weddings are like (and I can think of, oh, at least half a dozen of you who have recent experience in that department), so both photos and a description would be great. There's also a question about Chinatowns in the U.S. -- again, photos would be fantastic, in addition to a video response.

A huge thanks to all of you who volunteered to help ... and to those who didn't, don't worry, I'm assuming you're just so excited about the prospect of participating, you're at a loss for words.

You can record your response directly on Facebook and send it to me, or you can email it to me.

Thanks again! They're all very excited to hear from you.

Have a look at where I live

Then Buffy staked Edward. The End.

Did you know that Buddha was married? Before he jilted his wife and child (named Rahula, which means "fetter" ... and not in an affectionate way) to get his spiritually enlightened, venerated-by-millions-throughout- the-ages freak on. Much like the Odyssey's poor, neglected Penelope**, the whole spousal abandonment aspect apparently gets in the way of an otherwise rousing tale, so it doesn't get a lot of ink.

Yeah, so I'm taking a class on feminism in Buddhism with the women at Sh*m. Fascinating stuff. And after spending most of my week correcting sentences like "Does the America have the more delicious KFC as Chinese?", it's a somewhat startling relief to hear earnest discussions about how androcentric histories inform modern life.

If I wasn't completely in love with these girls before, I certainly am now. These are girls who have been continually told by everyone they've been raised to respect (their parents, their older brothers, the monks) that women should be quiet and unassuming and leave the decision making to the menfolk. And they're not just leaving their villages to pursue higher education -- already enough of an affront -- they're also going back to those villages, facing down the criticism and trying to get the people to accept their help and leadership. Some of them, especially the younger ones, are so shy it seems actually painful for them to speak, even in a group of their own peers, but they're choosing this path anyway.

Which, in an only mildly related tangent, brings me to what I have decided is the current greatest threat to the next generation of young American women: the Twilight series. You know the one, that paean to patriarchy and the helpless-female genre, that ode to abusive teenage relationships, that celebration of the notion that a century of feminists got it wrong after all, and women really should give up everything (from their friends to their actual humanity) for their man.

(Alright, so I read them. Don't you judge me. It's been a long few months without any mindless television to take the edge off, and I had a few weak moments ... And anyway, I'm not saying every last book should be burned, just that they should be a controlled substance. Like alcohol. No killing off the impressionable brain cells of anyone under 21.)

Anyway, I recently ran across this video, which should be required viewing for anybody who reads the books:


** Except for in Margaret Atwood's totally worthwhile "Penelopiad," which retells the story from her perspective.

The Chinese Obama, plus other notes & errata

* Finally got a student named Obama. Been waiting for that one. Every time I call on him, the entire class erupts into laughter; it probably doesn't help that I can't quite keep a straight face myself. (You'll all be happy to know that my streak of popularity with the Chinese boys continues; under 'other comments,' Obama wrote: 'I love you.' Where, oh where, is this famed Chinese indirectness I've heard so much about?)

* Lesson learned: When you roll out of bed early on a Sunday morning and discover there is no coffee in the house, and think to yourself, I will just dash across to that corner market less than 100 yards away, and decide not to change out of you polka-dotted polar bear pajamas because, really, who would be up that early anyway, there will always, always be a group of your students inexplicably loitering near your front door.

* Didn't think there could be a moment more grim and disheartening than when a class of overly sugarfied 6-year-olds realizes that nothing comes after 3. As in, 'If you're not sitting down quietly by the time I count to 3 ..."
All it takes is one kid to catch on to the fact that you are relying solely on some nebulous implied threat that will never materialize (at least, not once you have dismissed corporal punishment as an option -- not that you ever considered it; not seriously, anyway; and even if you did, it was only for, like, a fraction of a second), for the whole cabal of kids - who already hover on the fine edge of mob mentality on their best days - to slide into utter chaos, scoffing in the face of your last-ditch appeals to sanity and reason.
Turns out, there is a moment even bleaker: When a class of 60 adults in their mid-20s does the same thing.

* When asked what he wanted to learn more about in my class, Sailor said: 'American cowboys and Colt .45s." He mentioned his passion for Colt .45s three times. Not sure how to break it to him that the West was won a long time ago, and there aren't many places left where the deer and the buffalo roam.

* Just realized that my laptop lid, which has been staring my students directly in the face for the last few weeks, has a prominently placed sticker proudly advertising "Stitches for Bitches" (one of my favorite stores in Oakland). Really hoping that their extremely limited vocabulary is working in my favor for once.

The Chinese government is making it rain

So, we were at dinner the other day (the famous "hot pot," which involves throwing various raw meats and vegetables into a boiling pot in the middle of the table, and then hoping that whatever you fish out is cooked enough to avoid food poisoning), when someone mentioned that all the unseasonable rain that Xining has been having is the fault of the Chinese government.

No, really, they insisted. The Chinese government can make it rain. They have special technology.

I just got around to Googling that, and goddammit if it isn't true. Apparently -- and I suppose not surprisingly, since "government control" is China's middle name and why should a little thing like the weather be exempt? -- they fire rockets into the air filled with a chemical that basically creates rain. (And who doesn't love a little chemical-laced rain?! Good for the crops, and helps the kids grow up big and strong ...)

Not sure why, but this strikes terror into my heart.

Notes from the classroom

<--- Look at me, being all teacher-y!

Finished my first week of classes, and if I never hear the words "lesson plan" again, it will be far, far too soon. I've also decided that the answer to all future questions about the finer points of grammar is: "Because that's the way we do it in America. That's why." (Kidding. I think.)


Some highlights from the week:

• After the students introduce themselves, I have them guess things about me. I was told frequently that I must be from France (Oh! The bitter irony. Is there a people more disagreeable than those baguette-lovers? And my students aren't the only ones: Several taxi drivers have guessed that I hail from that wasteland of goodwill and civility. I think I've got to stop wearing scarves. And no, I don't still bear a grudge for my shabby treatment after being robbed of all my worldly possessions at a Paris train station 12 years ago. Why do you ask?), that I seem like an admirer of romantic movies like Gone with the Wind, and that while I strike them as lamentably unmarried, they are sure that I have a very handsome boyfriend.

• Most of the students have English names that they are either given, or pick themselves. Among my favorites: Water, Lincoln (after the 'very great American president'), and ABC.

• I gave the kids a survey to find out more about their English level (and to avoid having to do real work). Under 'what job do you want when you graduate,' one student put "the rich man." Another, slightly less optimistic student put: "Resign oneself to god's fate."
  

• Under "other comments," a number of students offered to go shopping with me. I'm not sure whether to take that as a gesture of friendship, or an indirect commentary on my wardrobe. (I swear I was dressed appropriately, Mom. I brushed my hair, and everything.)

• And finally, there was "Carl," who wrote: "i like your pronounces. besides you are beautiful." It's too early to say for sure, of course, but I have a feeling Carl is going to ace this course.

Summer vacation is over

None of the students brought me an apple on my first day as a teacher - but they did bring me a watermelon. (OK, a couple of slices of watermelon. But still.)

Whose bright idea was it to put me in charge of some 200 college students?

On the bright side, whenever I walk into the room, they all leap to their feet and say in unison: "Good morning, Teacher." (My name is just so mystifying to them that they won't even attempt it. In fact, the best that anyone can do here is "Bah-rue-kah.") On the slightly dimmer side, they are not big voluntary participators. I thought bringing up good ol' Yao Ming might spark a little oratory passion, but the best I got was: "He is very tall" and "It is too bad he is married."

Which I guess is better than what happened in Beth's (apparently more sophisticated) class: One of the girls really wanted to know, is it true that American college students have lots of one-night stands, and if so, how do their families feel about that? I believe she is still working on formulating a response to that one.

I finally met with the Tib*tan women's group that I will be working with. They are really amazing women, handpicked from a special class at the University to be part of this group. While they are learning to write grant proposals and implement development projects back in their home villages, they are simultaneously going through a gender studies course that helps them deal with the barriers that they run into because they are women.

The first thing they did when I met them was wrap a khata, a white scarf, around my neck as a symbol of respect and goodwill. Then they gave me a nice long list of things that need to be accomplished, preferably by yesterday.

So in addition to my five University classes, I am teaching two more classes for Sh*m, participating in the gender studies discussion groups, holding office hours twice a week at Sh*m, revamping their Web site, editing proposals, teaching 6-year-olds on the weekends, and taking my own classes to learn Chinese.

Ah, I miss the good old days when I worked a mere 10-12 hours a day.

Pictures from Xining

Been doing some exploring around this little town of more than a million ... We spent an afternoon at People's Park, which is kind of like a Disneyland that encourages alcoholic consumption. We were looking for a zoo that was reported to be in the park, but - after a harrowing ride on a children's train that went all around the park, a ride that has clearly not been checked for safety compliance in the last half-century - all we could find was a circus tent with pictures of kangaroos boxing. Skipped that.

We emerged from the park into what I can only describe as Puppy Alley. Row upon row of cages piled with puppies off all kinds and colors and sizes. Apparently, the puppies are often dyed into more desirable colors with harsh chemicals, so they often expire very quickly after you bring them home. To make them more sellable, they're perked up with cough medicine before being taken to the market so they'll be active and playful.

But I'll be honest, I was a whisker away from coming home with a puppy that day. I mean, look at the way that little guy at the bottom was looking at me!

We've been having all kinds of culinary adventures, as well. The other day, we were wandering through a food market and stopped in one stall to try a bowl of soup that looked particularly tasty. Looks can be deceiving, though: It tasted a little off, and had these rubbery hunks of meat bobbing around in it. Later, we looked it up, and discovered we had just had our first bowl of ox entrail soup.

I've been on a mission to get some good photos of the baby split-pants (which is harder than it sounds; it's kind of delicate business snapping photos of other people's kids' bare bottoms), mostly so that Kim can see for herself what little Anthony can expect in his stocking this year :) Anyway, this is the best I've been able to get so far -------->

Beth and I been doing our best to stay out of trouble, at least until the government finally issues us our legal residence papers. The other night, though, we left the Internet cafe late and - perhaps unwisely influenced by the bottle of wine that we split (and by wine, I mean grape juice and vinegar) - we figured we'd take what we were sure was a shortcut, down a street of brothels, and then climbing a fence that we thought would land us directly on our campus. It didn't. As we were scrambling back over the high iron fence, trying to keep out of sight of the guard shack (at first we wrapped our scarves around our heads as a disguise, in case there were cameras, but then I figured given the large number of Muslims in the city, we might ignite race riots if there really was someone watching) Beth envisioned the potential headlines: "Two American teachers shot for breaking and entering ..."

Well, sure, but if one of us survives, think of the blog entry fodder, I pointed out.

You can take your red rubber stamp and ...

I have filled out their documents in triplicate and quadruplicate. I have affixed at least a dozen small, unflattering photos of myself to various forms. I have made an estimated 999 photocopies of my passport to submit to various bureaus whose authority I couldn't even begin to guess at. I have registered at the local police station to get the appropriate red rubber stamps to take to the provincial government to get the proper red rubber stamps to register with the Foreign Experts Bureau (yes, I am a Foreign Expert, OK? Quit the snickering) to get my residence card, which I will then take back to the government and the police to prove something or other. I have been warned repeatedly that screwing up any step in this process, even inadvertently, will mean I am not legal. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it's been repeated so often and in such ominous tones that I gather it's not something I want to discover.

We met the Dean of something or other today, and he gave us our teaching schedules (and yes, I believe there was a red rubber stamp on that as well). Despite being assured that we wouldn't have any writing classes, we were assigned writing classes. We pointed out that we hadn't prepared for that. "I think ..." the Dean said, touching his steepled fingers to his lips and gazing up at the ceiling. "It is OK." Oh. Hard to argue with that.

Unfortunately, the apparent cosmic okay-ness did not last through the day. I got another red rubber-stamped document from the university to take down to the China Telecom office, hoping to finally get my Internet set up. An hour later, as the Telecom guy was still frowning at his computer, my passport and University letter clutched in his hand, I asked the student assigned to help with this task if everything was OK. He smiled encouragingly. "I don't think so," he whispered back. Much later, I was told that it wasn't working today. What exactly wasn't working (his computer? his frickfrackety red rubber stamp? the whole Internet?) was never made clear. They promised to call me whenever it was working, though. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not.

When I got home, I discovered that my phone service had been disconnected. Ha! Joke's gonna be on them when they try to call to tell me my Internet is working!

OK, so all this sounds like a preamble to another "I hate China" lament. It's not! I absolutely love Xining. The weather is great. The people are great. The food is fantastic (don't worry, I
found another baozi lady). My apartment is ... well, special. There's no shower, or water in the bathroom sink; I've been scrubbing the kitchen for days with chemicals so intense my hands started peeling 15 minutes after I first started using them and there are still several layers of grime to get through; my bed is essentially a mattress pad on a board; and, most irritating, the pictures of cartoon dogs that someone has glued to all the windows are nigh on impossible to scrape off. BUT, there are no cockroaches, and no special room filled with yak dung (that's how one of my fellow vols is expected to keep warm this winter: burning his supply of yak dung in the stove. He also has to pay $1 every time he wants a shower, which is located down the street and shared by the rest of the village). So I'm not complaining.

I'll post photos of my apartment as soon as I get the place presentable.

Goodbye Nanjing

Heading to Xining today! So looking forward to finally meeting my pet yak. I think I'm going to call him Fred.


Just said goodbye to my "Dracula"-reading roommate, Lydia (who declared the other night when I caught a falling shot glass that was knocked off the table: 'You've got the reflexes of a vampire!'). She is headed to Guangzhou to work at a school that prepares handicapped kids for careers. Seems like a great program, and I'm definitely hoping to make it down there for a visit.

She went with me yesterday to the clinic, possibly my last chance at reliable Western medicine, to finish up my shots. (That's right! Who's proud of me?) I was afraid if I went alone I might disappear into the black hole of the Chinese quarantine, and never be heard from again. But although they made us both pass the fever gun test before they'd even talk to me, I eventually emerged unscathed, and inoculated against all kinds of disagreeable ailments. Except rabies. And the Plague. And Japanese encephalitis.

This morning, we said goodbye to the people we've come to know and love. The always-helpful girls at McDonald's who give us our morning coffee. The wizened old man who sits on the corner and plays a pretty mean tune on a makeshift fiddle, and who always has a big smile for me -- even before I put money in his bucket, I might point out.

But chiefly: my baozi lady. Baozis are steamed buns stuffed with all different kinds of delicious goodness: Meat, or shredded turnip, or noodles, or red bean paste. Our relationship (mine and the baozi lady's) was a little constrained at first, limited by the deep cultural and language divide to a largely point-and-pantomime kind of kinship. Still, the bond was there. I never really knew what filling I was going to end up with, but I visited her shop every day, sometimes twice, and our friendship really blossomed last week when I was finally able to say "Excuse me, please, do you have pork buns today?" And she smiled -- not in a crass, overt way, of course, but on the inside, where it counts -- and handed me a pork bun.

Apparently, a few years back some scandal-mongering journalist levied some trumped up charges that many baozi makers were supplementing the fillings with as much as 60 percent cardboard. Much to Lydia's amusement (she wrote a blog entry on it), I choose to side with the Chinese government on this one. They promptly arrested the journalist, declared his story to be fabricated, and I'm pretty sure no one's heard from him since.

Alright, I'm off. The next time you hear from me, it'll be from high up in the Himalayas.

Opera ... or cats being strangled? You decide.

(Update: audio should work now)


I went to the "opera" last week, and was, frankly, struck speechless. I should have been prepared, of course, given all the other ear-splitting charms of this country. (Example: the fingernails-on-chalkboard squeal of two dozen defunct bike brakes at once, followed by a veritable symphony of horns from drivers irked by the mere whisper of the thought that they might have to oh-so-slightly brush their brakes to avoid carnage. But I digress.)

At first, I thought it must be a joke. Or a comedy act to warm up the crowd. But the screeching continued, and nobody was laughing.

I finally managed to upload a (very bad) audio clip so you all can hear for yourselves. It really doesn't do it justice, but it does begin to hint at the musical travesty that is Chinese opera.

And then along came Typhoon Morakot ...

Sigh ... China = still kicking my ass.

Swine flu is sooo yesterday's news (no, really. yesterday.)

In case anyone was staying up nights all anxious with worry about the outbreak of The Plague in my province, I just wanted to put your minds at ease. The plague town has been sealed off, and there are no reports that it has spread to Xining. Also, I plan to steer clear of eating marmots, which is how the outbreak apparently began, so no worries there.

We got an email this morning from one of the former vols that train and bus travel to Xining is restricted, but flights are fine (I have a flight). She said the only impact she knows of is one traveler who managed to escape Ziketan before the quarantine, and the government tracked her down to her hostel in Xining and hauled her off to isolation in another province. Go Big Red!

On an even more humorous front, I wanted to share our swine flu story! The girl who is going with me to Xining had been sick for a few days, so she went to the hospital. The docs prescribed some stuff for her stomach, told her to wait a few minutes while they filled her prescription ... When no one had returned an hour later, she discovered that the entire clinic had been evacuated. Before long, a team of CDC workers in full hazmat suits showed up to swab her for the H1N1 test. About 12 hours of quarantine later -- while we waited to find out whether the rest of the group was going to be quarantined as well -- the test came back negative, of course (she just had the usual traveler's sickness), and she was released around 11 p.m.

That's about all for today's report from the other side of the world.

I suspected as much ...

Symptoms of Cultural Fatigue
A handy checklist

1. Withdrawal. (Hmm. Does not leaving your seventh-floor dorm room except to buy dumplings off the street count? I'm going to say yes.)
2. Diminished goodwill toward Chinese, and a tendency to generalize about China based on a few incidents. (Oh, check and check.)
3. Irritability. (Well, hell. It looks like I may have been experiencing cultural fatigue since I was about 8.)
   

This is all by way of admitting that I went to McDonald's today and ordered an Egg McMuffin. So sue me. It was delicious.

delicious! --------->

So far, China is kicking my ass

I embrace cultural differences. Really, I do. I detest people who disdain an entire country based on something as trivial as, say, an (admittedly somewhat unfathomable) fondness for squat toilets. Or an affinity for mystery meats of extremely dubious origin.

But then there's these homicidal taxi drivers whose philosophy of the road eschews that hackneyed old "one lane per car" rule in favor of a much more progressive "the road is my oyster (including the lanes for oncoming traffic)" system. I'm especially impressed by their refusal to view pedestrians and bicyclists as obstacles that should be avoided, but rather as opportunities to combat the overpopulation problem.

And these inexplicable "split pants" for babies. I don't want to be a cultural imperialist, but what's wrong with a diaper? I understand that allowing infants to roam around urinating and defecating freely through a giant slit in their pants -- on the sidewalk, the metro and in stores -- really cuts down on diaper rash. I just wonder if that perk really outweighs the attendant public health concerns.

Which brings me to my so-far least-favorite little cultural quirk: the spitting. The daintiest of old ladies produce these great hacking, hocking, snorting giant wads of mucus, complete with intense sound effects, and spray the street, sidewalk, railings or, you know, my shoulder with the fallout.

I might, maybe, just possibly be experiencing culture shock. I'm not positive, though -- I'll have to double check the handy chart entitled "How to know if you're in culture shock" that they gave us at orientation and get back to you.

A pox on the Great Firewall of China!

So, a few planes, trains and automobiles (not to mention one very sketchy night with all 11 of us in one tiny hostel room) later, I'm here. No quarantine for us. The entire plane seemed to be full of hacking, hocking passengers in severe respiratory distress, but luckily the lady at the fever scanning machine seemed to be asleep at the wheel.

So I'm in Nanjing, land of the grumpy taxi drivers, taking classes in Chinese for the next two weeks. So far, the highlight of my trip has been eating these crazy dumplings that have soup inside them (genius, right?) and conquering the frick-frackety Great Firewall (take that, my censorious red compatriots). Apparently blogger.com is blocked in China as well as facebook and pretty much every other site by which you might communicate with the outside world. Bastards.

Goodbye Chiang Mai!

Headed for Nanjing in a few hours, and I'm trying to get used to the fact that life as I've come to know it at the good old YMCA is about to get turned on it's head. Again.

Very excited about what's to come, but also very very sad to leave these girls! When y'all get tired of balmy tropical weather, come visit me and my yak coat up in the Himalayas.

First day in Chiang Mai: