What... exactly... did I do this week?
I must admit that I am getting rather careless. Part of it is the sheer monotony of my life at this point. There are still things happening, to be assured, but I have now been in China for over 120 days. Not all of them have been red letter days! All of them have been red flag days though, because China is a communist country.
This is no excuse though. While I'm sure that most of my readers do not really care one way or another if I accurately portray every waking moment of my life here as if it were the next great American novel, it still matters to me a great deal. I have never been able to faithfully keep a diary or a journal for any length of time. Since this trip has been all about doing new things and accomplishing new goals, I wanted this to be one of them. I also want to be able to look back and remember as much as I can about my experiences here, and writing down brief overviews of the main events every week is not doing those goals justice. The reason I'm putting it online in a blog instead of actually in a journal is because it's 2014 and everyone needs to post everything about their life on the Internet at all times. Live life like an open wound, seeping every detail out onto an unsuspecting public whether they want to or not, that's my motto! Basically this blog is like Ebola and I'm like that Ebola nurse who wants everyone to stop calling her "that Ebola nurse". It's really a shame, too, because a lot of funny anecdotes happen to me every day, even if they are not "big plot points" that I would normally deem worthy of landing itself in this journal.
I hereby resolve to do a better job of chronicling the ins and outs of my time in China, if not for the friends and family who read this blog, then just for myself.
But let's see... this week... hmmmmmm
To begin, I will tell the tale of the turtle:
Laura and I like to go for long walks every day after lunch. As I have mentioned here before, China has a "siesta" time after lunch. The entire country just kind of shuts down from 12pm until 2pm. This means that unless you run a restaurant or a liquor store, you take a two hour nap wherever you are at noon. I'm not exaggerating either. It's not uncommon to see people sleeping, heads unceremoniously plopped onto the steering wheel, in cars that have pulled off to the side of the road. Another sight, altogether more common, is to just see people sleeping on the sidewalks. It's as bizarre as it is comical. It's like a horror movie or something. The streets are just laden with these bodies. Nobody has blankets or pillows either, they are just sprawled out. Most people lay their heads on rocks or planks of wood or something (which, I can assure you, is just as comfortable as the crappy pillows they have here). To be fair, most of the people sleeping in the streets are construction workers, or are otherwise so employed so that they are out about in the city working and decide to take a brief break from their toils. Most other people nap at their homes or at work.
Either way, the school shuts down. Back when we were in Zhaoqing, Laura and I would go back to our hotel room and either nap or relax (I liked to nap a bit and practice Chinese a bit). Now that we are in Foshan there is just not enough time to go back home and then return to school. I have napped at the school a few times, but the floor just isn't very comfortable and neither are the desks. Some of the teachers in our office bring cots to lie on, but the rest just climb up onto their desks and curl up like cats. It's cute if not a little strange, I'll try to snap some pictures of it later. Unable to sleep here comfortably, and also feeling sluggish and bloated from our lunches (more on that in a minute), we often opt for a walk.
The most common destination on our afternoon walks is the mall across the street. During the first three months here when the weather was equivalent to that of one of those ovens where they broast chicken, the mall was an oasis of air conditioning. Since the weather has finally turned a little bit cooler (read: it's now in the mid seventies), we have been doing more outdoor walks.
This week we decided to walk in a direction we had not previously explored. Altogether this walk was disappointing. There was basically just a road that led to a highway and, at the end of the road, a few car dealerships. I would have called the walk a bust if not for one glaring fact: there was a man with a giant turtle standing in the road.
As we approached the man from a distance, it was clear that something was off. He was standing in a way that indicated he was carrying a great weight. Slightly hunched, he still was standing proudly. His hands were on this huge stick that was shaped a bit like a shepherd's crook. We got closer and realized something was hanging off the edge of this huge branch. "Oh my god it's a turtle!" Laura finally realized.
This guy had caught an enormous turtle. We walked up even closer still and got a good look at the poor thing. It was still alive, although it was in rough shape. We marveled at its size and beauty, and were saddened at its state.
We never figured out what that guy was doing with that turtle on the edge of the street. My best guess is that he was trying to sell if, but if this is the case then I don't know why he was standing in that location. He was at the dead end of a road, near the car dealership. Very few people were passing by, and those that did pass did not seem to be the turtle-purchasing type.
My second guess was that he was waiting for a bus or taxi, but again I don't think that this makes too much sense. No buses or taxis went by during the entire time we were in the area.
My final guess is that he was just showing off his turtle. He seemed so proud, and when I walked up he beamed at me like a father whose child just won the national spelling bee (I would assume. I've never even been in a spelling bee).
That, essentially, is the most thrilling thing to happen during the work week.
A word now about our lunches and dinners here. The school provides three meals a day to the students and also the employees. Since breakfast is at 7am, and we live about 40 minutes away, we don't bother trying to eat breakfast here. Lunch and dinner, though, we do eat at the school. We do this not only for convenience (we're here anyway) but also to save money. We have saved a lot of money eating these meals, and frankly that is the only reason why we do it.
The cafeteria meals range from bland to disgusting. Aside from the prerequisite rice, every lunch contains a protein, a vegetable that changes, and then this green vegetable which is provided with every meal. I'm not sure what the green vegetable is (I think it's Bok Choi), but they prepare it by boiling it until it is just a mush. The other vegetables are usually pretty gross, and this is coming from someone who likes to eat just about everything (I'll talk about the pigeons later). The meat is never too bad, but in China they don't bother removing the bones from anything before serving it. Normally this isn't too much of a problem. Chicken legs, for example, is something we eat back in America with the bones in, and I have no problem with that. Most of the Chinese restaurants, as well, serve meat with the bones in, but the mean is cooked very well and the bone chunks are very large. This results in delicious meat that just falls right off the bone.
The rationale behind leaving the bones in the meat is that it enhances the flavor of the mean, which is somewhat true, and also that most Chinese people are just not that skilled with using knives. They usually just use a butcher knife to chop up the meat into more manageable pieces and call it a day.
Unfortunately, at our school they use the butcher knife a little too over-zealously. The meat, in turn, is not cooked very well. This results in meat that is tough and must be chewed vigorously, and then bones that are chopped into tiny invisible pieces. I am always choking on bones, or chipping my teeth on bones, or getting my gums on bone shards. It is absolutely miserable. This would almost be forgivable if the meat was tasty, like it is at restaurants, but they use absolutely no seasoning for anything at school. The bones are the only "flavoring agents" involved.
Needless to say, the weekends, when we go out to restaurants, are really great. Chinese food, when you actually go to a proper restaurant, is absolutely delicious and is worth all of the stories that travelers tell about it. The Chinese food that most people it day in and day out, though, is pretty foul.
My biggest endeavor at work this week has been getting my boss on board to have a Thanksgiving event at our school this year. After seeing how much all the kids went bananas for Halloween, I was disappointed to learn that there was not anything planned for Thanksgiving. I realize that while Halloween is an international holiday, Thanksgiving is just for Americans (and Canadians!). Still, one of our mission statements at this school is not only to teach the children English, but also about English speaking cultures, and I think that they would enjoy learning about Thanksgiving.
Obviously it would not be possible to make a thanksgiving dinner for the school. Aside from the logistical nightmare of cooking for 1600 kids and a few hundred staff members, most of the necessary ingredients just are not available here.
This led me to the conclusion that the best aspect of Thanksgiving that the children could participate in and enjoy is the Thanksgiving Day Parade. I foresee all the little children making posters and flags and floats and things, and then parading around the school grounds dressed as turkeys while the older ones watch and cheer.
I have pitched the idea to my boss and to some of the other teachers. They all seem pretty receptive to the idea, but it remains to be seen whether or not the idea will culminate into a reality. There is an added bit of resistance to the idea, as well, because apparently most Chinese people haven't even heard of Thanksgiving. This was a surprise to me, and reveals a little bit about my American-centric thinking. How can they not know about Thanksgiving? After thinking about it for a few minutes I realized that it is not too outlandish of an idea, but still in my gut it is strange that something that has been so central to my Novembers since I was born is almost completely unknown over here. Stay tuned, I suppose!
This weekend was also not too much of an eventful one. Laura and I spent most of our time relaxing and blowing off steam from the week. We did, however, book our hotel for Hong Kong next weekend! I'm terribly excited to be able to go on another weekend-long trip to another legendary world city. The next blog post will certainly not be one to miss!
We spent Friday and Saturday evening with our friend Leon snooping around the less-explored parts of town within walking distance of our apartment. We found more shops, saw more strange and bizarre things, and saw a lot of stray cats. Both evenings ended with us sitting outside at a random Chinese outdoor restaurant/bar.
On Friday night we had a delicious spicy beef dish and some fried rice at a place just a few minutes from our flat. They had pigeon on the menu. I finally resolved that I was going to order and eat a pigeon, because when the heck else am I going to get the opportunity to eat a pigeon and not seem weird for doing it?? Unfortunately they were fresh out of pigeon, but NEXT TIME I WILL EAT A PIGEON.
Before my pigeon disappointment, we stopped at the local corner shop to buy a beer. This shop is a place that we go to all the time. It's the nearest store to our apartment that has pretty much everything we need. They don't sell meat, vegetables, or fruit, but everything else they have in spades. We get our breakfast food, our rice, our drinks, and our snacks from there, so we probably visit at least three times a week. The employees are all very nice, and they have come to recognize and expect us whenever we go in.
Anyway, when we popped in to buy our beers one of the store managers approached us with a satchel. He can't speak English, so he handed us a note. The note read "Send you two glasses. Thank you for your frequent shopping mall. Please be sure to accept it". He then handed us two "special edition" glass beer mugs. We were so flattered! We thanked him profusely, and I tried to say "We love your shop" in Chinese, but I am not sure he understood us. It feels really good to actually be a part of the community here, and to have started being known by the locals. The Sichuan restaurant at the corner, another place we frequent, also has a really nice family that seems to love Laura and I.
Saturday night we went to dinner at the Bruce Lee place. There is a chain of these sort of fast food Chinese restaurants here that has Bruce Lee for its logo. We had never been before and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately it was pretty gross, but I am glad that we gave it a chance. After our disappointing meal, we headed to an outdoor bar near one of the (many many many) malls near where we live. We spent the evening playing Chinese chess and drinking bad beer. The outdoor bar actually got quite full as the evening went on, and we enjoyed people watching.
Getting so blind stupid drunk that you can't even walk is something that is a lot more common here. There is not a stigma against "not being able to hold your liquor" in China, so a lot of people get ridiculously belligerent. It was comical watching all the people stumbling around and falling over. Several people were vomiting all over the place, which was a little less pleasant to watch, but it was still pretty funny.
The weekend ended with me doing my second of 3 Sunday Work Days this semester. It's such a bummer having to work 6 days a week, even if it is only once in a while. I still really strongly dislike the 6th graders, as well. This week I did a lesson the origins in Thanksgiving, and while I don't think that the kids liked it very much, I enjoyed telling the story. Sometimes that's all that matters in the end. I've learned that you aren't going to please all of the students all of the time, or even most of the time, but something that keeps me going is me getting enjoyment out of teaching the lessons.
That does it for this week. Next week: Hong Kong!
Bonus: Not enough pictures this week for a separate post so here they are!
Here is Turtle Man with his big turtle catch
Our delightful note from our storekeeper friends
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