My Lowest Low

This is the most horrific bathroom I’ve ever been in.
It smelled so bad that I simultaneously vomited and urinated.
It was hands down one of the worst moments of my life.
I also got very ill in a squat toilet later on in the day. You can use your imagination there.

Notes to self

Notes to self:
Stop drinking Chinese beer –you are gaining weight
Learn to squat better for toilets
Remember how to say “I don’t speak Chinese”
NEVER buy Chinese wine again.
Send art home

Paper

Paper topic :
Globalization of Fast Food in China.
I have been surprised by the amount of fast food, especially American chains, that I’ve seen in China. I would like to discuss restaurants like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC, Dominoes, and get a feel for the Chinese reaction to these chains. I have asked teenagers I’ve met about how they feel, but would like to get more a view. I also want to go into these places and look at the menus for comparison. Possibly talk to employees as well and see their views.

Notes:
Check out book about McDonals that Gilmartin discussed

Collect menus

Leaving Dazhai

I run around the village with stickers and approach all the children giving each a sticker. Someimes I can’t tell the really little ones apart and give them too mnay, but I have realized that the village kids are shy and usually run away.
Yesterday I took a shower at the boy’s house and feel like a new woman. I even shaved my armpits which was huge. Shaving my legs Iis a luxury that I have given up in China for the most part due to both lack of time and lack of space in the menial showers. The shower I used yesterday was a small room that was a toilet, shower, and sink all in one. There was a drain on the floor. Tres bizarre. I miss American sized showers and Western toilets. Again, I am so over squatting. The people here sit down and squat for hours while my legs are sore after a pee. I can’t understand how they do it.
Last night we heard a lecture by an older woan about Dazhai. Even Chris fell alsepp much to our amusement.
Joe, Keith, Erlinda, Grace, Harper, Kristen and Josh went for a night hike. We stargazed and pondered how long it would take to get to Mars. Grace says 9 months. I said that meant you could conceive a baby on Earth and have it on Mars. No one seemed to care.
We walkd home in the pitch black except for my headlamp and were scared by dogs. Joe was a gentleman and escorted Erlinda who is night blind.
I had another awful night’s sleep. My bed is hard, my back hurts, and my rice sack pillow is just not cutting it. I am considering starting a down pillow sales company in China. They don’t know what they are missing.

Today I had another bland breakfast. We taught at an elementary school in the morning. I taught with Joe Keith Edek and Dujan. We taught fourth graders animal names, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” among other English words. They were incredibly well behaved. Then someone told us we would be joineing the children for morning exercise. We walked outside (OH! The walls are lined with famous ccommunists including Mao and Stalin..weird) and found that every child in the school was lined up in perfect lines doing a chorecographed routine to music. It was hilarious and tons of fun. I’ll try to upload a video. Then we tried to teach them the electric slide, but they didn’t seem to like it.
After lunch and packing time, I walked around the small village for the hundredth time. A bunch of people asked me to pose with them for pictures. I’m not even the cutest one on the tri, so I don’t know why they keep asking me.

Then I learned in Chinese to ask to go on a motorcycle ride (the most popular way to get around town. Even babies are put on bikes.) A man agreed and took me for a ride. Sorry, mom.



In the afternoon we taught again at a middle school. It was tougher to get them excited. They were super shy and extremely well behaved. China brainwashes kids. When we tried to get them to play outside they kept standing in straight lines. When we finally got the point across that we didn’t want lines they separated by sex. In the class they kept standing and we had to ask them to sit. We played “Seven Up”, sang “If you’re happy and you know it” and “Doe a Dear” (which they already knew!) played another animal game, and got a lot of blank stares. We also played Duck Duck Goose and Freeze Tag. Recess games have little language barrier.

In the discussion with one of the pronciplas we were pressured into saying only postivie things about the Englib skills of the students so that the teacher wouldn ‘t get fired. Corruption.

Now we are on a 3 hour bus ride to get the 10 hour overnight train to Xi’an. Apparently the train is 3 bunks high and the bthrooms are gross. Edek said its just a hole and you go right on the tracks.

I have my period, but I just got it so luckily I didn’t have it in the small village. TMI I know, but hey, this is my blog. The night train is either going to be AWESOME or AWFUL. We’ll see.

Xi’an = HOTEL ROOMS! I heard we each get our own which thrills me. I don’t mind sharing, but I just want a hotel and shower. My feet are stained black from dirt, my toenails are atrocious, my legs hair is braid-able, and my nose is still full of dried blood.
God I sound sexy.

H
PS Please send nasal spray and a nail clipper.

Dazhai

I am writing from a cave in the middle of a village in the middle of nowhere.
There is no internet here which is why this post is delayed.

The bus ride to get to this village, Dazhai, is a story in itself. The small bus couldn’t fit all of our luggage In the bottom storage, so we had to sqeeze suitcases and backpacks on seats. The 5 ½ bus ride was crowded. I sat next to Joe who always provides colorful commentary. Mao, who is omnipresent in China and especially in Dazhai, sat on the windshield and stared at me the entire ride. Jackie Chan movies and Chinese music videos played on the tv.
After making a stop in which Joe stepped in what appeared to be human feces, we arrived at a gate lit by neon lights. It was what I imagine the drive to Las Vegas to be-darkness for miles and all of the sudden bright lights and buildings.
I was assigned housing with Taylor, Li Yan, Constance, and Wensess. (Li Yan has since left due to our living conditions and Kristen has replaced her). We live in an arch shaped room that is built into the mountain-essentially a cave. If we walk out of our room there is a courtyard that connects a few other bedrooms, a kitchen, a store owned by the family, chicken coops, and the exit to the main road of the village. There is no shower and no bathroom. Public bathhouses are squat toilets that smell awful and have no electricity. (Thank goodness for my headlamp). A few homes have showers and Western toilets, but we seem to have it the worst. Most of us haven’t showered yet, and won’t for the 3 days we are here. We all smell great. I finally changed my underwear and clothes yesterday. Every room seems to have a poster of Moa peering at us and the whole town follows this pattern. I didn’t feel as if I was in communist China until I was here. The whole town is full of propoganda art, posters, and possibly music (not that I can understand it).

Dazhai was once the model commune, but now is a collective community. The town gives students who go off to college money, donate to the elders of the town and help eachtoehr out, but there are definitely those who have more than others.

All of our meals are served by the family with which we live. Most of the food is tasteless. We all know I am NOT a picky eater so I eat it all, but a lot of it is pretty awful. We all keep talking about what food we would kill for. Mine is a hoagie.
Today Josh and I found a woman outside the school selling spicy kabobs. Best food yet in this town. I got tofu and califlour and quail eggs.

There is NOTHING to do in this town. So far we have gone for a “hike”, worked in the fields, went to a cement factory (as trhilling as it sounds), went to a sweater factory that wasn’t really a factory, played ping pong, TOOK NAPS!, talked about how much we need to shower, went a nonexistanet farmers market, eaten a lot of ice cream (the only food for sale in this village seems to be ice cream and alcohol), I got lost alone and tried to get a ride but failed, played with kids, got soaked and cold on our hike, and threw a cave party where the Chinese men invited our “men” to do shots of bijou (a STRONG Chinese alcohol that is remniscent of nail polish removier). Our “men” got very intoxicated and Josh even fell in front of Chris and needless to say did not join us this morning on our tours. We bonded a lot last night and I expect the lack of excitemnt in this town will force a cave party to happen again.
Tomorrow we are going to play with kids at the school! Tomorrow night we have an overnight train to Xian. From 9pm to 7am. It will be interesting-all of us crowded into a train car 3 bunk beds high, all unshowered and smelling awful.

My nose is really dry from the air and is bloody and gross. Grace made me put tampons up there to soak up blood and then the town doctor put alcohol up there andit burned.



People are really miserable here. I’m used to being gross and not showering from camp, but I will really enjoy going back to a city.
I can’t believe the time here is going so fast.

Bye Bye Beijing

Behind on posts as usual. We went to a middle school and played with kids. This is my favorite part. I brought Twister all the way across the world, and the kids really enjoyed playing. Keith and I read them a story and taught them some English. I met a woman at another lecture who is an international school teacher and she explained the process to me. I always seem to go back to the idea of teaching everytime I play with kids.



After dinner that night Josh Edek Krsten and I found a place outside the West Gate to hang out. They grabbed some beers and we had some AWESOME spicy kabobs. It was some of the best food I’ve had yet-street food of course. All the kabobs were soaking in a broth full of chili peppers. I had two different kind of noodles on sticks-a thick gelatinous noodle and a wheaty noodle. Noodles on sticks=good idea which should spread. I also had quail eggs which I’ve come to love. We saw a woman stomp on a mouse. On the way home we bought a bottle of wine called “China Wine”. This is like buying “American Beer”. Bad idea. GROSS wine-sorry Robin, I know I disappointed you.
Anne and I have been eating a lot of street food. We got noodles at a little booth with spicy sauce. We also drank a lot of bubble tea even though we can’t order the flavor we want. Less than a dollar means I’ll have any flavor they give me.

I already spoke about the best night ever that Anne and I had, but the same night our classmates went to the same club, though we never saw them, and got home really late and had a rough night. I was glad I got home early.

Anne and I took a Chelsea Reil recommendation and went to a Thai restaurant called “Serve the People”. It was in the Embassy district so we saw all kinds of people walking around. Elegantly dressed French people, a beautiful African woman in traditional garb, and Americans! Michael, a tour guide, recommended that I go to a place called Jenny Lou’s to get my cheese fix. It ended up being a great grocery store with every Western product imagineable. I got brie cheese, a baguette, a Hershey bar, and Oreos. Anne and I bought a bottle of Proseco which we split that night while eating the cheese and bread. It was excellent.

That afternoon we heard a lecture by Chris’s friend Carl who happened to be Michael’s brother. He was a white man who grew up in China and discussed doing business in China. His hoem was beautiful and I want to move in. He even found a cool cave which is now his wine cellar/basement.

That night was our “graduation ceremony” where we performed our Chinese skits and songs. The Chnese students bought us al presents. I wore a Chinese dress that I bought here. The dean offered us full scholarships for grad school if we learn Chinese. I wish.
Our group, the students, and our Chinese teachers all went to dinner. After we were all exhausted and hung out. I crashed early.

Our last class was in the monigng (I got a B+) and we went to the park. I joined a fitness class with old Chinese women.
Then we packed up and it was goodbye Beijing.

Sitting in a Hong Kong Hostel

I FINALLY have access to my blog after a month. Mainland China decided to block me. Maybe I offended them with all my Mao talk. Anyway, I am going to copy and paste the entries from the past month onto here.

Sorry I've left you all hanging.
Now you get a slew of entries in a row.
Skim and enjoy