Baby Got Back

Case Study #1: Buttless Baby Breeches

·         Day 1: Got off the airplane; it’s a stuffy, smallish airport.  Weather outside is gray, humid, and hot.  Looks similar to thick San Francisco fog, but suspect that the gray here is primarily just smog.  Since no signs are in English, I followed the herd of people that I recognized from my flight over to the baggage claim area.  There are only two belts.   Guess I’m in the right place.   Looking around I’ve noticed a few things right off the bat: I’m the only foreigner in the room, the people are much taller than I expected, and several people have luxury Versace looking luggage but instead of the traditional V emblem dappled everywhere, there are golden embroidered Mickey Mouses.  Lastly, and most alarmingly, I just spied a little boy whose pants are split completely down the back.  I wasn’t expecting to see a full moon my first day in China, but there it is.  His pants are missing the essential fabric from the top of his butt crack to practically his ankles.  He’s only a tiny little bugger so I suppose they have different standards of modesty here, but still, I can’t believe his parents haven’t fixed his pants or given him new ones.   Furthermore, he isn’t wearing any diapers.  That’s just an accident waiting to happen.

·         Day 2: The weather outside is gray, humid and hot.  Am now certain that the San Francisco-esque fog is really just smog.  Was walking on the street and saw two more children/toddlers with pants split down the backside.  Have determined that assless chaps are the common fashion trend for the youngsters here.  Cuts down on waste from diapers I suppose; but what happens when the kids have to go to the bathroom?

·         Day 3: Was walking along the busy streets of downtown Hefei and nearly stepped in a small stream of water coming from the steps outside a restaurant.  At first assumed it was just the liquid that drips from all the air conditioners everywhere.  Looked down directly to my right and saw a grandma holding a small baby out over the steps.  The baby was relieving himself almost directly onto my leg.  Grandma didn’t seem fazed.   Neither did any of the people around.  Will now be much more cautious anytime I am walking near a suspicious puddle.

·         End of week 1: Have now seen the assless chaps in action in a wide array of places.  In the middle of a crowded street, over a garbage can on the bus, on the granite steps outside of a KFC.  I guess these partial-pants are more convenient for immediate relief.  Clearly none of the locals find anything strange about youngsters’ private parts being unabashedly displayed to the public, nor are they offended by the bathroom practices, so I suppose I’ll just have to get used to it.

·         End of week 2: Was walking to the bus stop and noticed a young girl squatting by one of the nicely planted young trees that lines the road.  Squatting is normal here, people of all ages squat anytime they have a minute to rest.  I don’t mean to say they are going to the bathroom, they are merely squatting.  This little girl (not actually all that little, maybe 10 years old or so) had her pants around her ankles though, so clearly she wasn’t just squatting to take a break.  By now I had gotten used to seeing youngsters going pee whenever and wherever they needed to with little concern about being completely visible to anyone passing by.  To my utter horror, this girl was not going pee.  And her parents and lots of people were right there watching her!  My world was shaken, now not only did I have to watch out for piles of poochie poo, but I would have to look out for toddler terds as well.

·         Lessons learned: Watch your step.  Don’t freak out when you see babies that only appear to be three quarters of the way dressed.  Don’t walk to close to a grandparent that is holding a baby in sitting position.  If you are standing near a baby with buttless breaches on the bus, make sure you are out of the firing range.  Better yet, move away just to make sure.  

Supplementary reading: visit this site  and my photo gallery

We're not in Kansas anymore Toto

Lesson 2: Embrace the Chaos

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”  My advice to anyone coming to China is to make up your mind to be happy here before you leave home.  Though there will always be challenges and frustrating moments, learn to smile through them.  In the end you will be rewarded.

After the initial shock of arriving in China, I resolved to enjoy as many moments as possible, and discovered that there is plenty to love about this gritty, abrasive place.  For one, I liked that I got the master suite in the apartment.  I would be sharing the apartment with two guys, so the managers gave me the big room because it has a separate bathroom.  This is one of the few times in China that it worked to my advantage to be a girl.  Another thing I liked was my roommates themselves.  They are both from London and are complete gentlemen.  We all got along well right off the bat, and it was comforting to know that I would have some fellow-sufferers to relate with.  It didn’t take long for us to find things to lament about.

The first few days I found the moldy walls in my room and the occasional septic odors that wafted from the bathroom a bit jarring.  Though we are fortunate enough to have western style toilets, they resemble the ones you find in motorhomes in that there is no water in the bowl and the pipes aren’t bent, so there is nothing to prevent the stench from escaping.  In an effort to combat this smell, I would open all the windows in my room.  This merely served to let the dust, asbestos (I’m guessing on that one, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least), and chemical fumes in from the construction site next door.  Ultimately, time was the only solution to my problems.  The more days that passed, the more desensitized I got.  More accurately, the more days that passed, the more I encountered far more offensive odors and unpleasant issues that made my apartment woes seem fairly minor.  For example, the stench from the squat pots at the schools thoroughly permeates the halls.  Mercifully, most of the halls are just outdoor corridors; if they weren’t I swear, if someone were to light a cigarette there would be a Christmas Vacation style explosion from all the lingering gasses.  Though the random sewage smells distressed me in the beginning, I am now used to it and tend to laugh when I encounter any new attack on my poor nostrils.  I’ve stopped thinking of it as weird and wrong and merely think of it as China. 

There are other things that struck me as odd at first, but are now in the same bracket of things that merely define China.  One such thing is the fact that everything over here breaks.  I had assumed that the “made in China” moniker that is a symbol of things being cheaply made and prone to falling apart before they’re out of the box wouldn’t apply here.  I guess I thought they were hoarding all of their good, quality products for themselves.  Wrong.  The Chinese don’t seem to be phased by constantly having to fix things, or having to replace them entirely.  This applies to construction as well.  In Hefei, they are constantly tearing down new buildings to put up newer ones.  While I found this incredibly wasteful and senseless at first, I now accept it as simply being Chinese.  Over here, a lot of things don’t make sense.  The sooner you learn to accept that, the better off you’ll be.  Additionally, if you can learn to laugh about it, you’ll find yourself smiling a whole heck of a lot. 

There is an endless list of things one must learn to embrace (or at least attempt to shrug off) about China in order to enjoy and/or appreciate this place.  Some of the more entertaining ones include food, fashion (or lack thereof), life on the highway, unapologetic staring, spitting, and buttless baby breaches.  I will highlight these in case studies in the upcoming lessons. 

Until then, here is one of my thoughts on China: Though I have a love-hate relationship with China (heavily weighted on the love side), one of the things I am thankful for is that I will always have a greater appreciation for the things I left behind at home.     

September & October in review

TEN THINGS I MISS:

1.       Signs in English.  (Though admittedly Chinglish is a highly entertaining alternative)

2.       Bathrooms that have a toilet you can sit on and not just a hole or communal trough in the ground

3.       A regular working schedule and not having to make up the days off you get for national holidays

4.       Microbrews, especially IPAs; good wine, stinky cheese and specialty chocolate

5.       Blue sky, fresh air and Autumn in the Pacific Northwest

6.       Heated dryers (the dryers in China just spin your clothes so they’re merely damp; you then hang dry them.  The problem in Hefei is that although it may be 90 degrees out, it’s so humid that the clothes don’t actually dry and then you put on your ‘clean’ clothes only to discover they smell suspiciously like mildew.  As it gets colder out, there is no sun and thus no heat to dry the clothes.)

7.       I miss knowing where to go when I need to buy a specific item

8.       I miss having a sofa, coffee table and big screen TV.  And I miss Glee!

9.       I miss being able to sit down on the bus

10.   I miss my friends and family


TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT CHINA:

1.       Street vendor food and open air markets, especially the one in downtown Hefei by the old Pagoda

2.       Neon lights at night

3.       Chinglish

4.       Riding my new-old bike

5.       I love that students have to do eye exercises (Schools literally take 5 minutes several times a day for the students to massage and rest their eyes.) 

6.       Chinese fashion: this includes absurdly ornate women’s shoes, bedazzled men and women’s shirts, tacky patterns and embroidery on just about anything, name brand knock-offs, and socks: socks and sandals, socks and nice open toed shoes, layered socks.  They love their socks. 

7.       KTV (Karaoke TV, there are literally hundreds of them around town; some are very extravagant)

8.       Men rolling up their shirts to keep cool (pot bellies are not to be ashamed of here)

9.       Making Chinese friends and having them give you a taste of real Chinese culture

10.   First pay day!

Welcome to China

Unit 2: China

Lesson 1: Culture shock is a myth

If you are an American and you are going to a non-tourist infused part of China, you will not experience culture shock.  You will experience culture electrification.   I consider myself fairly well traveled, and I have a laid back character that typically allows me to adapt well to most situations.  But when I entered the land of the Dragon, I had the sinking feeling that I was going to get eaten alive.  Below is an account of my initial experience:

I departed in a whirlwind.  In the month leading up to my trip, I had more Drs. appointments than I had in the last two years combined.  For my visa requirements I had more shots and needles than I care to mention, a chest X-ray and EKG amongst other things.  Additionally, I had to visit various foot specialists because Murphy decided to throw down the law and have me severely sprain the ligaments in my left foot at the one time when I really needed both feet to work.  This meant that I had to help with the company Office Move, move out of my apartment, and run all of my errands while hobbling around on a fashionable clunky gray walking boot.  All of this chaos left very little time for me to devote any thought to what the upcoming months would bring.  I managed pack the next year of my life into my luggage the night before my flight to San Francisco, where I applied for and mercifully got my Visa a mere two days before leaving the country for Cambodia.  I left the boot and my sanity behind.  

While in Cambodia, my thoughts were generally occupied with TESOL class related material, and with the notion that, “Holy shit, I’m actually in Cambodia!”  The month with my new friends in Phnom Penh was like a chaotic dream sequence of seeing the sights, living the life and experiencing general jubilation. It was with a jolt we all woke up one day and realized we had a plane to catch to China. 

The day I got to China quickly turned into the day I wanted to leave.  My first thought upon stepping of the plane was, “Holy shit, I’m actually in China!”  My second thought was, “Why did I leave Cambodia again?  And when is the next flight back?”  I hadn’t planned on loving Cambodia so much, and I certainly hadn’t anticipated how much I would miss it and the people I had met there.  Be that as it might, I was in Hefei now, the place that would be my home for the next six months.

Hefei (Pronounced Huh – fay, and is particularly fun to say with a Borat accent) is a small Chinese city of about 3 – 5 million people.  While gazing through the windows of the roller-coaster cab ride from the airport to my apartment, I made several observations.  One: drivers are crazy in China.  Two: there is nothing charming about the Hefei skyline, partly because it’s hard to see through all the smog, and partly because all of the buildings give the same dripping gray oppressed look as though they are suffering as much from the heat and sooty humidity as the people are.  Three: there is a surprising amount of nicely landscaped, brand new shrubbery about.  Four: The people do not look happy. 

Three Chinese teachers had picked me up from the airport at 3:30; we waited about 45minutes for a cab, then finally got to the apartment at about 5pm, put my luggage in my room and promptly got back into a cab and were off to the Aston School.  They gave me a tour of the building and facilities, then we all scampered off to a restaurant for some authentic Chinese food.  We stayed there until about 8pm and finally, FINALLY I was taken back to the apartment.  I was exhausted and was really looking forward to some much needed sleep.  I figured I would spend the next day unpacking and unwinding before training and then teaching in the following days.  As I was getting out of the cab, the manager said to me, "Ok, we will pick you up at 8:00am tomorrow morning.  There are many things we need to do.  Bye bye!”

The next few days were a similar blur of frenzied activity, some of it necessary, much of it pointless.  There was never actually a day for me or my roommates to get settled in, and anytime I had a minute to pause, the only thing that kept running through my head was that I had made a huge mistake.

[To get a glimpse of my life in Hefei, please visit here: http://picasaweb.google.com/109552124545770534057/LifeInHefei?authkey=Gv1sRgCJPPrqmfqs-fzgE]

Getting Started!

Sylibus Day: Welcome to my life in China!  By reading these posts you, the student, will gain insight into all things China.  Or at least, China as I see it.  There will be no homework, unless I get thrown in jail for writing a blog about China, in which case I will give an A++ to whoever can get me out.  Your only task is to read, enjoy, and leave a comment or email me if you have any questions.  Simple enough.  Let’s get started!

Background Information:  After an extended bout of soul searching, I determined that my calling in life was to be a teacher.  I decided I would go to grad school, get my masters in teaching, and become a high school Art and Cultural Studies teacher.  Only problem was, I had zero experience with both teaching and with kids.  Solution: teach abroad for a year in a location where the culture is vastly different from that of the U.S.  And thus, I wound up in China.

After making a spreadsheet of possible programs, and opted to go with LanguageCorps because they offered a one month TESOL certification program in Cambodia.  More cultural experience and I would get to see ancient ruins and tropical beaches; yes please!  I graduated and got my TESOL certificate, and  am now living in Hefei and teaching English at Aston English School.  The following posts will be of the lessons I have learned along the way and would like to pass on to you.

Unit 1: Cambodia (AKA: The Twilight Zone)

Cambodia really should be a class of its own, but seeing as the bulk of my experience will take place in China, a brief summary of the lessons from Phnom Penh will have to suffice.  It is a land that is best described as an assault on the senses, specifically:

Feel: Hot, wet and muggy.

Taste: Surprising.  You can pay $50 and have a forgettable Italian meal, or you can spend less than $4 and have what you would swear was the best fried catfish or barbequed barracuda on the face of the planet.  The surprise is in that you never really know whether it will be bland and boring, or spicy and spectacular.  They also regularly eat dog, fried grasshoppers and tarantulas, which isn’t exactly surprising; but seriously, WTF?!

Sight: Colors are not muted in Cambodia.   From the tropical hues that dapple the markets, to the bright tiled and gilded rooftops, the color that best epitomizes this land is the vibrant orange of the monks’ cloaks and umbrellas that shield their bald heads from both rain and the blaring sun.  The colors are in constant motion; rolling along the brown waves of the rivers, passing from one hand to the next, or blaring and darting by you via a moto, tuk-tuk or a Lexus SUV.

Sound: If Cambodia were a symphony the tempo would be kept by the throngs of vehicles with motors sputtering, clanging or growling out the time.  The melody would be the voices of the people singing in broken English of what you should buy, and accompanied by a steady chorus of eager voices chiming “Tuk-tuk laydee?  Tuk-tuk laydee?”  There are no rests in this piece, but the adagio is considerably slower and is notable for the soft, rhythmic chanting of the monks, and the occasional mournful high chorus of the howling neighborhood dogs.

Smell: If you’ve ever been to a dump, then you have an idea of what Cambodia smells like.  Their garbage can is the sidewalk, and that happens to also be the bathroom for a number of people.  We drove over Shit Creek every day to get to classes (literally, it’s just an open sewer.)  On our way to teaching at the orphanage, my friends and I laughed about the fact that you can judge where you are and give directions based on the smells.  You need to get to the orphanage?  Once you get to the dirt road take a right, when you get to the smell of urine and feces, go straight and you’ll come to a strong stench of rotting fish; keep going until you reach the smell of vomit and it will be about two shacks down on your right.

Summary: The lady Cambodia is beautiful and beguiling, has a voice of chili pepper flavored honey, and though she is lacking in personal hygiene and can be uncomfortable to be around, she is always smiling and has a heart of gold.