Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Brian-ness

Public Safety Reminder

2009-05-03T16:19:00.001-05:00

Well, it's been raining pretty much non-stop for about 5 days now and it's brought to my attention something that the general public needs to be reminded of. Fact: In all 50 states it is the law that if your windshield wipers are in use (i.e. it's raining) then you must turn on your headlights. So turn on your headlights, people!

Don't quit your day job

2009-04-07T22:28:00.002-05:00

I've been finding ways to fill up my free time lately. The last two weeks have been pretty busy for me. I've been going over to help my cousin Rob work on a house he and Michael bought, so I've been working at least a few nights a week after leaving Trophy house. The rest of my nights have been filled with Village meetings and hanging out with friends. I've found that having things to do every day really makes the week fly by. I've also found that even a few hours a week of extra pay can be a big boost to my budget.

Spring is in the air

2009-03-26T17:47:00.002-05:00

Well, it's that time of year. We always say spring is in the air. What exactly is it that's in the air? Love? Pollen? Mind altering drugs that make you have unrealistic expectations? My vote is on the latter. I'm pretty sure that sometime in the last week a group of people secretly met somewhere and decided that they would all come to my work this week and make ridiculous demands. So far, I'm not a fan of this plan. Just so you know, if you need some plaques, trophies, or other engraving done, it's usually not okay to ask for it in less than 24 hours. Unless you walk in and everyone is taking a nap or playing cards. Then they probably could do it. But if you walk in and everyone is running around like madmen, running three machines at once, with both lines ringing off the hook, that's probably a good sign that your order will not be done tomorrow. Unless you're like everyone being affected by springtime, in which case you don't care what I'm already working on as long as your order is ready tomorrow at 10. Yay for spring!

Demolition Man

2009-03-24T21:57:00.002-05:00

Tonight after dinner I had the pleasure of going to Michael's (my brother's) new house and helping with some demolition cleanup. He wasn't there at the time, he was at a hockey game watching the Predators. I'm not sure if they won, but it's usually a fun time either way. I had fun loading all the debris into bags and trash cans and lugging it into a ginormous dumpster. I was thinking that by myself it would take quite awhile to get all that out of the house, but once I found the trash cans behind the house it was just a matter of setting them right outside the door and shoveling straight into them instead of dealing with bags. Bags aren't ideal when you're working alone. Four cans full of old drywall, dust, lumber, and other stuff and I was done. Too bad, though. He was paying by the hour. Oh well, looks like I won't be retiring early.

So apparently only 4 people are brave enough to risk finding out what it would look like if I attempted to crochet. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my last entry about the 7 lucky people who can win a free gift from me. Do it! Now! I'll wait.

In other news, I've been attending a new Wednesday night small group from church. The small groups are called Villages. For a while I went with Mattew and Jennifer to their village, but it was weird being the only person who wasn't married or didn't have a kid. So I tried out a new group and so far I'm liking it a lot. There are quite a few people in it who are Christians but didn't grow up in the church, which means they aren't familiar with most of the Bible knowledge a lot of us take for granted. For example, who Jonah is, what the difference between the Old and New Testaments is, who Lazarus was, and on and on. So we've talked about starting up a Bible study to help acquaint them more with the Bible. Somehow this has turned into me possibly being the leader of a new Village so that anyone and everyone at church can join. Wha? I didn't realize I was signing up for that! But we'll see what happens and deal with it as it comes. For the moment we're still trying to nail down a time and place to meet. It's looking like we'll be able to start up sometime in the next two weeks or so. I'm really excited about it, I just hope they aren't expecting me to be flashy or anything. I'll keep you posted!

Lucky Number 7

2009-03-22T23:19:00.002-05:00

I found this on a friend's Facebook page. Even though I wasn't tagged in it, I thought it was fun and borrowed it. So here I am posting it on my blog.

The first SEVEN people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For YOU.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

- What I create will be just for you.
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- You will receive your item before the end of the year.
- You will have no clue what the item is going to be. It could be a story or poetry. It could be a piece of handmade jewelry or a cheesecake. I may draw, paint, collage or crochet something. I might bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that in order to receive a gift, you have to re-post this memo and make and send out seven surprises of your own, so if you aren't gonna follow through and make something for seven others, you get nothing from me. And you need to send me your mailing address!!

I'm posting this on my blog, which then posts to my Facebook Notes. To qualify as a winner, you must comment on my blog, not Facebook. If you don't have your own Facebook or blog then you're exempt from the re-post requirement. Also, if you just do something nice for 7 strangers who have a real need (not just opening a door for someone) then you can be exempt.

Ready, set, create! :)

Thanks for the favor!

2009-03-05T22:06:00.002-06:00

Thanks to everyone who responded about the Trophy House website! I got a ton of comments and emails. Only one computer other than my boss's had any big problems, but there were still a few minor things to be tweaked that would help with loading speed and whatnot. Some of you commented that the only thing wrong with the website was the lack of a large picture of my face. Well, that will be remedied soon enough. My boss was tired of people making fun of his mug shot, so he opted against our individual photos that we took a couple of weeks ago. Now we get to take a group photo next week or soon after. You never realized there was so much to look forward to from a simple trophy website, did you?

My new name!

2009-03-04T23:25:00.002-06:00

Well, as you can see I chose a winner for the "Name my blog contest". Congratulations and thanks to Guy for his winning entry! (sorry Andrew) It's very fitting because this blog will hopefully be about my life, freedom through Christ, and my pursuit of me. And if you're pursuing more of me, then this is a good place to come. Now I just need a streamlined look. But that's something for another day. Goodnight!

Favor

2009-03-04T15:26:00.002-06:00

Got a minute? I need a favor! I work at Trophy House and we just got a new website. But there's some disagreement as to whether or not the website works correctly. Some of us think any problem is due to the computer being used, others (Larry) think the website causes computers to be slow. So, if you've got a minute then please go to http://www.trophyhouse.com and cruise around the site for a minute. Specifically, do any of the product pages load slowly? Even more specifically, the basic plaques page. Please let me know if you notice anything that we should fix. Thanks!

Ministry of the day - Malo Ga Kujilana

2009-03-04T09:15:00.003-06:00

Check out this Mozambique ministry. The Holtons and Caldwells are friends of my brother and brother-in-law.

http://kujilana.org/
http://chajila.blogspot.com/
http://kujilana.blogspot.com/

David's Snail

2009-03-03T18:36:00.000-06:00

This kid is hilarious! As are most kids.

Blog break

2009-03-02T10:12:00.002-06:00

I get a break in the morning and the afternoon at work, but I never remember to take them. We're not supposed to take them within an hour of lunch or closing time, but those are the only times when I start feeling the need for a break. So today I'm experimenting to see if blogging during my break is relaxing or not.

You know those days where every little thing that happens just puts you into a worse and worse mood? I think I'm having one of those days. It's pretty annoying. I always try to step back and analyze the situation, and I find that there's usually no reason at all to be in a bad mood. The dog is standing too close to me. A customer came into the store. Someone looked at me. The wind blew. See? All poor reasons, yet we've all had days where things just as ordinary seem extraordinarily annoying. What can be done? Pretty much what I'm already doing. Step back, say a prayer, take a look, go around it.

On a separate topic, you may notice some Google ads appearing on my blog now. If people click on those I eventually will get paid for it. I'm pretty sure I get about 1/100th of a penny for every click or something ridiculous like that, but feel free to check out any ads that seem even remotely interesting. I might get a check for a dime some day! Break's over.

The Search Continues

2009-02-28T12:54:00.002-06:00

In case you've missed it, here are the ideas people have left me so far. And by people, I mean two people. Thanks Guy and Andrew! Now all you other deadbeats need to get to work thinking up this stuff for me.

- Brian loving China, living in America

- How to be Brian, The Idiot's Guide

- Why Brian is cool... and then some

- Brian should blog more, but he needs help ... give him ideas!

- Brian's Amazing Blog (you'd just have to live up to it)

- Brian: The Complete Rebuild

- Brian: So Cool, So Hot, So What Now?

- The Life of Brian, No, Not That Brian, This Brian

- Brian's Brains Exposed and Recomposed (Left & Right, Chinese & American)

American Themes:
- BriAmerica
- US of Brianica
- Red, White and Brian
- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Brian-ness
- Brian - Made in America

I appreciate the input, I've definitely got a favorite. I'm not going to say which, I wouldn't want to influence any future voting or suggestions. If anyone wants to branch out from the nationalistic themes, feel free. If you need some inspiration, here's a list of some things I enjoy. Jack Johnson, ice cream, oreos, free stuff, quiet time, dogs, fish, grilled food, burning stuff in a fireplace or campfire, running, walking, standing, sitting, breathing, Guitar Hero, Mandolin Hero, Cello Hero, Jell-O pudding pops, Chinese food, counting, email, cherry dump cake, hockey games, things involving rivers, things involving throwing rocks into water, getting a haircut, not shaving, the feeling after shaving after having not shaved for a while, having my shoes off, and chicken wings. Obviously, that list is not all inclusive, but it might spark some creativity in someone out there.

Due to the fact that I got some suggestions on the first day even though I wasn't expecting any, I'm now setting the end of this "contest" at 7pm EST March 3rd. That's Wednesday, people! If you want to influence the future of the world, this is your chance. Name my blog. Bonus points if you can provide an appropriate picture or other artwork to complement the name you choose.

Ministry of the Day - Teen Hope Line

2009-02-27T19:32:00.003-06:00

Lately I've felt like there's no way I could ever make enough money to give to all the people who need things. So I've decided to share things as they come to my attention and hopefully someone else out there will see it and be moved to giving.

Today I'd like to introduce you to Teen Hope Line. It's an organization based in Spring Hill, TN that offers help to struggling teens all over the country. I go to a midweek church group with three of the interns who works there. The website can give a lot more information than I can, so I'll just insert some text I copied straight from it.

Since its inception in 2001, Teenhopeline has strived to reach out to hurting teenagers and young adults in ways that are relevant to them. Teenhopeline.com has reached out to hundreds of thousands of students since it first started six years ago. In 2007 alone we talked to 55,000 students preventing upwards of 10,000 suicides and seeing approximately 7,000 students come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through the one-on-one chat and the alter ministry of Seventh Day Slumber. We feel that God has called us to be the direct line of hope for the lost and hurting. We need partners to stand with us both in prayer and in financial donations. There are many costs involved in running this site including: payments and maintenance on an office and two dorm houses, making sure our internet and phone bills are paid, and keeping between 20 and 30 computers running well. The caring staff that are online each night of the week (except Sunday) are all volunteers who are supported by people who believe in the ministry of Teenhopeline and offer their help through personal sponsorship. If you would like more information about our ministry or would like to donate please email … We are also in need of prayer warriors to stand in the gap for us as we reach out to this hurting generation. Spiritual attack is a constant battle that we face and we believe that prayer is NOT the least that you can do for someone. It is the greatest and most powerful thing that can be done. If you see the value in reaching out to hurting students facing every issue from peer pressure and pornography to depression, suicide, poor self image and self injury, then please pray about how you can stand with us, impact this generation and help them reach their potential.

The interns who work there have to rely on support. They raise about $9300 in order to work there for a year. Out of that, about $170 a month goes to them for their personal use. That means that they rely heavily on donated things. Some current needs listed on the website are:

We need fuel efficient vehicles for our interns to get to work and church in.

We need reliable laptop computers for our interns to use to talk to students on Teenhopeline while on the road with Seventh Day Slumber.

Gift Cards for grocery stores or department stores such as Wal-Mart or Cosco are always needed because our interns live on $170 dollars which covers their food and all other activities for the whole month.
Anything cool for the interns to play with in their free time to unwind with one another when they aren’t online talking to students or on the road with the band (ex. board games, video games, dvds, cds and books)
Gas Cards for fuel for our vehicles to help us get to and from work and around on the road with the band on their tour.

Go check out their website at http://www.teenhopeline.com/ and learn how you can help them out. You can donate directly on the website or, if you have something you want to send to them, just contact me and I can give it to them on any Wednesday night.

Finding my name

2009-02-27T15:22:00.002-06:00

Hello, world! I've been trucking along here in Franklin and I'm starting to get a glimpse of some order in my American life. I've decided to have a contest of sorts to find a new name for my blog. I was rather proud of my old name (Brian-a in China) but I can't tell you how many people were confused by it, wondering why I had changed my name to a girl's name. Hint: It's not Brianna. Brian-a... rhymes... with China. Brian, uh, in China. Like that.

Anyhoo, I got back from China and my blog became Brian-a back from China, which I didn't like at all. But I really had no idea what to call my blog other than Brian's Blog, which is kind of boring. So here I am, asking you. If there's anyone out there who still reads this, please let me know your ideas. There are no rules, I'll just see what you suggest and narrow it down to a winner. If there are too many good ones, I may choose some finalists and have a vote. So get the word out! Brian needs a name for his blog and it needs to be a good one. Deadline? Let's say a week from now, because it may take people awhile to realize I blogged again. So, the deadline is Friday, March 6, 2009 at whatever time I get home from work and check on things. Let the brainstorming begin!

Deck the halls

2008-12-16T21:58:00.002-06:00

Christmas is coming! It's practically here! If you want a present from me, you need to tell me straight up. Otherwise you're not getting ANYTHING! And nothing over $1, please. I'm here to give you my official plans for Christmas. Wednesady (Christmas Eve) morning, I will load up with my cousin Rob and we will drive to Dayton, OH to his parents' house. My mom will be there already and we'll have a nice quiet Christmas at the Neely house. Quieter than you might think, since all the kids and grandkids will be at the the in-laws. My Aunt Beth is an amazing cook, so I'm definitely looking forward to chowing down. Plus, if all goes as planned, I'll be able to acquire a different car while in Dayton. One that actually works! We'll see what happens. Tomorrow night is the Trophy House Christmas Dinner. This year it's going to be at Sperry's, which is a fine dining establishment in Nashville. Very nice! I'll have the water. Oh, what? Larry's paying? Then I'll have the sirloin! Mushroom sauce on top for just $8 more? Sure, why not. And throw in a few lobster tails for good measure. Ha! Not really. I'll keep myself under control.

A few things that went right today

2008-12-04T21:54:00.002-06:00

I talked to my friends in China for over an hour today.

I worked an hour and a half of overtime (plus another hour tomorrow morning).

I didn't chop off anything while using various sharp tools at work.

I blogged for the second time this week.

Blog post of shame

2008-12-02T22:57:00.002-06:00

I'm not even going to bother explaining why I haven't been posting. Suffice it to say that I just didn't feel like it. So here goes something.

In the past few months I have:

Moved with Matthew, Jennifer, and the kiddos into a brand new town home that has a room that is all mine and just for me. And it even has a door. And a bathroom. And a closet.

I have not had a car to drive since October 15 because my car won't pass emissions and the temp tag expired. Thank you Matt Britton for giving me a ride to work everyday since then. You're a champ. My car is currently being fixed by the most awesome guy ever. Bill Simpson lives near 840, south of Franklin. He works out of his home and can fix your car for loads cheaper than any garage can. How does $200 instead of $600 sound? Awesome, that's how. I should be driving again by the end of this week.

I went to MS for Thanksgiving and had a blast. The food was amazing, almost worth the two years away from home. I did miss the pecan pie, though. Christmas is coming, I'll just hope for some then.

I still miss China a lot, but I'm getting used to being in the US and don't feel quite as much stress from the change. Although after 4+ months, it's still not a walk in the park.

I'll try to be better. It's all anyone can ask or expect.

The ups and downs of re-entry

2008-09-18T22:44:00.003-05:00

You've probably noticed that my blogging has become even more rare since I got back from China. Sorry! You would think that I would be getting better at blogging, because now when I check my friends' blogs and they haven't blogged in more than 24 hours I'm always tempted to send them a guilt email telling them how they should blog more so I can hear about Shiyan. But I don't. Too often.

Anyhoo, tonight's topic is re-entry. I spent 3 years in China. The last two years were consecutive. Coming home has been great and terrible, all wrapped up into one immensely confusing whirlwind. It's been an incredible roller coaster ride, up one minute, down literally the very next minute. It's really hard to explain unless you've been through it, like most things in life. I've been reading a lot of different materials on re-entry and they've done a great job of putting things I'm feeling and experiencing into words, so I wanted to share some of those words just to give an idea. Here are some excerpts from the book Burn-Up or Splash Down: Surviving the culture shock of re-entry, a book by Marion Knell.

The words most commonly used by people describing their feelings on re-entry are loss, grief, bereavement, depression, and loneliness.

When asked the question "What was your biggest joy upon return?" I received these responses: "There was nothing joyful about it." "It wasn't joy, it wasn't home. I hated it." "No idea - it wasn't joyful. The chance to do something new?"

When asked the question "What was the best part about coming back?" I received these responses: "Getting reconnected with family." "Twenty-four-hour electricity and hot running water." "Catching up with friends." "Anonymity."

(compare the wording of the questions and the tone of the answers)

One of the greatest problems people face on re-entry is that they believe they are alone in feeling like this... Consequently, they often hide their feelings and retreat into themselves.

Some sources of stress: differences in culture, loss of self esteem due to changes, loss of identity, emotional instability due to grief or loneliness, inadequacy of appropriate clothing, lack of a home, lack of a job or appropriate skills, availability of people who can relate to the experience, unmet needs due to false expectations, alienation, etc.

One returnee put it this way: "People said, 'It must be so nice to be home,' when I hadn't really thought where home is." Another said: "We look out of our window or drive around these suburbs and see the never-ending houses with their neat little gardens and the cars parked outside, which are all a little different, but to us all somehow merge into one. We could be anywhere, and while everyone else is connected to this world, it is going to take some time for us to adjust."

Anyhoo, those are just a few random excerpts. I'm trying to avoid typing out the whole book. So what's the point of all this? I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me or anything, I'm just trying to let you know where I've been the last two months. I've been experiencing all the things described in those excerpts. Today is September 18. I've been living out of a suitcase since July 10. I'm extremely thankful for Jennifer and Matthew for letting me stay with them all this time. And to Vail and Katy, too. Although Vail has tried to kick me out a time or two. :) But living out of a suitcase gets old. Looking for a job got old, even though I didn't even look that much. Mainly because I had no earthly idea where to start. There was a point where I was afraid to go out because I would have to talk to people and I felt like I had lost all my social skills and couldn't imagine how I would interact with them. Like I said, it's been a crazy two months.

So where am I now? Day to day, I feel much better than I did even two weeks ago. I've got a job at a place called Trophy House that's really fun and pays enough. I'll let you figure out what we do there on your own. I'm still living with Jennifer and Matthew, but they've admitted that they don't mind and we're even moving into a bigger place where I'll have my own room with a door. (27 more days!) I'm slowly making friends, thanks to my friend Beth introducing me to some great people at Granny White C of C, and meeting people at work. I have a car that (sort of) works and gets me where I need to be. Things seem great and good. Grood. Yet there's still the random feelings of loneliness, depression, and frustration. It's all a normal part of re-entry, I guess. But like I said, I feel much better than I did even two weeks ago.

I want to thank all my faithful friends who've been loyal to my blog and have offered me so much encouragement over the years. I'll try and improve as I continue to get back into the groove of things here. Now I'm off to bed so I can get up and make some trophies for a cricket tournament. Whoopee!

The grass is always greener...

2008-09-09T22:13:00.004-05:00

Things I miss lately:

Angelyn

Jessica

Walking everywhere and never needing a car

Chinese food (not American Chinese food)

Happy Guy

Jessica

Angelyn

weekday morning study times with Angelyn and Jessica

Things I don't miss lately (because I'm glad it's not around):

people petting me on the bus and comparing me to a dog

Abraham

Chinglish conversations about Olympics, pop music, or anything stereotypical

Things I don't miss lately (because I'm glad to have it around, not because I'm sick of it):

My family

milk

bread

structure and logic in my work environment

I've got moments when I wonder if it was a fair trade, but that's typical for someone coming back after so long overseas. I'll take what I've got and be happy about it.

Another line from high school

2008-09-07T12:21:00.002-05:00

In my 1oth grade English project (refer to last post), part of the assignment was to write some things about myself. Here's a line from a page that I wrote describing myself. I think some of you (specifically in Shiyan) can appreciate this.

"I tell jokes even though other people don't think they're funny."

Poems from High School

2008-09-02T22:24:00.000-05:00

When I was in the 10th grade ('96-'97) I had an English assignment that involved creating a massive collection of poems, personal information, and family history written by myself and members of my family. The poems and personal information were all written by myself, the family history was a collection of stories compiled by my two grandmothers. On my return from China, I was reunited with the storage bins that my mom so graciously kept for me, and inside one of these bins I found my old assignment. After reading through it, I decided to present a few selections for your enjoyment.

My Favorite Family Member

My favorite family member is my oldest brother Michael. I like him because he is always nice to me (unless I wake him up). He's always in a good mood, so he's fun to be around. He knows how to have a good time and he almost always invites me to go with him. I like being around him because he is a good person and he's not that hard to get along with.

Letter Poem

Dear Michael,
Your visit was looked forward to. We really missed you. The thought of your next trip is overwhelming - not because of your presence. Because you owe me five dollars.

Comparison Poem

Dad, you are like a tall oak tree.
You stand tall before the problems of life,
You withstand even the mightiest winds,
Yet you are as gentle and fun as a puppy.
You bring happiness to people who need it most,
And you expect nothing in return.
You are an oak to withstand all but people needing happiness.

Warning Poem

When I am an old man, I will talk to dogs.
I will wear ugly golf pants and clear my throat a lot.
I will live next door to a golf course and keep all of the balls that come into my yard.
If anyone drives their cart into my yard, I will throw the balls at them,
I will yell and clap my hands whenever anyone tries to hit their ball,
When the golf course goes out of business, I will hang out at Wal-Mart and tell stories to people I know.

I could let my dogs run around the neighborhood chasing people,
Or I could keep anything that kids leave in my yard.
Then I could sell it to pay for the gas going to and from Wal-Mart.
I might even steal other people's mail.

But I can't do it just yet because I'm still in high school,
I still have to get a job and retire,
I have to wait a couple of decades, too.
Besides, my parents would never allow it.

Word to my mother

2008-08-15T09:34:00.002-05:00

I want to give a shout out to my momma. She's a classy lady who is responsible for everything her kids have become, so I want to let the world know. She's the greatest!!! And I couldn't think of a better way to say it than using a large black man sporting a mohawk and knee-high socks. This is for you, mom!

Olympic Spirit

2008-08-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

Michael Phelps is a BEAST. Go USA!

New Email

2008-08-09T11:09:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! For those of you who know me and like to email me or pretend that one day they might email me, I got a new email address. I don't really want to post it on here for the entire world to see and send spam to, so if you didn't get my announcement email and want my address, just send me a comment and I'll let you know. And for those of you who don't know me, thanks for reading my blog. I'm not sure why you do.

Best Idea Ever

2008-08-03T22:03:00.002-05:00

I have an idea. Let's have a big party outside. We can have all kinds of bands (country, dixieland, latino), guys riding unicylces and juggling, and hundreds of people serving homemade ice cream. We'll charge $8 to get in and you get all the ice cream and music you can handle. Then we'll give the money to a charity. Oh wait, someone already had that idea! Today we went to something called the Martha O'Bryan Ice Cream Crankin' down in Franklin. It was loads of fun, especially since you basically walked around with a cup and spoon, getting fresh ice cream every two feet. I enjoyed everything, but the strangest flavor was definitely the jabanero pepper flavored ice cream. I've heard so much good live music in the last two days, I can't believe I ever made it this long outside of America. Yay for outdoor ice cream charity fund raisers!

Walk to Cure Diabetes

2008-07-22T22:32:00.004-05:00

Well, here I am in Longview, TX at my brother Billy's house. And my sister-in-law Stacey's. She reminded me earlier that I'm here to visit her too, not just Billy. I've been painting and peeling wallpaper the past two days. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to more wallpaper peeling and probably more painting, too. I know I promised a lot of pictures and other info, but for now you'll have to settle for some information on diabetes. Why diabetes? This past weekend was the 2nd anniversary of my niece being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She's only 6. Here's a blog post by her mom, if you're interested in some details. There's a second link in that post that will lead you to yet another post with even more information.

My brother and his wife have joined an event called Walk to Cure Diabetes, which is being held all over the country on various dates throughout the next few months. For this event, people will walk (or run) 5 kilometers in order to raise awareness and money for help in finding a cure for juvenile diabetes. Until this event (September 27 in Dallas for us), you can easily donate money to our team (Team Suzy Q) by clicking on the logo at the top of my blog. You can also donate through Stacey's blog (see link above). So far Team Suzy Q has set a goal of raising $16,000. Too much, you say? Well it's the first day and Billy's already raised $1000. With your help we can meet our goal and be that much closer to finding a cure. Donations of $1 are welcome, right alongside donations of $1000. If you feel inspired to join our team, you can click on the logo and you'll find a button to join up. Don't worry about your location. The event is in Dallas but I'll probably be running down the sidewalk in Nashville. If I earn a t-shirt, I'm sure they'll mail it to me. For more information about juvenile diabetes research, feel free to visit the JDRF website.

Free cookie

2008-07-22T22:08:00.002-05:00

You know you must be handsome when the girl gives you a free cookie at the bakery. Because "the first cookie was a little dark." Except they both look exactly the same.

Tennessee

2008-07-11T07:39:00.002-05:00

How's it feel to be back in the greatest country on the planet? I'm not sure, but it feels good to be back in America at any rate. Ha! Just kidding. That's an old joke that some of you may understand. Anyhoo, I'm in the Nashville area for a few days. I arrived yesterday (Thursday?) morning around 9:30 and so far I'm tired tired tired but not quite as cranky as usual. Just a little cranky. I think part of it is that people learned not to ask me so many questions on my first day back, which is awesome. I'll be going to Mississippi on Sunday. I'll post more trip details later, but for now I hope this will suffice.

Our naivety exposed - expectinging things to go well in China

2008-07-09T06:54:00.008-05:00

Well, it's 7am CST on July 9th. My flight from Chicago to Nashville will leave soon and should land around 9:20. You may be wondering how I'm able to blog while on an airplane. Has American Airlines suddenly become the coolest airline ever? Hardly. I'm able to blog right now because I'm sitting in the Hong Kong airport, enjoying their free WiFi internet connection. I just finished enjoying their overpriced bacon cheeseburger. Now I suppose I should tell you WHY I'm in Hong Kong when I should be practically home. It all started with a dream.

Angelyn and I always dreamed of being treated well by our school. So to pursue this dream, we pestered them until they agreed to drive us from Shiyan to the Xi'an airport. This was a big deal for us because this meant we wouldn't have to bother with buses, trains, or taxis, which would be a big deal with our luggage. China has been changing quickly. Just last year a car ride to Xi'an would have taken 12 hours. Now there's a highway scheduled to open in December that will cut that down to 3 hours (thanks to about 100 bazillion tunnels they dug straight through 350km of mountains). Now the drive is expected to take 6 to 8 hours, depending on traffic and road conditions. To make a long story short, we took the opened portion of the highway for almost an hour, off-roaded on a dirt/gravel road for two hours or so, and spent the rest of the time mostly on two-lane paved roads winding through the mountains of Shaanxi province. While the view was breathtaking and our driver was fun and friendly, the drive ended in disaster. We got to the Xi'an area around 5 (about 3 hours later than expected), and got on the expressway to head to the airport. Somehow (I still don't know how because I saw with my own eyes the signs we were following toward the airport) we ended up on the wrong side of Xi'an. By the time I figured it out and showed the driver where we were on the map (ironic that I used a Chinese map better than the Chinese driver could), we were 70 miles away from where we wanted to be. So we turned back and sped towards the airport. The driver didn't seem too concerned when we saw a sign saying we had another 30 minutes, even though our flight was scheduled to leave in 60 minutes. Plenty of time, he said. Well, we pulled off the highway at 7, found the right terminal and pulled up to the door at 7:10, jumped out, barely said thanks to the driver before running inside, and arrived just in time to get totally lost inside the Xi'an airport. We were flying to Hong Kong, so we had to go into the international terminal, which was set off from the rest of the terminal by a frosted glass wall. We couldn't figure out how to get in. People in there had us running back and forth down the terminal for 30 minutes, handing us off from one person to the next, all of whom had no idea where the international terminal was. Finally, at 7:40 (the exact time our flight was taking off) someone let me through into a roped off area so I could ask his boss. It seems he couldn't ask himself. Turns out, the guy was guarding the rope blocking us from where we needed to go to check in. And he didn't even know it. Even though I said "where is counter 52?" (because that's where we needed to check in) and it was ten feet around the corner where he could SEE IT. Airport employees are smart sometimes. So we missed the flight to Hong Kong, which means we missed the 3 flights after that.

All in all, we arrived at the airport 5 hours later than we were told we would arrive. We spent 400 yuan on phone calls, expensive airport hotel rooms, and expensive airport hotel ramen noodles because we had to rebook tickets and stay the night. I really don't know what to say except that it's a lot easier to enjoy speaking with airport employees when you're NOT running around with over 100 pounds of luggage flopping around you. On the upside, it seems we would have missed our other flights even if we had made it to Hong Kong because American Airlines and Dragon Air are dumb. But I'll have to blog about that another time. There's so much more to this story, you should expect at least one more installment. You won't be disappointed.

Last Day

2008-07-07T04:32:00.002-05:00

Well, today's my last full day here in Shiyan. I've spent most of the past two days packing, repacking, and sitting around thinking about how if I would get out of the chair then I could finish packing in about 20 minutes and be done with it. I'm just about done packing now. I think I might have about 20 minutes left.

I've had such a long time to think about leaving and it's been such a long process saying goodbye to people over the weeks, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it anymore. Angelyn and I originally stayed longer to attend a friend's wedding, but the friend's visa to America didn't come through so the wedding was postponed. (it's a Chinese girl marrying an American guy and they were trying to time the wedding so she could go back to the States with him) Now that the wedding is postponed, I find myself wishing this whole leaving process had been taken care of three weeks ago, when I finished teaching. But I've been able to enjoy some good summer weather here with my remaining friends, so it hasn't been a loss.

Today I walked up the hill behind our apartment building and took a few pictures. The sun's out today and the sky is really blue, so it's a great way to end my time here. I don't feel like wrestling with the internet to load pictures right now, but I'll do it when I'm in Nashville or Cleveland with a better connection. I'll even post those pictures from Michael's trip that I was supposed to post 2 months ago. If you're keeping track of me, I'm leaving here at 6 in the morning tomorrow (that's 5pm CST Monday night), I'll get on my first plane in Xi'an at 7:40pm Tuesday (6:40am Tuesday morning), and eventually reach Nashville at 9:40am Wednesday (9:40am Wednesday). Drop me a line if you're in the area!

Independence Day

2008-07-04T21:07:00.002-05:00

Happy 4th of July everybody! This is actually my first 4th in China, I'm usually home by this time. Americans like to celebrate by grilling out, eating watermelon and homemade ice cream, and shooting fireworks, but I had to put a slight Chinese twist on it this year. Since Angelyn and I weren't invited to the 4th of July grilling party downstairs at a certain other American's apartment (we're not bitter) we celebrated by going down the street to a Chinese restaurant that serves grilled things. So we had the spicy grilled fish! Not quite a hamburger or hotdog, but it sure was good. We also had a watermelon as appetizer/dessert and ice cream on the way home. Oddly enough (since we're in China) we didn't have any fireworks to shoot off. But that's okay because we see fireworks shooting every other day of the year. We ended our evening by trying to pick out an "American" movie to watch. We couldn't really decide on one from our massive collection, so we decided to use a trusty Chinese website to watch Independence Day. I'm sure it breaks every copyright law there is, but there are numerous Chinese websites where you can click and watch just about any movie ever made instantly. I mean, what better way to celebrate America's independence than to illegally watch a movie on the internet in a communist country? Well, we didn't even get to anything exciting because the internet wasn't being cooperative. We settled for watching an episode of Monk and going to bed.

I'll be home in a few days! That's weird. Our school agreed to drive us to the Xi'an airport Tuesday morning, which means we won't have to wrestle any bags onto trains or buses. That's an incredible blessing! They were very reluctant to do it at first, but Angelyn is awesome and gave them a good guilt trip about fulfilling their obligations and 15 minutes later everything was approved by the proper authorities. We'll leave Xi'an Tuesday night (Tuesday morning in America) and I'll arrive in Nashville after four flights. If you happen to be at the Nashville airport around 9:20 on Wednesday morning, make sure to say hello to me. I'm sure I'll be a little too tired to notice you unless you initiate contact. Big banners help. So do brass bands. And ham sandwiches with mustard, a slice of American cheese, and a crispy piece of lettuce. And a cold root beer. Or just waving and yelling my name.

The coming days

2008-05-29T21:19:00.002-05:00

Even though I don't have much class left, I feel like I've got a billion things to do and no time to do any of it. Of course, when that happens to me I often sit back and do things even more slowly. Not the best reaction, I know. So why do things feel so hectic? Why am I so rushed? Well I don't know if I announced this before, but I'm not coming back to Shiyan after this semester. That's right, that wasn't a typo. So even when I don't really have anything to do, I feel like there's something I'm forgetting. That always happens when we're leaving a place, though.

In the past when people asked me how long I would be here, I would always answer "until I don't want to be here anymore." That was the only answer I knew to give. I didn't really plan to come to China for long before I actually came. I had some friends introduce the idea to me, I called them crazy, they pressured me into going to a meeting about it, and then it just sort of hit me and stuck. If you had told me a year before I graduated that I'd be in China, I would have laughed in your face. It just shows how quickly a path can be revealed in your life. Well, after coming here I always figured I'd stay until I felt like I should go home. I've been told by others who've come and gone that sometimes you just suddenly know that this is your last year. Last semester I fully planned to stay here another year. I really like a lot about being here. I also really dislike a lot about being here. I don't want to make any lists or anything, I'm just saying that suddenly it just makes more sense for me to go than to stay.

I will leave Shiyan on July 7. I'll be at the Nashville airport on July 9. At this point I have no idea what I'll be doing in terms of a job or anything like that. I don't know if I'll be spending the rest of my days in the States or what. I've considered the idea of coming back for language school. Increase my skill set, that sort of thing. At this point all I know for sure is that I hate teaching English here. I'm not going to miss it. I'm not going to miss having 23 hours of free time every day. But I'm going to miss my friends. And I might even miss the 11pm false alarms when my friends think there's a prowler.

Breaking the silence

2008-05-28T20:20:00.002-05:00

I haven't blogged in about a month (I'm sure I didn't need to point that out), and it's not for lack of things to say. A few very interesting things have happened in the last month. I'm not sure why, but it seems the more I have going on the less I blog. So when I go for a month without blogging anything, you can probably assume that I'm mulling over a lot of things in my head. Anyhoo, I'll try to let you in on just a few things and get back on track here.

First thing first. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but if you'd like to read an exciting story involving me, prowlers, a folding chair, and intention to make a daring leap from the fourth floor balcony to the third floor, just click here. For a little background, you should know that about a month ago, while Michael was here visiting, someone broke into the third floor apartments in the middle of the night and stole some money from Trip and Jessica.

Now, on to other news. Of course you know about the May 12th earthquake in Sichuan province. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to get out of your bubble. I wrote a brief blog entry the day of the earthquake just to let everyone know I'm okay. At the time I didn't realize the extent of the devastation and for some reason I haven't come back to comment more on it until now. It's been an incredible experience to see the reactions of the people here. The sorrow and despair, the patriotism and unity, the surge to donate anything including blood, supplies, and money. On the 19th, exactly one week after the earthquake, the country began a three day mourning period. It began at 2:28pm, the time of the earthquake, with 1 minute of silence. That's how I was told it would begin. Actually, when the clock struck 2:28, every train, truck, and taxi in the country blew its horn. That's a lot of noise. My first thought was "that's a strange way to have a minute of silence." Then I learned that it was meant as a wail of grief. A nation wide wail of despair after so many tens of thousands of people were killed. That's intense. For the next three days, all places of entertainment were closed, color was removed Chinese language websites, online entertainment was blocked, the only available media online, on the radio, and on TV was about the earthquake. For 72 straight hours. It seems strange to a foreigner like me to have such an enforced period of mourning, but if you know the culture here it seems fitting that they would honor the people of Sichuan as one big family and in such an all-encompassing way. There's still so much happening in Sichuan and so much work to be done there in the months ahead.

Now it's time for me to go. I actually have to go to class. Boo. On the upside, I've only got three more days of class over the next two weeks, so I can't really complain. Anyhoo, I'll write more later. I know that my own blogging doesn't quite cover all the events that take place here, so I'd suggest that everyone check out the links I've provided to other Shiyan blogs. Angelyn and Jessica's blogs will probably provide insight into any events at my school, while the others may or may not mention me but should still be interesting and thought provoking.

Earthquake Mania

2008-05-12T09:14:00.002-05:00

Seems like every time I turn around there's another earthquake around here. No, I haven't gained weight! Let's see, there was the earthquake on the border of Xinjiang and Tibet that everyone thought was in my backyard, then a week later there was the one in my backyard that no one apparently knew or cared about. Now there's been a rather large earthquake near Chengdu that was felt near and far. I'm sure you've probably read or heard about it, so I'll spare you the scientific details. I will let you know that we felt it here but we're all okie dokie. Around 2:30 when we were leaving for our afternoon classes, Angelyn and Jessica asked me "Can you feel that?" I just kind of looked at them like they were crazy for a second. Once I stopped moving, though, I felt like I'd been drugged or something. Everything was swaying ever so slowly. It was a weird, trippy feeling. We realized it was an earthquake and though "Cool!" then left for class. Of course we got outside and all the buildings had streams of students coming out, afraid that everything including the trees were about to collapse into piles of rubble. If anything fell off of anyone's shelf in town, I'd be very very surprised. We couldn't even feel it unless we stopped moving! Anyhoo, we survived, don't worry about us in Shiyan. Don't forget to pray for those closer to the actual quake, though. It seems there was quite a bit of damage and they're pulling a lot of kids from under piles of rubble at some schools. No one's better at rolling out the masses of emergency workers than China, though. It'll be cleaned up within a week.

Whirlwind tour

2008-04-26T08:55:00.002-05:00

Apparently some of you don't appreciate it when I say things like "Beijing so far" and then don't post anything else. Almost as if "Beijing so far" implies there will be more later. Alright, well I'm finally back to post more. But Michael's already on his way home now, so I guess it has been too long since my last post, after all.

We had a pretty good time in Beijing. We didn't get the train I wanted coming back to Shiyan, so we arrived at the station at 1:30 and had to rush home for my class that started at 2:10. Thanks to no line waiting for taxis and a good driver, I made it with time to spare. I just had the one class on Monday, but then Tuesday I had class from 10 to 5:30 except for lunch. Of course, lunch is 2 1/2 hours here, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds at first. Then the rest of the week I had off due to the fact that some old classes ended and the new ones that began were all on Tuesday. Yay! Lucky me. Basically the whole time Michael was here I was whisking him around from one park or mountain to another. He made a comment about wishing he had a step counter to count the number of stairs he walked up here.

There's a lot to write about, but I'm dead tired from spending 19 of the last 24 hours on a train taking Michael to the airport and then coming back home. Every train I got on with Michael, we seemed to get stuck next to some guys who sounded like they had chainsaws stuck in their throats all night long. I think if there was a snoring event at the Olympics, China would be taking home an extra gold medal this year. Anyhoo, I'll fill in the details and pictures tomorrow. Right now I just want everyone to know that Michael was dropped off at the Wuhan airport this morning and should be somewhere over Russia on his way back to Newark as I type this. Hopefully he'll sleep well on the plane and be ready to greet the American day when he lands. That's all for now, I'm off to bed.

Beijing so far

2008-04-18T23:10:00.002-05:00

Well, both Michael and I made it to Beijing. It was a little bit of an adventure getting together and getting to the hostel. My train got in about one hour before Michael's plane was supposed to land, so I got outside and hopped on a bus toward the airport. A guy working the newspaper stand told me that if I took a certain bus to a certain stop then I could get off and find the airport shuttle bus. That matched up with what I had read in my guidebook (it was just helpful to hear it from a real person instead of reading it in a book possibly 2 years out of date) so I hopped on the bus. I opted for the bus because I could save over 100 yuan compared to taking a taxi and still get to the airport before Michael got through customs. Well, apparently 1pm is the time for every car in Beijing to come out and park on that particular road in the largest traffic jam ever. It took quite a while just to go the 5 stops to where I wanted to get off. Of course, once I got off I had no idea where the airport shuttle bus was and I was feeling pressed for time. I finally just hopped in a taxi and off we went, into yet another slowly moving river of cars.

We got to the airport at 2:30, about 35 minutes after Michael's ETA. I wasn't TOO worried because 1) I'd told Michael this might happen and he should just find a seat and wait for me if I'm not already there waiting for him, and 2) Sometimes it takes an hour or more to get through customs. Well, there we were arriving at the airport, me being not too worried. I ended up only saving about 9 yuan by taking a bus before getting in the taxi, so that part didn't work out as planned. But the taxi took me to the new Terminal 3, which is a good 15-20 minute ride away from the other 2 terminals if you have to go through the loading area to get back to the road. Well, the driver got out and asked for me if this was the right terminal and he told me it was, so I ran inside to find Michael. After 20 or 30 minutes of asking around, pacing back and forth in front of the arrivals gate, and looking at different screens with flights on them, I finally realized that Michael's flight was coming in at Terminal 2. At that point I was more worried. It was after 3 and I figured Michael had been sitting around for about an hour already. I found the shuttle to the next terminal, had to wait about 7 minutes for the driver to decide it was time to leave, sat through the 10-15 minute ride, and then rushed through the departures area to find the escalator down to Arrivals. As soon as I got off I saw Michael sitting in the seating area. Apparently it took almost no time at all to get through customs, so he'd been waiting about an hour and a half for me to get there. He didn't mind too much, I think jetlag had muddied his brain activity a bit.

We took the airport shuttle into town and then walked past Tiananmen Square and up a few blocks to get to where we're staying. It was about twice as far as we thought because Beijing is hugemongous and things are just further than you think. On Friday we climbed the Great Wall and hunted up the Bird's Nest and Bubble, two of the venues for the Olympics. Today we toured the Forbidden City and Tiananmen. Tonight we're planning to go back to the Bubble and watch some freestyle swimming events that are being held. It'll be pretty cool to be able to go inside and watch some world-class athletes. And without the crowds of the Olympics. We hope.

City of Brotherly Love

2008-04-15T21:27:00.003-05:00

This afternoon I'm off to the City of Brotherly Love. No, I'm not going to Philadelphia, I'm just going to Beijing. But I'm going to meet Michael, my oldest brother! I may have only mentioned it once or twice in my blog, so if you missed it then I want to tell you that my brother is coming to visit. I'm pretty excited about it. My mom came to visit my first year here and it felt good to have a piece of home come visit me in China. It's also nice to have someone in the States who can identify with me a little when I'm talking about China. At the current rate of visitors, I only need to stay here another 4 years to get Billy and Jennifer to visit. I think I'll have to stay about a million years before my grandmother would get on a plane, so I guess I better not test that one out. Michael and I will be staying in a hostel across the street (or down the street) from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. On Friday or Saturday we'll make a trip to the Great Wall and hopefully we'll be able to see a few Olympic venues as well. Then Sunday afternoon we'll head back to Shiyan for 5 days of local flavor before I take him to Wuhan to catch a flight home. I'll keep everyone posted on our status. I hope I didn't forget to pack anything!

P.S. - I'd like to give a special shout out to Angelyn, the greatest friend a guy could ever wish for. She's covering my classes while I'm gone to Beijing. You're the greatest!

Ewwww

2008-04-08T10:53:00.001-05:00

Pseudomamma of the foot. Pseudo as in fake. Mamma as in nipple. Ew. Ew. Ew.

TMNST

2008-04-08T10:09:00.003-05:00

I was perusing a site that I often peruse, Sinosplice, and came across an interesting blog entry. Sinosplice is a website put together by a linguistics major and includes various things like pronunciation guides, a blog of funny culture happenings, and reviews of strange snacks from the supermarket. Well, this particular blog entry was about the translation of the theme song from the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) movie. I took the liberty of completely ripping off Sinosplice and just copied it straight to my blog. But I'm crediting them, so it's okay. Right? www.sinosplice.com Is that good enough? Let's hope so. I didn't include the introduction about why he started translating the theme song from this movie in the first place, but you can still enjoy the results. In case you get confused, it's got the line from the movie, the Chinese, the translation, and then commentary.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
少年变异忍者神龟
[Teenage mutant ninja supernatural turtles]

Whoa, did someone sneak an extra word in there? Mostly an exact literal translation, except that the Chinese prefer to call the turtles supernatural turtles (神龟), or “god-turtles,” for the more literal-minded. Thinking this particular phrase might have some root in China’s rich cultural heritage, I did a Baidu image search. Hmmm. Lots of TMNT. No legends involving Guanyin and a massive turtle or something? I guess it’s not as important as TMNT. You know… the god-turtles.

Heroes in a half-shell
身披硬甲的英雄们
[Heroes draped in hard armor]

Hmmm… dramatic, but decidedly less turtley.

Turtle power!
龟的力量!
[Turtle power!]

Sweet!

They’re the world’s most fearsome fighting team
他们要迎接世界的可怕挑战
[They take on the world’s fearsome challenges]

Hmmm, so these “challenges” the translator made up are fearsome, but the turtles are not? Maybe it’s because they’re god-like.

We’re really hip!
我们是最棒的
[We’re the greatest!]

This is actually less humorous than a ridiculous cartoon character from the 80’s saying “we’re really hip.”

They’re heroes in a half-shell and they’re green
他们是身披硬甲的绿色英雄
[They are green heroes draped in hard armor]

Wow. Nice dramatic effect.

Hey - get a grip!
嘿，快跟上!
[Hey, catch up!]

Hey, a turtle is telling you to catch up! That is so cool but crude.

When the evil Shredder attacks,
当坏蛋史莱德来捣乱的时候
[When bad egg Shredder comes to make trouble,]

“Evil”… “bad egg”… more or less the same right? Yes! …in Chinese.

These Turtle boys don’t cut him no slack!
神龟小子们是不会让他好过的
[The supernatural turtle guys will not give him an easy time]

Now I see why they’re not referred to as “fearsome.”

Splinter taught them to be ninja teens
斯普林特老师教授他们成为忍者少年
[Teacher Splinter taught them to become ninja youths]

And here you have the translator correcting the original lyricist’s mistake of not giving Master Splinter proper respect.

He’s a radical rat!
他是一个激情满怀的老鼠
[He is a rat brimming with passion]

Ah yes, “brimming with passion,” the little-known synonym for “radical.”

Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines
里昂那多是领导，多纳泰罗是个天才发明家
[Leonardo is the leader, Donatello is a genius inventor]

This line has lost the ambiguity of “does machines,” but I guess we won’t miss that.

That’s a fact, Jack!
这都是真的，伙计
[This all is true, man]

Props for not using “杰克” (Jack).

Raphael is cool but crude
拉菲尔很酷但有些鲁莽
[Raphael is cool, but he’s a bit crude]

Nice! They even toned it down to just “a bit crude” to save him some face.

Gimme a break!
饶了我吧~
[Forgive me!]

Yes, he is less crude in Chinese.

Michaelangelo is a party dude
米开朗基罗可是一个万人迷
[Michaelangelo is a mack daddy]

Well, it’s debatable whether 万人迷 means “mack daddy” or “ten-thousand men love,” but the real question is where’d the “party” go?

Party!
Party!

Ah, there it is.

April on the move

2008-04-05T03:44:00.003-05:00

Since it's active April, we're always on the lookout for things to do. This year China changed their May holiday from 5 weekdays + the weekend to 2 weekdays + the weekend. Those other weekdays have been used to make other traditional holidays longer. For example, Qing Ming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Festival. This is the day when people go visit the graves of their ancestors, clean them off, burn paper replicas of all the things they want their ancestors to have in the afterlife, and shoot firecrackers to scare away bad spirits. Before this year, people didn't get off work for this. Yesterday was Qing Ming day, and thanks to the new holiday schedule, school was canceled and most people got off work for a long weekend to celebrate. Jessica and I celebrated by climbing a mountain with some students. It was quite an undertaking, involving hours and hours of walking up a road, with the occasional foray onto a shortcut trail. We left at 9 in the morning and got back at just after 5, so it took up the whole day and left us worn out and wanting to chop our feet off to ease the pain. But spring has come so there were flowers all over the place, the weather was great, and it was just great to be outside. I even remembered to take my hat, so the top of my head isn't hot pink today. We saw a few tombs on the side of the mountain as we went up, one bearing signs that someone had lit some firecrackers there that morning or the day before. I imagine they also burned a paper house so their ancestors would have a house in the afterlife, along with a paper car, some (fake) paper money, and maybe a even a paper yacht. I'm just glad I have more to look forward to than paper. I've been promised gold.

The Accidental Revolution

2008-04-02T01:14:00.002-05:00

Tuesday morning I had class with my sophomore English majors. We were trying to find a solution to their problem of having no one to practice English with. Something I've learned in my studies is that if you have a relationship based in one language, it's really tough and awkward to switch to another language. So these kids who have class together all day everyday find it hard to practice English together outside of class. I understand why that is, but I still have to tell them they need to suck it up and do it.
In class we were brainstorming ideas on how to help things along. I suggested they designate a day each week as an "English only" day, but they said they've tried it in the past and it didn't go well. Classmates would slack off and refuse to speak English, friends who weren't taking part would make fun of them for speaking English all day, and they would end up getting discouraged and quit after the first day. So then I thought, why not try it again, only you can speak Chinese with people not in class. They'd only be required to speak English with their classmates. That would avoid people outside of class making fun of them. But if your only choice for practicing English is the same group of classmates all the time, you get tired of talking to them. So I expanded the idea, why not invite the other English major classes? Then we'd have around 200 or more students taking part in English Day each week. Then I thought, why not invite anyone and everyone to participate? So many students complain that they have no one to speak English with, and we foreign teachers often complain that students only target us to practice their English.
Well, at this point things got exciting. In my mind, anyway. At first the idea only involved the 35 students in my class, then grew to include 70 students, then 200. Now the possibilities were enormous. We could get 500, 700, or even (dare I dream) 1,000 students involved in this! Now the problem was how to know who's participating in English Day. You don't want to have to go around every Tuesday asking people if they prefer English or Chinese. I told my students that before class on Thursday they need to come up with some ideas of something everyone could wear as a sign of participation. Something cheap and plentiful. Today a student told me it's possible to get something you can write on and pin on your shirt. Very easy, very cheap. I think they plan to start this next week, so sometime this week we have to go out and find a few hundred of these pins and some markers to write on them.
When I was telling Angelyn and Jessica about this on our way to lunch Tuesday, we were all getting really excited. One of them commented that we could be starting a revolution and we all got more excited. It feels weird to say we're starting any sort of revolution in China, but at least it's a revolution in getting students to practice their English. I'm sure there are some types of revolutions that wouldn't be so welcome. This was really all quite accidental and sudden. I don't know why it took so long for this idea to form itself in any of our brains, but I'm glad it did. It seems to me that at the very least our English majors can take advantage of this to get in more practice and form the habit of speaking without their teachers looming over them, forcing them to speak English. If some students got into that habit, it would definitely revolutionize the classroom environment. I'm tired of having to practically flog my students to get out more than one sentence. I look forward to the day I can leave my whip at home when I leave for class.

The tightest budget I'll ever live on.

2008-04-01T09:18:00.002-05:00

I just went an entire month and only spent 169 yuan. That's $24 and some change. That's crazy. I have never been in true need in my life, and it seems likely that I never will. Trying to live on the budget of someone on welfare has broadened my view immensely. When I explain the concept of Meager March to my students, they all claim it's impossible, but I tell them that it's NOT impossible. Here are some things that happened this month.

1) We cooked more. Vegetables in China are extremely cheap and usually fresh out of the ground. We can buy one dish in a restaurant for 5 yuan or we can buy enough vegetables to cook 5 dishes and cook them ourselves for the same price. I cooked a few dishes that got better each time I tried, and Angelyn and Jessica provided a plethora of dishes, fried rice, and soups. Of course, dirty dishes are from the devil.

2) I lost weight. I didn't know I'd lost weight until a week ago, but apparently I lost about 8 pounds. Probably due to the fact that I only drank 3 cokes the whole month, we walked 90% of the time instead of taking the bus, and I pretty much only ate meat once a week at most. I feel good, though!

3) I had a birthday. I don't know how I didn't blog about this earlier, but I turned 27 back on the 11th. It was a pretty great day. Angelyn and Jessica got some of my students to dress up as the Olympic Mascots and recite a poem for me. Then they brought out a spice cake with cream cheese icing! It was the most amazing experience of my life. Apparently I got the cake mix and icing in the mail from my mom (thanks, mom!) back in October and Angelyn stashed it away secretly after she heard me exclaim that it's my favorite. I totally forgot about it and had no idea where she had acquired the cake nor how she knew it's my favorite. Praise God for good friends! It's hard to beat a birthday with great friends and great icing on your cake.

4) I meditated. No, I wasn't sitting in some weird position in my living room, hovering over the floor. I just spent a lot of time thinking about... well, just about everything there is to think about. For one thing, I often thought about the poor who we were trying to imitate. Almost every day people would offer to pay for me to do something so that I wouldn't go without, so that I would be able to have fun with them, or because they thought it was crazy for me to walk an hour and a half across town when I could just ride the bus. I would always ask myself if people who are actually on welfare in China get this kind of treatment. I imagine many of them might beg and receive money from strangers, but they don't usually seem to have a band of friends about them offering to pay for everything. I think this past month was made much easier due to the support and assistance of many friends, and that seriously makes me want to know more about others and whether they have this same type of support. I have a much different view of how much a small bit of money can help a poor person on the street. Or a large amount. I also meditated about many many other things that I'll have to address later.

This list is far from all-inclusive of the things I learned and did this past month, but it's all I can think to write at the moment. April is being billed as Active April, so we're doing different activities and actively pursuing certain goals that we have set for ourselves this month. It should be a fun month. I'll write more tomorrow, especially since one of my goals is to actively blog. Thanks for being patient, I hope you enjoy my return to blogging!

Earthquake!

2008-03-25T01:16:00.002-05:00

Check one natural disaster off the list. I've officially experienced my first earthquake. Don't worry, I didn't die. Last night at 11:24 I was lying in bed reading when all of a sudden the windows started shaking and it felt like I was swinging slightly in a hammock instead of lying in my bed. It only lasted for three seconds or so. Sure enough, there was a 4.3 magnitude earthquake centered only 30 miles or so from here. It really wasn't much to speak of, the windows probably wouldn't even have made noise if they fit in the molding better. I haven't found anyone who was woken up by it, only people who were awake even noticed it, and then some of those people didn't even notice. Anyhoo, there was a bigger earthquake last week on the Xinjiang/Tibet border and we were swamped with emails and messages asking if we're okay. That earthquake was over 1,000 miles away. Now we have one in our backyard and no one seems to notice! It's a little funny to me. :)

Another successful day

2008-03-21T04:40:00.002-05:00

Just for the record, the days where I don't punch anyone in the face definitely outnumber the days where I do. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've never punched anyone in the face ever. Also on the bright side, today I wasn't even tempted to punch anyone in the face. I just hope Jessica wasn't tempted to punch any little girls.

Today I did not punch two guys in the face. -or- Trying to look at the glass half full.

2008-03-20T09:02:00.006-05:00

It's been a rough two weeks for me. Meager March is progressing well. I'm right on budget, having spent 104 yuan in the first 20 days of March. That includes a haircut, a couple of bus rides, and more time on my computer than I ever planned on. Of course, if I was really on welfare here then I wouldn't even have a computer. But the meagerness isn't really the rough part. In fact, the meagerness has only contributed to my peace of mind and sizable ego. Just today Jessica commented on how I'm the only male taking part in Shiyan's Meager March. "You're the only one who was man enough to accept the challenge." That's what she said. *insert laugh here if you've ever watched The Office* No, the rough part has been a very tough patch of culture shock, homesickness, and worrying about my future, which all conveniently hit at the same moment last week. So I've run the whole gambit from "I'm moving to Korea next year," to "I'm opening a coffee shop in Shiyan next year," to "I'm moving back to the States next year," to "I'm not even waiting for my contract to end, I'm leaving tomorrow." Like I said, it's been a rough two weeks.

So now I'm stepping back and instead of looking at all the bad and annoying things around me, I'm trying to be more optimistic. This glass isn't half empty! It's sort of almost halfway full! So I won't sum up today by saying I almost hit two guys in the face. Instead, I'm gonna tell you that today I did NOT punch two guys in the face. And right after I didn't punch the first guy, we found a store that sold whipping cream and they even whipped it for us for free. Yay! Then on the way back to school Jessica didn't punch a little girl in the face. Which is way funnier than me not punching a man in the face. (I hope you realize that "not punching someone in the face" is code for "I really almost punched someone in the face but restrained myself.")

But there are always things that you just can't put a pretty face on. Like racism, or riots, or affairs, or outright hatred. I know I have a hard time with a lot of things, but I just don't understand when people refuse to love. When promises made are considered null and void because you think you might like someone else better. Or when someone dies but you can't go to their funeral or offer support because their congregation split from yours and no one in that group will associate with you anymore. Shunning someone in public because they support giving a Bible to someone. That amounts to public hatred. Turning your back on someone in the supermarket when they say hi to you. Preaching hatred instead of love. Legalism instead of truth and spirit. Limiting yourself and everyone you come in contact with instead of letting Christ set you free. I admit that I've got a whole tree growing out of my eye, but some people don't even realize that they're blind in both eyes and walking into a pit.

There's so much more that I want to say, but I don't think I should. Most of you probably have no idea what any of that alludes to, and that's okay. This post isn't aimed at you. If you do know, then hopefully you understand my meaning. Selfishness, unfaithfulness, pride, hatred, ungodly actions; they all manifest themselves in the smallest and largest ways possible. If we can't take a slap in the face without giving up or slapping back, then we need to reevaluate ourselves. We should respond with love! If we can't love unconditionally, it's not really love. If we can't be loyal to our first love, what's keeping us with our second love? Or third? If, in a town of 15,000 people, both lost and Christian, the only ones who aren't welcome at your funeral are the other Christians, what's the point of even calling yourself a Christian? Even though I'm pretty sure I'm not perfect at all the things I just mentioned, I still can't understand blatant disregard for some of these. Some of the most central aspects of Christianity and Love, yet we can't seem to even grasp the idea.

I have a feeling my blog has developed a negative tone during the last few posts. I have to be honest, I've been very very down lately. I have some great high moments everyday, like when my family calls or I'm with friends here, but then 2 minutes later I'm back down again. For the last two weeks. I have faith that I'll come out of this rut soon, but I just want people to know that they don't help by abandoning or being hateful. I'm not just saying they don't help me. They don't help the world. They don't help themselves. They don't help the Kingdom. They don't help God. The only one they help is the very one trying to destroy them. So if you're not helping, sit back and put things in perspective. You don't matter, others matter. I don't matter, others matter. We don't matter, others don't even really matter. Only God matters. And he's already told you what to do. Love him first. Love others first. He'll worry about you. That's all that matters. My cups not half empty. My cup overflows.

Schedule Planning Party

2008-03-04T00:32:00.002-06:00

Today and yesterday I feel like I have been having one, long party for planning my schedule. Last week we had a meeting with the guy in charge of giving us our class assignments. Abraham. He's fairly incompetent. Don't think that I just don't like the guy or anything like that. We actually spend a lot of time convincing ourselves that we just don't give him a chance to show his true colors, but then he always swoops in and ruins things again. Like not knowing how many classes he assigned to each of us, so one person has 2 while another has 10. Or not giving us a class roll until the week of the final. Or not answering or returning phone calls and then pretending he didn't know we called him when we see him face to face. (It's a cell phone, it's hard not to notice something like that.) We tried to pump ourselves up and get excited about meeting with him to get our teaching assignments. We were told school would start the 25th, so we should be back at least by the 23rd or 24th to get our classes. We came back on time, sat around for a week or so, tried to call and text him to find out when he wanted to meet with us. His reply: "I'll meet with you when I'm ready." So on the 25th (the first day of class) I got a call at 8 in the morning saying we should meet Abraham in the office at 10 to get our class assignments. He ended up giving each of us one or two classes, then said that we would receive more before the end of the week. "Friday is the deadline," he said. Friday came and went, Monday came back around, we were all going to teach the first day of an elective class that all 4 of us teach at the same time (in different rooms, of course), and Abraham showed up in our classrooms to give us the rest of our class assignments. Of course, what we REALLY wanted was the class roll. And a classroom with more than 55 seats since my class had 63 students. But alas, he couldn't provide either so some students ran and found extra stools from another room while others just sat on each other. Some of the classes he assigned us yesterday started yesterday, but I somehow didn't get one of those classes.

Right now I have one class on Monday afternoons, a Tuesday/Thursday morning class, and 4 other classes in the other afternoons. We've also set aside a time for the foreigners at my school to get together at 8 most mornings each week to study and talk. So far, it's been fun. On top of that, we found a Chinese Sister to tutor each of us for an hour each day to continue our language learning. There's also a study on Saturday nights at my school, some birthday parties coming up, Michael is coming to visit in April (if you didn't know, my brother is coming in April!!!), a weekly guy's lunch that we're trying to plan, and all sorts of things that I don't even know about yet. It's been fun comparing schedules with people trying to find a time to get together. One thing we're focusing on this term is smaller groups. Less worrying about getting everyone involved, more attention on being effective and fulfilling our purpose. It should be a good term, I think.

Meager March is off to a fair start. I've had my computer on a lot just because I still have some necessary things to pay attention on Skype and my email, but I'm trying to avoid any and all frivolous use of the internet for personal use. I can only use it for important things, like class planning, research, talking to my family, etc. By the way, my family can feel free to continue trying to call me this month, I won't abandon you. I'm on day 4 and I've spent 13 yuan, so I'm doing well with money. The total for the month averages out to 5.45 each day, so I'm a little under par. I'm sure there will be some big expense just over the horizon, though! Well, I'm up to 15 yuan with all the time I'm spending doing personal things online today, so I'm going to run along now. Happy birthday to the 50 bajillion people having a birthday in my family this month. Happy birthday today, Suzannah! Much love to all.

Farewell Festive, Hello Meager

2008-02-29T08:18:00.002-06:00

Happy Leap Day! A great close to Festive February, Leap Day was a day for... leaping. You got it, today's task was to get the biggest game of leap frog you could possibly muster. Considering Chinese have never heard of or seen this game before, it's not so easy. However, it was made easier by the fact that I totally forgot, and therefore didn't do it. *sigh* I feel guilty, maybe I should make up for it by playing leap frog tomorrow. We'll see what happens.

Well, now that Festive February is drawing to a close, we're preparing for Meager March. I've got my walking shoes dusted off, my stomach is ready to say goodbye to restaurant food for a month (sorry Happy Guy!), and my computer is already pouting from the lack of attention it will get. I'll probably wait a few days to see how much food eats into my 5.5 yuan daily budget before attempting any internet time. Since internet costs 2 per hour at the library, that's what we're going to charge ourselves. That's a big chunk of one day's budget for an hour, but if food turns out cheap enough then I'll try to manage a few blog posts in March. Wouldn't want you to think I've fallen off the face of the planet! The massive amounts of free time in March (due to lack of movies and other electronics to waste our time on) will be spent in physical exercise, spiritual meditation, intellectual upkeep (fancy phrase that just means "reading books"), and forming good habits. That's the plan, anyway. I think that the 6 of us doing Meager March in Shiyan (myself, Angelyn, Jessica, Darla, John, and Megan) will be able to encourage each other a lot to stick to the spirit of the month. That spirit would be a spirit of relflection, improvement, and action. Anyhoo, I'm worn out at the moment so you'll just have to wait a few days until I feel comfortable spending money on another post. I've only got one and a half hours left before March, maybe I should go buy a Coke or something. Nah, I'll just go to bed.

Getting mail and spring cleaning

2008-02-21T22:43:00.002-06:00

First, I need to let mom and grandmother know that I got their packages. Thanks for the goodies! I got some fresh socks and tshirts, and you have no idea how amazing it felt to put on a pair of socks and a tshirt that have never been washed in a Chinese washing machine. I feel like I'm floating.

If you recall our list of alliterations, February is both Focus February (because we were focused at language school for a while) and Festive February (to celebrate the less well-known holidays each day of the month). Well the 20th of February was Hidey Hoe Day. Never heard of it? Neither had we, but we're glad we came across it. At 12 noon on Hidey Hoe Day, you're supposed to run outside and yell "hidey hoe!" to scare away winter. We also found a website that called it Hoodey Hoo Day. Well, at 12 noon on that day, Angelyn and I went out on her balcony and yelled. We weren't sure which was correct, so she yelled hidey ho and I yelled hoodey hoo. Then we quickly retreated inside before the neighbors came to investigate. Lo and behold, it's been getting warmer every single day since then. Granted, it's only been 2 days or so, but it's so much warmer that I probably don't need a jacket today. I am a new fan of Hidey Ho Day.

For the last two days I've been trying to clean my apartment. It's in a perpetual state of disarray, so I figured I should do something about it. In two days of work, I've managed to make a bigger mess in every room. And sweep half the floor in my bedroom. I'm making progress! After I post this blog, I'm turning off the computer and getting more serious about cleaning. In another day or two, we'll be called to the English Department to get our class assignments that will begin on Monday, so if I don't finish cleaning now then it will spill over into class time. If that happens, I'll probably never finish cleaning. I'm not much of a multitasker sometimes. Alrighty, that's all for today. I won't be back online until my apartment is undisarrayed. See you either tomorrow or next month.

A quarter to danger

2008-02-21T21:15:00.002-06:00

Have you ever seen/read Harry Potter? You know that clock the Weasleys have? Instead of the time it shows each member of the family and what they're doing. If they are coming home then the hand moves to Coming Home, if they're in imminent danger then the hand moves to Imminent Danger. You get the idea. I was thinking that if everyone in the world had one of those clocks, more of those clocks would point to Danger at this time of year than at any other time of year. Why? Because it's the Chinese New Year, that's why. During these two weeks, there are untold numbers of people smashed onto trains and buses, which isn't necessarily extra dangerous in itself. It just seems more dangerous in my mind to have so many people crammed into one vehicle. The thing that would push all those clocks over the edge would be the crowds of people gathered in the streets, using cigarettes to shoot fireworks and firecrackers straight out of their hands. The most scared I've ever been in China was my first year during Chinese New Year. I went with some friends to the square here in town for the last night of the festival. We saw all the Chinese going there, we figured we should too. It turned into a mass of people, practically shoulder to shoulder, shooting various things filled with gunpowder into the air. When you stick up head and shoulders past the crowd, all of those things are shooting past your face!
They don't just shoot up into the air, though. They then explode and throw pieces of cardboard and paper (and sometimes colorful pieces of burning metal or other minerals) out in all directions. It's the loudest, most chaotic, most dangerous thing I have ever witnessed. It only took about 5 or 10 minutes for me to get freaked out (even little kids are given things to light) so I left and watched the explosions from a safe hilltop on our school campus. You can literally turn in any direction and see a fireworks display on the first and last nights of the festival. The festival lasts for two weeks and every day in the middle is filled with intermittent bursts of fireworks (intermittent being every 5 minutes). The first and last days, you don't really go more than 10 seconds without more booms and kapows. It's pretty cool, I must say. Anyhoo, last night was the last night and I unfortunately went to bed very early with a very bad headache so didn't really witness any of the celebrating. I feel better today, though. Oh well, I'll just buy some fireworks and make my own show this weekend.

Jeremy is headed home

2008-02-21T00:41:00.001-06:00

Jeremy is back in China to collect his belongings and say goodbye to his friends. He will return to the USA early next week. He is continuing to improve. Jeremy's medical condition will be evaluated after his return to the USA, but his future medical needs are unknown at this time.

We are pleased to report (as of 2/20/2008) that the funds received by FHU for the benefit of Jeremy McGill’s medical expenses total $23,566. FHU has expensed $13,500 for a net balance remaining of $10,066. There have been 114 donors and 123 gifts given.

Thanks to all for their generosity in helping Jeremy in this crisis.

With power comes responsibility

2008-02-19T23:49:00.002-06:00

Living in China is tough. I mean, it's not all tough, there are definite perks. For example, I'm guaranteed not to be assigned more than 16 hours of class in any given week. And I don't have to pay for my apartment or utilities. And I can buy movies for $1. But there are things that wear me down. Such as the billion+ people who yell "Foreigner!" at me everyday on the street. Or the same people who talk about me two feet away and then say "Don't worry, foreigners can't understand Chinese." Usually when I complain in my blog it's because I'm in a particularly bad mood and/or I'm culture shocking. Not so today. I just feel extra pressure from all the people talking at me/about me, I guess.

Before going to language school, I had a pretty good idea when people were talking about me. I usually could understand them. It's been happening every day since I came to China, so I'm fairly used to it. Sometimes I can shrug it off, sometimes it instantly puts me in a bad mood. I guess it's kind of annoying automatically being put in a separate group. I'm never viewed as normal. 99.99999% of the time I am viewed as a strange outsider from the moment anyone spots me. It's never assumed that maybe I'm just a normal guy who breaths air and bleeds blood. I like reading. I like nice people, tend to stay away from mean people. Things most people in the world do naturally, I do those same things. Not so in China. It's assumed that I'm filthy rich, don't understand anything going on around me, am as helpless as a newborn, and that if someone says hello to me on the bus I am then indebted to them and should teach their child English. In fact, I understand plenty of what is going on around me everyday, I can go shopping just fine on my own, thank you, I don't know you or your son and would prefer not to teach either of you English, but thanks for asking, and chopsticks aren't nearly as hard to use as the Chinese seem to think they should be.

I should try to get to the point so that you won't think I'm just feeling angry today. The point is that in the past, when I haven't been able to just shrug these things off and they have made me angry, I have always run through a list of things in my head that I would love to say. I've got a nice rant prepared about how Chinese people never act towards other Chinese the way they act towards foreigners. I was told just less than two weeks ago that Chinese people never say "can I make friends with you?" to other Chinese people. Yet since being told that, no less than 4 total strangers have come up and said that to me in Chinese. Chinese people don't yell "ni hao!" across the street at other Chinese people they don't know, but I can't go outside more than 30 seconds without someone between the ages of 2 and 90 yelling "helloooooo" at me. My list of things to say also includes things like "take a picture, it'll last longer", "I'm not a performing monkey so don't treat me like one", and many other things along those lines. Back to my point. I used to get angry and run through this list of things to say, but I never felt confident in my ability to say them. It wouldn't do to yell at someone and have them laugh at my poor grammar, right? Now I'm confident that I could say most of the things I want to say, but I have to check myself. It's one thing to have these things run through my mind, it's a totally different thing to act on it. With my newfound knowledge and power to say things coherently in Chinese comes the responsibility to actually interact in a civil manner. Before I could just convince myself that I can't say anything at all to the offender and thereby convince myself to just smile and walk away or to just ignore them completely. Now I have to accept the fact that I can say something but I shouldn't say it. The difference is actually much bigger than you would expect. Going to language school has clarified a lot of things for me, but in another way it has complicated things.

At the same time, language school has made me more thankful for the people that I have known for a long time. Happy Guy, the fruit ladies, Juice lady, the egg and flour lady, they all are used to me and we have a long history of saying hi to each other and chatting while I buy things from them. Since they all work in the same general area, they have all passed on the news that we studied Chinese during the break, so they're all anxious to chat with us even more. After going to Happy Guy's hometown for a couple of days, he's even commented on how much strangers are amazed by me. He couldn't believe how many people would stare at me, follow me around, and yell hello at me when I was in his village. I'm not strange to him, I'm just Brian. His daughter even scolded a few of their neighbors for talking about me as if I wasn't standing right next to them. They didn't believe her when she said I could understand them until I assured them that I could, then they just laughed their way inside, probably embarrassed.

So did you catch my point in all that rambling? Maybe I should sum things up. Language school has helped a lot for obvious reasons. When living in China, it's always easier when you know Chinese. However, things have also gotten more complicated. Now I have these old habits that are suddenly much more dangerous because of my improved skills. I definitely need to work on changing these old habits and replace them with more helpful ones. Finally, no amount of frustration caused by annoying strangers can compare to the thankfulness I feel for the people who treat me like a normal person. Being treated like a normal person in a place where the vast majority of people treat you like something else entirely is something that cannot be described.

Henan Pictures

2008-02-19T19:15:00.000-06:00

I've been having trouble connecting with Blogger lately. I'm not sure if it's something with the website or with my internet service. I got sick of trying to put more pictures and video on here with the connection problem, so this is all for now. If it gets more consistent in the next few days then I'll try adding more. Enjoy!

Here are a few pictures from my two days in Zhang Village near Linpa, Henan. Happy Guy took my camera away from me about 5 minutes after I got there so most of the pictures are "Chinese style". That means they're either tilted or not centered.

Here I am with Happy Guy, soon after my arrival.

Stewie, HG's son. He's 9. You can see the neighbor's grandkid in the background.

Here I am in front of the house. It's the traditional style of a house with an enclosed courtyard. The sign over my head is wishing Zhang Cheng (HG's daughter) a happy 12th birthday. The others are (l to r) HG's little sister, HG's older sister, HG's wife, and HG's mom.

This is HG's little sister and her son. He's actually 5, he's just a little small for his age. He's got the pose down, though.

This is a short video just after Amber blew out her candles. You can get a look at the cake. Chinese people know how to make a good looking cake.

Happy Guy took several videos trying to get in every single person at the party. Since the party spanned several rooms and more than one yard, I've only put in this one video to give you a taste. The very first lady you see sitting in the corner is Happy Guy's 90 year old grandmother.

A bird's eye view

2008-02-17T08:03:00.002-06:00

Since school hasn't started back yet things have been pretty slow around here. I've spent a lot of time in the last four days or so making maps on Google Maps for the future newbies who come to Shiyan. I thought some of you might be interested in getting a look at our city, so you can click here to see my map. I actually made three maps! If you're looking at the map, click on my profile name and it will show all the maps I made. The other two maps are of bus routes around the city. Next time some new people come to Shiyan they can add all three maps to their MyMaps on Google, then they will be able to toggle the bus routes on and off to see which bus will help them reach their destination. I've finished the bulk of the work and from here on out should just be touching up a few things, maybe adding a few more bus routes. If anyone knows their way around Shiyan and knows of something I forgot to include, please let me know!

Jeremy released from the hospital

2008-02-14T18:54:00.001-06:00

Jeremy McGill has been released from the hospital today (Thursday).

He will be staying at a local church in Bangkok to recuperate for a few more days to build up his strength before he leaves.

Jeremy is so thankful for all the love, prayers, and financial assistance from so many people around the world.

Jeremy's email address is: (ask Brian if you want it)

As of 2/14/08 the balance of the McGill medical fund at FHU is $11,372.

To Henan and back

2008-02-13T07:14:00.002-06:00

Well, I've been having trouble getting onto Blogger lately. I don't know if it's Chinese internet in general or just my connection. I found out that if I try long enough I can always eventually get on, though. Most of the time it's after I've been trying too long and I don't even want to blog anymore. Anyhoo, I got back from Kunming last week, spent the weekend vegging, and on Tuesday morning I got up bright and early to hop on the 6am bus to Henan. Why was I going to Henan? To visit Happy Guy in his hometown, of course! Not just his hometown, though. His homevillage. This place is called Zhang village. His family name is Zhang, along with 99% of the people in the village. At some point in history this village was named for the family that lived there. The people there now are all related at some point in the very distant past, but most of them don't claim to be related today. Anyway, I took the bus about three hours, just into the province north of here, got off at a place so small you can't buy a ticket to get there, you just have to tell the driver where you want off (another reason this trip was so interesting), and was met by Happy Guy's wife and sister. They drove me another 20 minutes or so to their village. I was told that the 13th (today) is Zhang Cheng's (Happy Guy's daughter's) birthday. It turns out it was yesterday (the 12th) so I arrived around 9:30 or 10 to a crowd of well over 100 people. Of course, I was the first foreigner ever to come to their village. It's a good thing I just got back from a month of language school, but it's a real pity that all the people in that village speak a Henan dialect and not standard Mandarin. I couldn't understand the majority of the people trying to talk to me, but Happy Guy has three sisters and they all live in the city so they all speak Mandarin. Between Happy Guy and his sisters (who I knew before this) there was always someone around to translate (from Chinese into Chinese), rescue me from neighbors who had too much rice wine in them, or just to help me feel at ease with so many people staring at me while I sit in a chair in the middle of the yard. Conversation topics were about what I expected: I'm tall, I have hair on my face and arms, my watch is shiny, what is my monthly salary, how much did my watch cost, the cost of my camera, do I know anyone in America who can fill a suitcase with these (relatively) cheap cameras and bring them to China, did I come to China to find a Chinese wife, do I want to meet the girl down the street, does America have chicken, does America have goats, does America have motorcycles, etc. It was a typical Chinese experience in that they were amazed that I could eat with chopsticks, wasn't afraid of the chickens and goats walking around the yard, knew to breath in and out, and all the other things that most of us would think are basically universal around the world. It was more enjoyable than the average China experience in that, compared to when people just come up and talk to me on the street, these people weren't talking to me just to practice English. They were just nice people chatting with the visitor.

I ended up staying overnight because Happy Guy tricked me. He told me to come on the early morning bus and then after dinner he'd take me to catch a bus home to Shiyan. After I got there he started talking about where I'd sleep and all this other stuff, but I was telling him that I hadn't planned on staying and didn't bring anything other than my camera and a book to read on the bus. Then he told me that there wouldn't be any more buses going towards Shiyan that day and that I should just stay and ride home with them the next day. Of course, what could I do but agree? It's not like I even knew where I was other than somewhere north of Shiyan in the next province. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I stayed. As awesome as Chinese food is, it's even more awesome when you're in a village in the freezing cold. Meal time is when you get to fill yourself with hot food and tea and warm your hands on the bowls and cups in the process.

There's more to the story, but I'm tired and I just realized I haven't even gotten the pictures off my camera yet. I'm going to sleep off some of this chapped skin I got from the wind (in just one day!) and I'll post pictures and more stories tomorrow. Wan an! 晚安！ Good night!

Important Update About Jeremy!

2008-02-13T07:04:00.003-06:00

I've been a little slack in updating Jeremy's condition lately. I didn't post the last two emails I got about him and now I've come home to two more. I'll get right to it! He was moved to the hospital in Thailand since they have more experience with elephant trauma. The same insurance that forced the move to Thailand was basically used up by paying for the medical evacuation, so he's been without insurance for about two weeks now. A fund has been set up by Freed Hardeman University to help him out. If you'd like to help out, here's some info about it:

Friends,

Right now it looks like Jeremy's financial needs are in the neighborhood of $15,000 to $20,000 after the insurance has been paid. We have friends in Thailand working on his behalf to see if this amount can be negotiated. He is to be released Tuesday or Wednesday and is scheduled to continue with out-patient treatment for another 7-10 days.

We have also learned that in addition to checks, Freed Hardeman can accept credit cards on Jeremy's behalf.
You may telephone Burton Williams' office with credit card information: 731-989-6020
Or mail your check to:

Freed-Hardeman University

Attn: Jeremy McGill Medical Fund

158 East Main St.

Henderson, TN 38340

As of Sunday, the balance in his medical fund at FHU is $4000. Your consideration of his very urgent need is greatly appreciated.

I was also forwarded an email that was originally written by Jeremy himself:

Dear friends and family,
As most of you know I was attacked by four elephants in southern China. I'm now in Thailand in the Bangkok hospital. They will be realeasing me today because they have not received payment and I have no more insurance. I hate to be in need, but I am in need. Freed-Hardeman has set up a fund for me to help with my medical bill and to help me get home back to the United States. So I'm here to ask you to help if you can, and if not, forward this E-mail to all your friends and to churches. God has seen to it to keep me alive in this incident. I know my pain can show his glory. Thank you for your prayers and please continue to pray. Right now, they are holding me prisoner until I pay the full amount, and this really discomforts me; this is no joke they are holding me prisoner until my hospital bill is paid, please help, I want to come home,

Jeremy McGill,
good enough to smile, strong enough to cry

That's all I know. He's been getting much better, had an infection at one point from his original surgeries but got over that, and is getting a lot of visitors since quite a few China teachers are in Thailand during winter break and also for a conference this next week. As you can probably see, any help that can be provided for Jeremy will be greatly appreciated. If you mail something in to Freed, make sure that it's clearly marked for Jeremy McGill so they will know what to do with it.

Shiyan

2008-02-07T08:44:00.001-06:00

We made it back home today. Just wanted everyone to know. I'm off to bed.

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

2008-02-05T21:36:00.000-06:00

Don't know when I'll be back again. Really, I'm flying out of Kunming tonight. Angelyn and I broke down and bought some plane tickets to Wuhan since we don't know if/when we'd ever be able to get on a train. They went from selling tickets 10 days in advance to 5 days and then finally 1 day in advance because of all the trouble with snow and whatnot. If you've been following the news then you probably know that traveling on China's trains right now is not a good idea. At all. Check out CNN.com if you don't know what I'm talking about. It's been all over the news for almost three weeks now. We'll get to Wuhan right around midnight tonight so we'll go catch a bus in the morning to Shiyan. We should be home by 3pm Thursday if all goes well!

Super Tuesday is coming to a close in America at the moment, so we're all glued to various news sites to catch the latest updates. It's tough to follow politics from China since I can't just turn on the TV or radio and listen to whatever is going on. I have to actively seek it out online. Since I'm not always interested in politics 100% of the time that means I'm not always keeping up. Luckily we have Jessica, an avid supporter of Barack Obama, to keep us on our toes. She's also an avid opponent of Hillary, so we don't mind her rants and raves. She's down in SE Asia traveling through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand at the moment, so we're missing her on this Super Tuesday. Come back, Jessica!

I finished class Monday. Originally I was supposed to finish this Friday but we worked ahead by meeting on Saturdays and meeting twice this past Saturday. Today is the Chinese New Year, so our teachers wanted to be free to go home during the holiday. I didn't mind helping them out during the holidays, but it was definitely tough having 20 days of class shortened from 4 full weeks to barely three. I survived, though, and I feel like I'm more confident in my Chinese ability. I can also write a daily journal in Chinese and I managed to read a newspaper article in class Saturday afternoon. It was about a retired teacher who had someone open a dog selling business in the apartment above her and all the noise, smells, and fighting that ensued. Now I just need to try not to forget what I learned.

I'm going to miss Kunming. It's got incredible weather and equally (if not more) incredible western food. There's a place here called Salvador's that has amazing Mexican food and ice cream desserts. And it's just down the street from a place that sells root beer and Dr. Pepper. The down side is that I spent waaaaaaaaaay more than I originally planned to so now I'm practically broke. I was expecting my bank account to be low due to the cost of the school, but I also planned on us only eating Western food once a week. Boy was that overoptimistic! We were lucky to stick to three times a week. I don't even know if we did stick to three times a week. Luckily Meager March starts soon and I'll only be spending 170 yuan that month. That should just about make up for the money I wasted on quesadillas, ice cream on top of brownies, root beer, and the two awesome foot massages I got.

Happy Guy has been texting me about coming to his hometown after I get back to Shiyan. It's about 3 hours to the north by bus, just into Henan province. I think I'd love to go if I wasn't just getting back from a bus, a flight, and a month away from my apartment. Plus, I'd be arriving after all the festivities. It's like inviting someone for Christmas or Christmas Eve and them arriving late on the 26th. I told him I'd try to go visit next time he goes home, he just needs to let me know when I'm not halfway across the country. :) As it is, I'm looking forward to being in my own apartment again, seeing some people I haven't seen in a while, and just being back in good ol' Shiyan.

Medical Update

2008-01-30T17:17:00.000-06:00

Here's the latest email I received about Jeremy. There is an address to send money to help with his bills and there are also two mailing addresses if you would like to send him a card. If you want to call him then I can't help, sorry!

We have just spoken with Sparkie [Tuesday, 10:30 am CST -- Tuesday 11:30 pm, Bangkok].

After spending 4 nights in the hospital in China Jeremy is now in Bangkok, Thailand. The flight went well--Sparkie says he slept most of the way since Jeremy had a private doctor and nurse on the flight.

Here is the current medical report: Jeremy is in serious but stable condition in ICU but is expected to make a full recovery. So far, the hospital in Bangkok has done an MRI, CT scan and an operation to clean up his incision. There is blood in his lungs which is being drained through a drainage tube on his right side. His shoulder is not broken (as earlier indicated) but the doctors say he has a torn tendon, however he does have broken ribs. His vital signs are okay. Jeremy is on a respirator, sedated, and cannot talk at present. Sparkie is allowed to visit for 3 1/2 hours in the morning and 5 hours in the evening.

I also spoke with the insurance company yesterday about his mounting medical bills--Jeremy's insurance policy has a cap of $50,000 [half of which was used for the med jet flight to Bangkok]. Freed-Hardeman University has set up a fund to help with these bills when the insurance runs out.

If you or someone you know would like to help Jeremy, a check can be sent to:

Freed-Hardeman University

ATTN: Jeremy McGill Medical Fund

158 East Main St.

Henderson, TN 38340

Sparkie has been in contact with the local family in Bangkok--in fact they are allowing him to stay at their building. Also Sparkie has been in contact with two grads from Freed-Hardeman who live in Bangkok--Neale and Dalissa Bryan.

Sparkie says that Jeremy sends his love to everyone who has been lifting him before the Great Physician--to those who know him as well as those whom he has not met yet. Jeremy's mother was interviewed on a Nashville TV station: http://www.wsmv.com/video/15158943/index.html

If you would like to send a card or letter to Jeremy below you will find two options:

Bangkok Hospital Medical Center

Mr. Jeremy McGill
2 Soi Soonvijai 7, New Petchburi Road

Bangkapi , Huay Khwang Bangkok 10310

or you can send a card (before February 12, 2008) to Ryan & Rachel Swanson (FHU grads) who will be attending a conference in Thailand:

Ryan & Rachel Swanson

ATTN: Jeremy McGill

231 Lake Drive

Pontotoc, MS 38863

Jeremy moves to Bangkok

2008-01-28T01:38:00.000-06:00

Two things. First, Jeremy's story made it onto FoxNews. Here's a link. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325894,00.html Second, here's an email update I received this morning.

Kyle & Sparkie report that all of Jeremy's vital signs seem to be fine, but today was a very painful day for him. They do not know if the pain is getting more intense or if his body has gotten used to the medicine. Most of the pain is in his stomach/abdomen area.

Everything is a "go" for Jeremy to be transferred by air ambulance to Bangkok in just a few hours. All of the permits and paperwork is done. The air ambulance has 2 pilots, a critical care doctor and critical care nurse. It is a 2 1/2 hour flight. Sparkie Smith will accompany Jeremy on the plane and stay with him for awhile. Once he arrives, the critical care team in Bangkok will assess all his injuries and prescribe a course of treatment.

As soon as we receive new contact information for Jeremy in the Bangkok hospital, we will forward it on.

Please continue to pray for him.

Story about Jeremy

2008-01-27T07:43:00.000-06:00

Here's a link to the China Daily, China's English newspaper.

http://www.chinadaily.net/china/2008-01/27/content_6423499.htm

Another Jeremy Update (revised)

2008-01-26T18:59:00.000-06:00

In the latest email update I've received, Jeremy now has two friends by his side in the hospital, Kyle Meyers and Sparkie Smith. Jeremy is under constant supervision by doctors from the hospital and also by some doctors sent by the embassy. I've heard that he was "attacked" by an elephant, "trampled" by an elephant, and "gored" by an elephant, so I don't know the exact nature of all of his injuries. The only specific I know is that he had damage to his lungs and he has a broken shoulder, among many other injuries. At first he was on a respirator and had blood oxygen content around 70%, but now he is off the respirator. He still needs oxygen but his blood oxygen level is at 90% or above. He's being "incredibly positive and faithful". Right now his breathing is the most critical thing and it has been slowly improving from quick and shallow to a steadier rhythm. They think that they will be able to move him to a hospital in Thailand, but it will be Monday afternoon at the earliest. It all depends on his breathing, I think. His insurance company requested the move to Thailand since they have more experience in elephant related injuries. The doctors say it will be a long recovery and that he may walk again in 3 months.

Thanks everyone, for your prayers and mindfulness in this. A lot of you have been expressing sympathy and support to me, but I want to let you know that this isn't the same Jeremy I have a link to on my blog. I don't actually know this Jeremy, but we're in China in the same circumstances and those of us in Kunming were in a position to possibly get to his side faster than anyone else. That's why I was possibly going to go down. I just say that so that people won't worry about me at all. Continue to keep Jeremy in your thoughts, though. He needs it, I don't. I know some friends of his family have been reading this, so I'll try to keep things updated as I find out more.

On a more personal note, language school is going pretty well. I think this 6 days of class each week almost got to me this past week. Saturday came along and I just didn't care anymore. But now it's Sunday, I don't have class, and I can just study all day long instead of going to class and then studying. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Monday or Tuesday I think I'll start book 3. My teacher is excited because no one studying at this school has ever made it to book 3. I'll be the first. Yay! Most of my day still consists of class and studying, but we've finished 12 of 20 days of class so it won't be much longer now until we're done and I can move on to things outside of this building. On that note, it's 9:30 in the morning and I haven't even started studying yet. I should get on that.

Update

2008-01-25T00:15:00.000-06:00

Kyle's flight made it out of Wuhan so I won't be going to the hospital. A representative from Jeremy's school is apparently going with Kyle (and a Chinese Brother that Kyle brought along), but said representative seems to be fixated with the medical costs and is griping about getting insurance numbers and whatnot. I'm pretty sure Kyle is walking the line between extreme irritation and physical violence, trying not to punch that lady in the face. No further updates on Jeremy's condition since last I heard. He wasn't doing well at that time. Continue to pray for him and his family.

Prayer Request

2008-01-24T19:54:00.000-06:00

Jeremy McGill, a teacher with our group in Wuhan, was trampled by an elephant while traveling in southern Yunnan province. He's alone and in critical condition in the hospital. His friend in Wuhan is trying to get a flight down to be with him but there's a possibility that he won't be able to because of a snowstorm in Wuhan. If Kyle can't get a flight then I will probably go down today because Kunming is in the same province so the three of us at language school are the closest people to him. The latest report said he wasn't improving and some doctors were on their way from the embassy to check on him. Please keep him and his family in your prayers constantly.

A look at school life

2008-01-21T01:11:00.000-06:00

I thought some of you might like to see some pictures of what I'm doing here. These first pictures are of my room, study table, and view out the window. Kunming is a really nice city. It actually has blue sky! I didn't think it was possible for a big Chinese city to have blue sky, but Kunming definitely has one of the bluest skies I've ever seen. It's also relatively warm (60s and 70s) since it's down next to Vietnam and Myanmar. It started snowing the day we left Shiyan so this is a nice change. Enough talking, here are some pictures!

We don't go very far from the building much since we're always studying. That pedestrian crossover in the above picture is the farthest we go most days. It's sad, I know. Blame it on homework. Speaking of homework, here are a few pictures of my homework for all you curious cats.

This is one of my journal entries. I messed up the sentence in the middle, hence the red ink. But overall it was good, so she drew one of her weird smileys at the end. Mv.

Here's a page from the text book. It's not all like this. This page is just packed with phrases to practice.

I get to trace a character and then practice writing it on my own. And then write it in a dictation quiz the next day. Today my quiz consisted of about 80 characters that I learned last week. It took a long time.

Spring Festival is around February 6th and 7th. Our teachers want to go home at that time, but our classes run through the 8th. Their solution is that we'll have class 6 days a week instead of 5 so we can finish three days early. It kind of stinks because now we only have one day off to rest our brains, but I can't really complain because I wouldn't want them to miss going home. It's their equivalent of Christmas, in terms of how important it is to go home and see family. Today, however, my brain is fairly relaxed. It's the first school day of the week and I didn't receive much homework at all. I've already finished it, in fact. So I have the next 6 or 7 hours to review, read, wander, or whatever else I can find to do. It should be interesting.

Poetry in motion

2008-01-17T00:44:00.000-06:00

Part of my lesson everyday is that my teacher will choose a topic within the first 10 minutes or so and I have to give her 10 or more sentences about that topic. The first day she chose American sports, then the Bible, and today she chose fruit. It's pretty random. At the end of today's lesson she taught me a poem that she likes and then told me that tomorrow I need to give her 15 sentences about poetry. That seems a little harder than telling what fruits I like, but luckily there's a lesson about poetry on ChinesePod.com that I can listen to for some pointers. I thought some of you might enjoy seeing the poem I learned today, so here you go.

远和近

你
一会看我
一会看云
我觉得
你看我时很远
你看云时很近

Back to school

2008-01-15T08:17:00.000-06:00

I now remember why I was glad to leave school. Studying is murder on the brain! I don't remember feeling this way back in college, but after two days of language school my brain feels ready to explode out my ears. Of course, this isn't really anything like college. I'm the only student in the class, my teacher is speaking Chinese 99.9% of the time, and every single question and activity is directed straight at me. Four straight hours of that with a 20 minute break in the middle could understandably make one's head hurt. Other than the whole brain thing, I'm enjoying the school here. We have some nice rooms in a nice area of town, and the classrooms are one floor up, a short one minute walk from my room. So far most of my time has been filled with homework, but I finished earlier today than I did yesterday so maybe soon I'll have some sort of routine involving getting out more. My homework consists of studying vocabulary, reviewing the previous lesson, previewing the next one, copying Chinese characters over and over again, and (the most difficult part) keeping a daily journal only in Chinese. It's very tough since I can't write most of the characters from memory and have to continually refer to the dictionary or computer for help.

Zhu Lan, my teacher, says that after 4 weeks of study I should be ready to pass the 2nd level of the HSK exam. The HSK is the national Chinese proficiency exam for people studying Chinese. I'd like to eventually take the exam so I can be officially certified in Chinese. That kind of certificate would come in handy in the future. There are 3 levels to the HSK and I haven't even taken the first one yet. My teacher claims I could pass the beginner exam, though, so she's set a goal of preparing me for the intermediate exam. I'm not quite as confident about it as she is, but I really have no idea how hard the exam is to begin with. I'll hopefully be able to take the first part of the exam in Wuhan in April. I think that's the next time it's offered.

Before I close out and head to bed, I'll leave you with a bit of humor. Well, it seems humorous to me. As English teachers here, we always are chuckling at our students and the things that they write and say because it's always so simple and basic. We wonder why the students don't put more into what they write! I now know. It's because using a foreign language in an environment where the teacher never switches to your own language is really really hard if you've never experienced it before. So what I've found is that my journal entries so far have been exactly like some of the things my students write. So here's my entry from today. Translated back into English, of course.

"On Tuesday I went to my Chinese class for the second time. After class I ate lunch. I had beef noodles. After that my two friends and I watched a DVD, Band of Brothers. We all had homework to do so I went back to my place to do my homework. At 6:00 we ate dinner. After we finished eating, William and I listened to ChinesePod.com. I haven't studied in 4 years so my head really hurt! After finally finishing my homework I went to bed."

How I got to language school

2008-01-13T07:25:00.000-06:00

I made it to Kunming! We left Shiyan late Thursday night/Friday morning, just hours before the snow began to fall. I'm a little bummed that we're missing the first (and possibly only) snowfall of the season, I can't complain too much. This trip has been pretty fun! That first night our train to Chongqing was supposed to leave at 12:04, just after midnight. It was about an hour late leaving and just around 2 hours late arriving in Chongqing. At least we weren't in any hurry. Anytime we travel we usually break out our Lonely Planet guidebook to get the scoop on our destination. All it had to say about Chongqing was that it had incredibly spicy hotpot and the air pollution was unbelievable. Well, it was right. We got there, checked into a hostel, and set out to find a place for lunch. We had some incredibly spicy hotpot that left us in a drunken stupor that I have never quite experienced from hotpot before. It was so good, I can't begin to explain it! The ladies who worked in the restaurant were so nice and friendly that we began to wish that either they would move to Shiyan or we could move to Chongqing just so we could see them more. That was a great lunch. After that we rested briefly and set out to see the city. We were on the south side of the great Yangzi River so we walked down the road quite a ways and found a cable car that takes you across the river right into the heart of downtown for only 2 yuan. Here's an excerpt from Lonely Planet describing this cable car journey:

A ride on either of the cities two cable cars spanning both the Jialing and Yangzi Rivers will carry you over the precipitously stacked housing and polluting industrial estates for a bird's-eye view of the murky waters.

Makes you want to ride it twice, doesn't it? Well we did ride it twice. Since it was within walking distance of our point of origin and destination, we took the cable car both ways. While I was using my superior map and street sign reading skills to walk us in a large circle around three city blocks to get to something we started less than a block from, we discovered that Chongqing has much more to offer than we first suspected. Namely, Pizza Hut and Starbucks. Granted, we were on our way to spend a month in Kunming, and we had been told that Kunming was very modern and had all the great places foreigners seek out, we still felt the need to go to both of these places on our first day out of town. At this rate, I would definitely be broke before the month was up. Luckily (or unfortunately) we later found out that Kunming has no Starbucks. I'm not sure about the Pizza Hut situation. Anyhoo, we browsed around in the tiny English section of a bookstore, drank some coffee, ate some pizza, and made our way home. We were accosted by some guys with performing monkeys on the way back. They were asking for money, saying their monkeys hadn't eaten all day. I was tempted to tell them maybe the monkey could fend for itself if they took the leash off of it or, even better, to pretend that I misunderstood and say that I didn't want to pay to eat his monkey. I didn't do either. Instead I just refused to support this guy pulling a monkey down the street on a leash and kept going. I have to say that Chongqing had a very strange feel to it. There's a no honking policy throughout the city that is actually observed most of the time, and the streets weren't crowded or noisy at all. It was very peaceful and left us liking the place.

Saturday afternoon we left Chongqing on the 1:30 train to Kunming. This time our train actually arrived 20 minutes early on Sunday morning, which I didn't know was possible. Unfortunately the school got the dates mixed up and thought we were coming on Monday so no one was at the station to pick us up. We eventually tracked down their phone number (thank goodness for cell phones!) and called them. They gave us the name of a hotel and we caught a taxi across town. The school is on the 16th floor of a building in a nice section of town. The 15th floor has the living quarters (actually two floors of living quarters, but all somehow crammed into the 15th floor) and we all have our own room. There are at least 5 others here at the moment studying. I've seen them at one point or another coming in and out. At 1 we got to meet our teachers (each person has a private teacher) and then we were given a tour of the immediate area and shown where to buy things. Since Kunming is a big city it has good stores like Walmart and Carrefour. That means things like cheese, real milk, cereal, salsa, chips, and tons of other stuff that we can never dream of getting in Shiyan. Of course we flipped out and bought all of it. I must say one thing, though. Walmart has a sign that says donuts and a great big picture on the wall of a marvelous glazed donut and a chocolate covered donut on a plate. They even have a bakery display case with some round things that look like donuts with a passable glaze and some kind of crumbly something sprinkled on top of the glaze. But if you trust the signs and buy the donut, be prepared to throw the donut away because it is hard enough to break a tooth and dry enough to suck all the moisture out of your body. William and I definitely were fooled by the signs, but never again.

Well, I'm feeling pretty drained from all those trains and fake donuts so I need to head to bed. Class starts at 8:30 tomorrow morning! We have internet in our rooms and I brought my laptop, so I should be able to stay up to date on here. I didn't bring a microphone so I can't currently talk on Skype, I'll try to remedy that for you people who actually like talking to me. Goodnight all! 晚安

Lesson learned? Probably not.

2008-01-09T20:32:00.000-06:00

It's the human condition. You do the same stupid things over and over again, every time promising yourself that the next time will be different. Everyone does it, don't deny it. So what stupid thing did I do this time? I put off recording all my classes' grades. I could have begun tallying and recording grades for three of my classes in November. But I didn't. So January came along, I was finished with all 6 of my classes, and I hadn't added up a single thing. Of course, I'm leaving tonight at midnight on the train so it really needed to be turned in before today. Monday I holed myself up in my apartment and got the job done. Mostly. I would work for a while and then get distracted doing something else for a while then come back to the grades. I finished all but the last class, which required me to grade a lot of poems that the students did as part of their final exam. Tuesday I never quite got around to working on the poems because I was visiting different people all day in anticipation of not seeing them again until almost March. So yesterday afternoon (Wednesday) I finally sat down and completely finished. I finished right at 5, which is usually closing time for the school offices. I figured I'd turn in my grades this morning. Lo and behold, 3 minutes after I put my pen down the phone rang and they were asking if I could bring my grades down to the office. They also needed Angelyn's grades so I didn't feel too bad (although the only reason she hadn't turned hers in was because she was waiting for me so they could be turned in together). It felt really good to get rid of those things and be done with it. I will "never" put off doing grades that long again. "Never" meaning at least until the next time. Now I just need to clean my apartment and pack for my trip.

I've been invited by David, a Brother at the medical school, to come eat dinner at 6:30 tonight. He cooks some of the most awesome stuff for less money than you ever thought possible. We're taking lessons from him in preparation for Meager March. Then we'll have our weekly Thursday night Study at his school and hang out until time to head to the train station. This first train leaves just after midnight and arrives around 9 or 9:30, which is nice because we don't need to pack any meals. William and I are both excited about Chongqing because it's supposed to have the best hotpot. Hotpot! w00t! I don't know if I'll change my cell number or anything while I'm gone, but I'll still have my laptop so you can feel free to Skype me, email me, Facebook me, instant message me, or just hop on a plane and come visit me*. Those are all free too!

Well, it's time for me to be more productive and clean something around here. I hope everyone is having a wonderful 2008 so far! By the way, now that we're all leaving town for a month the forecast calls for multiple days of snow beginning tomorrow. It figures.

*Denotes something that isn't actually free.

Mistakes in advertising

2008-01-06T19:47:00.000-06:00

What was Intel thinking with this ad? I mean, I can see what they intended to do, but why did they think this advertisement was a good idea? I found this on a list of 2007's biggest business blunders. Couldn't the business guy have been black? Or at least some of the runners been white? Come on, Intel!

The musical fruit

2008-01-06T04:35:00.000-06:00

This entry is a bit on the lighter side. If you're easily offended by gaseous humor then I suggest you turn away now. If not, this is your lucky day! I've been using ChinesePod.com to brush up on my Chinese lately. It's short and organized into different skill levels, so it's got something for everyone. Here's a nice lesson I noticed in the Newbie section, so next time I come home I expect everyone I know to be an expert at accusing others of passing gas. Go ahead! It only takes a few minutes to learn. I included the text from the website that goes along with the lesson.

Lesson Introduction

Some things are not discussed in polite society. In today's groundbreaking lesson in Mandarin Chinese, we run through how to shatter that taboo and accuse your friends, neighbors and language partners of... well, having an overabundance of spirits. Note: vocabulary also useful when touring certain alternative-energy plants

EXTRA!!! EXTRA!!!

2008-01-04T23:36:00.000-06:00

I realize this is the fourth time I've blogged today. Are you complaining? Didn't think so. This is an important announcement to everyone who wants to prove that they love me! Continental, United, and Northwest currently all have tickets available to China (Beijing or Shanghai) for under $1000. You could get to Xi'an or Wuhan (closer to me) for $1200. This isn't an everyday occurrence so you need to take advantage now. This is a limited time offer. Strike while the iron is hot. Buy low, sell high. Come visit me and guarantee your spot on my friend list. IF and WHEN you decide to buy a ticket to come visit me, check with me about any arrival/departure dates. March is a good time, or April. I'll be back in town, it'll be warmer, and the flowers will be blooming. Theoretically. Anyhoo, I realize everyone doesn't have an extra $1000 laying around for something like this. But if you do, consider China. And consider your good friend, Brian. I'll show you a good time, provide food, shelter, and entertainment. What more could you ask for? A chance to see the Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, Wudang Mountain, me. It's the ultimate vacation! Go online now to orbitz.com, united.com, nwa.com, continental.com, or whatever website you prefer. You'll need a passport and a Chinese entry visa, so plan ahead. Feel free to direct any questions my way. Act now! Supplies are limited! Going fast! Strike while the iron is hot! A bird in the hand is worth a ticket to China! It's better to have gone and visited than never to have gone at all! Just do it!

Sidenote

2008-01-04T21:43:00.000-06:00

That video I posted was my 100th blog post! Yay! *fanfare and cheering* Sorry it took so long in coming, but at least the video itself is of a celebration. Very fitting.

The apple drop

2008-01-04T20:39:00.000-06:00

I can't upload pictures and video through Blogger at the moment, but I got at least this one video up on YouTube. This is the famous apple drop. The video is a bit dark and the sound is a little loud and chaotic. I think there were about 18 of us there. At the very beginning you may notice that we were counting down but they didn't have the sparklers lit yet. Since none of us had any idea what the actual time was we just decided to wait an count when the sparklers were lit. I was just holding the camera up over my head at the end while we all jumped around and hugged each other, so it's a bit shaky at points. Anyway, here it is! Enjoy!

Theme of the month

2008-01-04T19:54:00.000-06:00

If you're here looking for those pictures I promised, all I can say is that it's not my fault. Every time I try to upload a picture it uploads a blank image. The same with video. Maybe in a day or two it will be back to normal. One can only hope! For now, I hope you can enjoy this replacement blog entry.

Some of the Americana girls here have started a new tradition. They're naming each month and giving it a theme. November was No Shave November, which wasn't really anything I could participate in since the school probably wouldn't appreciate my mountain man look. December was Destination December, so Angelyn, Jessica, and I went to Chengdu for a few days. January has officially been dubbed Jovial January. Anytime we say something mean about someone, we aren't allowed to eat anything sweet for 24 hours. Since bitterness has come out of our mouths, no sweetness can go in. I'm not sure what February is going to be, I've heard everything from Festive February (celebrate all those unknown holidays like National Handshake Day) to Frugal (speaks for itself) to Fanatic (wear sports gear every day). There were other ideas that seem to be evading me at the moment, so I'm not really sure which one will stick. We'll all be gone on various winter trips for the majority of February anyway, so most of us won't even be together to celebrate February.

March has already been declared Meager March. Angelyn was doing some research and found that the Chinese government has set the necessary income level of the poor and homeless at 169 yuan each month for urban dwellers. I think it's between 70 and 80 for country folks. What that means is that the government says anyone making 169 yuan each month and living in any city in China is making enough money to live on. If they make less than that, the government will provide them with the difference. After living on our 3500+ yuan monthly salaries for so long we think this sounds rather ridiculous, so some of us are going to attempt an experiment. For the entire month of March we are going to try and live on only 169 yuan. We're taking a lot of things into consideration. First of all, we don't pay for our apartments, utilities, and internet. We're going to work out a system of rationing those things so we can charge ourselves a fee, considering that someone making so little probably wouldn't have access to most of those things. Things should be more interesting if we need to go across town a lot. It costs 1 yuan to ride the bus, but if I leave and come back every day of the month then that is automatically 62 yuan out of my budget. More than 1/3 of the total! Since my school is on the outskirts of town, furthest from all the action at the other schools, I guess I'll be staying in shape from all that walking. There's also been discussion about giving all of the money that we save that month to some of the homeless in town. I'm sure we'll map it all out with more details as it draws nearer.

For now I need to work on finishing my class grades so I won't have to worry about them anymore. I'm leaving for language school in 5 days so I need to wash clothes, clean my apartment (yeah right), pack, finish grades, etc., etc. Hope you all have a great day! I'll keep you posted.

Happy 2008!

2008-01-01T20:44:00.000-06:00

This blog entry is special for so many reasons! First of all, it's 2008! Happy New Year! This is also the post where I'll try to recap Christmas, tell about my trip to Yichang for the New Year's party, list some resolutions, and probably do some other things that I haven't thought of yet. So here goes.

Christmas 2007

Well, it seemed like Christmas came and went in a flash. I already blogged about events leading up to Christmas morning, so you'll have to go back and read about that if you're interested. On Christmas Day we all woke up and enjoyed a nice breakfast of quiche and cinnamon rolls, courtesy of Jessica and Angelyn, then we emptied out our stockings and found out what kind of loot Santa brought us this year. I got lots of things, many of which are too incredible to be imagined. I got a tool set!, various candies and chewing gums, some card games from America (Blink, Mad Libs), 22 dice and a printout of the instructions for Farkle (side note: Farkle requires 6 dice. 22 is not divisible by 6.), a wooden crocodile, some cool lights that clip on your fingers so you can look like you have laser fingers, nunchucks, pens and pencils, an alarm clock that only works on American voltage (thanks William), a name stamp with the incorrect characters for William's Chinese name (thanks again, William), and some other stuff that I can't think of at the moment. It was pretty exciting to get that huge pile o' stuff. We ate so much for breakfast that we pretty much skipped lunch and waited for the progressive dinner/tacky Christmas sweater party to start at 5:00. We started out at William and Priscilla's with drinks and snacks. William was kind enough to share his Rotel with us, so we've all decided that Rotel cheese dip is officially the new Christmas food of choice. We then walked down to the bus stop to catch the bus to John and Megan's school for soup. Well, Christmas is catching on here as a day of major sales at every store in town so it took us over an hour to get to their apartment instead of the expected 15-20 minutes. We gulped down some incredible potato soup, french onion soup, and bread, and walked over to the medical school for the final rounds. At Brad's apartment we had the main course of Chinese food cooked by Min, his lovely Chinese wife. Then we walked downstairs to Andrew and Jaime's for dessert and secret Santa gift exchange. I got some lovely white towels from Brad to help with any "bathroom business" I may have in the future. (He means to help dry off anyone who goes Swimming at our apartments.) We had a lot of fun and I ended up being declared the winner of the tacky Christmas sweater competition. It wasn't too hard since only 2 of us wore tacky sweaters, but I think I may have won even if everyone wore a sweater. I don't have the pictures on my computer at the moment so I'll add them later.

New Year's Day

After Christmas there was a lull of sorts as everyone stayed home waiting for their family to call. We also could hardly move after eating so much food at the progressive dinner. At some point during the week I found out that my friend Jacob was coming back from Hiroshima to visit Shiyan. He graduated from this school after my first year here and got a job working for Mazda in Japan, so I was excited to learn he was coming. I then almost immediately found out that my friends Laura and Tomas in Shanghai were going to come visit for the weekend. They especially wanted to come visit after I told them Jacob was coming. Well, around Thursday or Friday Laura called to say they couldn't come because they couldn't get tickets. Jacob still came Sunday morning, but he was disappointed to hear that the others couldn't make it. We hung out all day Sunday and had hotpot with some of the guys that night. Hotpot is so amazing! I love hotpot.

Monday was the big trip to Yichang for New Year's so Angelyn, Jessica, and I loaded onto the bus at 8am for the (supposedly) 6 hour journey. Last year it took a little over 8 hours so we were pleasantly surprised when it only took 7 this time. We were also pleasantly surprised that 4 people from Wuhan got off at the Yichang bus station at the exact same time we did. This year's party was going to be a blowout! The festivities started later with a picture/video scavenger hunt that spanned the entire city. It was pretty fun because we filmed a kungfu movie on the bus and a Titanic scene on the bridge over the Yangtze River. Beth also taught "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" to about 50 kids at a party in McDonalds. I'm pretty sure our team should win just for that one. At the end of the scavenger hunt we all met up at Pizza Hut (!!!!!) and pigged out on... guess... pizza. It was fantabulous. We went to the pizza place here in Shiyan one time this year and it was very disappointing. Nothing compares to the real thing. We put about 10 straws together, put a pitcher of Pepsi at one end of the table, and passed the straw around so everyone could try to get a swig. It was pretty tough! After dinner we went back to campus for our party, where we hung out, showed the results of our scavenger hunts, ate lots of cookies and other goodies, and ended up counting down to the new year. We don't have the big ball in Times Square to help us out here, so we got an apple, slapped it on a chopstick, stuck some sparklers in it, and it did the job just as well. When I say we, I really mean that Brad (Yichang Brad, not Shiyan Brad) took care of all the arrangements. I can't take any credit for it. We sang a while and hung out, then all went to bed. Now, last year in Yichang Beth made the resolution to learn one new recipe every week. The Lord was good to us this year in that Beth was able to keep that resolution. I don't know everything she learned to cook this year, but just to give you an idea: poptarts and bagels. That's right, home made poptarts and bagels. If that's not amazing, I don't know what is! We're drawing up plans for a kidnapping attempt so that Shiyan can enjoy some of her cooking. I'll let you know how it turns out. After lunch on Tuesday we all headed to a coffee shop for about an hour, caught a last minute taxi to the train station, and took the 7 hour train back to Shiyan. The train was actually a double decker! I've never seen one that I know of. We got to sit on the top level, so I felt extra special. The inside of the train wasn't much different other than the fact that there were stairs at the end of the car. Oh, and the snack cart couldn't go up the stairs so the workers carried around baskets with the things they were selling instead of pushing a cart through. That was kind of nice. I always get whacked by the cart.

As for New Year's resolutions this year, I've been mulling over a few different ones. 1) Become much better at Chinese. Keyword: much (not just better) 2) Talk with one non-English speaker every week about my Source of Hope. 3) Become more focused. (i.e. use my time more wisely) There are other things that have passed through my mind, but I feel like I could settle on those 3 for now. If I add more to the list, I'll let you know.

Plans for the near future

If you're planning to send me a package anytime soon, put a hold on it. I'm about to go to Kunming for language school and I probably won't be back in Shiyan until the last week of February. We still don't know when class starts back, but I've heard both February 13 and February 25. I'm hoping the 25th is right, but you never know until it happens. Such is China. Anyhoo, on January 10 I will be going to Chongqing on the train. After an overnight stay there I'll catch another train to Kunming and arrive there on January 13. The 14th will be the first day of class at our language school, so Angelyn, William, and I are ready to get started. We'll be there through February 8, which makes for 4 weeks of classes. Two of the weekends we're there they will take us out for dinner or other activities, I'm not sure exactly what. The other weekends I guess we're free to do whatever we like. I think there are a lot of places to see near Kunming so I think it will be a good 4 weeks. After that, I'll either head back to school (if classes start sooner) or I might travel to some other areas for a week or two (if classes start later). I realize I didn't put out any pictures, so I'm going to go ahead and post this without pictures so I can be done with it and then put up the pictures for it tomorrow. There should be video too! It's time for me to leave for dinner with Jacob (he's leaving town tonight) so I have to run. Happy New Year!

How Santa saved Christmas... on Mars?

2007-12-24T08:19:00.000-06:00

For all of you film buffs out there, how many of you are familiar with the movie Santa Claus Conquers the Martians? Let me tell you something! It is NOT a classic Christmas film. It should NOT go on the top 10 list. I don't recommend you watch it. Unless, of course, you're up for an hour and a half of bad movie. The experience is much more pleasant if you're eating white chocolate coated popcorn and watching it with some friends, but the movie itself is nothing to get excited over unless you happen to have a club dedicated to bad movies.

Christmas Eve, that wonderful day before Christmas that gets you so excited you're finally willing to sneak open one of your Christmas presents. Unless, of course, you already broke down and opened one. This year Christmas Eve was very misty and gray, and very very cold. Not cold enough to snow. Yet. Jessica keeps telling me that it's going to snow tonight. I came to find out that she wasn't watching the weather channel or anything, she just believes that God will make it snow so she'll have a white Christmas and be able to have peace in her heart. She told me she feels saddened at my lack of emotion for snow because I told her snow cannot make peace. Now I feel the need to reexamine my life and figure out where I went wrong in my relationship with freezing precipitation. I'm confident that with dedication and a good shrink, next Christmas I will be waiting for snow so that I can feel like God has sent peace to the world. Seriously though, I like snow. It's great! Wonderful! We don't get much of it in the Mississippi Delta and what we do get isn't really enough to hide the grass. But apparently I don't love it as much as other people. I'm kind of jealous.

Tonight the entire foreign language department went to dinner, courtesy of the school administration. It's kind of an awkward experience. This year they actually told us before it was time to go, but last year we arrived at the end of the dinner because they didn't tell us we were going before they came to pick us up. Well, the way it works is that the foreigners all go outside at the predetermined time to pile in the car that is provided for us. Since there as 2 Japanese here this year, there are 6 of us. Instead of getting in the school's car we walked down to the street with the representative from the Foreign Affairs Office to catch a taxi. Of course, we were leaving exactly at taxi shift change time, which also (for some unknown reason) falls in the middle of rush hour and everyone else getting off from work. There was not a single taxi to be seen on the street. We ended up taking the bus, which stopped two different times (5 or 10 minutes each time) so the driver could yell at everyone on the bus to go towards the back because people were hanging out the door, and also one time because for some reason it took us 10 minutes to get through a traffic light. We arrived to the dinner over an hour late, but luckily the foreign teachers don't get to sit and eat in the same room with everyone else. We had a room down the hall for ourselves. No one really knew we were late because they were all partying in another room with 7 tables. We didn't mind too much, though. We got to play majiang while we waited and didn't have to toast with every single teacher at the party, only the ones at our table. Despite my slight sarcasm, the dinner really was good and it was nice to be taken out by our school for once. Since we arrived and left so late we weren't able to participate in the Christmas caroling at the medical school.

I didn't really do much more than that today. I did a little shopping, but just down at the bottom of the hill. Fruit, milk, things like that. By the way, the supermarkets all changed their prices to account for the newly released inflation numbers this past week. Yowza! Milk went from 1.6 for a small 250 mL box to 2.7 per box. That's a big jump! Anyhoo, I didn't mean to get off on a grocery tangent. Tomorrow is Christmas! I can't believe it! Three Christmases away from home (with one in the middle at home). That's kind of weird. I miss all you folks! Even though I talked to you just last night (some of you) it's not quite as awesome without you. But I'll try not to let it spoil my fun! :-P Tomorrow for breakfast Angelyn and Jessica (and maybe some others) are planning to prepare a delicious feast of quiche, cinnamon rolls, and whatever else their minds can imagine to treat us to. I provided fruit, but I didn't manage to make it into a fancy looking bird or anything. Sorry everyone! You'll just have to take an orange, eat it, and be happy with it. We'll also have stockings stuffed with goodies, and then tomorrow night is the first annual Shiyan Tacky Christmas Sweater Progressive Dinner Party Extravaganza. STCSPDE for short. I bought the most amazing tacky Christmas sweater ever in Chengdu from some guys selling things in the middle of the crosswalk. You have to see it to believe it, and I'm pretty sure I'll be embarrassed when you see it. So, until that moment, have a Merry Christmas. Joy to the world!

The Chengdu Trip

2007-12-23T09:38:00.000-06:00

I've discovered that I'm really bad at telling about a trip or anything that lasted more than one or two days. I start to write about it and then it gets so long and drawn out that I promise to come back later and finish. Then I never do. So today I'm providing you with a link to Angelyn's blog. She lives across the hall and was one of my travel companions to Chengdu. If you CLICK HERE you will be directed to her blog entry about our Chengdu trip. I'm sure you will find it just as fascinating and fulfilling as anything I could write. Probably more so.

Broken promises

2007-12-23T08:42:00.000-06:00

I'm going to start out by apologizing to everyone. I totally forgot to pick up my camera on the way out this morning so I have absolutely no pictures to show you from today. :( If it makes you feel any better, I'm way more bummed about it than you are because now I have no pictures to add to my personal collection. :( :(

If you're wondering how today went, I would have to say it went very well. There were about 50 people there this morning, and quite a few people didn't even get to come. We had a great morning meeting with lots of singing and merry making. Lunch was good, as we crammed all those people around 4 tables. The real entertainment, however, was the gift exchange. We always play "dirty Santa" or "white elephant" or whatever name you might have for this game. Everyone brought a small gift of some sort; funny, serious, useful, useless, doesn't matter. We then drew numbers and took turns opening gifts. When it was your turn, you could choose between opening a new gift or stealing a gift from someone else. The game went on until the last person opened a gift. I ended up with a pair of girl's gloves about three times too small and a bar of Dove chocolate. That's okay, though. I had fun! I gave the gloves and the chocolate away, so it didn't matter to me.

The rest of my afternoon was spent with Jessica and two Chinese (Andrew and Athena) at a new coffee place called Box Coffee. It's the first coffee place in town that actually has a coffee house atmosphere. Every other place in town that calls itself a coffee house is usually too fancy and they all, without exception, have gross nasty coffee that is overpriced. Box Coffee actually has decent coffee, ground and brewed when you order, that is only 10 yuan per cup. That's compared to the 30 yuan price at just about any other place. We spent a while hanging out and mulling over what it would be like if we owned and operated our own coffee house in Shiyan. It would be quite the opportunity for community outreach and, if it made enough money, could possibly fund a free medical clinic that some of the medical students are interested in starting. The possibilities are astounding! Of course, none of us has the capital to get something like that going, so it's only daydreaming.

After coffee Jessica and I raided the grocery store and headed home. The weather turned very cold and rainy since this morning, so Jessica was inspired with thoughts of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Luckily, we keep a supply of cheese in the freezer for just such an occasion so we thawed it out and I cooked up a couple of sandwiches. Around 7:30 Angelyn and Jessica had some students come over to hang out so we all sat around in Jessica's apartment and enjoyed some no-bake cookies (thank you Jessica!), talked about our Chengdu trip from last week, and then watched You've Got Mail. We were looking for a Christmas movie and somehow that was as Christmasy as we could get and feel like the students would enjoy it. We really need to work on our collection of Christmas movies!

Since they left, I've showered, blogged a little, been interrupted by a Skype call from my family, and now I'm finishing up this blog entry. All in all a good Sunday. Tomorrow I don't have much planned, but considering how rainy and freezing cold it is right now I don't imagine I'll be wanting to get out much tomorrow. Our school is taking all of the faculty from our department to dinner tomorrow night and then some people are planning to go caroling around the medical school campus. Fun times will be had!

Kids are so cute

2007-12-22T09:31:00.000-06:00

So today was one of those days where I was regretting not carrying my camera around with me. First of all, this afternoon we went to the annual city-wide Christmas party. Christmas in China is a strange time for me because every year there are more and more decorations and parties and various celebrations, but there is absolutely nothing about it that makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. There are no people calling out "merry Christmas" when you leave a store, there are no warm, good smelling places. None of that. Mostly there are an overabundance of Santa Claus faces hanging in every window, an increasing number of Christmas trees lining the store fronts, and all kinds of tinsel and decorations hanging in places they don't really belong. One of the yearly things that sort of halfway gets on my nerves and halfway makes me laugh are the parties. The city has a Christmas party every year and invites all the foreigners to attend. Of course, there's not much Christmas feeling to it past the decorations, but it's full of kids singing, dancing, and playing traditional Chinese instruments. It also has a smattering of foreigners singing songs because, as is the custom, you can't be invited to a party without being expected to sing a song when you get there. Luckily our school has figured out that we don't particularly enjoy this custom so they don't ask us to sing anymore, but other schools still sometimes force their teachers to perform. So this afternoon was filled with an entertaining hour of singing, dancing, and music. Of course, all the little kids were so cute and adorable and I totally forgot to take my camera. Oh well, there's always next year's party.

The rest of the day wasn't without it's own cute little kids, either. After the Christmas party was over I went to do some (sort of) last minute Christmas shopping. I spent at least an hour browsing around in the Korean market looking for what I needed, but I'm pretty sure I got it all. At one point, two little boys (about 4 years old) kept coming up, poking me, and staring up at me to see what I would do. I'd say hi, they would say it back, and then they'd walk away until about a minute later when they would do it again. They also kept yelling "foreigner!" at me when they weren't poking me, so I would say "No, I'm Chinese!" and they would kind of laugh at me for a second. After three or four times of that, one of them yelled "foreigner!" and the other looked at him and said "No, he's Chinese." Then they actually spent the rest of the time arguing back and forth about whether I was a foreigner or Chinese. I have a hard enough time understanding some little kids who speak English, so I was quite proud of myself for understanding all of this in Chinese, plus I was cracking up at what I heard.

After I got home I waited until the dinner rush was over and went down to Happy Guy's for dinner. If I wait long enough he's usually not too busy and can sit and hang out with me. We were talking about my Chengdu trip and Christmas when his nephew came in. He's 4 and doesn't really like me at all. I guess he thinks he's too good for me or something because he doesn't seem to even know that I exist. Well, Happy Guy kept bringing his over to say hello to me but he wouldn't open his mouth. I eventually started asking him questions in Chinese like "what's your name? how old are you?" and the usual stuff like that. He wouldn't even answer until I hit upon the magic question of "can you speak Chinese?" He answered with a swift and definitive "No!" So then we asked him what language he could speak and he informed us that he "forgot every language so he couldn't speak" to me. I hate it when that happens. It usually happens when I'm talking to a pretty girl, though. Anyhoo, after missing all those precious moments because of my lack of a camera, I feel like I should take my camera out right now and hunt up something worthy of a video or snapshot. Of course, now it's midnight and there's nothing to see out there.

In the morning we'll have our Sunday meeting followed by a big Christmas party dinner (Chinese food only) and a gift exchange game. It should be a lot of fun and I've already set my camera out, so this time I should get some good pictures. Merry Christmas everyone! I'll let you know if I get anything good at the party tomorrow.

Checking in

2007-12-19T04:10:00.000-06:00

Well, we left for Chengdu last Thursday around 11:30 PM and set foot back on Shiyan soil today (Wednesday) at 11:03 AM. I must say that we were all excited to get back. Chengdu was a nice change from everyday life but we agreed that we spent too long away or else should have spent our time differently. I'll put up more details later, right now I basically just want to let everyone know that I'm back. I'm tired and hungry and I have one last class in the morning that I need to plan something spectacular for. Spectacular!

The Quest for the Giant Bear Cat

2007-12-12T09:07:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow night I'm going to Chengdu with Angelyn and Jessica. This trip serves several purposes ranging from just an excuse to get out of town, Jessica's birthday trip, and knocking one more place off my list of places to go in life. The thing Chengdu is probably best known for? Pandas. Sichuan province is basically panda central. A few quick facts: The Chinese word for panda is 大熊猫 which translates to "big bear cat." The panda was mainly unknown to the Western world until 1869 when a French scientist brought a pelt back to Europe and described the panda to the scientific community. There are thought to be only about 1000 pandas left in the wild today. Pandas live on a diet exclusively made of bamboo. Bamboos flower and die en mass every 25 years or so, which led to more than 130 pandas starving to death on just one mountain in the mid-70s. There's a panda breeding facility in Chengdu with more than 50 giant and red pandas, which you can hold and have your picture taken for a price ranging from 50 yuan to 1200 yuan (depending on whether you want to settle for a red panda for shell out the dough for a cute baby giant panda).

A few other quick facts that important for completely different reasons: Chengdu has 7 Starbucks locations. It also has 2 Mexican restaurants. Chengdu has good shows... last year my friend Jeremy was chosen from the crowd to be the one who stood against a wall and had knives thrown at him. Chengdu is the 5th largest city in China. It's close to several good mountains known for their good views, hikes, or other touristy things.

We really don't know exactly when we'll come back, but we'll definitely come back Wednesday at the latest. That would make the trip a full 7 days from start to finish. I'm excited about it! I didn't get out of town in October holiday so I'm ready for this. Then we'll come back, have Christmas a few days later, have New Years a week later (which I'm going to Yichang for), and then around January 14 I'm going to Kunming for language school. Yay!!! It's going to be a busy time.

As for today's news, I had no class today so I didn't too much official type stuff. This morning I got a call saying I had two packages (woohoo!) so I ran down to the post office to get the wonderful boxes of goodies mom and grandmother sent me. I had fun opening those and sorting through them with Angelyn. So many good possibilities for Christmas goodies! I went shopping with Jessica and Angelyn after lunch, mainly so I could buy our train tickets to Chengdu. Then Jessica and I had to come back so we could record this week's campus English talk radio segment. We don't go on the radio every week, but sometimes they invite us for an interview. Every time I've done it before, I was the only one being interviewed. I've decided that it's 50 times more fun with someone else because we can just goof around and talk for 40 minutes then they edit it down to 15 or however many they want and everyone has a good time. Christina, the student in charge of it, promised to give us a copy of the unedited version of our interview. You'd have to hear it to understand how stinkin' hilarious it was, but I plan to somehow distribute it on here if I can. There's one part in the middle where Christina stops to answer her cell phone (there is nothing in existence that can stop a Chinese person from dropping what they are doing to answer their cell phone) so Jessica and I go off on a tangent about Christina's new boyfriend and I end up wishing her a long, happy life with him. She came back right at that moment and, only hearing the part where I wish her a happy life, said "thanks!" Later when we got her to play it back she was so embarrassed because she didn't know what she was thanking me for. Like I said, you have to hear it to appreciate it. Jessica and I also got into an argument over some song lyrics for "Winter Wonderland". I'm pretty sure the words are "in the meadow we can build a snowman" but she sang "in the weather we can build a snowman." Anyhoo, moving on. After the show we went home and Jessica was kind enough to make us all fresh salad with chicken breast, ranch dressing, and *GASP* bacon!!! Bacon almost never happens here in Shiyan. Actually, it never does. You have to go 7 hours to Wuhan to get it. But we got some and it was amazing! Also, ranch dressing doesn't happen here either, unless you have a mix someone sent you from home. Thanks someone! Zoe and Halley ended up coming over and eating with us, then we all hung out with some of Angelyn's students who came over for a movie. After all of that you would think that the night would be over. But it wasn't! Jessica, Zoe, Halley, and I went to the track and ran for a while. I coached Halley through her first time ever running 8 laps while Jess and Zoe did a fun mix of power walking, running, jazzercizing, and playing on the parallel bars.

All in all a good day, filled with goodness and friends. Tomorrow morning I have a final exam to administer, followed by a lunch of banana pancakes to enjoy for Jessica's birthday. Then tomorrow night is our weekly Thursday night Study, slightly altered to accommodate a birthday cake party for Jessica, then an 11pm train to Chengdu. Woot! Since I don't know exactly what my internet situation will be, I may or may not be on in the next week. I'll play it by ear. Until next time, peace, love, and pandas.

Just to make you aware

2007-12-10T18:38:00.000-06:00

There's a group departing for China sometime around February 14-18. If anyone is interested in coming to visit me *big loud cheer from everyone because everyone is interested in coming to visit me* then let me know and I can help you arrange your tickets with that group. Then you would have travel companions on the way over! Of course, if you're not available to leave at that time then you can always come on your own at any other time. I'm willing to pay all in-China expenses (minus souvenirs of course) in exchange for someone actually coming to visit me. Just so you know.

Also, some people wanted to know my number and address so here they are:

(615)653-4594 is a Skype number. You can call that number in America and it calls my computer!

Brian Neal
c/o Foreign Affairs Office
Hubei Automotive Industries Institute
Shiyan, Hubei 442002
P.R. China

I'm always happy to get letters, but if you want to send me a package then you might ask me first so you don't spend a fortune sending me something we can get in the store here. Like noodles. Don't mail Ramen noodles. It's happened before.

Crazy Awesome Weekend

2007-12-10T04:43:00.000-06:00

As predicted, this past weekend was crazy awesome. Carole and Danielle came in from Wuhan about 1:30 in the morning Saturday. I had a wushu lesson at 9 so I didn't meet anyone before I left for that. I DID, however, get a thumbs up from one of the instructors at the gym. So far we've been taught by a girl who has been studying wushu about two months longer than us. They say after I practice one motion 100 times then one of the instructors will take the time to correct my mistakes. Needless to say, the fact that one of the instructors was actually paying attention and gave me a thumbs up made me really excited. I'm pretty sure I kept bringing it up the rest of the weekend. Anyhoo, I was out and about until after lunch, so around 12:30 I got back and found that the weekly ladies' brunch was wrapping up. That's when I got to meet our guests. Little did I know, the fun was just beginning.

Someone arranged a 2:30 trip to the orphanage Saturday afternoon, so we all piled on the bus and went to meet everyone else at the gate of the medical school. It was a cold and rainy day, so all the windows on the bus were fogged up. Of course, what could we do but draw baby feet and turkeys? Little known fact... apparently turkeys go "mrr mrr."

In this picture: (back l to r) Jessica, Megan, Danielle, William, David; (front l to r) Carole, Angelyn. Just a portion of the crew that went.

I've never been to the orphanage here because everytime I've tried to join in the trip got canceled. I was nervous about going this time because I didn't want to jinx it again, but we actually made it and were allowed in to see the kids. Unfortunately instead of 50 kids we were greeted by about 5 because the others had all been moved to a middle school with dorms that they could live in. We sang songs, passed out gloves, made a shopping list for our next visit, and just enjoyed visiting with so many people.

After we were done there, we all split up. Angelyn went to return the train tickets that I so painstakingly bought the other day and they decided 10 minutes later they didn't want. (just kidding, there was no pain involved) I went with Priscilla (in the pink in the picture above), Carole (the small one in the middle), Danielle (the tall one crouching in the front), and Jessica (has her hand on Danielle's head) to the bus station to buy new tickets and then behind the bus station to the Korean market for some Christmas shopping. I got some lights and they all bought hats. Priscilla actually bought a normal hat she could wear any day, Danielle and Carole bought some wicked awesome Russian/Chinese fur hats. I would have bought one except I had just bought one a day or two earlier. (If you remember, just before Halloween '06 I bought a big green army coat. Well, the hat matches it!) Afterwards, we went back to school and had dinner at Happy Guy's, followed by a night on the town with some other foreign friends at the disco in town. I have discovered that with a strobe light I can almost fake dancing ability. Almost.

Sunday we had our weekly meeting and then in the afternoon I went to teach English to the people who teach me wushu. (We pay each other with our respective teaching.) At 5 a bunch of us went to KTV. The K stands for karaoke, which is the unofficial pastime of China. We got an awesome room that had English lyrics that were mostly correct. Whitney Houston was singing some song about "blittersweat memories" but other than that it was just about right. My favorite was John dancing to "My Humps" (which is not a good song when you actually have the lyrics on the screen by you, be warned). I was devastated that we didn't discover the switch to turn on the strobe light until we were leaving, though. I could have practiced pretending to have dancing ability some more. Here you can see William and me holding on to John in front of a coffee/KTV place. It was actually the wrong place so were really just totally confusing the ladies in charge of opening the door and yelling welcome. They couldn't figure out if we were coming in or not, then we ended up walking down the street to the right place. Oops.

After an hour of singing we went around the corner to UBC Coffee (not the place in the picture above) and enjoyed a rare treat of fried ice cream balls, coffee, and spaghetti. Unfortunately it was in that order because the waitress thought I was joking when I ordered in Chinese so she only brought the stuff we ordered in English. We had our ice cream and then I had to ask where the spaghetti was. I couldn't finish it since I'd already had the ice cream, but some of the girls helped me out. I'm pretty sure I could have finished all of it if they had brought the spaghetti first. I know it's the same amount of food, but it's all in the order in which you eat it. I learned about it in physics in high school, trust me. Around 9 we were leaving and as we walked past People's Square we noticed that the nightly dance party was still going on. Basically every old person in town comes and makes a huge conga line and walks in a circle for three hours. We needed to work off that fried ice cream, so we all went and joined in. Jessica and Carole made a lot of new friends teaching the electric slide. I'm pretty sure if I go back tonight they'll all be practicing the "new American dance".

After line dancing ourselves to exhaustion, we all went back to our respective schools. At my school we ended up watching a movie and falling asleep with our cool new Russian/Chinese fur hats on. It's the best way to stay warm!

This morning Angelyn and I saw the Wuhan gals off at the bus station. And 5 minutes later we were bored, lonely, and sending them text messages to come back to us. So we went DVD shopping to distract ourselves. All in all, this weekend was a bit of a splurge in just about every way. We had an overdose of just about every good thing in life this weekend, and it was GREAT! Of course, what you don't get from reading this is all the hilarity and interplay between people. Or things like when Danielle played Mary Had a Little Lamb on the piano at the coffee shop and got yelled at by the manager. I will leave you with two photos in memory of our guests. The first is to show why I'm the designated umbrella carrier when Carole is walking by me. The other is a glamor shot they took in front of William and Priscilla's building at the middle school.

An attempted new look

2007-12-07T02:39:00.000-06:00

As you may have noticed already, I'm back into blogging. I've been trying to update all of my links and whatnot that I display. Well, a few days ago I got a haircut and was thinking that if I can improve my image, why not try to improve my blog's image? So I started searching for a new look for my blog and I thought I had found it. I saved my old template so I wouldn't lose anything, and put up the new one. I didn't like it. So I changed it back. Of course, most of the stuff on the sidebar of my blog was instantly lost. For example, the wicked awesome map pinpointing Shiyan's location. And now I can't find the website where I originally got those maps. I'm so upset! I'll never change my blog's appearance again! Not really, but I'll definitely be more careful next time and back up all the custom pictures.

On a side note, there are two girls coming into town tonight from Wuhan to visit Angelyn and Jessica. I haven't met them but I've heard they're crazy hilarious so there could possibly be some zany pictures on the way soon.

And now the fun story of the day. Every Friday the guys try to get together for lunch. Oddly enough, we call it Guys Lunch. Every week a different person gets to choose the restaurant so today we were eating across the street from the medical college. After lunch I was walking with John and William through town and we passed some people on the sidewalk selling various things laid out on a blanket. This is a perfectly ordinary thing to see here, especially as winter comes on and a lot of people migrate from the north and/or west to warmer regions. It's also perfectly common for people to yell the one English word they know as you walk by, trying to attract your attention. Today that word was "tiger." We were walking and this guy starts going "tigerrrrr, tiger, tiger, tigerrrrr" over and over. Sure enough, we look down and he's got a dried up tiger paw for sale on his blanket. It was pretty huge! I'm not sure where this guy was migrating from for the winter, but it must be a cool place if it has tigers. Does Tibet have tigers? I'll have to Google it. The guy also had various other pieces of wild animals like a furry goat skull. We didn't buy anything because we weren't sure if we would be supporting the poaching of endangered animals or not. As I was leaving for lunch I contemplated whether or not I should take my camera. I decided nothing fun would happen on an ordinary day like today. I will never leave my camera at home again. After we had passed by, we were standing around talking in front of the bus station and we noticed that the peddlers were now in an argument with the police. They had drawn a large crowd already so we figured we could hide in the back and catch the action. They yelled back and forth for a while and then the police left. I'm not sure what happened, maybe the police wanted them to buy a permit to sell things on the sidewalk or maybe the police just don't like nomads hanging around town. In the end the police were back in their car and the others were sitting back on the sidewalk.

A selection of quotes

2007-12-06T09:19:00.001-06:00

Living in an English speaking environment in China can be very frustrating. At the same time, it can have some hilarious moments. Sometimes students just don't throw out the word you were expecting them to throw out, something doesn't quite translate, or people are just much more candid than you expect. Here is a selection of some things that I have heard here in China. The names with an asterisk (*) belong to Chinese people.

"You're the same as last year, cute and huge. So huge! I only come up to your lungs." - Wind*

"Man, we learned a lot of English from that movie. Like 'Kill the Japs!'" - Jakie*

"Who's under that blanket?" -David*
"Brian. Or else three Chinese people." -Angelyn

"He's so tall! He must never get cold." - Christina* talking about me

"In English, how do you say a head with no head?" - Zoe*

"U NO MISS ME?"
- text message from Happy Guy*

"Egad! His car is a very expensive sports car and yours is so ugly! I know... you pay him $5000 or........ I will beat you." - student* performing an improv skit in my class

"It's like a furnace!" - Willie* after warming her hands on the top of my head

"You're a bad boy! As your publishment, you must carry me down the hill." - Jacob* (he meant punishment)

"I'll be there on Saturday."
"Okay, so we'll stay here a few days and meet you in your hometown on Saturday."
"Okay. I still haven't bought the tickets yet. I'll be there Sunday."
"What? Is it Saturday or Sunday?"
"Sunday."
"Okay, we'll be in your hometown on Sunday."
"Okay! See you Monday!"
- Orange* trying to tell me when she could meet us

"Dude! Duderonomy! You're a crazy white dude!" - Jakie*

"Later player." - Sean*

"My name is Fish because I like Fish." - Fish*

Of course, funny quotes work in reverse. Like the morning I asked a Chinese friend if she wanted to "eat a muffin" and discovered that "mafen" in Chinese means horse poop. Or that "right turn" sounds suspiciously like "monster" and the day my friend wanted to say "I would like an iced drink" and instead said "I killed a soldier." Yay for language!

We're expanding our services

2007-12-04T23:03:00.000-06:00

In an attempt to lead lives of more action, the Shiyan group is trying to open up new routes of ministry throughout the city. I will share with you one such endeavor today.

Many big cities around the world have famous red light districts. In some countries, prostitution is even legalized. Well, Shiyan also has a couple of large areas that we call "pink light" streets, even though it definitely isn't legalized here. Around 6 or 7 in the evening most hair salons in town flip a light switch and the ladies sit around waiting for customers. It's so blatant and out in the open for all to see that I have to wonder how much the police make under the table each year. Well, Priscilla and Jessica feel called to reach out to these pink light ladies and are in the process of talking with the Chinese Sisters and trying to draw up a plan of action.

After visiting Wuhan (capital of this province, about 7 hours away) they learned that Wuhan and Beijing already have groups doing this sort of outreach. The Family in Beijing has had success in that some of the ladies have stopped working in the pink light district, are going back to school, and are making money for themselves by selling crafts on the internet. Jessica and Priscilla took notes and asked questions in Wuhan and now are in search of a Chinese Sister here in Shiyan who has the same passion to work with these ladies. It's important that this work not just be something weird that the foreigners want to do, it needs to rely on Chinese involvement. Jessica sent out an email last week that lists their needs and concerns better than I ever could, so I'm including parts of that email here:
--------
Last weekend when I was in Wuhan, I had the opportunity to meet the foreign women who are leading a similar effort in Wuhan's pink light district. I got to speak with Kelli and Heather, who had begun the MNSTRY 1 year ago. The spoke to me about the logistics, how they go about each day, and the success/troubles they have been faced with. Heather shared a really encouraging story with me about a visit to the Beijing MNSTRY, where 4 women have left the pink light work and are living in a rehabilitative house. They go to night school, and support themselves by making jewelry that they sell online. Its called the starfish project, if you would like to Google it! I was also blessed to speak to two girls who had just joined the work there, and they gave me such a unique insight into what we were undertaking. I am so grateful that Abba gave me the gift of meeting with them, it really opened my eyes to what we were about it begin!

In light of lessons learned from meeting the women in Wuhan, and PRYRful consideration, Priscilla and I have a fresh outlook on the work we would like to do. First of all, the next two months will be filled with constant PRYR and careful preparation. I never want to underestimate the seriousness of what we are undertaking. There are a number of very serious things to consider, and so here is where we are in need of PRYR warriors such as yourselves! Please keep the following in your conversations with Him:

1. The LRD will raise up leadership among our Chinese sisters to take control of this mnstry, it would be impossible without them. (We are looking specifically for one sister who really has a heart for this work to join with us in leadership, but we are also searching for all others to help!)
2. The LRD will give strength, dedication, and insight to Priscilla and me as we try to be his hands and feet
3. The LRD will prepare the hearts of the women in the pink light districts to be open to our friendship
4. The power to overcome in the spiritual battle we are about to enter into
5. The pink light MNSTRYS already underway in Beijing and Wuhan

The actually logistics of the work as still very much up in the air, as we would really like to have our Chinese sisters leading in the preparation stages. There are a number of possibilities that are looking promising, such as offering free medical checks, or giving clothes or other basic necessities. There will be various roles to play in the MNSTRY; women actually going inside to talk with the pink light ladies, PRYR teams out on the side walk, and PRYR assignments throughout the city to cover us. (A great way for the men to be involved!).

~Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart. There I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor to be for her a door of hope and expectation. And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth and as at the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
~And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me, Ishi [my Husband], and you shall no more call Me, Baali [my Baal]. For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they shall no more be mentioned or seriously remembered by their name. And in that day will I make a covenant for Israel with the living creatures of the open country and with the birds of the heavens and with the creeping things of the ground. And I will break the bow and the sword and conflict out of the land and will make you lie down safely.
~And I will betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will even betroth you to Me in stability and in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.
(Hosea 2: 14-20)
--------

This is a big step that would not be possible without our Father's help, but it also needs the help of everyone in the Family. Please be Mindful of this and everyone involved, and please Ask that a native Sister can be found who will take up a leading role in this. As we've tried to become more action oriented and involved with other things such as the poor and beggars in town, some of the Family here has balked at the idea of being that close and involved with those kinds of people. But they are slowly realizing that we are called to do exactly that. Of course, it's not only the Chinese who are hesitant to make such a big change to lives of action, most of us foreigners are just as reluctant, held back by laziness or bad habits. But we're all working together so we're gaining ground bit by bit.

Wushu and Hotpot: A typical Tuesday

2007-12-04T06:15:00.000-06:00

Today I got up and went to William's apartment at 9:30 to meet him and John for our weekly (in theory) wushu practice. In case you missed it, wushu is the general name for Chinese kungfu. Wushu is the art itself, kungfu is any wushu that focuses on fighting. There are other kinds of wushu that focus on art or health. We learn it every Saturday morning and have set aside Tuesday mornings as a practice session since all three of us are free that morning. John didn't come, and we still don't know why. I'm sure he'll give us some excuse involving butter (last time I was at his apartment, he and his wife had 31 sticks of butter in the fridge). I had fun practicing with William. He put on some traditional Chinese music, most of which was played on a pipa, a stringed instrument. At some point he decided to switch from traditional Chinese music to pop music which made for a hilarious sight. Us practicing wushu to pop music. It struck me as being so funny that I just had to video it. And here it is! Possibly the best video in the history of all videos. You be the judge...

So I left William's place just before 12 and walked to McDonalds so I could meet the girls for hotpot at 12:30. It was Angelyn, Jessica (both American), and Alice (Chinese). If you don't know, hotpot is when you get a big pot full of whatever you choose to eat for lunch, cook it over a fire in the middle of the table, and just eat straight out of the pot. It's usually a good way to die from an overdose of spicey food, but today's was mostly just hot from the fire that was in the middle of the table.

Here's the fish hotpot before we started eating.

And here it is after...

And to give you an idea of how dangerous this meal could have been, here's the pile of millions of fish bones on my plate at the end of the meal.

After lunch we headed back to school. At the bottom of our hill we stopped to pick up some milk tea to drink. Since Alice was still with us we decided to take advantage of her multilingual skills to find out exactly what all the different flavors are. She was tired or didn't want to lean through the window to read them all, so she just went in and sat down behind the counter. For some reason we found this incredibly cute so I got a picture of the booth and one of Alice taking our money like she worked there.

Every Tuesday at 3 Jessica and I go play majiang with Mike, an older man at our school, so we made our way to his apartment. Here are Mike and Jan. I'll let you guess which is which. (hint - Jan doesn't have a combover)

Jessica left at 5 to go prepare for a new class that began tonight, but I stayed for another hour so I could learn the basics of Chinese chess. I'm pretty sure that I could learn to love xiangqi (the Chinese name) more than majiang. How can you not like a game with elephants and cannons? There's even a palace and a river. Yeah, it's way cooler than normal chess.

I came back home at 6 to Study with some students, but they forgot to come so they will come over at 9 with another group that always comes on Tuesday nights. And that, after going all semester without a single class on this day, is a fairly typical Tuesday for me.

Winter holiday plans

2007-12-03T01:48:00.000-06:00

We always look forward to the winter holiday here because instead of one week of overcrowded travel in order to get visit one city, we get 5 or 6 weeks. And only a few of those weeks have overcrowded trains and stations, so it's easier to plan around such things. Well, this year I somehow lucked out and my classes are ending around December 20th instead of sometime in January. That means that from December until the first week of March, I'm free to do whatever is within my budget. I definitely won't be traveling that entire time, but I do know what I'll be doing most of that time. Attending language school in Kunming!

What is language school, you ask? It's a place where you go to learn a language, of course. In this case it's a place in Kunming (down in the southwestern province of Yunnan) that will give me a place to live and teach me one-on-one for four weeks. It's kind of expensive but I should be able to afford it by the time the middle of January gets here. I've always toyed with the idea of going to a language school, but I never wanted to skip going home in the summer or anything like that. Most of the ones I could find online either required that I enroll for a full semester or were just too expensive. But after William hunted up this school in Kunming and he started talking about going there, I couldn't get the idea out of my head. Four weeks of one-on-one tutoring is about the same price as if I were to fly home for the holiday, but I think it will be worth it. It should really advance my level of speaking, which will be helpful for the times I want to ask people on the street why they are staring at me so intently. Is there something on my face? Do I look like your long lost brother? Not really, but I often daydream about saying things like that. I usually just smile and wave or completely ignore them. Anyhoo, back to language school. You can click here to go to the school's website. They give you great accommodations and I actually met a guy on the sleeper bus once who went to this school for three months. I noticed him in some pictures on the school's website. William and Angelyn are both planning to go, so it will probably be the three of us. Since William finishes classes later than us, we'll have to wait around until he's done.

Angelyn, Jessica, and I were thinking of going to Chengdu for a few days in a week or two. That's the panda capital of China. We'll get to pet a panda and then go across town to one of the rarest of rare things in China... a Mexican restaurant! I'm excited. Other than Chengdu and Kunming, I don't have any big plans for this winter holiday. I may go on a few other short trips, but nothing too big since language school with cost two months' salary ($950). Those two cities are pretty big names on the list of places to see while in China though, so even if I don't go anywhere else I should see plenty of cool things.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

2007-12-02T00:04:00.000-06:00

The school where I teach has the foreign English teachers give a 2 hour lecture every Friday night. Since there are 4 of us, we can rotate and do one a month. This past Friday was my turn, so I prepared a lecture on the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I figured the Chinese would love it because they always want to know how to get ahead in life, plus it's easy on my part because all I had to do was summarize something that had already been done.

I read this book in college, but I forgot that the first part of the book focuses on the difference between character and personality, and how important it is to focus on having a foundation of good character rather than focusing on skills, personality, and techniques. After I began to prepare the Powerpoint presentation for this lecture, I began to get excited about what kinds of questions might surface after I was done. In general, the Chinese don't learn any kind of ethics associated with business, so they don't see a problem with cutting a few corners here and there, pocketing a bit of money that no one will miss. Of course, those kinds of practices can come back to bite you in the end so a lot of people with common sense stay away from that sort of thing. But to have good character values plainly laid out in a presentation was something that these students hadn't had before. After finishing my lecture, I didn't really get any questions about the 7 habits. Instead, all of the questions were along the lines of "How important do you think it is to have good character?" "What kinds of traits do you consider to be good character?" "Do you really think honesty is important in business and other relationships?" "Do you think having a faith of some sort is important for success and happiness?" "Everyone has their own idea of the world and you can't force someone to follow your faith, so why do you think having a strong faith is important?" "I don't think it's possible for someone to change their mind about what they believe. Have you ever know someone who doesn't believe in religion to change their mind?"

Needless to say, I felt like the questions started some good conversations. Even though the conversations didn't last very long because we all ended up leaving soon after, the smallest seed can bear up a giant tree.

Month Discrimination

2007-11-30T23:41:00.000-06:00

I realized today that I must hate November because I totally refused to blog during the entire month. It wasn't a bad month, I'm not sure why I unconsciously avoided blogging about it. We must have had an argument once and now I'm having trouble forgiving November for all the things it said about me. Forgiveness is a hard thing to dish out sometimes, I guess.

Well, to sum up November, it started getting cold for a while. And then it warmed up until we could wear short sleeves in the middle of the day. And then it got really cold again. One of the warm parts was Thanksgiving. It wasn't really cold at all on that day, and it was nice and sunny. We had a big dinner that night with two turkeys someone collected the weekend before in Wuhan, lots of homemade pies, various stuffings and gravies, more rolls than I ever imagined could possible fit in one room, and (of course) Chinese food. Since there were at least 70 people at the dinner, it took quite a while to get everyone through the line for turkey and western dishes. But I did manage to snag two pieces of pecan pie since I don't imagine we'll have any more of that this year. Unless someone mails us more karo syrup and pecans! Feel free.

Last night, to celebrate the last day of November and to bring in the Christmas season at full swing, Jessica came up with the idea of chopping down a real, live Christmas tree. She won't settle for a fake tree and none of the plant markets in town plan of having Christmas trees this year. It's a tradition in her family for them to all go out together and get a tree, kind of like the Griswald family Christmas or something. So she scouted a tree on the hill behind us and then we waited for dark to settle before we set out. Lacking a hatchet or saw, Jessica brought along her trusty kitchen cleaver to do the chopping. I just went along to provide light with my cell phone and to witness the possible hilarity. Nothing too out of the ordinary happened other than us chopping down a small pine tree in the middle of the night with a kitchen knife and nonchalantly carrying it back to our apartment building.

William and me sitting around before the caper. He didn't actually go, he stayed behind to keep our escape route clear. i.e. - fall asleep on the couch.

My cell phone in one hand and the cleaver in the other, Jessica is ready to lay into that tree. It was pitch dark out and we really couldn't see anything at all. The camera flash about burned our eyeballs out of their sockets.

After getting the tree, Zoe was trying to chop my head off.

Angelyn and Jessica were psyched about this tree. If you'll notice, the trunk is bristling with trillions of little death spikes. I didn't notice that in the dark, but luckily I didn't close my hand all the way on the tree.

I had fun whacking other trees with the cleaver. It cut into them better than I expected!

The finished product was a bonafide Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I'm considering getting one for my own apartment, except that it'll be dead in a week. Maybe I'll wait until the holiday is closer.

And that brings us to today. Today is December 1. It was in the city news last week that everyone was turning on their heat today, and sure enough when I woke up this morning there was hot water in the radiator pipes. I don't know if it's regulated by the city because it's such a large energy investment, but I think it's funny that the city decides when everyone in town gets hot radiators. It's good that they turned it on when they did, though. Today I woke up and it was a brisk 30 degrees out. That's -1 for you celsius people. I think right now it's up to about 47. The forecast for the rest of the week is a bit colder, so it looks like winter is finally here to stay.

October at last

2007-10-23T01:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it's October. I really don't know where the last month went. I've had visitors and lent out my computer, partly explaining my prolonged absence, but the rest of the time can't really be explained away. The best I can do is just say that when I actually had a chance to write something, I had absolutely no desire to do it. If you thought I was dead, I'm sorry. There are a lot of people who have been wondering about that, but I just wasn't around my computer nearly as much lately. So here I am more than a month later trying to figure out exactly how much stuff has happened that I need to tell you about.

Our school had their annual sports meeting last week. Once again, I was not invited to participate in any events. I guess I don't look like I could qualify for the 100 meter dash, long jump, shotput, or jump rope competitions. I do happen to know students competing in all of those, though. I arrived late Friday morning for the festivities, so some students were already waiting at the gate for me so that they could entice me to go into the press box and yell a cheer in Chinese for the foreign language department. They actually asked Angelyn and Jessica to do it, but the job was passed on to me because I'm the only foreigner crazy enough to yell Chinese over a loudspeaker without too much embarrassment.

The first week of October was a holiday. We got the entire week off, but I opted not to travel this year. After traveling to Xinjiang, I'm low on money and just don't feel up to the challenge yet. I spent most of that week relaxing and doing not much of anything since just about everyone else I know was gone. I spent one day watching movies with Angelyn and introducing her to the Lethal Weapon movies. Last year I introduced her to Die Hard and I had to show her that there are movies that guys like that are better quality than Die Hard. Another day during the holiday I rode bikes up toward Sai Wudang again, like I did back in June. We got started about 3 hours later than we expected due to last minute bike repairs, so we rode to Peach Blossom Lake, which is about halfway to the top of the mountain. The weather was great that week, just right for a long bike ride. The weather has gone from just right, to cold, back to just right, to rainy, to cold and rainy, and now back to sunny and almost warm. I'm not sure what to expect in the mornings anymore. Supposedly this summer was mild so they're expecting a colder winter this year, so I'm dreading when the weather turns cold and stays cold.

Yesterday I used my laptop in class and today it won't start. I keep getting a message saying that Windows has encountered an error and needs to shutdown. I can't even start it in Safe Mode! You know it's serious when safe mode doesn't work. Anyhoo, because of that I can't get any of the new pictures off my computer to put on here. Hopefully today or tomorrow I'll be able to figure out what's wrong with it. For now I'm having to use Angelyn's computer. It's a fine time for me to not have my computer, when I'm finally blogging again, but I'll hopefully be able to keep this thing updated with or without my own computer. Until I do get it fixed, I won't be able to receive Skype calls (which I've been getting a lot of lately, but always when I'm not at home). You'll have to start calling my house phone again, folks. I'll let you know when I'm back on Skype, though.

Latest news

2007-09-14T02:54:00.000-05:00

I've spent a lot of time trying to catch up talking about my trip, but I haven't told anything that has happened in Shiyan recently. Since I came back, things seem to have been fairly slow and yet I feel like I am consistently doing something. We were expecting to have 10 foreign teachers in town this year, but due to problems at a new school two hours from here we have an additional 2 teachers teaching at a middle school here in town. So now we're up to 12. Two more teachers in Xiangfan are having trouble with their contracts because of a health exam so there's a possibility they'll be moving here in the next week or two. Then we'll just be bursting at the seams with foreigners!

The past few Sundays have been pretty good. We've spent a lot of time talking about grace and love because of some personal struggles that have come out recently. My mind has really been occupied lately with how I can best help the Chinese here. It's kept me up at night a few times. Sometimes I feel so unqualified to be teaching anything here because sometimes I just don't feel like I can relate enough to their culture and present situation. But then I remember that I don't really matter, I'm only a medium through which the Father works. Then my mind feels more at ease. At least until I start worrying about it again. It's motivated me to work on my Chinese, though.

The weather here turned cool rather quickly this year. The first week was hot and muggy, but then it turned cooler and it has been fairly clear most of the time. The last two or three days were cloudy and rainy, but today is sunny and warm. Almost too warm after the last week and a half of cool! Tonight there are some new folks coming into town from Danjiangkou. It's the first year that we've had teachers in that city, which is in the same county as us. It's actually smaller than Shiyan so they'll be coming here to find the good shopping and to go to McDonalds. It's weird since we're usually the ones traveling 7 hours to Wuhan for shopping and food. It will be good to have people in two cities that are within 2 and a half hours of us instead of nothing closer than 6-8 hours. Good opportunities to get out of town for one day or one afternoon or whatever.

I was assigned my classes for this term and I'm teaching on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I don't know how I pulled that off, but I have two days of no class. That's amazing! I've already filled up most of my nights with class or Studies with students, so now I'm looking for things to fill up my afternoons and mornings. Last year I was able to study Chinese with a lady in our Foreign Affairs Office, but this year her boss won't let her teach me unless I pay her and we hold our lessons after office hours. She would rather teach me for free in the mornings but he insists that I pay her. I'm never free after office hours except on the weekends so I'm not too keen on the idea. I guess I'll have to rely on students to help me study. Helen was such a good teacher, too. As the Chinese are fond of saying, "What a pity!"

If you didn't read my previous posts, I have a new Skype number that you can use to call me from America. It's a 615 area code number and it will just call my computer. As long as I'm around to hear my computer ringing, I should answer. You might need to call twice to give me time to answer. There's also a new way for me to call the States for 5 cents a minute, compared to the 35 cents a minute it used to cost for me to call from here. And I can use my cell phone instead of going to a special phone station. So drop me your number or just call my new number, which is (615) 653-4595. So far only Greg, my mom, and Jennifer have called me. The rest of you are all bums! By the way, I said the first one to call gets a prize. Greg was the first one to call me but my mom called as I was going to answer Greg's call and I had to make a spot decision and I ended up taking her call first. Next time I see Greg I guess he'll get the mystery prize since he was the first to actually dial the number. Now I just have to figure out what the prize is. Any requests, Greg?

The Silk Road, Part 2 - Kashgar

2007-09-14T02:05:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay, we've been settling in for the last week. I believe that last time I left off with our arrival in Kashgar. Now, 6 of the last 7 nights had been spent on an airplane, bus, or train. Four of the last 7 nights had been spent sitting in a seat. Thank you Nancy in Xi'an and Chinese sleeper buses. We arrived in Kashgar and my watch said 7:30. Since all of China is in one time zone instead of 3 or 4, then it can be really confusing to be a couple thousand miles west of Beijing and still be on Beijing time. Because of this difference in longitude, they have two times in Xinjiang, oddly enough called Beijing time and Xinjiang time. Xinjiang time is two hours behind Beijing, so my watch said 7:30 but the locals were thinking 5:30. The sun wasn't up yet and there was absolutely no one out in the streets yet. Angelyn and I got a taxi to a hotel mentioned in our Lonely Planet guidebook (couldn't travel without it!) and secured lodging for one night. I don't know how, but we ended up with zero pictures of this place. It's a big place that has everything from cheap dorm style rooms to fancy rooms in the old Russian embassy that makes up the back part of the complex. The wall behind the reception desk was worthy of a picture in and of itself, but I guess we were too tired to dig out the cameras. Anyhoo, we cleaned ourselves up a bit and set out to explore the city. When we started walking a lot of the street vendors were just beginning to sell breakfast so we began experimenting with the bread they sell. Let me tell you, Muslim bread is usually covered in sesame (at least in this part of the world) and that just makes for awesome bread. The following are pictures from around the city.

It was good to see that the government was trying to stamp out poor driving.

The first half of the city that we walked through was just a typical Chinese city. We were a little disappointed. Then we came to People's Park. Every single town in China has a park named People's Park. The park in Kashgar has these wonderful tree-lined paths. The park seemed to go on forever. We made a mental note that this would be a great place to play Cops and Robbers sometime, if only we didn't live so far away.

We came out the far side of the park and were greeted by this sight as we passed over a bridge. That's the Old City of Kashgar, which definitely has more of the traditional desert/Muslim culture feel to it.

One of the first places we sought out when we reached the older part of town was the Bazaar. Kashgar is supposed to have an amazing Sunday Market that knocks most people speechless. We weren't there on a Sunday so didn't get to experience it. It's supposed to spill into the streets for blocks and blocks in every direction. We did get to experience the Sunday bazaar in Hotan, but that comes later.

The architecture in the Old City is definitely not traditional Chinese. It was great seeing something so different. If you're having trouble reading the signs it's because Arabic reads right to left. Try it that way.

The buildings went from mostly shops to mostly residences. The traffic practically disappeared and we were able to just stroll down some side streets and soak in the sights.

Most towns we went to had a new Chinese City and an Old City that was usually centered around a mosque. We knew that we were coming out on the street with Kashgar's big mosque, so here's the picture we took of it.

See the man in the red hat taking a picture of something off to the right? It turns out he was taking a picture of the mosque while we were taking a picture of the mall next to the mosque. Here's the actual mosque.

Here's a nice camel sitting outside the mosque. Their humps were a lot floppier than I expected. I guess they're filled with fat so what should I have expected?

After we walked around we found a place to eat lunch at had some nice kebabs. There are five different kinds of kebabs and I'm pretty sure one of them is sheep heart or kidney. The other four are really good, though. Meat and bread are 90% of the diet here, so most Americans would love it.

Two of the things we had in mind to do in Kashgar were to take a trip to Karakul Lake and to take a trip into the Taklamakan desert. We spent the afternoon scouting out travel agents who could help us arrange a trip. In the process we met a German student named Fabian. He had been studying in Shanghai and was taking a grand tour around China before returning home. We teamed up to split the cost of a trip to Karakul Lake and planned to leave the next morning at 6, local time, 8 Beijing time. And that is where I shall pick up next time. I'll leave with a teaser photo to pique your interest.

A note about Skype

2007-09-05T19:50:00.000-05:00

If you use a computer to call me you can at least see if I'm online, which means my computer is on, even if I'm not around. If you call it's just hit or miss and you really don't know why you missed me. But we can always make an appointment! Just wanted to say that.

My new phone number

2007-09-04T21:43:00.000-05:00

Well, after being behind the ages for awhile I finally got a SkypeIn number. If you're wondering, Skype is a computer program that lets you call from computer to computer for free, and the quality is like you're just using the phone. Now you can pay $5 a month and get a phone number so people can call from their phone to your computer, or you can even call from your computer to their phone. But that last one costs more so I'm sticking with people calling my computer. Anyhoo, if you're reading this, you know me, and you know the rules about talking to me on the phone or in email while I'm in China, then feel free to call 615-653-4595. It's a Nashville number (or middle TN at least) but it will actually call my computer. If I answer but you don't hear anything it's because I'm pulling my microphone headset out of the desk drawer, so please be patient while I plug it in. If I don't answer and you get voicemail, I'm either not at home, my computer volume is turned down so I didn't hear it ringing, or you called in the middle of the night and I'm asleep. I'm exactly 12 hours ahead of New York City right now, so just switch the AM and PM to figure out what time it is here. Now all of you who never got around to buying one of those international calling cards can just call me like I'm in the States. Yay! First one to call gets a prize, so I'll be here waiting.

An experiment in video

2007-09-03T12:38:00.000-05:00

I'm hoping that my internet will cooperate and I'll be able to upload some videos and put them on here to enhance my blog stories. This one isn't too exciting but it fits in with the part of the trip I've already told about. This video was taken at some point on the second day of the 34 hour train from Xi'an to Urumqi. Enjoy!

The Silk Road, Part 1 - Nashville to Kashgar

2007-08-28T23:14:00.000-05:00

Well, after a few days of not being able to connect to the Blogger website I'm finally back. I'll be telling about my trip in parts so as not to overwhelm you with a twelve mile long blog entry. This is what I did for a lot of the time just before leaving for China... played Nintendo. It was fun, but I never did beat Zelda. HOWEVER, it turns out that James, one of the guys at my school this year, has a Wii. So I'll get a chance to finish without having to wait a year. I'm not sure if that's good or not. I might end up wasting way too much of my time. Good thing it's in another apartment. Moving on. I told some of this already, but it won't hurt you to read it again with pictures. Angelyn and I had planned to come back to China early this year so that we could explore the western end of China. It's home to the ancient Silk Road that led from China to India, Persia, and even to the Mediterranean. The events that follow are perhaps one of the events in my time in China that truly qualify as a full adventure.

I left Nashville on August 7, met Angelyn in Los Angeles, and we set off to China via Hong Kong and Xi'an. We landed in Xi'an the morning of August 9 and made our way to Nancy's apartment. Nancy is a lady who has been in China for 9 years and she always opens her apartment to visitors when they come to town. It was great to be back after 6 weeks and we were both excited to be on our way to the Xinjiang region of China. Our first day in Xi'an we walked around town a bit to wake ourselves up and try to get over jetlag. Nancy lives just down the street from the Big Goose Pagoda. (Side note: I took my mom here when she came to visit a few years ago and we saw a guy getting beat up with a 2x4. I knew you wanted to know that.)

Nancy had been gracious enough to arrange our train tickets from Xi'an to Urumqi, but due to the crowd there were no beds left on the train, only seats. Seats are better than standing tickets, though. So on August 10, after one night to recover from jetlag (Note: this is not enough) Angelyn and I set off on a 34 hour train to Urumqi. Our hard seat tickets lived up to their name quickly. Since our train left at almost 10pm, 34 hours on the train encompassed two nights. So for the next two nights we slept sitting up. Yay!

The people were quiet enough at night, but it still wasn't comfortable unless you were a tiny Chinese person who could curl up on the floor or in the lap of the person next to you. However, I'm a huge non-Chinese person who can't do either of these.

I did manage to claim the window seat on the second night and use the edge of the table to sleep on. If you ever fly back to China early so you can travel to Xinjiang before school starts, either fly all the way to Xinjiang, get a bed on the train, or allow more time to recover from your flight. Take it from me. The second day on the train we passed the town of Jiayuguan in Gansu province and saw this sight.

This is the westernmost fortification on the Great Wall. Considering that we're a long stinkin' way from where the wall starts on the east coast, that's pretty impressive. So on August 12, at 7:30 in the morning, we finally got off that cursed train and found ourselves in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. I should tell you that more than 90% of China's population is of the Han ethnicity, but Xinjiang is mainly populated by Uighur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, and other ethnicities from Central Asia. From this point on, all signs were in Chinese and Arabic because all of these languages use the Arabic alphabet.

We have a friend in Shiyan named Orange. She changed her name to Emily last year since everyone teases her about being named Orange, but we all still call her Orange. This is her. She's from Urumqi. She was in Shiyan working at an internship, but we were going to her hometown so she arranged for us to meet up with her mom. Since we were arriving on a Sunday morning, we caught a taxi and went to the local Chinese Church. Most big cities in China actually have a registered church with a big building and everything. It was kind of weird meeting Orange's mom because she doesn't speak English and, for some reason that I still don't understand, Orange exaggerated my Chinese speaking ability in telling her mom that I speak fluent Chinese. So her mom starts talking to us, we're super tired and jetlagged, not to mention the fact that we just spent two nights on a train without showers or anything. At this point I couldn't remember half of my Chinese so we basically just kind of smiled and nodded a lot. Her mom had gotten us our train tickets to Kashgar. The train was scheduled to leave at noon so we really only had about 4 hours off of the train. We stayed for a while at church and then Orange's mom escorted us to the bus stop so we could go back to the station. We got to the station, bought some snacks for the train, which was scheduled to be 23 hours, ate some noodles for lunch, and made our way to the station entrance. At the entrance there was a mob of people pushing to get in the station, but they were being turned away by two ladies with megaphones. I can generally understand people when they speak clearly and slowly here, but there's no way I could understand something being yelled into a bullhorn. I kept hearing our train number being called so I thought that either there's something wrong with our train or they're only letting people on our train into the station to avoid overcrowding. The lady at the door would only wave me away, she wouldn't stop to answer any questions. I still couldn't understand what she was saying into the megaphone. I walked around the corner and showed my ticket to a guard and he finally told me that this train wasn't leaving today, and then he pointed me towards the ticket office. It was a tad bit crowded. Just a tad. Usually the ticket office in a train station is crowded in China, but this time the entire room was one solid mass of people because the crowd of people trying to buy tickets was enlarged by the crowd of people trying to return tickets. If you squint, you might be able to tell that the big marquee on the wall says that all train heading towards Kashgar are canceled due to weather. Since we were on the edge of the desert, I figured maybe there was a sandstorm. Turns out it was a bad rainstorm. Weird, huh? So now there we were, jetlagged, no train, no place to stay, no desire or energy to act. Obviously Angelyn was enjoying the situation more than I was. At this point my phone's battery died so Angelyn messaged Orange to let her know the situation. She then messaged her mom, who said we should come back to the church and meet her. So we did that, then she went back to the station with us to help return the train tickets. Angelyn sat outside with our bags while Li Xinhua and I stood in line for three long hours. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep standing up a few times. After all was said and done, we returned the tickets and managed to get bus tickets instead. The benefit was that instead of another long train ride with only a seat, we now had a 22 hour bus ride with beds. Yay, beds! Glory, glory, hallelujah! We set off on that bus at 5pm. We were leaving 5 hours later than originally planned, but we now had beds, plus I was in the first bed as you got on the bus so I was able to stick my long legs over the edge. If you're wondering what the side effects are from a 34 hour train ride with no bed, take a look at my swollen ankles. Yeesh!

So we set off happily with our pillows and blankets tucked around us. It was still August 12. About 3 hours into the trip the driver pulled over and a few men jumped off the bus to answer the call of nature. Since I'd had entirely too much tea with dinner just before getting on the bus, I jumped off with them. The storm that had cancelled the trains was apparently aproaching because when I got off I was hit with a gust of wind that blew my shoe down the road. I chased it down and came back to the bus to find that everyone else was back on the bus and the driver was honking for me to get on. That tea was going to wait for the next rest stop, so I was a little while longer before getting on the bus. I guess it was too long for the driver. Since the honking didn't get me back on the bus he started driving away slowly. Angelyn had seen me going after my shoe and then couldn't see me anymore so she though I had blown away and that the driver was leaving me. She was relieved when I finally got back on the bus. We stopped again at 10 at a place where we could eat, use the bathroom, and stretch our legs. At this point it's extremely windy, raining slightly, and feels very very cold. I was perplexed. I thought we were going into the desert? We got back on the bus and went back to sleep, taking full advantage of the beds to get over our jetlag. Well, the next morning we woke up and we were still at the same place. What in the world?!? When the clock said 9:50 we got back on the road. We later saw that parts of the road had been covered in water during the night, plus there had been a rockslide blocking one area, so we had just spent 12 hours at the same rest stop. On August 13 we stopped in the middle of no where twice, once for lunch and once to get gas.

Our 22 hour bus ride turned into a 39 hour bus ride. All we could think was "I'm so glad to have a bed." I think the bed made it all okay. The guys beneath us did annoy me by lighting up a new cigarette every 10 minutes. And for breakfast one guy packed some tobacco into the top of an apple, where the stem comes out. Then he rolled up a stiff piece of paper, stuck into the side of the apple, and proceeded to the smoke the apple like a pipe. Never seen that before, and don't know if I should expect to ever see it again. I tried to get a picture but it's extremely blurry because the bus was bouncing. The apple is in the right hand of the man in the red shirt. You can see the long white roll of paper sticking out of it.

We got to Kashgar at 7:3oam on August 14. By this time we had spent four nights in a row on trains and buses and were very ready to shower. Out of the 192 hours since we had left America, we had spent 150 of those on a plane, train, or bus. That's how we got to Kashgar. Considering it's taken me a couple of hours to write all of this and get the pictures to upload, and also considering that I've got to be somewhere across town in 30 minutes, I'm going to end here for now. Two more entries should cover the rest of the trip, I think. I hope you enjoyed the first installment. Tell your friends!

Home, Sweet Home

2007-08-23T09:31:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back in good ol' Shiyan. Our train got in the station around 4:40 this afternoon, we were met by our good friend Zoe, dropped our stuff off at our apartments, and were at Happy Guy's for dinner by 5:30. All in all it was a great trip, but it is so incredibly great to be back. I'm headed to bed right now, but tomorrow I plan on doing laundry, cleaning the layer of dust that accumulated in my absence, spraying for cockroaches, and posting pictures from my trip. Come back later for more.

Change of plans

2007-08-21T08:51:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been all the way around the stinkin' Taklamakan Desert. By the way, did you know that this name is a Mongolian name meaning "Enter but never return"? Well I entered and I definitely returned. I still haven't ridden my camel and camped overnight yet, but I did climb a sand dune when our bus made a bathroom stop. More about that later. For now, I will give a brief status update and reveal our plans for the rest of this trip. Angelyn and I are alive. We're back in Urumqi (the furthest city from the ocean in the whole wide world). We were planning on going to Turpan, about two hours from here, and spend a few days taking in the sights and maybe camping in the sand dunes. One reason to do this was to pass the time until next weekend when our friend Orange (yes, that's her name) would be coming home to Urumqi and we could spend two or three days hanging out with her and her family. Two days ago, while lying exhausted in a hotel in Khotan, I received a message from Orange saying that she still isn't sure if she can come home or not. That kind of pushed us over the edge of our exhaustion, so Angelyn and I immediately went out and arranged transport home to Shiyan. Tomorrow we'll fly to Xi'an and the next morning we'll take our final 8 hour leg of the trip by train and arrive in Shiyan. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to my apartment. A lot! Anyhoo, we cut out the Turpan, desert camping, camel riding part of the trip, which really stinks. I'll find a way to make up for it before I die. At least we got to do the Karakul Lake, mountain climbing, glacier viewing, Kyrgyz yurt sleeping part. Now I'm going to shower and go to bed because I am really really tired after last night's bus. I didn't exactly fit in the crevice they provided on the sleeper bus so I'm sore today. Plus Orange's parents tracked us down this morning and force fed us for about 7 hours straight. It tasted good but I think I exploded so violently about 5 hours into it that I actually landed back together in one piece. Weird, I know. I'm signing off until I'm back in my own place, so I'll catch you guys and dolls in two days!

P.S. - I lost my phone on the bus last night. :(