I am such a bad blogger; it's been forever since my last post. Shame on me. *wrist-slap* But I do have something I have learned, or am learning, that I wanted to share because it's just blowing my mind.
I recently read the best parenting book out there, "Raising Godly Tomatoes". It's completely scripture-based and without all the psychological babble that leads many Christian parents into dangerous secular practices. Essentially, this wonderful lady's parenting philosophy is that you, as the parent, have God-given authority over your child to train and discipline them, that you can and must teach your children respectful obedience, that you must learn to discern your child's heart and discover what motives he has for disobedience so that you can not only correct the behavior but touch his heart and instill in him a love for God, and that you must teach your children to control their emotions, because selfishness and anger at two is no more attractive than the same emotional sins at twenty.
It's this last bit that blew me away. For some reason, no matter how many times I've read the Bible and how much I've studied the New Testament letters specifically, it has never occurred to me that God is commanding us to control our emotions. If you look in Galatians, several of the things Paul lists as works of the flesh are emotions -- fits of anger, jealousy, envy -- and the other things result from these emotions -- enmity, strife, rivalries, dissensions, divisions.
I'm not sure if I'm being clear. This is still rattling around in my head, but think about it -- our culture, especially the psychological influences out there, is saying that you need to let kids express their emotions, that you can't help your feelings, yadda yadda yadda. But God commands us to control ourselves, and how fair is it to treat a kid like he is a slave to his emotions and make excuses for him, then turn around when he's a teenager and say, okay, NOW you need to start obeying God in this?
Anyway, we are teaching Connor to obey us with a good attitude and explaining why selfishness and disrespect make God unhappy, but that's not where I'm really going with this. The idea of controlling emotion just hit me square between the eyes.
I have always said, in a joking manner, that I am not a patient person. I have treated my impatience as a rather cute character flaw, a quirk of my personality, and let it slide at that.
Son of a gun if it ain't a sin after all. God tells us to be patient, so acting impatient is directly disobeying His word, and that's serious business. It doesn't matter if I'm having a rotten day and my nerves are frazzled and I'm trying to do ten things at once and my sweet little boy is pestering me with "why?" questions. My feelings DO NOT MATTER. I am to obey God and be patient regardless of whether or not I feel like it.
Here's another thing. I have always considered myself slow to anger but easily frustrated. Huh. If that isn't the biggest contradiction in the world, I don't know what is. Frustration is just a nicer way of saying that I get angry at small, insignificant things. Or better yet, I get angry when things don't go the way I want them to -- like the jar of pickles just won't open or I struggle with a bag of chips that scatters its contents everywhere when it finally bursts open or every store is out of that one ingredient I need to make dinner. Frustration is ANGER. I never ever thought that I have a problem with anger, but lo and behold if God isn't flashing a big neon sign in my face this week and shouting in my ear, "That right there where your voice was terse with Connor? Anger. Oh and that, when you made that loud disgusted noise because the handle broke off the cabinet again? Anger. Oh, and here's a good one, the power going out right when you put dinner in the oven and you complained about China? Anger."
It is never pretty to face your own sins. And I now realize that you must call them SINS. These are not quirks, character flaws, or part of your personality make-up. There is no justification. This is serious, separating-you-from-God sin.
So. Beginning now until I master it (which means until I die, probably, but gotta try) I am working on controlling my emotions and not letting them control me. Justin is dubious, but supportive. He, of all people, knows how impatient and easily frustrated I am. But God, I think, is cheering me on.
I'll let you know how it goes. If you think about it, pray for me! This is going to be tough.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Flat Broke
It's been a while since my last post, mainly because things have been chugging along at a normal pace with no blog-worthy happenings. Until this morning.
Okay, here's the premise. We have finally settled (we think) on our plans for this summer -- we'll be tackling the GanSu province. We're going to hit Xi'An again (the place with the Terra Cotta Warriors and lots of other great history) since our camera was stolen when we stayed there before and we lost all our pictures. Then onto GanSu, where, among other things, we will be doing some Tibetan camping (yaks!) and overnighting in the Gobi Desert- complete with camel ride. I've always wanted to ride a camel in the desert but never thought I'd actually have the opportunity!
It's the Gobi experience that sent me shopping this morning. I needed to find some linen to sew up some desert clothes -- loose, breathable, and cool, but still long pants and long-sleeved shirts to keep the sunburn away. So, I got up early to exercise, fix breakfast for the family, throw shopping bags (you have to pay for plastic bags when shopping in China, so we carry cloth ones) in my shoulder bag, grab wallet, keys, phone, and Justin's old IPod (for music purposes), kiss my boys, and run out the door. The fabric place is a solid hour and a half away by bus, so I was hoping to save myself an hour and taxi it. I think my time is worth the extra $4 to take a taxi.
So I head out the door with IPod music in full swing and a bounce in my step. Shopping for fabric is one of my favorite activities, and I restrict myself to once a semester (generally) for Justin's sanity. I walk the ten minutes to the campus gate, hoping for a taxi. No taxi. So I hop onto the bus, the very last person. The doors squeeze shut right behind my butt. I see a taxi stop and pick up a student and sigh to myself for not waiting longer, but figure I'll grab a taxi across the river -- hopefully.
Now, here's something you should know about buses in China, in case you've forgotten. They pack people in like sardines. Worse than sardines. You can't breathe, much less speak, the smell is overpowering (Chinese don't use deodorant!) and there's no circulation whatsoever. This bus is, of course, packed to the hilt.
And then we stop. And more people crowd on. Now, instead of being squished next to the door, I'm perched on the hand rail, holding on for dear life and praying for no sudden stops.
We go to the next bus stop. I'm certain, after three years in China, that the driver cannot possibly expect to get more people on this bus.
He does.
Not only do people get on the bus, but two very large (fat, actually) Chinese men lumber on. Chinese men have this habit of rolling their tee shirts up to expose their stomachs for what we call "Chinese air-conditioning". So I'm staring at rolls of sweaty blubber. To top it off, the man closest to me raises his arms to hold on to the rail above my head, leaning close and giving me the joyous opportunity to drink in his overpowering scent.
This was not a pleasant bus trip for me, as you can imagine.
It gets better.
We motor over the bridge, me looking down and breathing through my mouth. The bridge has never seemed longer, but we make it, and I vault out the door.
At this point, I can get another bus (after that experience, not looking forward to it) or a taxi. Glory be, a taxi pulls up! It's tricky to get one sometimes, so this is a huge blessing. I jump in and tell him where I want to go. He grunts and starts the meter.
This is where panic sets in.
Did I bring my money? I know I have my wallet with a couple yuan in it, but my shopping/taxi money?
I frantically search my pockets and my bag, all too aware of the road rolling by under the tires. The soundtrack of Les Mis pounds in my ears. Luckily, there's lots of traffic, so we've only gone about 20 feet when I know for sure that I don't have the money to pay this guy. He stops behind a bus and, out of desperation, I throw a 对不起 (sorry!) over my shoulder and leap out of the cab. I don't look back to see how he takes this.
Thinking back now, I probably should have given him some kind of money, but trying to explain the situation is beyond my current vocabulary - especially in the frantic state I was in - and I needed the pitiful bills in my wallet to get a bus home.
I feel vaguely guilty for my desperate act, but oh so thankful that I didn't take a taxi from the school gate and get all the way to my destination without money to pay him, or get on the second bus and ride another hour to have no money to get home. God was watching out for me, I'm sure!
Anyway, here I am, stuck on the side of the road without money to do much of anything except maybe get home. That's when I realize that -- uh-oh -- the bus stop moved recently. They do this sporadically, I think just to keep us on our toes. I have no idea where to get on the bus that will take me back to our school. I could wander through the streets all morning and never stumble across the right place.
I stop in the middle of the crowded sidewalk and look up at the bridge. The pride and joy of our new mayor, who has a special place in his heart for bridges and promises to build something like four or five more, is a little over a mile long and has a fairly steep incline.
And I have to walk it. It's the only way home.
I crank up the music, adjust my shoulder bag, and stomp on. And I do mean stomp. I am out of sorts, frustrated that my whole day is shot. By the time I cross the bridge, walk to campus, and go all the way to the back corner of campus, where our apartment is, there's no way I'll have time to get the shopping done today, even if I want to -- and I increasingly think I just won't want to.
It's about halfway across the bridge, sweating under the glare of the bright sun, that my sense of humor kicks in. Personally, I think this is one of God's greatest blessings. If I didn't have the ability to laugh at myself, life would be miserable. This is a ridiculous situation I've placed myself in, and blamed if it isn't starting to earn a chuckle or two. Just being so all-fired mad is enough to make my mouth twitch into a smile, plus I'm getting stared at in my foul temper by passing cars and bicyclists, not to mention the pedestrians I'm booking it past. I hate getting stared at on my bad China days, and this was a bad China day indeed.
So I gave them something to stare at. I found my Hairspray soundtrack and belted out the lyrics at the top of my lungs, complete with expressive gestures and a few poorly executed dance moves. They still stared, but at least they had a legitimate reason now.
Down the bridge, across a construction site, and onto campus. 15 more minutes to my door, which I flung open with dramatic flair, strode across the room to the desk, and picked up the envelope of money. I held it above my head with exhausted triumph.
So. I have learned a few things.
1. Take a water bottle everywhere. You never know when you might be broke and walking a couple of miles.
2. Take an umbrella. It didn't rain, but it could have. That would have been many times worse.
3. Learn how to tell a taxi driver you left your money at home. I could have come up with something garbled, I'm sure, but I will learn and memorize the correct sentence so that it will be handy whenever I need it in the future.
4. Double, triple, and quadruple check to make sure that your money is on your person. 'Nuff said.
I'll try this trip again tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me -- and pray!
Okay, here's the premise. We have finally settled (we think) on our plans for this summer -- we'll be tackling the GanSu province. We're going to hit Xi'An again (the place with the Terra Cotta Warriors and lots of other great history) since our camera was stolen when we stayed there before and we lost all our pictures. Then onto GanSu, where, among other things, we will be doing some Tibetan camping (yaks!) and overnighting in the Gobi Desert- complete with camel ride. I've always wanted to ride a camel in the desert but never thought I'd actually have the opportunity!
It's the Gobi experience that sent me shopping this morning. I needed to find some linen to sew up some desert clothes -- loose, breathable, and cool, but still long pants and long-sleeved shirts to keep the sunburn away. So, I got up early to exercise, fix breakfast for the family, throw shopping bags (you have to pay for plastic bags when shopping in China, so we carry cloth ones) in my shoulder bag, grab wallet, keys, phone, and Justin's old IPod (for music purposes), kiss my boys, and run out the door. The fabric place is a solid hour and a half away by bus, so I was hoping to save myself an hour and taxi it. I think my time is worth the extra $4 to take a taxi.
So I head out the door with IPod music in full swing and a bounce in my step. Shopping for fabric is one of my favorite activities, and I restrict myself to once a semester (generally) for Justin's sanity. I walk the ten minutes to the campus gate, hoping for a taxi. No taxi. So I hop onto the bus, the very last person. The doors squeeze shut right behind my butt. I see a taxi stop and pick up a student and sigh to myself for not waiting longer, but figure I'll grab a taxi across the river -- hopefully.
Now, here's something you should know about buses in China, in case you've forgotten. They pack people in like sardines. Worse than sardines. You can't breathe, much less speak, the smell is overpowering (Chinese don't use deodorant!) and there's no circulation whatsoever. This bus is, of course, packed to the hilt.
And then we stop. And more people crowd on. Now, instead of being squished next to the door, I'm perched on the hand rail, holding on for dear life and praying for no sudden stops.
We go to the next bus stop. I'm certain, after three years in China, that the driver cannot possibly expect to get more people on this bus.
He does.
Not only do people get on the bus, but two very large (fat, actually) Chinese men lumber on. Chinese men have this habit of rolling their tee shirts up to expose their stomachs for what we call "Chinese air-conditioning". So I'm staring at rolls of sweaty blubber. To top it off, the man closest to me raises his arms to hold on to the rail above my head, leaning close and giving me the joyous opportunity to drink in his overpowering scent.
This was not a pleasant bus trip for me, as you can imagine.
It gets better.
We motor over the bridge, me looking down and breathing through my mouth. The bridge has never seemed longer, but we make it, and I vault out the door.
At this point, I can get another bus (after that experience, not looking forward to it) or a taxi. Glory be, a taxi pulls up! It's tricky to get one sometimes, so this is a huge blessing. I jump in and tell him where I want to go. He grunts and starts the meter.
This is where panic sets in.
Did I bring my money? I know I have my wallet with a couple yuan in it, but my shopping/taxi money?
I frantically search my pockets and my bag, all too aware of the road rolling by under the tires. The soundtrack of Les Mis pounds in my ears. Luckily, there's lots of traffic, so we've only gone about 20 feet when I know for sure that I don't have the money to pay this guy. He stops behind a bus and, out of desperation, I throw a 对不起 (sorry!) over my shoulder and leap out of the cab. I don't look back to see how he takes this.
Thinking back now, I probably should have given him some kind of money, but trying to explain the situation is beyond my current vocabulary - especially in the frantic state I was in - and I needed the pitiful bills in my wallet to get a bus home.
I feel vaguely guilty for my desperate act, but oh so thankful that I didn't take a taxi from the school gate and get all the way to my destination without money to pay him, or get on the second bus and ride another hour to have no money to get home. God was watching out for me, I'm sure!
Anyway, here I am, stuck on the side of the road without money to do much of anything except maybe get home. That's when I realize that -- uh-oh -- the bus stop moved recently. They do this sporadically, I think just to keep us on our toes. I have no idea where to get on the bus that will take me back to our school. I could wander through the streets all morning and never stumble across the right place.
I stop in the middle of the crowded sidewalk and look up at the bridge. The pride and joy of our new mayor, who has a special place in his heart for bridges and promises to build something like four or five more, is a little over a mile long and has a fairly steep incline.
And I have to walk it. It's the only way home.
I crank up the music, adjust my shoulder bag, and stomp on. And I do mean stomp. I am out of sorts, frustrated that my whole day is shot. By the time I cross the bridge, walk to campus, and go all the way to the back corner of campus, where our apartment is, there's no way I'll have time to get the shopping done today, even if I want to -- and I increasingly think I just won't want to.
It's about halfway across the bridge, sweating under the glare of the bright sun, that my sense of humor kicks in. Personally, I think this is one of God's greatest blessings. If I didn't have the ability to laugh at myself, life would be miserable. This is a ridiculous situation I've placed myself in, and blamed if it isn't starting to earn a chuckle or two. Just being so all-fired mad is enough to make my mouth twitch into a smile, plus I'm getting stared at in my foul temper by passing cars and bicyclists, not to mention the pedestrians I'm booking it past. I hate getting stared at on my bad China days, and this was a bad China day indeed.
So I gave them something to stare at. I found my Hairspray soundtrack and belted out the lyrics at the top of my lungs, complete with expressive gestures and a few poorly executed dance moves. They still stared, but at least they had a legitimate reason now.
Down the bridge, across a construction site, and onto campus. 15 more minutes to my door, which I flung open with dramatic flair, strode across the room to the desk, and picked up the envelope of money. I held it above my head with exhausted triumph.
So. I have learned a few things.
1. Take a water bottle everywhere. You never know when you might be broke and walking a couple of miles.
2. Take an umbrella. It didn't rain, but it could have. That would have been many times worse.
3. Learn how to tell a taxi driver you left your money at home. I could have come up with something garbled, I'm sure, but I will learn and memorize the correct sentence so that it will be handy whenever I need it in the future.
4. Double, triple, and quadruple check to make sure that your money is on your person. 'Nuff said.
I'll try this trip again tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me -- and pray!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
普通话 or The Common Language
Okay, so as a serious student of Mandarin for more than a year now, there are some things about this language that are unbelievably spot on and some things that make you scratch your head and wonder what these people were thinking when they created this hot mess.
For example. Take 火 (meaning "fire") and 车 (meaning "vehicle") and put them together, and voila! 火车, meaning "train". Perfectly logical. Easy to remember.
And then, there's 牛奶. 牛meaning "cow" and 奶 meaning "milk". Now, the character for milk is actually comprised of "woman" and "fist". Make of that what you will. Anyway, 牛奶 means cow milk, exactly what it looks like, and very unforgettable.
But now let's look at 奶酪. You know the first part, it means "milk". The second part, though, is made up of "alcohol" and "each one" and means "fruit jelly" or "sweet nut paste". Now, that makes no sense. Even more odd, when you put all that together, you get the character for "cheese". I have no idea whatsoever how that works. Personally, I don't think it does.
There are some really cool ones - 妙, the character for wonderful, is comprised of "woman" and "few". Few women are wonderful. Easy and true, if you think about Proverbs 31.
学, the character for "study" is made of "home" and "child", which is absolutely fantastic as a homeschooling mom. Interestingly enough, there is no homeschooling in China (government schooling all the way here, and no choice in it).
"Home", for ancient and rather giggly reasons, is made of "roof" and "pig" - 家.
安 means "peaceful" and is "home" and "woman" together.
泡 means "bubbles" and is made of "water" and "bound up together", which is pretty cool.
上帝 means "God" and is "above" and "ruler" together.
It's really fascinating (to me, probably not to you, sorry) how the origins of some of these characters hold great moral, traditional values. Of course, some of the others (like 妈妈, "mother" made of "woman" and "horse") are pretty much gibberish.
Anyway. I thought of some of this whilst beating my brains out studying. I have no profound thoughts today. My apologies. But this was fun for me.
For example. Take 火 (meaning "fire") and 车 (meaning "vehicle") and put them together, and voila! 火车, meaning "train". Perfectly logical. Easy to remember.
And then, there's 牛奶. 牛meaning "cow" and 奶 meaning "milk". Now, the character for milk is actually comprised of "woman" and "fist". Make of that what you will. Anyway, 牛奶 means cow milk, exactly what it looks like, and very unforgettable.
But now let's look at 奶酪. You know the first part, it means "milk". The second part, though, is made up of "alcohol" and "each one" and means "fruit jelly" or "sweet nut paste". Now, that makes no sense. Even more odd, when you put all that together, you get the character for "cheese". I have no idea whatsoever how that works. Personally, I don't think it does.
There are some really cool ones - 妙, the character for wonderful, is comprised of "woman" and "few". Few women are wonderful. Easy and true, if you think about Proverbs 31.
学, the character for "study" is made of "home" and "child", which is absolutely fantastic as a homeschooling mom. Interestingly enough, there is no homeschooling in China (government schooling all the way here, and no choice in it).
"Home", for ancient and rather giggly reasons, is made of "roof" and "pig" - 家.
安 means "peaceful" and is "home" and "woman" together.
泡 means "bubbles" and is made of "water" and "bound up together", which is pretty cool.
上帝 means "God" and is "above" and "ruler" together.
It's really fascinating (to me, probably not to you, sorry) how the origins of some of these characters hold great moral, traditional values. Of course, some of the others (like 妈妈, "mother" made of "woman" and "horse") are pretty much gibberish.
Anyway. I thought of some of this whilst beating my brains out studying. I have no profound thoughts today. My apologies. But this was fun for me.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Life Lessons
Have you ever had one of those weeks when life lessons just keep hitting you upside the head? It's been one of those weeks for me. And honestly, when I learn this many lessons, I've just got to tell somebody. Feel free to escape before I get on my soapbox.
First - kids are CRAZY on sugar. It was Connor's fourth birthday, and as the birthday boy, he got to choose his meals for the whole day. Breakfast was cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. Lunch was a peanut butter and honey sandwich, carrot sticks, potato chips, and juice. Dinner was homemade chicken nuggets and fries and chocolate milk. Dessert? Peanut butter ice cream pie, complete with Oreo crust and chocolate syrup drizzled over the top.
Can you tell my son doesn't usually get sweets? But boy howdy, he sure knows exactly what he wants when he does get 'em. By the end of the day, he was bouncing off the walls in a frantic, giggling blur. The next day he was dragging, his head drooped down to his knees when we went out for a walking/shopping trip for his birthday party the next day. He was whiny and tired and flat-out grumpy.
No wonder. Justin and I have decided that the reason our kid is usually so well-behaved is we keep him away from junk. Now that we've seen the results of a sugar high, we are quite determined not to relax our rules.
Second - for anyone out there with boys, I highly recommend Bringing Up Boys by James Dobson. I don't agree with Dobson's doctrine on some crucial points, but the man has parenting wisdom. I now understand my boy better. From Dobson's book, I've also had my eyes opened to some things about American culture. That's one of the bonuses of living in another culture; things that I've always taken for granted about the way we Americans think or do things are suddenly things to be considered; these are not things that are universal. For example, over-committing of our time. It is a huge cultural thing that I didn't realize until it jumped up in my face. In our culture, we look at someone who is always busy, running from one activity to the next, with great respect. I hear about someone's packed schedule and immediately think oh, well, they're very impressive and what an important person they are to be doing so many things. I have free time, so I must be lazy or slacking in something. What's amazing, though, is this is a fairly recent development -- people used to take time to sit on the front porch in the evenings, to play more with their kids, to not have to schedule their family in to their day. Mercy. Thus, I have resolved to say NO more often with greater finality and keep time open to "train up my child in the way he shall go" without making it seem that he is inconveniencing me.
Third - and the final one, I know I'm losing my audience here - fridges are not as hardy as they seem. The day before Connor's birthday party, I did all the prep work. I made a cheese ball (the bare-fingered squishing of cream cheese to mix in seasoning/onions/bell pepper is not my favorite thing, by the way, especially when Justin starts talking about body organs while my hands are full of sticky mush) and a few pounds of chicken salad, started rolls rising overnight, and had a couple dozen chocolate cupcakes cooling. Finally, I decided that instead of buying juice, I would be SuperMom and make lemonade myself.
This was a bad idea. I squeezed 16 lemons. I now know exactly what arthritis will feel like in fifty years. This particular recipe called for ginger, which I thought was exotic and exciting. You bring water, sugar, and sliced ginger root to a boil, then turn off the heat, add the lemon juice, and let it sit for 15 minutes. Take out the ginger and let it chill. Voila. It was super important to let it chill overnight because we have exactly 28 ice cubes at a time, which is definitely not enough for a houseful of Americans.
So. I followed all the instructions, let the lemonade cool a bit, then poured it into whatever containers I had available (not many, it was annoying) and put them in the fridge. No big deal. Tired after a full day of teaching and shopping and kitchen-ing, I kissed my husband goodnight and collapsed into bed.
I woke up at about 6:30 when Connor padded past our bed to the bathroom. He wanted to stay up, Justin said it was too early, I rolled over and asked him what time it was, he said 6:30 and oh, by the way, you broke the fridge.
I usually have a tough time waking up in the morning. I jumped out of bed at that sour announcement and demanded details, mind whirling with thoughts of spoiled chicken salad and how we're in China, I can't just order a pizza or something, and what on earth are we going to do, and cream cheese is so expensive here and I just wasted about 12 ounces of it, and-
Justin proceeded to explain, in a voice that barely contained his irritation, that my hot lemonade had forced the fridge to run all night, he'd been up until 2:30 trying to fix it, and he was pretty sure the compressor was blown.
I didn't know what a compressor was (still don't, it didn't seem like a good time to ask) but I was pretty sure this wasn't a good thing. I was also pretty sure that this was one of the dumbest things I'd ever done and that it would never be forgotten by my husband. I could envision winning a big prize for something very brainy in the future and then Justin would throw his arm around my shoulders and tell the reporters eagerly shoving microphones in our faces that yes, he was proud, but more than that, he was surprised because there'd been this time in China when his wife had murdered a fridge because she lacked common sense.
Very luckily for us, an extra fridge has been floating around the foreigner apartments. I called one of the other teachers, begged for the use of it until ours got fixed, and dragged Justin out of bed to help me get it. We transferred food in a panicked flurry. Also luckily for us, the "broken" fridge was cooler than it had been four hours previously, so nothing had spoiled.
Now, my kitchen is about the size of a shoe box. The second fridge sat smack dab in front of my two burners, and I had to squeeze past it to turn on the gas. I now had enough room to turn around - literally - in which to fix breakfast, make icing and frost cupcakes, chop vegetables and make dip, arrange plates and cups and set out food.... and I was about an hour behind.
Justin was a doll. He blew up balloons and hung streamers while I bumped into shelves and multiple fridges in the kitchen (rather like one of those old pinball arcade games), and he never once criticized me for my idiocy.
The fridge recovered in twenty-four hours. Justin nursed it through the worst of its illness. The lemonade was really excellent, by the way. I have copied the recipe into my recipe book and have titled it "Lethal Lemonade".
I'm not sure which one of these lessons is the most important, but I'm positive the lemonade debacle will be the one to go down in the Hill Family history books.
First - kids are CRAZY on sugar. It was Connor's fourth birthday, and as the birthday boy, he got to choose his meals for the whole day. Breakfast was cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. Lunch was a peanut butter and honey sandwich, carrot sticks, potato chips, and juice. Dinner was homemade chicken nuggets and fries and chocolate milk. Dessert? Peanut butter ice cream pie, complete with Oreo crust and chocolate syrup drizzled over the top.
Can you tell my son doesn't usually get sweets? But boy howdy, he sure knows exactly what he wants when he does get 'em. By the end of the day, he was bouncing off the walls in a frantic, giggling blur. The next day he was dragging, his head drooped down to his knees when we went out for a walking/shopping trip for his birthday party the next day. He was whiny and tired and flat-out grumpy.
No wonder. Justin and I have decided that the reason our kid is usually so well-behaved is we keep him away from junk. Now that we've seen the results of a sugar high, we are quite determined not to relax our rules.
Second - for anyone out there with boys, I highly recommend Bringing Up Boys by James Dobson. I don't agree with Dobson's doctrine on some crucial points, but the man has parenting wisdom. I now understand my boy better. From Dobson's book, I've also had my eyes opened to some things about American culture. That's one of the bonuses of living in another culture; things that I've always taken for granted about the way we Americans think or do things are suddenly things to be considered; these are not things that are universal. For example, over-committing of our time. It is a huge cultural thing that I didn't realize until it jumped up in my face. In our culture, we look at someone who is always busy, running from one activity to the next, with great respect. I hear about someone's packed schedule and immediately think oh, well, they're very impressive and what an important person they are to be doing so many things. I have free time, so I must be lazy or slacking in something. What's amazing, though, is this is a fairly recent development -- people used to take time to sit on the front porch in the evenings, to play more with their kids, to not have to schedule their family in to their day. Mercy. Thus, I have resolved to say NO more often with greater finality and keep time open to "train up my child in the way he shall go" without making it seem that he is inconveniencing me.
Third - and the final one, I know I'm losing my audience here - fridges are not as hardy as they seem. The day before Connor's birthday party, I did all the prep work. I made a cheese ball (the bare-fingered squishing of cream cheese to mix in seasoning/onions/bell pepper is not my favorite thing, by the way, especially when Justin starts talking about body organs while my hands are full of sticky mush) and a few pounds of chicken salad, started rolls rising overnight, and had a couple dozen chocolate cupcakes cooling. Finally, I decided that instead of buying juice, I would be SuperMom and make lemonade myself.
This was a bad idea. I squeezed 16 lemons. I now know exactly what arthritis will feel like in fifty years. This particular recipe called for ginger, which I thought was exotic and exciting. You bring water, sugar, and sliced ginger root to a boil, then turn off the heat, add the lemon juice, and let it sit for 15 minutes. Take out the ginger and let it chill. Voila. It was super important to let it chill overnight because we have exactly 28 ice cubes at a time, which is definitely not enough for a houseful of Americans.
So. I followed all the instructions, let the lemonade cool a bit, then poured it into whatever containers I had available (not many, it was annoying) and put them in the fridge. No big deal. Tired after a full day of teaching and shopping and kitchen-ing, I kissed my husband goodnight and collapsed into bed.
I woke up at about 6:30 when Connor padded past our bed to the bathroom. He wanted to stay up, Justin said it was too early, I rolled over and asked him what time it was, he said 6:30 and oh, by the way, you broke the fridge.
I usually have a tough time waking up in the morning. I jumped out of bed at that sour announcement and demanded details, mind whirling with thoughts of spoiled chicken salad and how we're in China, I can't just order a pizza or something, and what on earth are we going to do, and cream cheese is so expensive here and I just wasted about 12 ounces of it, and-
Justin proceeded to explain, in a voice that barely contained his irritation, that my hot lemonade had forced the fridge to run all night, he'd been up until 2:30 trying to fix it, and he was pretty sure the compressor was blown.
I didn't know what a compressor was (still don't, it didn't seem like a good time to ask) but I was pretty sure this wasn't a good thing. I was also pretty sure that this was one of the dumbest things I'd ever done and that it would never be forgotten by my husband. I could envision winning a big prize for something very brainy in the future and then Justin would throw his arm around my shoulders and tell the reporters eagerly shoving microphones in our faces that yes, he was proud, but more than that, he was surprised because there'd been this time in China when his wife had murdered a fridge because she lacked common sense.
Very luckily for us, an extra fridge has been floating around the foreigner apartments. I called one of the other teachers, begged for the use of it until ours got fixed, and dragged Justin out of bed to help me get it. We transferred food in a panicked flurry. Also luckily for us, the "broken" fridge was cooler than it had been four hours previously, so nothing had spoiled.
Now, my kitchen is about the size of a shoe box. The second fridge sat smack dab in front of my two burners, and I had to squeeze past it to turn on the gas. I now had enough room to turn around - literally - in which to fix breakfast, make icing and frost cupcakes, chop vegetables and make dip, arrange plates and cups and set out food.... and I was about an hour behind.
Justin was a doll. He blew up balloons and hung streamers while I bumped into shelves and multiple fridges in the kitchen (rather like one of those old pinball arcade games), and he never once criticized me for my idiocy.
The fridge recovered in twenty-four hours. Justin nursed it through the worst of its illness. The lemonade was really excellent, by the way. I have copied the recipe into my recipe book and have titled it "Lethal Lemonade".
I'm not sure which one of these lessons is the most important, but I'm positive the lemonade debacle will be the one to go down in the Hill Family history books.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Culture
Culture is a very interesting thing.
It reflects a fundamental difference in the way people think, in what
makes a country's morals and traditions. It's what makes the
distinction in what's polite or rude.
For example, in China it may not be an
insult to call someone fat. Americans would be up in arms, but to
the Chinese, you are calling them healthy and strong, hearkening back
to the days of famine when people didn't have enough to eat.
Chinese people push and shove, jump in
line, and in general look out for number one. I have never seen a
Chinese person hold open a door for someone else or give up their
place in line. Americans are outraged by line-jumpers and consider
pushing past someone for the elevator an outright sin.
China is also full of spitting,
farting, and multiple other actions we Americans find abhorrent.
But. Culture is not just about
countries. I learned something this week. Culture can also be from
your family.
For example.
I don't usually say “please” or
“excuse me” to close family members. (My mother is dying of
shock and embarrassment right now, but hang in there, Mom, I have a
point.) To me, based on my family experience, “excuse me” is
very formal. Very polite. Something you absolutely do with people
you are not as thick as thieves with, but not necessarily with your
dad or sister or husband.
Dad and I cooked a lot in the kitchen
when I was a teenager. If I was chopping onions at the counter and
Dad needed something in the drawer I was standing in front of, he'd
pat my hip in a nonverbal “hey I need to get in there, would you
mind stepping aside for just a moment? Thanks” and yes, I got all
that from a flick of his fingers. Did this insult me? Nope. It was
a sign of our closeness, evidence of our understanding of each other
that I didn't find this rude or annoying. It was normal.
Acceptable. And frankly, when you're carrying on a conversation,
it's nice not to have to interrupt each other for a social nicety.
I do this with my sister too. Mom, not
so much (here ya go, Mom) because she always tried to teach us
etiquette. I even seem to recall the purchase of a book on the
subject that she read to us at the dinner table. Poor Mom, she had
an audience who were talking with their mouths full, leaning on
elbows, and reaching across each other for butter or salt and pepper.
But she never stopped trying. (Props to Mom, you can stop blushing
now!)
“Please” has always been a kind of
understood thing with me, too. I think it's in the voice, in the
tone, in the phrasing of the request. If said correctly, “hey, can
you pass the potatoes?” is as polite and unoffensive as “pardon
me, but my plate seems to be lacking in the potato area, would you
mind ever so much passing them this way when you have a moment,
please? They are currently residing at your left elbow.”
That's my family culture, despite my
mother's best efforts.
My husband disagrees.
“Please” and “excuse me” are
non-negotiable to him. It's pushy to budge him out of my way in the
kitchen and disrespectful to leave off the “please”. What I take
as signs of closeness, to him are not only irritating but possibly
relationship-damaging. His favorite argument is that if you need to
hear an “I love you” even though you know good and well that
person loves you, then you need to hear a “please” or “excuse
me” even when you know that person is not intentionally being rude.
Family culture. Who knew?
This came up in a...um,
conversation...this weekend and has instigated a great deal of
thought on my part. Living in a completely different culture exposes
us to opposite ways of thinking on a daily basis, but it's still
somehow surprising to see it in each other.
I'd love to end this post with a really
deep thought or genius conclusion. I have none. However, I do know
that I will be making an attempt to finally make my mom proud and
re-learn the p's and q's of etiquette.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Never Talk to Strangers
One of the things about Chinese culture is their obsession with children. Especially foreign children. I'm not sure how things were before the one-child law, but children are treated royally here. Thus the term "little emperors".
But even more than the shameless spoiling of Chinese children, Connor gets doted on everywhere we go. Shouts of "hello baby!" plague us whenever we step foot outside. Old women come up and touch his hair. Shop owners give him candy and call him handsome. Chinese parents perpetually tell me that he is too cold. Old men take him by the hand. Students try to pull him away from me.
This is not good. Yes, I like that he's liked, but really it's just that he's a novelty. One of my students told me that Chinese people see foreign children as little dolls because they're so different. She didn't understand why Americans don't see Chinese children that way. It took a long time to explain that it's because our culture is diverse. We have plenty of Asian babies in America.
Anyway. I do not enjoy having people I don't know come up and try to take Connor away from me. I don't believe that anyone would do him any harm, but it's a matter of respecting a parent's wishes and the child's feelings. They don't do this to Chinese children, so why do they think it's okay to do it to mine? Connor does not like this unless he's in the mood to meet new people. Most of the time he freaks out when someone tries to take his hand and pull him away, and rightly so! Besides, I would never allow this in America, so I certainly won't allow it here just because they think my child is a doll.
So there's this book that I remember from my childhood called Never Talk to Strangers. It's so cute, with different animals that you don't talk to because they're strangers, like the camel hanging from a trapeze by his bony knees or the whale driving the automobile. Of course, the book goes on to explain that you can talk to your parents' friends because they know them and the Easter Bunny's okay too because everyone knows him. It doesn't sound special, but it is. We bought this book for Connor when we were in America this winter, and he loves it. We were walking through campus today and a group of students came up and "hello baby"d him. Connor grabbed my leg and buried his face into it, saying, "Strangers! I don't talk to strangers!" The students were instantly discouraged to try anything further.
Bravo! Lesson learned. Although, perhaps it was learned a little too well. I was explaining to Connor why he could not play with something yesterday and he didn't like what I was saying, so he said, "No, Mama, you can't talk to me, you're a stranger. I don't talk to you. Stop talking, Mama."
Sigh. Sometimes I wish he wasn't quite so clever.
But even more than the shameless spoiling of Chinese children, Connor gets doted on everywhere we go. Shouts of "hello baby!" plague us whenever we step foot outside. Old women come up and touch his hair. Shop owners give him candy and call him handsome. Chinese parents perpetually tell me that he is too cold. Old men take him by the hand. Students try to pull him away from me.
This is not good. Yes, I like that he's liked, but really it's just that he's a novelty. One of my students told me that Chinese people see foreign children as little dolls because they're so different. She didn't understand why Americans don't see Chinese children that way. It took a long time to explain that it's because our culture is diverse. We have plenty of Asian babies in America.
Anyway. I do not enjoy having people I don't know come up and try to take Connor away from me. I don't believe that anyone would do him any harm, but it's a matter of respecting a parent's wishes and the child's feelings. They don't do this to Chinese children, so why do they think it's okay to do it to mine? Connor does not like this unless he's in the mood to meet new people. Most of the time he freaks out when someone tries to take his hand and pull him away, and rightly so! Besides, I would never allow this in America, so I certainly won't allow it here just because they think my child is a doll.
So there's this book that I remember from my childhood called Never Talk to Strangers. It's so cute, with different animals that you don't talk to because they're strangers, like the camel hanging from a trapeze by his bony knees or the whale driving the automobile. Of course, the book goes on to explain that you can talk to your parents' friends because they know them and the Easter Bunny's okay too because everyone knows him. It doesn't sound special, but it is. We bought this book for Connor when we were in America this winter, and he loves it. We were walking through campus today and a group of students came up and "hello baby"d him. Connor grabbed my leg and buried his face into it, saying, "Strangers! I don't talk to strangers!" The students were instantly discouraged to try anything further.
Bravo! Lesson learned. Although, perhaps it was learned a little too well. I was explaining to Connor why he could not play with something yesterday and he didn't like what I was saying, so he said, "No, Mama, you can't talk to me, you're a stranger. I don't talk to you. Stop talking, Mama."
Sigh. Sometimes I wish he wasn't quite so clever.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Blow Me Away
So I think we've established that this semester thus far has been rough. We've lost some of the kids who've been Studying with us, we've hit roadblocks in the form of big exams, and we've been discouraged.
Here's the good news.
One of the Sisters, Cen Zi Lin, and one of my favorite Seekers, Hao Hao went with me to eat some barbecue tonight. Cen Zi Lin is the only Family member to date who's been able to stand up against peer pressure. She is such a strong kid, especially for still being a babe in Him.
Hao Hao is the girl who, when studying one of Paul's letters with me, saw the reference to Timothy, asked questions, and came back the next week having also read Paul's letters to him. Just because. And when a lot of the kids show up having not completed the chapter or so I asked them to read ahead of time, that's a big deal.
These girls have been super busy preparing for the crucial TEM-4 English exam and haven't been able to commit to a weekly study with me. I had, up until tonight, been super frustrated and upset about that, feeling like I was wasting all my time while all the girls I'd been studying with spent their time in the library.
And then, while we were walking to the restaurant tonight, they tell me that they've been Studying TOGETHER. They took the initiative to find time together when they couldn't commit to a study time with me. They told me all about how they were studying about Ruth and what they learned from this woman of faith.
I was blown away. Here I was, moping and stressing about the situation, and they've been doing exactly what they should be. The Sister is out there producing crops of her own. The Seeker is dedicated enough, even in the frantic exam-preparing mode, to take the time to learn the most important things.
Maybe we have been doing our job, after all.
Here's the good news.
One of the Sisters, Cen Zi Lin, and one of my favorite Seekers, Hao Hao went with me to eat some barbecue tonight. Cen Zi Lin is the only Family member to date who's been able to stand up against peer pressure. She is such a strong kid, especially for still being a babe in Him.
Hao Hao is the girl who, when studying one of Paul's letters with me, saw the reference to Timothy, asked questions, and came back the next week having also read Paul's letters to him. Just because. And when a lot of the kids show up having not completed the chapter or so I asked them to read ahead of time, that's a big deal.
These girls have been super busy preparing for the crucial TEM-4 English exam and haven't been able to commit to a weekly study with me. I had, up until tonight, been super frustrated and upset about that, feeling like I was wasting all my time while all the girls I'd been studying with spent their time in the library.
And then, while we were walking to the restaurant tonight, they tell me that they've been Studying TOGETHER. They took the initiative to find time together when they couldn't commit to a study time with me. They told me all about how they were studying about Ruth and what they learned from this woman of faith.
I was blown away. Here I was, moping and stressing about the situation, and they've been doing exactly what they should be. The Sister is out there producing crops of her own. The Seeker is dedicated enough, even in the frantic exam-preparing mode, to take the time to learn the most important things.
Maybe we have been doing our job, after all.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Silver Linings
So I realized after the influx of concerned emails that the last post might have been a bit of a downer. Reading over it, I choose to ignore the "gloomy" adjective and go straight for "suicidal". Never fear, my friends, things are looking up. A bit.
I think God knew that we would need a little more time this semester to get into the swing of things. I am always amazed at His infinite wisdom. For example, we were dreading a semester as busy as the last, but didn't know how to slow down without disappointing the kids who are used to coming to our house every week. Many of these kids have a HUGE English exam in less than two months that they're cramming for, so they can't come to our house regularly right now. We are truly enjoying a little bit of peace in an otherwise hectic schedule. While we do miss the students, we can see the benefits in Connor, who is given more attention and time than we've ever had before.
But it's not just the free time that has improved our outlook. It's the people here working their magic on us again.
The Chinese people are, as always, both a blessing and an annoyance. You can't help but love a people who are downright thrilled when you can string three words together in their language. They are friendly and kind, always smiling and excited to see you. Unfortunately, these are also the people who stare, point, whisper behind their hands, do their best to run you over in the street, and try to pick your kid up when he cries (even though you're attempting the same thing). Still, the blessings far outweigh the annoyances.
And then there's the kids we're teaching.
Our students are (mostly) amazing. There is nothing more encouraging than a student who sends you the message: "Teacher I miss you! I want to help if you need. Love you!" Or the students who are riding the same bus as you and offer to completely change their plans for the day if you need help with shopping or getting around the city. Or the students who actually speak up in class on a regular basis. Or the kids who get so excited at the prospect of dyeing Easter eggs with you as a reward for their hard work. Or the kids who try a brownie and pass out on a chocolate high.
Even when we're tired or missing home or irritated at the perpetual knocking on the door, it's worth it. Because of these people.
So, I have nothing specific to say except that you can stop worrying about us. God always has a silver lining behind every cloud. And right now, that lining is the endless throng of people we have come here to serve.
I think God knew that we would need a little more time this semester to get into the swing of things. I am always amazed at His infinite wisdom. For example, we were dreading a semester as busy as the last, but didn't know how to slow down without disappointing the kids who are used to coming to our house every week. Many of these kids have a HUGE English exam in less than two months that they're cramming for, so they can't come to our house regularly right now. We are truly enjoying a little bit of peace in an otherwise hectic schedule. While we do miss the students, we can see the benefits in Connor, who is given more attention and time than we've ever had before.
But it's not just the free time that has improved our outlook. It's the people here working their magic on us again.
The Chinese people are, as always, both a blessing and an annoyance. You can't help but love a people who are downright thrilled when you can string three words together in their language. They are friendly and kind, always smiling and excited to see you. Unfortunately, these are also the people who stare, point, whisper behind their hands, do their best to run you over in the street, and try to pick your kid up when he cries (even though you're attempting the same thing). Still, the blessings far outweigh the annoyances.
And then there's the kids we're teaching.
Our students are (mostly) amazing. There is nothing more encouraging than a student who sends you the message: "Teacher I miss you! I want to help if you need. Love you!" Or the students who are riding the same bus as you and offer to completely change their plans for the day if you need help with shopping or getting around the city. Or the students who actually speak up in class on a regular basis. Or the kids who get so excited at the prospect of dyeing Easter eggs with you as a reward for their hard work. Or the kids who try a brownie and pass out on a chocolate high.
Even when we're tired or missing home or irritated at the perpetual knocking on the door, it's worth it. Because of these people.
So, I have nothing specific to say except that you can stop worrying about us. God always has a silver lining behind every cloud. And right now, that lining is the endless throng of people we have come here to serve.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The Muck
We have now been back in China for six days and have done, at last count, absolutely nothing. There are reasons for this, the first being jet-lag, the second being a rather nasty stomach bug that consumed all our vital organs and left us wrung out, sweat-drenched, and praying for death. Almost literally.
But, to be honest, I'm not feeling motivated, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because our thoughts are still in America, with the people we love so dearly and miss more than ever. We had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends, and for the first time, we're discussing the possibility of life when we return to America, several years down the road. Has that (along with the aforementioned circumstances) taken the wind out of our sails? Is it the prospect of another semester like the last, the kind that had us running off our feet every day from dawn until an hour too unseemly to mention? Is it the disappointments, like some difficult relationships we've encountered or the Seekers who have come so close only to choose against the Truth? Or is it the constant battle for balance, for creating a home in an un-home-ly place, for raising a child and educating him, for doing the best job teaching English as we possibly can, for learning one of the most difficult languages on earth, for trying to put each God-given talent in the most useful place? Or is it simply the Dreaded Culture Shock, catching up with us at last?
Most likely, it is all of these things, culminating in a big ole mental block. The kind that's more of an insurmountable mountain ringed with barbed wire than a simple little red-brick structure. Perhaps if we were feeling all the way better, or perhaps if we'd had a few more days before being thrown into the teaching ring again, or perhaps if the Seeker we were so hopeful for had found support in her family....
People who do the Work we do are often held up on pedestals, expected to overcome all obstacles known to man with a toothy smile firmly in place. I am taking a chance here by admitting less than perfection. We usually begin each semester with boundless enthusiasm, and instead, here we are, slogging through hip-deep mud.
So. We covet your prayers. We ask that you remember us and ask God to wash away the muck we're entrenched with so that we can clearly see His plan for us this semester.
But, to be honest, I'm not feeling motivated, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because our thoughts are still in America, with the people we love so dearly and miss more than ever. We had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends, and for the first time, we're discussing the possibility of life when we return to America, several years down the road. Has that (along with the aforementioned circumstances) taken the wind out of our sails? Is it the prospect of another semester like the last, the kind that had us running off our feet every day from dawn until an hour too unseemly to mention? Is it the disappointments, like some difficult relationships we've encountered or the Seekers who have come so close only to choose against the Truth? Or is it the constant battle for balance, for creating a home in an un-home-ly place, for raising a child and educating him, for doing the best job teaching English as we possibly can, for learning one of the most difficult languages on earth, for trying to put each God-given talent in the most useful place? Or is it simply the Dreaded Culture Shock, catching up with us at last?
Most likely, it is all of these things, culminating in a big ole mental block. The kind that's more of an insurmountable mountain ringed with barbed wire than a simple little red-brick structure. Perhaps if we were feeling all the way better, or perhaps if we'd had a few more days before being thrown into the teaching ring again, or perhaps if the Seeker we were so hopeful for had found support in her family....
People who do the Work we do are often held up on pedestals, expected to overcome all obstacles known to man with a toothy smile firmly in place. I am taking a chance here by admitting less than perfection. We usually begin each semester with boundless enthusiasm, and instead, here we are, slogging through hip-deep mud.
So. We covet your prayers. We ask that you remember us and ask God to wash away the muck we're entrenched with so that we can clearly see His plan for us this semester.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Are You Happy Now, Mama?
In the considerable stress of packing and preparing for return to China, I was busy the other day. Too busy for Connor. He trailed me around the house, asking questions about broken light bulbs and, when I failed to answer quickly enough, prompting me with, "Is it, Mama? Is it? Is it?"
I was frazzled. I was stressed. I was hauling 50-lb trunks from one end of the house to the other, doing laundry, deciding what should stay and what should go, and tripping over my parents' dog. I was in a generally grouchy mood. Finally, after several short answers with increasing irritation, I turned to Connor and said, "Honey. I am busy. I cannot talk to you right now. I have to get these things done. I have too much to do."
Connor thought about that for a second, his big brown eyes sober. He pursed his lips. "Are you unhappy, Mama?"
"Yes. I am a little unhappy right now. I'm busy."
"Oh."
I turned back to packing. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Connor plop down by the bed, grab the corner of the quilt, and pull it over his face.
"Where's Connor?" he sang out. He popped out from under the blanket. "Here I am!" he said, beaming. "Are you happy now, Mama?"
Yes. I was.
I was frazzled. I was stressed. I was hauling 50-lb trunks from one end of the house to the other, doing laundry, deciding what should stay and what should go, and tripping over my parents' dog. I was in a generally grouchy mood. Finally, after several short answers with increasing irritation, I turned to Connor and said, "Honey. I am busy. I cannot talk to you right now. I have to get these things done. I have too much to do."
Connor thought about that for a second, his big brown eyes sober. He pursed his lips. "Are you unhappy, Mama?"
"Yes. I am a little unhappy right now. I'm busy."
"Oh."
I turned back to packing. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Connor plop down by the bed, grab the corner of the quilt, and pull it over his face.
"Where's Connor?" he sang out. He popped out from under the blanket. "Here I am!" he said, beaming. "Are you happy now, Mama?"
Yes. I was.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Being Salty
I've been mulling over a thought for the past few weeks since we've been stateside. I'm not sure if it's quite gelled yet, but I'm growing dizzy from the circles it's spinning, so I'm going to try to get it down.
Life in China is easier than life in the States. In some respects.
Yes, we sacrifice quite a bit in order to do the Work. We sacrifice time with family, we sacrifice favorite foods, activities, and hobbies; we sacrifice money and security, we sacrifice convenience and often safety (watch some videos of traffic in China if you don't believe me). We do sacrifice.
But.
We seem to struggle spiritually more in America than China. I'm not sure how to explain this, except to say that we went to China with a purpose. That purpose was to spread the Good News, to shine and be as salty as possible, to allow God to work through us, to be what He says we should be. It is not easy, but it is easier to do that when you go somewhere with a purpose. When you change your life drastically, when you start fresh in a place where no one knows you, when your every day and every moment is dedicated to that.
In America, our lives are "normal". Normal pew-sitters, letting someone else do the work. Participants, but not leaders. No outreach, other than as much service as possible to the family kind enough to put us up in their homes. Maybe some encouragement to people who are interested in China. But we aren't Working. I strongly dislike this.
And maybe it's because we bounce around so much when we're visiting. Maybe it's because we're spending time with friends of friends, not our own forged friendships. Maybe it's because we're only temporarily here. But I don't think that's all of it. I clearly remember my relationship with God pre-China, and it's nothing like it is now, praise the Lord! He's working in me, and I'm so thankful. It took a move around the globe to get my butt off of a pew and into His service.
Here's what I think. I think that we should all be living with the sole focus of "shining." We should treat every day, whether it's in the same house you've been living in for ten years or the mold-covered apartment in China you've been in for ten minutes (and want to run screaming out of) as if our only job is to give Him glory. Tell others how amazing He is, how real and close and present He is. We should focus on His purpose. It's too easy to get caught up in our "normal lives" of kids and laundry and errands.
I know this is something you know. I know I'm not telling you anything new. But I'm struck, every time we come back here for a visit, by the fact that doing His Work is easier when I make that my specific purpose. I'm an English teacher, but really, I have a higher calling. We all do, all of us who bear His name and His blood, and if we don't live up to it... well. We put Him to shame, don't we.
So, as this has turned into a little sermonette (sorry), here's your challenge: Don't think of yourself as a manager/teacher/secretary/doctor/lawyer/Indian chief. Think of yourself as a missionary first. And then do that job. You'll be amazed at what God will do with you.
Life in China is easier than life in the States. In some respects.
Yes, we sacrifice quite a bit in order to do the Work. We sacrifice time with family, we sacrifice favorite foods, activities, and hobbies; we sacrifice money and security, we sacrifice convenience and often safety (watch some videos of traffic in China if you don't believe me). We do sacrifice.
But.
We seem to struggle spiritually more in America than China. I'm not sure how to explain this, except to say that we went to China with a purpose. That purpose was to spread the Good News, to shine and be as salty as possible, to allow God to work through us, to be what He says we should be. It is not easy, but it is easier to do that when you go somewhere with a purpose. When you change your life drastically, when you start fresh in a place where no one knows you, when your every day and every moment is dedicated to that.
In America, our lives are "normal". Normal pew-sitters, letting someone else do the work. Participants, but not leaders. No outreach, other than as much service as possible to the family kind enough to put us up in their homes. Maybe some encouragement to people who are interested in China. But we aren't Working. I strongly dislike this.
And maybe it's because we bounce around so much when we're visiting. Maybe it's because we're spending time with friends of friends, not our own forged friendships. Maybe it's because we're only temporarily here. But I don't think that's all of it. I clearly remember my relationship with God pre-China, and it's nothing like it is now, praise the Lord! He's working in me, and I'm so thankful. It took a move around the globe to get my butt off of a pew and into His service.
Here's what I think. I think that we should all be living with the sole focus of "shining." We should treat every day, whether it's in the same house you've been living in for ten years or the mold-covered apartment in China you've been in for ten minutes (and want to run screaming out of) as if our only job is to give Him glory. Tell others how amazing He is, how real and close and present He is. We should focus on His purpose. It's too easy to get caught up in our "normal lives" of kids and laundry and errands.
I know this is something you know. I know I'm not telling you anything new. But I'm struck, every time we come back here for a visit, by the fact that doing His Work is easier when I make that my specific purpose. I'm an English teacher, but really, I have a higher calling. We all do, all of us who bear His name and His blood, and if we don't live up to it... well. We put Him to shame, don't we.
So, as this has turned into a little sermonette (sorry), here's your challenge: Don't think of yourself as a manager/teacher/secretary/doctor/lawyer/Indian chief. Think of yourself as a missionary first. And then do that job. You'll be amazed at what God will do with you.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Late Night Ramblings
For some reason, I tend to wax philosophical at night. This drives my husband crazy, as it means that my let's-talk-about-this-in-depth moods come on at his it's-dark-outside-and-the-bed-is-so-comfy times. So, in an effort to preserve marital bliss, I'm blogging about my current obsession instead.
I do not use the term "obsession" lightly. I have a tendency, which has been known to be carried to a fault, to grasp hold of an idea and gnaw at it until I have resolved it in some fashion. This can be anything from what to make for dinner to whether or not we should move to China (you know how that one turned out).
Something I have been thinking about here lately is independence. And indulgence. For example, when we were called to China, we considered two things first.
1. Is this where God wants us.
2. Is this best for our family (meaning me, Justin, and Connor).
You note that this list is very short. There were people who were not happy about us moving around the world. People like family who, although they understand the Work we do, miss us. Obviously, we miss them too, but we basically had to say that's too bad. We had to satisfy the top two priorities first. For the first, we put out fleece and got an obvious YES. I'll have to tell you that story another time. For the second, it was an obvious yes also -- Justin's job at the time was very time-intensive and stressful, and we have a stronger family bond now because we are spending more time together.
Now, here's where it gets tricky. What should come after question number two? Should it go:
3. What makes me happy
or
3. How other people perceive this decision
????
Because, for me, this gets into a complicated issue. Is it more important to play on others' wants/desires/perceptions or your own? Is it right to indulge yourself or not? Say, for example, you've always wanted to play the harmonica for a living. Other people would think it odd. Perhaps your family disapproves. Is it wrong to want to do a harmless thing because it makes you happy, even if others dislike your decision? Say all your family and friends love to eat beef and you become a vegetarian. This could be a hassle for them when you eat together. Say all your family lives in Maryland and you're just itching to move to Oregon. This might upset some of them. Is it wrong to indulge yourself? To, in situations that are purely based on personal preference and not Scripture, do what you want?
In our culture, we say that we applaud the person who walks to the beat of their own drum, who thinks outside the box, who dreams big. Speaking as someone who is a tad offbeat, I would have to disagree. We are not so different from the Chinese, who expect everyone in their society to conform. I have made some decisions in my life thus far that are different from most people I know. Not bad (honestly, I really do think they aren't bad) just different. And I think that the normal reaction to something different is suspicion. Why did this person do that? What were they thinking? I don't want that; why would they?
We were created as individuals. We all have different joys in life. Justin, for example, wants to go skydiving someday. I am doing my best to postpone that day (told him only if I go with him - ha!). He would also enjoy white-water rafting. I have vivid images of being trapped in a watery grave. He would love to fly planes. I would kill everyone on board before we got off the ground.
I don't judge him for his joys. I support them, as long as they don't end with me as a widow. Video games, for example. So why is it that I feel guilty for indulging in mine? If it makes me happy to stand on a street corner with a big floppy red hat on my head and belt out show tunes, so what? Should I be so concerned with other people's perceptions that I let it stop me from doing something that gives me joy? Our automatic answer is, of course, no. As long as it's not un-Christ-like, go for it.
But if you saw me in my big red hat on the corner of Main Street belting "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", wouldn't you judge me?
Sigh. This is the danger of late-night blogging. Now I'm too fuzzy to be sure if I got my point across or not. I think that many of you who read this, because you are my friends, would hop out of your car and sing the harmony. I hope so. And I hope I would do that for you, too.
I do not use the term "obsession" lightly. I have a tendency, which has been known to be carried to a fault, to grasp hold of an idea and gnaw at it until I have resolved it in some fashion. This can be anything from what to make for dinner to whether or not we should move to China (you know how that one turned out).
Something I have been thinking about here lately is independence. And indulgence. For example, when we were called to China, we considered two things first.
1. Is this where God wants us.
2. Is this best for our family (meaning me, Justin, and Connor).
You note that this list is very short. There were people who were not happy about us moving around the world. People like family who, although they understand the Work we do, miss us. Obviously, we miss them too, but we basically had to say that's too bad. We had to satisfy the top two priorities first. For the first, we put out fleece and got an obvious YES. I'll have to tell you that story another time. For the second, it was an obvious yes also -- Justin's job at the time was very time-intensive and stressful, and we have a stronger family bond now because we are spending more time together.
Now, here's where it gets tricky. What should come after question number two? Should it go:
3. What makes me happy
or
3. How other people perceive this decision
????
Because, for me, this gets into a complicated issue. Is it more important to play on others' wants/desires/perceptions or your own? Is it right to indulge yourself or not? Say, for example, you've always wanted to play the harmonica for a living. Other people would think it odd. Perhaps your family disapproves. Is it wrong to want to do a harmless thing because it makes you happy, even if others dislike your decision? Say all your family and friends love to eat beef and you become a vegetarian. This could be a hassle for them when you eat together. Say all your family lives in Maryland and you're just itching to move to Oregon. This might upset some of them. Is it wrong to indulge yourself? To, in situations that are purely based on personal preference and not Scripture, do what you want?
In our culture, we say that we applaud the person who walks to the beat of their own drum, who thinks outside the box, who dreams big. Speaking as someone who is a tad offbeat, I would have to disagree. We are not so different from the Chinese, who expect everyone in their society to conform. I have made some decisions in my life thus far that are different from most people I know. Not bad (honestly, I really do think they aren't bad) just different. And I think that the normal reaction to something different is suspicion. Why did this person do that? What were they thinking? I don't want that; why would they?
We were created as individuals. We all have different joys in life. Justin, for example, wants to go skydiving someday. I am doing my best to postpone that day (told him only if I go with him - ha!). He would also enjoy white-water rafting. I have vivid images of being trapped in a watery grave. He would love to fly planes. I would kill everyone on board before we got off the ground.
I don't judge him for his joys. I support them, as long as they don't end with me as a widow. Video games, for example. So why is it that I feel guilty for indulging in mine? If it makes me happy to stand on a street corner with a big floppy red hat on my head and belt out show tunes, so what? Should I be so concerned with other people's perceptions that I let it stop me from doing something that gives me joy? Our automatic answer is, of course, no. As long as it's not un-Christ-like, go for it.
But if you saw me in my big red hat on the corner of Main Street belting "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", wouldn't you judge me?
Sigh. This is the danger of late-night blogging. Now I'm too fuzzy to be sure if I got my point across or not. I think that many of you who read this, because you are my friends, would hop out of your car and sing the harmony. I hope so. And I hope I would do that for you, too.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Tiger tiger burning bright...
Look at me, such a good little blogger! I realized today, at the Jackson Zoo with the in-laws, that I have a pretty good Connor story that has yet to be shared.
One thing Harbin, China is known for is the tiger park on its outskirts. Unlike a zoo, the tigers aren't caged -- you are. You sit in this rickety van with something akin to chicken wire for walls and ride through different areas of the park, tigers meandering along beside you, tails twitching, eyes glowing. You can purchase, if you choose, anything from a piece of meat to be held on prongs through the chicken-wire-walls, to a live cow to be unloaded from a van as you watch. The most popular items are the chickens and ducks, however, and the tigers rush upon the vans at the first tell-tale squawk.
We've visited the tiger park three times. The first time, we were newbies to Harbin and wanted to see it for ourselves. Someone on our van purchased a couple of chickens, so we got very up close and personal with the tigers. They stood on their hind legs, the claws on their front paws reaching inside the van, eyes glued to the little mail flap our driver shoved the protesting chicken through. The second time, there were new teachers on campus we went with. Justin held up some meat for the tigers (two of them got into a fight, it was awesome) and someone else bought ducks. The duck procedure is somewhat interesting. A man in a Jeep with some bars covering the windows pulls up next to a lake on the grounds. The tigers swarm around him, eager for what they know is coming. He cracks open the door, tosses a couple of firecrackers outside, steps out into the smoke, and throws the ducks (wings clipped, of course) into the air. They splash into the lake, whereupon the tigers make a ruckus trying to get them. Everyone in the van was cheering for the ducks, who always managed to dive deep just in time...until they got in the shallow water.
Anyway. Those were our first two trips to the tiger park. The third was this past semester. Some friends came to visit, and we took Connor for his second trip to see the tigers.
It was largely uneventful. Nobody purchased chickens, ducks, or meat. We got to see the tigers up close, but it was, over all, a dud. Except for one thing.
I'm to blame, really. When we got into the van, I slid down the wooden bench to the very back, to make room for the other people getting on. We got separated from the rest of our group, who were sitting close to the front. So Justin, Connor, and I clung to the bench seat in the back corner as we bounced down the rutted dirt road to the entrance gate.
In the first area of the park, the van stopped to allow us time to view the tigers. One of which, a large male, wandered around to the back of the van. He sniffed the back tire, then, very deliberately, graced us with a view of his backside and sprayed us. Full in the face.
Yessiree.
Connor thought it was a great joke. I did not.
We get into the second area of the park. Here comes another male tiger. He sniffs our area of the van. In what I can only call a protective-mother-instinct moment, I threw my body over Connor's, shoving his face into my armpit, and the spray from this tiger coated my back.
Onto the third area. Our friends up front are bored, not being as blessed as we were. Justin had gotten sprayed also, and Connor kept chiming, "He sprayed us! He sprayed us!" in a very excited voice. A third tiger, I kid you not, approached us. We ducked our heads just in time.
Now coated, head to foot, in the very musky scent of tiger urine, we exited the van. I had two thoughts:
One -- a shower. NOW.
Two -- heaven help the next people to ride in the back of that van. It's a vicious cycle.
So today, while standing at the tiger exhibit, a tiger paced back and forth in front of us. Connor squealed, threw his dimpled hands into the air, and shouted, "He's gonna spray us, he's gonna spray us!" That is what my son knows about tigers.
One thing Harbin, China is known for is the tiger park on its outskirts. Unlike a zoo, the tigers aren't caged -- you are. You sit in this rickety van with something akin to chicken wire for walls and ride through different areas of the park, tigers meandering along beside you, tails twitching, eyes glowing. You can purchase, if you choose, anything from a piece of meat to be held on prongs through the chicken-wire-walls, to a live cow to be unloaded from a van as you watch. The most popular items are the chickens and ducks, however, and the tigers rush upon the vans at the first tell-tale squawk.
We've visited the tiger park three times. The first time, we were newbies to Harbin and wanted to see it for ourselves. Someone on our van purchased a couple of chickens, so we got very up close and personal with the tigers. They stood on their hind legs, the claws on their front paws reaching inside the van, eyes glued to the little mail flap our driver shoved the protesting chicken through. The second time, there were new teachers on campus we went with. Justin held up some meat for the tigers (two of them got into a fight, it was awesome) and someone else bought ducks. The duck procedure is somewhat interesting. A man in a Jeep with some bars covering the windows pulls up next to a lake on the grounds. The tigers swarm around him, eager for what they know is coming. He cracks open the door, tosses a couple of firecrackers outside, steps out into the smoke, and throws the ducks (wings clipped, of course) into the air. They splash into the lake, whereupon the tigers make a ruckus trying to get them. Everyone in the van was cheering for the ducks, who always managed to dive deep just in time...until they got in the shallow water.
Anyway. Those were our first two trips to the tiger park. The third was this past semester. Some friends came to visit, and we took Connor for his second trip to see the tigers.
It was largely uneventful. Nobody purchased chickens, ducks, or meat. We got to see the tigers up close, but it was, over all, a dud. Except for one thing.
I'm to blame, really. When we got into the van, I slid down the wooden bench to the very back, to make room for the other people getting on. We got separated from the rest of our group, who were sitting close to the front. So Justin, Connor, and I clung to the bench seat in the back corner as we bounced down the rutted dirt road to the entrance gate.
In the first area of the park, the van stopped to allow us time to view the tigers. One of which, a large male, wandered around to the back of the van. He sniffed the back tire, then, very deliberately, graced us with a view of his backside and sprayed us. Full in the face.
Yessiree.
Connor thought it was a great joke. I did not.
We get into the second area of the park. Here comes another male tiger. He sniffs our area of the van. In what I can only call a protective-mother-instinct moment, I threw my body over Connor's, shoving his face into my armpit, and the spray from this tiger coated my back.
Onto the third area. Our friends up front are bored, not being as blessed as we were. Justin had gotten sprayed also, and Connor kept chiming, "He sprayed us! He sprayed us!" in a very excited voice. A third tiger, I kid you not, approached us. We ducked our heads just in time.
Now coated, head to foot, in the very musky scent of tiger urine, we exited the van. I had two thoughts:
One -- a shower. NOW.
Two -- heaven help the next people to ride in the back of that van. It's a vicious cycle.
So today, while standing at the tiger exhibit, a tiger paced back and forth in front of us. Connor squealed, threw his dimpled hands into the air, and shouted, "He's gonna spray us, he's gonna spray us!" That is what my son knows about tigers.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
It's Justin's Fault
Mercy me. Here I am with this blog that I haven't touched in six months, and Justin goes and announces to the Family at West Side that if they want to keep up with our life in China, his wife does a blog. No pressure. So I guess I'd better get back on the ball. Perhaps I'll make this my New Year's resolution.
Let me do a quick recap. We did some traveling over the summer, seeing some of the most famous sights in China -- 西湖 West Lake, famous for its poetical beauty, and 黄山Yellow Mountain, famous for its jaw-dropping rock formations swimming in thick fog. We met a Belgian who taught me that french fries and mayonnaise are from Belgium (apparently all good things originated in Belgium; other people just keep taking credit). We got stuck in Beijing and detoured to Tianjin, only to get stuck there too.
Our fall semester was pretty much the normal work routine, which means we were run off our feet. We had a Halloween bash that was hugely successful, a Thanksgiving dinner that was absolutely lovely, and a Christmas movie night that was fantastic, except for the power outage in the middle of the Muppets' Christmas Carol.
It's funny, looking back, that all the days blur together. I know there were so many moments that were probably blog-worthy. Teaching Connor to read, for example. Making caves under his bunk bed. His insistence that he just had to have a big flashlight (this came in handy during the Christmas movie power outage). Starting to homeschool. Discovering mold in our apartment again and having to rearrange bedroom furniture in hopes that more air circulation would help keep it at bay. Buying two hamsters, a bunny, and a cat. Accidentally killing the hamsters (Connor still thinks they're playing outside in the -10 degree weather). Discovering that Justin's cat allergies are no joke, thus finding the cat a home with two students who smuggled him, yowling in a backpack, into their dorm room. Welcoming a new Sister into the Family and being super thankful that we have a bathtub instead of having to fill up the kiddie pool in the living room. Lugging heavy buckets of water was getting old, even if it was for the best reason in the world.
And now we are back state-side, visiting family, getting check-ups, and apparently blogging again. Justin is giddy at being able to watch football games for the first time in three years, Connor's little mind is boggled at getting to ride a car almost daily, and we're all thrilled to be enjoying good Christian fellowship. It won't be long before we're back on a plane heading "home" again.
Let me do a quick recap. We did some traveling over the summer, seeing some of the most famous sights in China -- 西湖 West Lake, famous for its poetical beauty, and 黄山Yellow Mountain, famous for its jaw-dropping rock formations swimming in thick fog. We met a Belgian who taught me that french fries and mayonnaise are from Belgium (apparently all good things originated in Belgium; other people just keep taking credit). We got stuck in Beijing and detoured to Tianjin, only to get stuck there too.
Our fall semester was pretty much the normal work routine, which means we were run off our feet. We had a Halloween bash that was hugely successful, a Thanksgiving dinner that was absolutely lovely, and a Christmas movie night that was fantastic, except for the power outage in the middle of the Muppets' Christmas Carol.
It's funny, looking back, that all the days blur together. I know there were so many moments that were probably blog-worthy. Teaching Connor to read, for example. Making caves under his bunk bed. His insistence that he just had to have a big flashlight (this came in handy during the Christmas movie power outage). Starting to homeschool. Discovering mold in our apartment again and having to rearrange bedroom furniture in hopes that more air circulation would help keep it at bay. Buying two hamsters, a bunny, and a cat. Accidentally killing the hamsters (Connor still thinks they're playing outside in the -10 degree weather). Discovering that Justin's cat allergies are no joke, thus finding the cat a home with two students who smuggled him, yowling in a backpack, into their dorm room. Welcoming a new Sister into the Family and being super thankful that we have a bathtub instead of having to fill up the kiddie pool in the living room. Lugging heavy buckets of water was getting old, even if it was for the best reason in the world.
And now we are back state-side, visiting family, getting check-ups, and apparently blogging again. Justin is giddy at being able to watch football games for the first time in three years, Connor's little mind is boggled at getting to ride a car almost daily, and we're all thrilled to be enjoying good Christian fellowship. It won't be long before we're back on a plane heading "home" again.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The Disasterous Class
Okay. I'm a bad blogger. This is undeniable, since it's been....oh...about four months since the last post. My apologies. See, the thing is, I've grown accustomed to life in China. There's not that much that surprises me or makes for blogging-worthy stories, because it's routine now. Open bathroom stalls where people watch you pee? No biggie. Being crushed in the pressing crowd to get on a bus? Mundane. Spitting, gawking, the ever-lasting chorus of 'hello' followed by giggles every time you step foot out the door? Please. That's newbie stuff.
But today was a blog-worthy day. Mostly this morning. Let me give you some background.
As you know, last winter we studied Chinese in another city (due to the ridiculous weather up here in the frigid north). This summer, to save on money, we decided to try staying here and trekking across the river (easily a full hour on a crowded, non-air-conditioned bus with people who have never heard of deoderant) to go to class. We weighed our options and decided to take classes separately with private tutors. We contacted the school that Ryan and Rachel have been attending, and got things all lined up. Justin was going to be studying with their teacher, and I was going to have someone different. I actually requested this, as their teacher is a man, and I'm absolutely not comfortable taking one-on-one classes with a man. Besides appearances (sketchy) it is said in China that every man between, oh, thirty and sixty is a pervert. Something like that. It's a wide age range -- basically, every adult male.
So. I was to get a female teacher. Hurrah.
Yesterday was Justin's first class. He liked the guy fine, everything was hunky-dory. My class was this morning.
Okay. Now, the thing is, I'm a fairly nervous person about doing something alone for the first time. Especially in China. I like to know exactly where I'm going, have a back-up plan in case something goes amiss, and generally carry just about everything you could ever need in my bag, just in case. I do not enjoy taking an early bus, changing buses, then going down to a bus stop I've never been to before and am not familiar with the landmarks thereof, to meet a person I don't know and have no way of identifying (how do you describe a Chinese person as to him pick out of a crowd?). But that's exactly what I had to do.
At first, it was fine. I only had to wait five minutes for the first bus, I changed buses easily enough (you'd think that would always be easy, but bus routes here have a tendency to randomly change without warning), and off I went. Justin had told me to look for a big red building across from a huge circular sculpture at a big intersection and to get off the bus at the next stop. His teacher had met him at that bus stop, and when Ryan and Rachel had first started class, their teacher met them at the hotel a block down the street. I also had the name of the bus stop, so there should have been no problem with disembarking correctly.
Ha. Should have been.
I got the first indication of trouble when I realized, two stops after getting on the bus, that the nice speaker-voice that announces stops was broken on this bus.
Great.
So, I anxiously watched for the big red building and the circle sculpture. I kept checking my watch, worried about being late for the first class.
Aha! Red building! Circle sculpture!
Just past the intersection, the bus stops. I jump off with two other people. I look around.
This isn't a bus stop. The bus had stopped, who knows why, in a random place with no signs or people. So I walked. I slowed down at the next bus stop, where I could see my bus's number. I checked around for my female teacher, but didn't see anyone in the crowd who looked like they were looking for me.
Ah, thought I, she must be waiting in front of the hotel. I'll keep going.
Nope. I waited in front of the hotel for what felt like ages. After a reasonable amount of time, I pulled out my phone.
*Sidebar -- my old phone here was a hand-me-down from the couple before us. Oddly enough, it's a Chinese phone that doesn't give me Chinese texting abilities without converting everything to Chinese. So, we found a super cheap deal on TaoBao, the Chinese version of Ebay. This phone had arrived the day before, and I was still learning the ins and outs. Okay, to continue.
Now, I'm in a part of the city I'm not familiar with, don't see anyone looking for me, have no contact information for the school, and am feeling progressively stupider and hotter as the sun rises and people stare. I pull out my phone to call Justin. He, at least, has their email address.
My phone is not working.
I send multiple text messages, increasing in urgency. No response.
I try to call Rachel, who is notorious about not having her phone on or within earshot. No answer. I scroll through my address book for Ryan's number, but somehow his information didn't copy over from my old phone.
I am frantic. Class should have begun five minutes ago.
Rachel, bless her, calls me back. Within a few minutes, she has called their teacher, who apparently is the one meeting me, and says he's at the bus stop but heading my way.
I thank her and wait. And wait. And wait. I'm standing in full view, way out front, keeping half an eye on the direction he should be coming from and half an eye on the strangers passing me. I don't see him.
After a solid ten minutes, I pull out my phone to call Rachel back and discover that I've received a message I hadn't heard. He's waiting for me up by the door.
I have no idea how he didn't see me out here.
I walk up, and there are several men standing around. After a few minutes, a Chinese man whose hair reminds me forcibly of a poodle asks if I am Shannon. As I am the only woman (and a foreign woman to boot) this should've been rather obvious.
I follow him to the school, which is down a couple of streets and a few turns, and go up to the apartment. My female Chinese teacher greets us. Silently. The teachers have a rapid Chinese discussion, in which they ask me a few questions in Chinese that I answer, then he leaves us and she smiles at me.
Nervously. She is obviously very, very nervous. The Chinese have a smile that they use for embarrassing situations. This was that smile.
Great, I think, I've got a newbie. I wonder how much experience she's had teaching foreigners.
By this point, by the way, I'm a half hour late for class, I'm parched and sweating, and we're sitting in a sunny room that has no air-conditioning, no fan, no breeze through an open window. I'm feeling sicker and sicker by the minute.
Class begins. At first, I think she's just testing out my Chinese level by speaking only in Chinese. This is good, I think to myself, she's going to stretch me, really make me work.
After a few minutes, though, I realize she doesn't speak any English. At all. This becomes increasingly apparent as class progresses, because every time I try to ask a question about grammar or usage in English or ask how to say an English word in Chinese, she gets that same embarrassed smile and tells me (in Chinese, of course) that she doesn't understand. By halfway through the class, she's drawing pictures and miming to get her points across. It's at this point I'm ready to puke from the lack of circulation and refreshment and ask for some water. I feel marginally better for having a small coffee mug of warm water.
By the end of class, I'm beyond frustrated. If I had upper-level language skills, it would be one thing, but we told the school that we were still beginners, really. The book we were using was not the same format as the series we'd been studying all semester, so the vocabulary and usage was different, my teacher couldn't understand a single English word I said when I couldn't express myself in Chinese, getting to the school had been a nightmare, and I was still feeling sick.
I've decided on getting one of our Chinese friends to tutor me instead of going back. Perhaps they have a better female teacher, but I've lost faith in their judgment and abilities, and frankly, it's a hefty fee to pay for someone who can't explain when and how to use the words she's teaching you.
Oh, I forgot -- she did know one English phrase. When I was leaving, she smiled big and said "It is very easy!"
Right.
But today was a blog-worthy day. Mostly this morning. Let me give you some background.
As you know, last winter we studied Chinese in another city (due to the ridiculous weather up here in the frigid north). This summer, to save on money, we decided to try staying here and trekking across the river (easily a full hour on a crowded, non-air-conditioned bus with people who have never heard of deoderant) to go to class. We weighed our options and decided to take classes separately with private tutors. We contacted the school that Ryan and Rachel have been attending, and got things all lined up. Justin was going to be studying with their teacher, and I was going to have someone different. I actually requested this, as their teacher is a man, and I'm absolutely not comfortable taking one-on-one classes with a man. Besides appearances (sketchy) it is said in China that every man between, oh, thirty and sixty is a pervert. Something like that. It's a wide age range -- basically, every adult male.
So. I was to get a female teacher. Hurrah.
Yesterday was Justin's first class. He liked the guy fine, everything was hunky-dory. My class was this morning.
Okay. Now, the thing is, I'm a fairly nervous person about doing something alone for the first time. Especially in China. I like to know exactly where I'm going, have a back-up plan in case something goes amiss, and generally carry just about everything you could ever need in my bag, just in case. I do not enjoy taking an early bus, changing buses, then going down to a bus stop I've never been to before and am not familiar with the landmarks thereof, to meet a person I don't know and have no way of identifying (how do you describe a Chinese person as to him pick out of a crowd?). But that's exactly what I had to do.
At first, it was fine. I only had to wait five minutes for the first bus, I changed buses easily enough (you'd think that would always be easy, but bus routes here have a tendency to randomly change without warning), and off I went. Justin had told me to look for a big red building across from a huge circular sculpture at a big intersection and to get off the bus at the next stop. His teacher had met him at that bus stop, and when Ryan and Rachel had first started class, their teacher met them at the hotel a block down the street. I also had the name of the bus stop, so there should have been no problem with disembarking correctly.
Ha. Should have been.
I got the first indication of trouble when I realized, two stops after getting on the bus, that the nice speaker-voice that announces stops was broken on this bus.
Great.
So, I anxiously watched for the big red building and the circle sculpture. I kept checking my watch, worried about being late for the first class.
Aha! Red building! Circle sculpture!
Just past the intersection, the bus stops. I jump off with two other people. I look around.
This isn't a bus stop. The bus had stopped, who knows why, in a random place with no signs or people. So I walked. I slowed down at the next bus stop, where I could see my bus's number. I checked around for my female teacher, but didn't see anyone in the crowd who looked like they were looking for me.
Ah, thought I, she must be waiting in front of the hotel. I'll keep going.
Nope. I waited in front of the hotel for what felt like ages. After a reasonable amount of time, I pulled out my phone.
*Sidebar -- my old phone here was a hand-me-down from the couple before us. Oddly enough, it's a Chinese phone that doesn't give me Chinese texting abilities without converting everything to Chinese. So, we found a super cheap deal on TaoBao, the Chinese version of Ebay. This phone had arrived the day before, and I was still learning the ins and outs. Okay, to continue.
Now, I'm in a part of the city I'm not familiar with, don't see anyone looking for me, have no contact information for the school, and am feeling progressively stupider and hotter as the sun rises and people stare. I pull out my phone to call Justin. He, at least, has their email address.
My phone is not working.
I send multiple text messages, increasing in urgency. No response.
I try to call Rachel, who is notorious about not having her phone on or within earshot. No answer. I scroll through my address book for Ryan's number, but somehow his information didn't copy over from my old phone.
I am frantic. Class should have begun five minutes ago.
Rachel, bless her, calls me back. Within a few minutes, she has called their teacher, who apparently is the one meeting me, and says he's at the bus stop but heading my way.
I thank her and wait. And wait. And wait. I'm standing in full view, way out front, keeping half an eye on the direction he should be coming from and half an eye on the strangers passing me. I don't see him.
After a solid ten minutes, I pull out my phone to call Rachel back and discover that I've received a message I hadn't heard. He's waiting for me up by the door.
I have no idea how he didn't see me out here.
I walk up, and there are several men standing around. After a few minutes, a Chinese man whose hair reminds me forcibly of a poodle asks if I am Shannon. As I am the only woman (and a foreign woman to boot) this should've been rather obvious.
I follow him to the school, which is down a couple of streets and a few turns, and go up to the apartment. My female Chinese teacher greets us. Silently. The teachers have a rapid Chinese discussion, in which they ask me a few questions in Chinese that I answer, then he leaves us and she smiles at me.
Nervously. She is obviously very, very nervous. The Chinese have a smile that they use for embarrassing situations. This was that smile.
Great, I think, I've got a newbie. I wonder how much experience she's had teaching foreigners.
By this point, by the way, I'm a half hour late for class, I'm parched and sweating, and we're sitting in a sunny room that has no air-conditioning, no fan, no breeze through an open window. I'm feeling sicker and sicker by the minute.
Class begins. At first, I think she's just testing out my Chinese level by speaking only in Chinese. This is good, I think to myself, she's going to stretch me, really make me work.
After a few minutes, though, I realize she doesn't speak any English. At all. This becomes increasingly apparent as class progresses, because every time I try to ask a question about grammar or usage in English or ask how to say an English word in Chinese, she gets that same embarrassed smile and tells me (in Chinese, of course) that she doesn't understand. By halfway through the class, she's drawing pictures and miming to get her points across. It's at this point I'm ready to puke from the lack of circulation and refreshment and ask for some water. I feel marginally better for having a small coffee mug of warm water.
By the end of class, I'm beyond frustrated. If I had upper-level language skills, it would be one thing, but we told the school that we were still beginners, really. The book we were using was not the same format as the series we'd been studying all semester, so the vocabulary and usage was different, my teacher couldn't understand a single English word I said when I couldn't express myself in Chinese, getting to the school had been a nightmare, and I was still feeling sick.
I've decided on getting one of our Chinese friends to tutor me instead of going back. Perhaps they have a better female teacher, but I've lost faith in their judgment and abilities, and frankly, it's a hefty fee to pay for someone who can't explain when and how to use the words she's teaching you.
Oh, I forgot -- she did know one English phrase. When I was leaving, she smiled big and said "It is very easy!"
Right.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Fasting
Winter Holiday: The Final Installment
I would love to say that we had lots of adventures in Vietnam, but it wasn't so. Aside from the projectile puking incident, the no-rooms-in-the-whole-city-where-are-we-gonna-sleep-tonight incident, and the mohawked Eastern European with the escape-artist cow, it was very relaxed. We spent two weeks on the beach. Connor played in the sand and water, made friends with some kids straight out of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang beach scene, and followed several big dogs around, giggling his head off. We ate fresh seafood, had fresh fruit smoothies with every meal, and rode on a motorcycle, Vietnamese-style.
But mostly, we rested. After a solid month of cramming a ridiculously difficult language in our heads, we were more than ready to do absolutely nothing. So that's what we did.
And then we headed up to Beijing for Workshop. A couple of my favorite speakers were there (shout out to John King and Mark Hooper!) who never fail to make a point or two that twists my heart and makes me rethink something. Sigh. A painful process, but great benefits.
This year, the two things that I took away and mulled over were about time management and fasting.
Time: it's a simple concept, but one that makes me wince. If I say that I don't have enough time to do something spiritually important, what am I doing with my time that needs to take a backseat? Example: facebook. If I'm a religious facebook-checker but not a dedicated pray-er or meditate-er, my priorities are a tad screwed up. Nothing wrong with facebook, but it's a matter of what comes first -- and if something is higher up than my Lord on my list, that could get us into a whole idolatry discussion... I digress. The point is, ouch.
So, I'm giving up guitar. Been learning for the past year or so, but that's 30 minutes a day that could be better spent. It's sad. But necessary.
And then we talked about fasting. Traditionally, it's time spent without food, focusing on the Lord instead. However, you can broaden it -- taking something "good" (not bad, not evil, not wrong, something harmless) out of your life for a period of time and using that time to focus on Him. So, Justin and I talked about it and decided that we would spend one week a month TV-less. We have just completed our first week of TV fasting. It's been wonderful.
I'm not going to stand on a soapbox and tell you that TV is evil, the media is out to get you, and you should avoid all exposure to it. I will tell you, though, that a TV-free week has given us more time as a family than we'd thought. We had no idea how much that thing is turned on in the course of a day. We've spent much more family time together and listened to the Bible on CD instead of watching an episode of NCIS or Top Chef every day. Connor usually gets about 30 minutes of TV a day, which we figured was low compared to many children. He usually asks for a show mid-morning and is antsy until he gets it. After the first couple of days this week, he stopped asking. Instead, we got plied with book request after book request -- Llama Llama Red Pajama, Gordon and LiLi speak Mandarin, Thomas the Tank Engine, Dr Seuss, Sandra Boynton...the list is endless.
Needless to say, this week has challenged our lifestyle quite a bit and made us rethink a few things. I remember one time when I was maybe 11 or 12, my family did a month or so of no TV -- and it was great. We kids balked at it, sure that our lives would end, but there were more family games in the evenings, puzzles to put together (and heaven help you if you put in the last piece on a section someone else had been slaving over, you credit-hog!) and books to read.
I'm rambling now, a sure sign that it's time to end this post. I just wanted to share the benefits of our week of fasting -- we are closer to God and closer as a family. I highly recommend it, at least as an experiment. I betcha you'll like it.
Blessings!
I would love to say that we had lots of adventures in Vietnam, but it wasn't so. Aside from the projectile puking incident, the no-rooms-in-the-whole-city-where-are-we-gonna-sleep-tonight incident, and the mohawked Eastern European with the escape-artist cow, it was very relaxed. We spent two weeks on the beach. Connor played in the sand and water, made friends with some kids straight out of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang beach scene, and followed several big dogs around, giggling his head off. We ate fresh seafood, had fresh fruit smoothies with every meal, and rode on a motorcycle, Vietnamese-style.
But mostly, we rested. After a solid month of cramming a ridiculously difficult language in our heads, we were more than ready to do absolutely nothing. So that's what we did.
And then we headed up to Beijing for Workshop. A couple of my favorite speakers were there (shout out to John King and Mark Hooper!) who never fail to make a point or two that twists my heart and makes me rethink something. Sigh. A painful process, but great benefits.
This year, the two things that I took away and mulled over were about time management and fasting.
Time: it's a simple concept, but one that makes me wince. If I say that I don't have enough time to do something spiritually important, what am I doing with my time that needs to take a backseat? Example: facebook. If I'm a religious facebook-checker but not a dedicated pray-er or meditate-er, my priorities are a tad screwed up. Nothing wrong with facebook, but it's a matter of what comes first -- and if something is higher up than my Lord on my list, that could get us into a whole idolatry discussion... I digress. The point is, ouch.
So, I'm giving up guitar. Been learning for the past year or so, but that's 30 minutes a day that could be better spent. It's sad. But necessary.
And then we talked about fasting. Traditionally, it's time spent without food, focusing on the Lord instead. However, you can broaden it -- taking something "good" (not bad, not evil, not wrong, something harmless) out of your life for a period of time and using that time to focus on Him. So, Justin and I talked about it and decided that we would spend one week a month TV-less. We have just completed our first week of TV fasting. It's been wonderful.
I'm not going to stand on a soapbox and tell you that TV is evil, the media is out to get you, and you should avoid all exposure to it. I will tell you, though, that a TV-free week has given us more time as a family than we'd thought. We had no idea how much that thing is turned on in the course of a day. We've spent much more family time together and listened to the Bible on CD instead of watching an episode of NCIS or Top Chef every day. Connor usually gets about 30 minutes of TV a day, which we figured was low compared to many children. He usually asks for a show mid-morning and is antsy until he gets it. After the first couple of days this week, he stopped asking. Instead, we got plied with book request after book request -- Llama Llama Red Pajama, Gordon and LiLi speak Mandarin, Thomas the Tank Engine, Dr Seuss, Sandra Boynton...the list is endless.
Needless to say, this week has challenged our lifestyle quite a bit and made us rethink a few things. I remember one time when I was maybe 11 or 12, my family did a month or so of no TV -- and it was great. We kids balked at it, sure that our lives would end, but there were more family games in the evenings, puzzles to put together (and heaven help you if you put in the last piece on a section someone else had been slaving over, you credit-hog!) and books to read.
I'm rambling now, a sure sign that it's time to end this post. I just wanted to share the benefits of our week of fasting -- we are closer to God and closer as a family. I highly recommend it, at least as an experiment. I betcha you'll like it.
Blessings!
Monday, February 28, 2011
Langzhong
Winter Holiday, Part 2.
When we arrived in Chengdu, we had all sorts of plans for weekend sightseeing around the city and the surrounding areas. There were a couple of mountains to climb, the biggest Buddha in the world to take a picture in front of, a gorgeous nature reserve, and of course, the pandas that Chengdu is famous for. Unfortunately, bad weather ruled out the mountains and the nature reserve, and Justin didn't want to get up so early for the pandas, and we all had fizzled brains from language study, so... one trip. One. And to a place that hadn't even made the possibilities list when we were planning grand adventures.
Langzhong. One of the few "old" cities in China that retains the feel of an ancient way of life. So, we went.
It took more effort than we'd thought.
In theory, it should've been a couple of local bus rides to the long-distance bus station, then a five-hour ride on that. No problem. We packed snacks, a lunch, some water, and plenty of activities for Connor, plus clothes and stuff for the weekend. It ended up being quite a bit to carry, but no big deal, we were going to be riding the bus for maybe 45 minutes then stowing most of it under the long-distance bus.
Uh-huh.
We got on the first bus, no problem (other than a 20 minute wait). I should probably remind you here about my lack of directional sense. Remember? Wade shares this quality with me. Perhaps not as severe, but he is not a guy who can figure his way around, map or no map. So Justin and Leah were in charge of watching for the correct stop to change buses.
Get the mental image here -- all of use with massive backpacks and one or two extra bags hanging on our arms (or toddlers hanging on our hips, as the case may be), smushed into a crowded bus (is there any other kind?), craning our necks at awkward angles to keep an eye out for the stops. The frosty windows didn't help matters, either.
So, I've just gotten a seat with Connor (yay!) and Justin hollers "this is our stop!" and we shove our way past irritated passengers and jump off the bus.
Wrong stop.
My apologizes to the hubbie, but the man did make a wrong call. He saw the sign for the street we needed, but we were a couple of blocks away from the correct end of the street.
So we walked. And walked. And walked.
Freezing cold, carrying Connor and bags of stuff we now were wishing we'd left behind, wondering how much further it was and if we should just take a taxi. But no, we're all frugal people (we try not to think of ourselves as cheap) and decide that we can walk a ways further.
We find the right bus to transfer onto and climb aboard. It is, without a doubt, the slowest bus in the world. Guess how long we ride that bloomin' thing?
2 hours. 2 hours of singing songs to keep Connor occupied. 2 hours of readjusting bags. 2 hours of checking pockets every time someone bumps into you (pickpockets are alive and well in China).
And when we get off at the stop a very kind Chinese woman tells us to, it's not the right one. We are at the train station, not the long-distance bus station.
Aiya.
So we backtrack and walk for about another hour or so, asking strangers how to get there every now and then and checking a map. Well, Justin and Leah checked the map. Wade and I just kept our mouths shut.
We finally get to the long-distance bus, and everything is smooth sailing from there (just arriving four hours later than expected is all) other than the fact that the public restroom doesn't have stalls and I got to pee while three Chinese girls watched avidly. Luckily, by this point I was too tired to care.
Langzhong was really lovely. People still lived and went about their business in this really quaint place -- not just a tourist trap. That's rare. Cobbled streets, narrow alleys, old-fashioned shingles, traditional Chinese dancers performing on the street corners, great food.
We stayed in the Feng Shui Museum (actual little hostel in the museum, which was super duper cool). Only downside was that the bathrooms were not actually inside, but exposed to the elements. If you had to pee in the middle of the night, you had to exit your room (once you leave your room, you have left the only source of heat in the place) and shiver through the outdoor courtyard, climb down a very narrow, steep staircase (Wade fell once. It hurt.) then try not to slip on the slick stone floor (drizzled constantly, and like I've mentioned, this is all exposed to the elements). Finally, if you can find the light switch, you can pee (squatty potties only). Don't forget that there's no hot water in the sinks (only the showers, and then a very limited amount), so you're washing your hands in freezing water before returning back the way you came. Note: this is weather that's damp-cold, now, so you're in at least three layers at all times.
But without a doubt, bathroom difficulties aside (I've just walked you through peeing, but I'll leave showering to your imagination), this is our favorite place to date. Lots of character and charm, and a really good deal to boot.
Langzhong is basically a shopping/walking place. We saw lots of cool stuff and had a great time unwinding after the week of studying. I'll add some pics down at the bottom for your perusal.
Oh, and when we traveled back to Chengdu -- we took a taxi home from the bus station. :-)
That's our room -- teeny tiny, which worked since the heater wouldn't have been able to keep a bigger room warm.
In one of the open-air areas of the museum/hostel.
Connor was there too (great restaurant, by the way) but he was playing with some Chinese kids, running around and around a table and laughing his head off.
This is our favorite Sichuan dish -- the potato thing I mentioned last time. Oh, it was good. Really good. Crave it whenever it pops into mind good.
When we arrived in Chengdu, we had all sorts of plans for weekend sightseeing around the city and the surrounding areas. There were a couple of mountains to climb, the biggest Buddha in the world to take a picture in front of, a gorgeous nature reserve, and of course, the pandas that Chengdu is famous for. Unfortunately, bad weather ruled out the mountains and the nature reserve, and Justin didn't want to get up so early for the pandas, and we all had fizzled brains from language study, so... one trip. One. And to a place that hadn't even made the possibilities list when we were planning grand adventures.
Langzhong. One of the few "old" cities in China that retains the feel of an ancient way of life. So, we went.
It took more effort than we'd thought.
In theory, it should've been a couple of local bus rides to the long-distance bus station, then a five-hour ride on that. No problem. We packed snacks, a lunch, some water, and plenty of activities for Connor, plus clothes and stuff for the weekend. It ended up being quite a bit to carry, but no big deal, we were going to be riding the bus for maybe 45 minutes then stowing most of it under the long-distance bus.
Uh-huh.
We got on the first bus, no problem (other than a 20 minute wait). I should probably remind you here about my lack of directional sense. Remember? Wade shares this quality with me. Perhaps not as severe, but he is not a guy who can figure his way around, map or no map. So Justin and Leah were in charge of watching for the correct stop to change buses.
Get the mental image here -- all of use with massive backpacks and one or two extra bags hanging on our arms (or toddlers hanging on our hips, as the case may be), smushed into a crowded bus (is there any other kind?), craning our necks at awkward angles to keep an eye out for the stops. The frosty windows didn't help matters, either.
So, I've just gotten a seat with Connor (yay!) and Justin hollers "this is our stop!" and we shove our way past irritated passengers and jump off the bus.
Wrong stop.
My apologizes to the hubbie, but the man did make a wrong call. He saw the sign for the street we needed, but we were a couple of blocks away from the correct end of the street.
So we walked. And walked. And walked.
Freezing cold, carrying Connor and bags of stuff we now were wishing we'd left behind, wondering how much further it was and if we should just take a taxi. But no, we're all frugal people (we try not to think of ourselves as cheap) and decide that we can walk a ways further.
We find the right bus to transfer onto and climb aboard. It is, without a doubt, the slowest bus in the world. Guess how long we ride that bloomin' thing?
2 hours. 2 hours of singing songs to keep Connor occupied. 2 hours of readjusting bags. 2 hours of checking pockets every time someone bumps into you (pickpockets are alive and well in China).
And when we get off at the stop a very kind Chinese woman tells us to, it's not the right one. We are at the train station, not the long-distance bus station.
Aiya.
So we backtrack and walk for about another hour or so, asking strangers how to get there every now and then and checking a map. Well, Justin and Leah checked the map. Wade and I just kept our mouths shut.
We finally get to the long-distance bus, and everything is smooth sailing from there (just arriving four hours later than expected is all) other than the fact that the public restroom doesn't have stalls and I got to pee while three Chinese girls watched avidly. Luckily, by this point I was too tired to care.
Langzhong was really lovely. People still lived and went about their business in this really quaint place -- not just a tourist trap. That's rare. Cobbled streets, narrow alleys, old-fashioned shingles, traditional Chinese dancers performing on the street corners, great food.
We stayed in the Feng Shui Museum (actual little hostel in the museum, which was super duper cool). Only downside was that the bathrooms were not actually inside, but exposed to the elements. If you had to pee in the middle of the night, you had to exit your room (once you leave your room, you have left the only source of heat in the place) and shiver through the outdoor courtyard, climb down a very narrow, steep staircase (Wade fell once. It hurt.) then try not to slip on the slick stone floor (drizzled constantly, and like I've mentioned, this is all exposed to the elements). Finally, if you can find the light switch, you can pee (squatty potties only). Don't forget that there's no hot water in the sinks (only the showers, and then a very limited amount), so you're washing your hands in freezing water before returning back the way you came. Note: this is weather that's damp-cold, now, so you're in at least three layers at all times.
But without a doubt, bathroom difficulties aside (I've just walked you through peeing, but I'll leave showering to your imagination), this is our favorite place to date. Lots of character and charm, and a really good deal to boot.
Langzhong is basically a shopping/walking place. We saw lots of cool stuff and had a great time unwinding after the week of studying. I'll add some pics down at the bottom for your perusal.
Oh, and when we traveled back to Chengdu -- we took a taxi home from the bus station. :-)
Friday, February 25, 2011
Chengdu
Okay, it's been about twenty years since I've blogged, and there's lots of stuff to tell you. But, because I hate reading one long endless post myself, I'm breaking this up into segments. You can thank me later.
The first part of our holiday (sidenote -- SO Chinese! They use British vocabulary for everything -- you should see their expressions when we tell them where our apartment is, they only know the word "flat" so they're completely lost -- anyway, they never say vacation or break. It's a holiday. "Did you have a nice holiday?" "What a lovely holiday!" So now, because we hear it so much, we use it, and end up feeling rather like a mix between uppity Brit and giggly schoolkids. Anyway.) was in Chengdu for language school. And yes, I realize that my parenthetical note was about a paragraph long and you just had to scroll up and see what in the world sentence I just finished.
Chengdu. Language school. One month. 50 hours. Painful, brain-squeezing, mind-twisting, language-cramming experience.
Loved it.
We shared any apartment with another couple for the month and knew that we'd come out on the other side really loving or really hating them. We love them. We wish they lived closer. We probably know more about Wade and Leah than we'd really like to, such as bathroom habits, odd quirks, and random phobias, but the whole situation went more smoothly than we could have hoped.
Problem with Chengdu -- it's cold. I know this sounds strange from a "Haerbinren" (Harbin person) but we have HEAT up here. Our apartments are warm, our classrooms are warm, the shops are warm. In central China, where Chengdu is, they have teeny little units on the walls in some rooms, not all, of the apartments, and none in school classrooms, restaurants, or shops. Most of the restaurants are even doorless, so you don't have the relief of being out of the elements. It's a damp cold too, so you never really feel dry. And get this -- we knew we were heading down to Vietnam, so we opted to just take our lightweight jackets instead of our heavy coats.
We froze. We wore many many layers. Our toes were sad and pitiful. I still can't believe, out of all the things I could have forgotten to pack, I forgot the socks I'd knitted for us for this very trip. Sigh.
This is why, we think, that province is known for its spicy food. Heat. Seriously, we went out to a few Chinese restaurants when we girls needed a cooking break, and a solid third of each dish was the hot peppers. Your lips burn like crazy, but it tastes so good. The best one was a potato dish where they slice up the potatoes super super tiny, smaller than toothpicks, and fry 'em up with peppers (of course) and a little vinegar. AMAZING. Worth the trip back down just to eat them again.
So, we love Wade and Leah, we love the food, we hate the weather, the classes were great and we learned a ton. Best story from Chengdu, though, is the bike-riding.
Okay. Our first week of classes, we took the bus to school, but it took about 45 minutes and we were super short on time. So, the second week, we started using the bikes from the apartment we were renting.
All of us almost died at some point.
I'm going to try and set the scene for biking in a big Chinese city. Take an intersection with about three lanes going in each direction. Put lights in that intersection that really aren't thought highly of and are seen as more of suggestions than rules. Add a few traffic cops who stand on little pedestals (seriously) and wave their hands around, trying not to get hit. Then bring in the taxis. And buses. And cars. And three-wheeled trike wagon things, loaded with boxes, bags, animals, people. Then bring in motorcycles, scooters, bikes. Then pedestrians. Dogs. Kids. Now, important to remember here -- no one pays attention to the rules. You go when you see an opportunity. Period. Now, the noise -- horns honking, buses blaring, dogs barking, people yelling, bike bells brrriiinnging, traffic cops blowing on their piercing whistles. You can't hear yourself think.
Now bike across that intersection without hitting anybody or getting hit yourself.
You see my point.
Once you get across the intersection and are lucky enough to have a bike lane, you may think you're set -- but no, you are not. Normally, you'd just have bike traffic (which is substantial) plus motorcycles and scooters. Then, if the sidewalk is crowded, pedestrians jump on over into the bike lane. (Can't blame 'em much, the bikers do the same to them.) Then the trike-wagons jump in sometimes, taking up the whole lane. Cars are prone to avoiding traffic by crossing that little white line, too.
So, you see, the bike lane is not all it's cracked up to be.
Then you've got little streets spilling into the main roads with no warning whatsoever, so you've got to stay on your toes. Cars backing out of their parking spaces -- on the sidewalk -- into the bike lane. Other bikers thinking you're too slow and whizzing around you with maybe two inches to spare.
The first day, I was terrified. I knew this was my death. No way was I going to survive.
Let me think. Justin got hit by a motorcycle (not hard, it was backing up). Leah got hit by a car (just her back wheel, she's fine). Wade slammed on his brakes to avoid a kid and got hit by me (this was his fault, not mine, and I'm sticking to that). I hit two cars, a pole, and somebody's foot.
Don't judge me.
But here's the thing -- we all loved it by the time we left. We were no longer being whizzed by, we were doing the whizzing. And, there's something super fun about ringing a bike bell. It brought back lots of great childhood memories, even with freezing rain pelting our faces, and when you add in the adrenaline rush of maybe dying any second, it was super fun.
We've decided that if we ever live in the heart of a city like that, we're buying bikes, despite the risks. It's quick, it's fun, and once you learn to think like a Chinese driver, it's not so difficult.
Okay, so that's Chengdu. I'll get the next "holiday happenings" post up soon.
The first part of our holiday (sidenote -- SO Chinese! They use British vocabulary for everything -- you should see their expressions when we tell them where our apartment is, they only know the word "flat" so they're completely lost -- anyway, they never say vacation or break. It's a holiday. "Did you have a nice holiday?" "What a lovely holiday!" So now, because we hear it so much, we use it, and end up feeling rather like a mix between uppity Brit and giggly schoolkids. Anyway.) was in Chengdu for language school. And yes, I realize that my parenthetical note was about a paragraph long and you just had to scroll up and see what in the world sentence I just finished.
Chengdu. Language school. One month. 50 hours. Painful, brain-squeezing, mind-twisting, language-cramming experience.
Loved it.
We shared any apartment with another couple for the month and knew that we'd come out on the other side really loving or really hating them. We love them. We wish they lived closer. We probably know more about Wade and Leah than we'd really like to, such as bathroom habits, odd quirks, and random phobias, but the whole situation went more smoothly than we could have hoped.
Problem with Chengdu -- it's cold. I know this sounds strange from a "Haerbinren" (Harbin person) but we have HEAT up here. Our apartments are warm, our classrooms are warm, the shops are warm. In central China, where Chengdu is, they have teeny little units on the walls in some rooms, not all, of the apartments, and none in school classrooms, restaurants, or shops. Most of the restaurants are even doorless, so you don't have the relief of being out of the elements. It's a damp cold too, so you never really feel dry. And get this -- we knew we were heading down to Vietnam, so we opted to just take our lightweight jackets instead of our heavy coats.
We froze. We wore many many layers. Our toes were sad and pitiful. I still can't believe, out of all the things I could have forgotten to pack, I forgot the socks I'd knitted for us for this very trip. Sigh.
This is why, we think, that province is known for its spicy food. Heat. Seriously, we went out to a few Chinese restaurants when we girls needed a cooking break, and a solid third of each dish was the hot peppers. Your lips burn like crazy, but it tastes so good. The best one was a potato dish where they slice up the potatoes super super tiny, smaller than toothpicks, and fry 'em up with peppers (of course) and a little vinegar. AMAZING. Worth the trip back down just to eat them again.
So, we love Wade and Leah, we love the food, we hate the weather, the classes were great and we learned a ton. Best story from Chengdu, though, is the bike-riding.
Okay. Our first week of classes, we took the bus to school, but it took about 45 minutes and we were super short on time. So, the second week, we started using the bikes from the apartment we were renting.
All of us almost died at some point.
I'm going to try and set the scene for biking in a big Chinese city. Take an intersection with about three lanes going in each direction. Put lights in that intersection that really aren't thought highly of and are seen as more of suggestions than rules. Add a few traffic cops who stand on little pedestals (seriously) and wave their hands around, trying not to get hit. Then bring in the taxis. And buses. And cars. And three-wheeled trike wagon things, loaded with boxes, bags, animals, people. Then bring in motorcycles, scooters, bikes. Then pedestrians. Dogs. Kids. Now, important to remember here -- no one pays attention to the rules. You go when you see an opportunity. Period. Now, the noise -- horns honking, buses blaring, dogs barking, people yelling, bike bells brrriiinnging, traffic cops blowing on their piercing whistles. You can't hear yourself think.
Now bike across that intersection without hitting anybody or getting hit yourself.
You see my point.
Once you get across the intersection and are lucky enough to have a bike lane, you may think you're set -- but no, you are not. Normally, you'd just have bike traffic (which is substantial) plus motorcycles and scooters. Then, if the sidewalk is crowded, pedestrians jump on over into the bike lane. (Can't blame 'em much, the bikers do the same to them.) Then the trike-wagons jump in sometimes, taking up the whole lane. Cars are prone to avoiding traffic by crossing that little white line, too.
So, you see, the bike lane is not all it's cracked up to be.
Then you've got little streets spilling into the main roads with no warning whatsoever, so you've got to stay on your toes. Cars backing out of their parking spaces -- on the sidewalk -- into the bike lane. Other bikers thinking you're too slow and whizzing around you with maybe two inches to spare.
The first day, I was terrified. I knew this was my death. No way was I going to survive.
Let me think. Justin got hit by a motorcycle (not hard, it was backing up). Leah got hit by a car (just her back wheel, she's fine). Wade slammed on his brakes to avoid a kid and got hit by me (this was his fault, not mine, and I'm sticking to that). I hit two cars, a pole, and somebody's foot.
Don't judge me.
But here's the thing -- we all loved it by the time we left. We were no longer being whizzed by, we were doing the whizzing. And, there's something super fun about ringing a bike bell. It brought back lots of great childhood memories, even with freezing rain pelting our faces, and when you add in the adrenaline rush of maybe dying any second, it was super fun.
We've decided that if we ever live in the heart of a city like that, we're buying bikes, despite the risks. It's quick, it's fun, and once you learn to think like a Chinese driver, it's not so difficult.
Okay, so that's Chengdu. I'll get the next "holiday happenings" post up soon.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Latest in the Top Five Embarrassing Moments Category...
I think this just might be one of the most embarrassing experiences to date. One of those "oh help oh mercy oh no what do I say what do I do how can I make this better oh no there isn't any way to make this better so what's the quickest escape route" moments.
Today was my final "teaching" class for my non-English majors. The numbers in these classes have dwindled over the past couple of weeks, due to students focusing on preparing for their final exams in their major classes and leaving mine. I combined all my classes together for a final double session this morning, to be followed by their final exam tomorrow afternoon. Much more convenient all around.
So, let me tell you about one of my best students. Lesley.
Right away, the name should have tipped me off. This is clearly a male student -- baggy clothes, short boy haircut, black tennis shoes, sideburns -- but the name is not the most macho ever. He has a bit of a baby face and a slightly higher voice than most of the boys in my classes, and he's a little chubby, so you'd think he'd want to beef up his name. Still, this is China. I have boy students named anything from "Killer" and 'Oh Yeah" to "Summer" and "Rain," so I took it in stride. Boy named Lesley. Not common in America, but not unusual either. Plus, the kid's a really great student. The only one out of all my non-major classes to get an A on his speech, consistently the highest grades on quizzes, always does his homework. He's the kid that I look to when I'm teaching to check if he understands. If he gets it, I move on or have him explain in Chinese. If not, I try different phrasing. I have a couple of these students in each class who act as my gauge on understanding.
Anyway. I digress.
Because Lesley is such a good student, I'm not surprised to see him in class today (on a Saturday). Pretty much only my good students show up -- Lesley, Carmen, Sky, Dennis, Job, Endy -- and some others who really do seem to care about class but don't have a prayer of passing because they just don't do the work. Today's topic was all about the body -- feeling sick, injuries, body parts, body movements. This is one of my stellar lessons that the kids really get into. I mean, what students with the maturity level of 13-year-olds don't love to talk about puke, learn words like "rear end" and watch their teacher demonstrate body movements like crawling and jumping? Exactly. Plus, I had cookies left over from our Christmas party last night, so correct answers earned you a cookie. Tried to make class on a Saturday morning as appealing as possible.
Okay, so one other thing that I do with this lesson, regarding injuries, is talk about self-defense. They LOVE this. I took a self-defense class in college and really enjoyed it, and it's fun to pass along the info. Plus, there's the Miss Congeniality wisdom: Solar plexus, Instep, Nose, Groin. SING. I pick on a few different boys to demonstrate (I don't really hit them, never fear) and the class always goes nuts for it. Today I picked on Carmen (he's a weird kid, turns out he knows kung fu, I probably shouldn't have asked him to "attack" me, he almost won) and Lesley. Everything went super well...
...until the break.
At which point, Sky (who is a Brother now! Praises!) comes up to my desk and asks me, "That student (points to Lesley), do you think it is a boy or girl?"
I. Have. No. Words.
I think maybe this is some kind of trick, so he has a baby face and a girlish name, doesn't mean anything -- I have to say something, they're both looking at me --
"A boy," I say, and look down at my papers, pretending to be busy.
"No. It's a girl," says Sky.
I. Want. To. Die.
And, of course, Lesley comes up to the desk, looking all wounded and embarrassed.
I say the only thing that pops into my head. "Oh. Well, Lesley is an English boy's name, so I just thought..."
Okay, it's more commonly a girl's name, but I've already given this kid an identity complex for life now. I'm not about to say "You just look like such a boy!"
Aiya.
Lesley says that he (I just can't think "she!") looked up the name on the internet and it's a girl's name, and I mumble something about it being a boy's name too. I stare at the paper and try to pretend like I'm not contemplating how long it would take me to fashion my shoelaces into a noose.
I sneak looks at Lesley through the next class period, and I still don't see it! I mean, that is a boy! Walks like a boy, dresses like a boy, hair like a boy, talks like a boy, BOY! I can't meet his eyes, and I feel terrible for hauling a girl up to the front of the room to pretend to attack me so that I can demonstrate self-defense. Oh help. And then, while I'm feeling just awful, I still wish I had my camera with me so I could snap Lesley's picture and show you all and say "See! That has to be a boy!" which makes me a really horrible person on top of a really big idiot. And how would I ask for a picture? "Excuse me, I just want to show my friends how mannish you are for a girl." Ugh.
You know, I've always been afraid that, teaching in China, I would confuse one student with another. Truth be told, I can't tell most of my students apart when they're out of the classroom or buy a new shirt. Seriously.
But I really never thought I'd get the gender wrong.
Still, Lesley has a great future. Think how great he/she would be as an undercover agent.
Today was my final "teaching" class for my non-English majors. The numbers in these classes have dwindled over the past couple of weeks, due to students focusing on preparing for their final exams in their major classes and leaving mine. I combined all my classes together for a final double session this morning, to be followed by their final exam tomorrow afternoon. Much more convenient all around.
So, let me tell you about one of my best students. Lesley.
Right away, the name should have tipped me off. This is clearly a male student -- baggy clothes, short boy haircut, black tennis shoes, sideburns -- but the name is not the most macho ever. He has a bit of a baby face and a slightly higher voice than most of the boys in my classes, and he's a little chubby, so you'd think he'd want to beef up his name. Still, this is China. I have boy students named anything from "Killer" and 'Oh Yeah" to "Summer" and "Rain," so I took it in stride. Boy named Lesley. Not common in America, but not unusual either. Plus, the kid's a really great student. The only one out of all my non-major classes to get an A on his speech, consistently the highest grades on quizzes, always does his homework. He's the kid that I look to when I'm teaching to check if he understands. If he gets it, I move on or have him explain in Chinese. If not, I try different phrasing. I have a couple of these students in each class who act as my gauge on understanding.
Anyway. I digress.
Because Lesley is such a good student, I'm not surprised to see him in class today (on a Saturday). Pretty much only my good students show up -- Lesley, Carmen, Sky, Dennis, Job, Endy -- and some others who really do seem to care about class but don't have a prayer of passing because they just don't do the work. Today's topic was all about the body -- feeling sick, injuries, body parts, body movements. This is one of my stellar lessons that the kids really get into. I mean, what students with the maturity level of 13-year-olds don't love to talk about puke, learn words like "rear end" and watch their teacher demonstrate body movements like crawling and jumping? Exactly. Plus, I had cookies left over from our Christmas party last night, so correct answers earned you a cookie. Tried to make class on a Saturday morning as appealing as possible.
Okay, so one other thing that I do with this lesson, regarding injuries, is talk about self-defense. They LOVE this. I took a self-defense class in college and really enjoyed it, and it's fun to pass along the info. Plus, there's the Miss Congeniality wisdom: Solar plexus, Instep, Nose, Groin. SING. I pick on a few different boys to demonstrate (I don't really hit them, never fear) and the class always goes nuts for it. Today I picked on Carmen (he's a weird kid, turns out he knows kung fu, I probably shouldn't have asked him to "attack" me, he almost won) and Lesley. Everything went super well...
...until the break.
At which point, Sky (who is a Brother now! Praises!) comes up to my desk and asks me, "That student (points to Lesley), do you think it is a boy or girl?"
I. Have. No. Words.
I think maybe this is some kind of trick, so he has a baby face and a girlish name, doesn't mean anything -- I have to say something, they're both looking at me --
"A boy," I say, and look down at my papers, pretending to be busy.
"No. It's a girl," says Sky.
I. Want. To. Die.
And, of course, Lesley comes up to the desk, looking all wounded and embarrassed.
I say the only thing that pops into my head. "Oh. Well, Lesley is an English boy's name, so I just thought..."
Okay, it's more commonly a girl's name, but I've already given this kid an identity complex for life now. I'm not about to say "You just look like such a boy!"
Aiya.
Lesley says that he (I just can't think "she!") looked up the name on the internet and it's a girl's name, and I mumble something about it being a boy's name too. I stare at the paper and try to pretend like I'm not contemplating how long it would take me to fashion my shoelaces into a noose.
I sneak looks at Lesley through the next class period, and I still don't see it! I mean, that is a boy! Walks like a boy, dresses like a boy, hair like a boy, talks like a boy, BOY! I can't meet his eyes, and I feel terrible for hauling a girl up to the front of the room to pretend to attack me so that I can demonstrate self-defense. Oh help. And then, while I'm feeling just awful, I still wish I had my camera with me so I could snap Lesley's picture and show you all and say "See! That has to be a boy!" which makes me a really horrible person on top of a really big idiot. And how would I ask for a picture? "Excuse me, I just want to show my friends how mannish you are for a girl." Ugh.
You know, I've always been afraid that, teaching in China, I would confuse one student with another. Truth be told, I can't tell most of my students apart when they're out of the classroom or buy a new shirt. Seriously.
But I really never thought I'd get the gender wrong.
Still, Lesley has a great future. Think how great he/she would be as an undercover agent.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Upside
It's officially cold. Really cold. Bitterly cold, getting close to obscenely cold. It's miserable to go outside, it's horrendous to walk further than next door, and it's torture to go across the river and do any serious shopping.
So, in the spirit of the season, I decided to be optimistic. There HAS to be an upside to this weather. Here's my list:
1. Problem -- you have to bundle up to go outside, even if it's only for a few seconds.
Good thing -- you can wear anything you want under your coat. Seriously. I got home from class yesterday and changed clothes to cook dinner. Then I discovered that we were out of eggs and I had to go back out to get some from the veggie shop. Grr. I actually went into our bedroom to grab a different shirt to put on because my shirt had a bleach spot on it -- and then I realized. NO ONE CAN SEE IT. All that's visible are shoes, jeans, coat, scarf, mittens, hat, face. That's it. Woot! I could wear a pajama shirt, or a ratty old sweatshirt, or the sweater with soy sauce dripped on it and no one will know! This excites me beyond measure. In fact, if I wear earrings and don't tie the ear flaps on my hat down, people will think I'm really dressy under all the layers. Ha! I'm currently concocting the most ridiculous outfit I can think of, just to wear under the coat. It's great fun.
2. Problem -- the wind bites. Bites. Really viciously bites.
Good thing -- you don't need makeup. Seriously. Why would you need blush when your cheeks get all red and rosy from the wind? And your eyes water, too, which makes them all teary-bright and luminescent, so why bother with mascara? Instant beauty. I choose to believe this. Plus, the wind blows the coal dust away, so the air is cleaner. Wind is good for your health and beauty. Truth.
3. Problem -- the ice. You fall. A lot.
Good thing -- you get a daily opportunity to improve your balance. Every time you step outside, you either become more graceful or fall flat on your rear. You also develop this great shuffle-slide-step that I think would be killer in line-dancing. So there's a future opportunity for fame as a dance-creator person. Oh, the joys of winter.
4. Problem -- tracking snow into your house. Every time anyone enters, they have to change their shoes for house shoes, or you have wet footprints all over the floor.
Good thing -- Chinese are usually pretty good about this. But when they do forget, or the pile of snow melting off the shoes by the front door (inevitable, even when you place mats and towels up there, it's never enough) gets tracked in anyway, you have incentive to mop. Perpetually clean floors mean that when the students spontaneously show up, you don't have to rush around cleaning stuff before letting them in. It's all clean. You are always boy-scout-prepared.
Okay, that's my list. I tried to think of a fifth one, just to feel well-rounded, but -- oh, wait! Got it.
5. Problem -- you are always cold. Always, always cold.
Good thing -- you get to drink lots of yummy hot drinks without feeling overheated. Hot tea, hot cider, hot chocolate, coffee, spice tea...ahhh. This makes you feel very Chinese not to be drinking cold things and bridges the culture gap. I think. Sort of. Anyway, it tastes good.
Okay, so now that's my list. I'm throwing in a couple of pictures at the bottom, for grandparents and other interested parties.
Oh, and remember how last year in our old apartment we had ice growing on the inside of our windows, a few inches thick? We thought this apartment would have better heat, but no. We have ice in our bedroom. And, as an added bonus, around our front door. We have to chip it off on a regular basis, or we can't open the door. Here's a picture.
It's worse than that now. Down at the bottom, Justin chipped of at least an inch and a half this morning.
We decorated for Christmas. Connor is very excited about the Christmas tree. We also put Christmas decals on the windows and took some glue and glitter to glass jelly jars and decorated them to put candles in. He loved the glitter too.
Those last three shots -- we cooked up a Chinese-style meal of chicken, pumpkin, and peanuts and got out our chopsticks. Connor stole them. And apparently he's been paying attention, because he knew the general mechanics of using them.
So, in the spirit of the season, I decided to be optimistic. There HAS to be an upside to this weather. Here's my list:
1. Problem -- you have to bundle up to go outside, even if it's only for a few seconds.
Good thing -- you can wear anything you want under your coat. Seriously. I got home from class yesterday and changed clothes to cook dinner. Then I discovered that we were out of eggs and I had to go back out to get some from the veggie shop. Grr. I actually went into our bedroom to grab a different shirt to put on because my shirt had a bleach spot on it -- and then I realized. NO ONE CAN SEE IT. All that's visible are shoes, jeans, coat, scarf, mittens, hat, face. That's it. Woot! I could wear a pajama shirt, or a ratty old sweatshirt, or the sweater with soy sauce dripped on it and no one will know! This excites me beyond measure. In fact, if I wear earrings and don't tie the ear flaps on my hat down, people will think I'm really dressy under all the layers. Ha! I'm currently concocting the most ridiculous outfit I can think of, just to wear under the coat. It's great fun.
2. Problem -- the wind bites. Bites. Really viciously bites.
Good thing -- you don't need makeup. Seriously. Why would you need blush when your cheeks get all red and rosy from the wind? And your eyes water, too, which makes them all teary-bright and luminescent, so why bother with mascara? Instant beauty. I choose to believe this. Plus, the wind blows the coal dust away, so the air is cleaner. Wind is good for your health and beauty. Truth.
3. Problem -- the ice. You fall. A lot.
Good thing -- you get a daily opportunity to improve your balance. Every time you step outside, you either become more graceful or fall flat on your rear. You also develop this great shuffle-slide-step that I think would be killer in line-dancing. So there's a future opportunity for fame as a dance-creator person. Oh, the joys of winter.
4. Problem -- tracking snow into your house. Every time anyone enters, they have to change their shoes for house shoes, or you have wet footprints all over the floor.
Good thing -- Chinese are usually pretty good about this. But when they do forget, or the pile of snow melting off the shoes by the front door (inevitable, even when you place mats and towels up there, it's never enough) gets tracked in anyway, you have incentive to mop. Perpetually clean floors mean that when the students spontaneously show up, you don't have to rush around cleaning stuff before letting them in. It's all clean. You are always boy-scout-prepared.
Okay, that's my list. I tried to think of a fifth one, just to feel well-rounded, but -- oh, wait! Got it.
5. Problem -- you are always cold. Always, always cold.
Good thing -- you get to drink lots of yummy hot drinks without feeling overheated. Hot tea, hot cider, hot chocolate, coffee, spice tea...ahhh. This makes you feel very Chinese not to be drinking cold things and bridges the culture gap. I think. Sort of. Anyway, it tastes good.
Okay, so now that's my list. I'm throwing in a couple of pictures at the bottom, for grandparents and other interested parties.
Oh, and remember how last year in our old apartment we had ice growing on the inside of our windows, a few inches thick? We thought this apartment would have better heat, but no. We have ice in our bedroom. And, as an added bonus, around our front door. We have to chip it off on a regular basis, or we can't open the door. Here's a picture.
We decorated for Christmas. Connor is very excited about the Christmas tree. We also put Christmas decals on the windows and took some glue and glitter to glass jelly jars and decorated them to put candles in. He loved the glitter too.
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