周年

宜昌有名的人

The mayor and party secretary of Yichang
and the fanciest meal I've ever been to.

星期六的照片

The platform we sat on in Yiling Square.

今年是中国的六十周年

It feels strange to say that this is the 60th anniversary of a country that boasts of a 5,000 year-old continuous civilization, but October first marks the 60th year of the People's Republic of China.  I'm sure you all know what that means:  FIREWORKS!  The celebrations are enormous, and yesterday the humble city of Yichang and its one-million plus residents all lined the streets downtown to watch a parade, dancing, and all kinds of fantastic shows.  As "foreign experts" a few of us foreign teachers received VIP cards and sat on a platform overlooking the parade, with the mayor of Yichang and the other important officials in attendance.  After the parade, we were taken to the only five-star hotel in Yichang where we ate dinner on the 39th floor.  We would have had a spectacular view of Yichang had the sky not been so murky.  The Party Secretary of Yichang toasted us and told me to "ganbei"* after he emptied his swallow of wine, and I didn't finish mine in one gulp.  After eating I tried to sneak pictures of the many 白酒 Baijou Faces I saw, after watching some newbies try it for the first time.  Baijou is the Chinese rice-liquor that burns your taste buds off on the way down, leaving each person with a distinct expression of being kicked in the stomach.  I tried to catch these on camera each time someone new tried the stuff.  Six hours into the celebrations the real fun began, as we traversed down to the edge of the Yangtze (长江) River to watch the fireworks display.

We foreigners had been "asked" to sing as a part of the celebrations of Communism's anniversary in China on the same evening but I managed to avoid the obligation due to the Foreign Affairs Office's generous invitation to the aforementioned festivities.  As much as I love to celebrate the birthday of their nation, I didn't feel quite right doing more for China's anniversary than I usually do for my own country's.  Alternating between being scared out of my pants and oooooooing over the explosions that lit up the Yangtze with colored patterns I sat there contemplating the beginnings of our respective countries, and wondered that both nations have come so far from where we began.

"This summer when you're being inundated with all of this bicentennial Fourth of July bruouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating--and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."
-Dazed and Confused

*bottoms-up

好吃

I have no idea if this is going to work since I can't stinkin see my own blog OR watch videos online anymore, but I'm trying. So here is a eulogy to cheeseburgers that speaks volumes.

什么?

This is an email I got from the Foreign Language College this morning.  Good luck deciphering it:

Hello, I am here to inform you of the good news. we will have an eight-day holiday for celebrating the Chinese National Day and Mid-autumn Day; that is from Oct. 1st  to Oct.8th, among which Oct.1^st, Oct. 2^nd, and Oct.3^rd are three lawful holidays. On Oct.4 th. ,we will enjoy our Sunday as usual. On Oct. 5^th we will enjoy the Saturday of Oct. 3^rd. Oct. 6^th is Mid-autumn festival. Sept. 27 and Oct. 7^th will change their roles; that is On Sept. 27^th we will have Oct. 7's class,(Wednesday's class), and on Oct. 7^th we will have Sept. 27's class(Sunday's class). Oct8th and Oct. 10 will change their roles; that is, on Oct. 8^th we will have Oct. 10^th's class(Saturday's class), and on Oct. 10^th we will have Oct. 8^th's class(Thursday's class). The rest days go smoothly as usual.

"I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper, than of a sword or pistol."
-Alexandre Dumas

第一天,第二年

When my alarm went off bright and early this morning I was excited to begin the day.  I got up extra early so I could run down and buy some food from the farmers outside and still not be rushed for my first day of classes.  I left the apartment at 7:30 in order to follow our instructions to arrive 20 minutes early to class on the first day.  I had to wait a few minutes before someone came to unlock the door, but was still anxiously awaiting my new students for the year.  Last year I was ecstatic to find my English majors in the classroom 30 minutes early with their books open, studying.  I wasn't quite that hopeful for today's class since they are the somewhat spoiled students who will be traveling to England in two years, but I expected to see a few of them within the last five minutes before class started.  At 8:15 I started to wonder if I was in the right building.  At 8:20 a guy came in to tell me that the school had decided my class would not begin until the 3rd week.  I'm so glad they decided to tell me.

So I went back to my apartment, studied some Chinese, and drank some tea until it was time to leave for my 10:00 class.  I showed up to that class twenty minutes early as well, and was confused by the lack of students once again.  There were students exiting, but none entering.  One cute girl came up to me, curtsied, and said, "Welcome to Yichang."  And then she skipped off along her way.  It reminded me again of how much I love my job.  About five minutes before that class begin I was still trying to figure out the newest lack of students when a man came in the room again.  This time it was to tell me that the school had mistakenly put the wrong classroom on my schedule.  I dashed up the stairs in time for class and the fun began.  I had my students introduce themselves and they were given some time to get to know me as well, and I was asked three times if I have a boyfriend.  One student stood up, pointed out the five boys in the class and said, "There are five of us, so I think we all have a chance."

This afternoon Jessica and I ventured downtown to try and buy a wireless router for our apartment so that we wouldn't have to take turns using the internet, and I apparently forgot that nothing is as easy as you think it's going to be.  A few hours worth of extraordinarily confusing directions later we emerged with a new router and absolutely no idea how to set it up.  We spent even more time following the directions repeatedly hoping that eventually they would magically work, all the while knowing that we were doing something wrong, when Jessica's overly-helpful friend Kiki called to see if we were making any progress, and after hearing our dilemma she sent her brother-in-law to our apartment (at 9:30pm) to help us.  We felt so bad for making a complete stranger come to our rescue but there was no talking either of them out of it.  Soon his girlfriend joined him, and they squatted over my computer trying idea after idea.  The next thing I knew another classmate of theirs showed up to lend a hand, and we felt completely helpless.  The students stayed out until they were late for curfew but finally got our internet working at 10:45pm.  I can't imagine the depth of kindness in their hearts to make them spend their entire evening helping strangers set up internet.  The frustrating part is knowing that I won't be able to thank them enough for such selflessness.  I'm so blessed by the Chinese people.

"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music--the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.  Forget yourself."
-Henry Miller

从北京到宜昌

Sammie and I arose at 6:45 so that we wouldn’t be scrambling around trying to do everything at the last minute.  When we got to the Sydney airport and went to the Malaysia Airlines counter to check in we were told that we owed $600 in excess baggage fees.  I knew my bags were a little overweight but I didn’t think that it deserved that kind of honor.  One bag weighed 21 kilos, and the other 28.  After arguing with the lady at the counter I learned, to my horror, that she meant I was only allowed 20 kilos TOTAL, not per bag.  That’s like a pair of shoes and two pairs of jeans.  Sammie and I scrambled over to an empty space and started throwing things out of my bag right and left, after wrenching open the broken zipper and praying that I wouldn’t ruin it beyond repair.  We threw all the books and heavy things we could manage into my dirty laundry bag and I sent those home with her, so she can ship them to me by boat later, and made our second of many trips back to the ticket counter.  Eventually we got my bags down to a fee of $325 and I gave in and paid it because I only had about 10 more minutes to dig through them, and to live in a place for a year, it’s miserable without certain things like warm clothes.

Upon arriving in Malaysia I finally located my gate through all the construction only to discover that it had been changed from C16 to H10, so I had to hop on a tram to get to the other building, which was no trouble since I had four hours to kill.  My online itinerary listed my total travel time (including layovers in Kuala Lampur) as 8 hours and 30 minutes.  My first flight was 8 hours and 5 minutes, plus another 4 hours in Malaysia before a six hour flight to Beijing.  According to the website I was to leave at 2pm Sydney time, and arrive at 8:30am Sydney time, yet only travel for 8 ½ hours.  I wonder what kind of education you need to figure the math for that company.

Descending into Beijing I watched the world go grayer as I bid farewell to the sun and felt my spirits fade with the colours.  Getting through customs and on a bus to the train station was much easier than I had anticipated, which is not something I get to say often living here.  I was feeling really proud of my Chinese-speaking abilities because I communicated quite well while in Beijing, but I realized when I got to Yichang why I was able to understand people so easily.  They were actually speaking Putonghua instead of some hick mixture of dialect and Chinese.  As soon as I got to Yichang I lost my ability to understand what people were saying to me.

I made it to the train station and was reminded yet again about the kindness of Chinese people.  Two girls stopped what they were doing to help me drag my bags to the ticket counter when they saw me struggling with all my earthly possessions.  They didn’t speak any English but still helped me buy my train ticket and lug my junk around.  It warmed my somewhat exhausted heart.  I was really bummed to hear the guy at the ticket counter say that they were all out of sleeping tickets, but I bought a sitting ticket anyway because I had to teach Monday (I thought), with hopes that I could bribe someone on the train to sell me a sleeper.

If you’ve ever ridden on a train in China you know that the chairs were specifically engineered (by a fella named Lucifer) to provide the utmost discomfort.  22 hours of everybody trying to outshout/outsmoke each other can really drain the energy you began with, if there was any.  Then there are the people who all think that everybody wants to listen to their music…at once.  I got so desperate for sleep that I tried to lay down on the floor, which ranks in the top 25 filthiest surfaces since time began.  Even that degrading effort was wasted, so I settled for wondering who came up with koo-koo-ka-choo first, the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel?

As tired as a person can be, I fell into my apartment a full two days after I left Australia and was greeted by air-conditioning, ice cold water in the fridge, and candy on the table.  It pays to give my friends the key to my apartment when I’m gone!  My friends Zack and Elizabeth knew the perfect way to lift my spirits after a grueling journey.  I got my teaching schedule and found out I have another week to get ready, so I didn’t have to rush home from Beijing quite so fast, but it will give me time to kill all the cockroaches and catch up on some rest.

“It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.”
-Nathaniel Hawthorne