another uncarved blog

I see the light!

2009-10-29T08:38:00.003-05:00

Only 25 research papers left to grade. I have nearly made it through!

This is the first week since the semester started that I've found myself with a little time to relax. I can't tell you good it feels. Yesterday afternoon I left campus around 2:00. That's 2:00 in the afternoon, people! Before the sun had gone down! That hasn't happened . . . well . . . all semester.

I probably should have gone home and graded the remaining 25 papers, or put in some time on this translation project that I've recently been given the opportunity to work on (more on that later), but I just couldn't do it. I was feeling so good and giddy about shuffling home through mounds of fallen leaves in the middle of the afternoon that I decided to treat myself to some new fall pajamas at Target. (Nick and Nora's pajama line, I love you!) I must admit, I picked up a few other desirable, if not necessary, items while I was there. I never have time to go to Target, so it was kind of like a little mini-vacay on a Wednesday afternoon.

Now it's Thursday morning, rainy and dark, and it's time to get back to work. But by the time this weekend is over, I should be completely finished with all my teaching/grading/grade entering duties. I can feel my shoulders slowly easing back down to normal, not-tensed-up-to-my-ears, shoulder level already.

Drowning

2009-10-22T11:34:00.002-05:00

I am up to my eyeballs in stuff to be graded. At the beginning of the semester, it seemed like a good idea to have my students turn in a paper and a midterm right before Fall Break, because I would then have the extra time over the break to get everything graded, so when classes started up again, I would be free to do all the other things I've been putting off all semester.

Then the flu came along and ruined all my perfectly crafted plans. I didn't touch a single bit of grading until the Sunday night of Fall Break. And up until today, I haven't felt well enough to spend any significant amount of time on grading at all. Add to that the fact that I never finished grading a set of papers my students had turned in a week and a half before they turned in their final papers and midterms, and I am officially drowning in stuff to be graded.

Ugh. I'm sitting in the library, looking at these stacks and stacks of papers and tests, and dreading reading all their malformed sentences and poorly based ideas. Not that my students don't sometimes have great ideas and write really well. But sometimes they just don't. And that's disheartening. Especially when it happens over and over. And over.

It's a good think it's so dreary and wet outside today. There's no chance I'd get anything done if it were a beautiful, clear day.

Sounding the All's Well

2009-10-20T11:47:00.003-05:00

I just realized that my last post may have been a bit disconcerting for those of you friends and family members we haven't talked to lately. No need to worry, though. All is well in the Billing-Cartwright household.

We (or rather, I) had a little bout of what we think was probably the H1N1 virus last week. It's been pretty prevalent on KU campus already this fall, and I've had a number of students missing classes because of it. It was only a matter of time before one of us got it. I didn't actually go to the health center to confirm that what I had was H1N1 because they have been incredibly overrun with patients this fall, and I knew the only thing they could tell me would be to stay home, drink fluids, rest, monitor my temperature, etc. But since my symptoms were pretty much what everyone has been reporting with this flu, we're pretty sure that's what I had.

Lucky for me (or maybe unlucky, depending on how you look at it) I got sick just as Fall Break was about to begin, so I didn't miss a lot of class, and had plenty of time to rest and get better. Thanks to hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and general caution on our parts, Ben has so far managed to avoid getting sick. Here's hoping that good luck holds out.

And now our few long days of sleeping in and watching movies over Fall Break are over, and we're back to work, whether we like it or not. That's okay, though. I'll take work over the flu any day.

Just a Thought

2009-10-18T19:30:00.003-05:00

I'm not certain that grading papers immediately upon recovering from what was probably the swine flu is in either my students' or my own best interests.

Here's Hyllningsfest. Well, sort of.

2009-10-12T13:03:00.007-05:00

Ben and I took the weekend off (well, we took Saturday off) to go to Svensk Hyllningsfest in Lindsborg, KS. It's become a kind of every-other-year tradition for us to get away for the weekend, and spend some time with our good friends Shannon and Alex at Shannon's parents' house. (Shout out to Paul and Linda for putting up with us every couple of years!)

This year we didn't spend too much time at Hyllningsfest stuff, though, because it was freaking cold. Way too cold to be hanging out at the outdoor arts and crafts tent, or eating fair food, or drinking beer behind the Stuga--all of our usual Hyllningsfest activities.

Instead, after watching a bit of the Hyllningsfest parade, we browsed in the Lindsborg library's used bookstore for awhile.

Then we drove to nearby Salina to enjoy a few of Cozy Inn's famous burgers: little tiny bun-wrapped packages of oniony, mustardy goodness.

We hit a few other little places (Goodwill, a record store) in Salina before heading back to Shannon's parents' house to nap. But since it started snowing while we were sleeping, we decided to nix our previous plans (see the Stuga, mentioned above) and instead go to the mall in Salina to shop and eat.

I have to say, there is a special place in my heart for the Salina mall. When I was growing up in Holyrood, when we said "the mall," what we meant was the Salina mall. It was one of my favorite places as a tween/early teen. This was the first time I had been back there in about 13 or 14 years, though. Which explains why I bothered to take pictures (or post pictures!) of a mall.

Oh, Claire's Boutique, you were my pre-teen years.

Ben and I have been super busy, so we had to cut our visit short. We drove down on Saturday morning, and left to come home super early Sunday morning. But we packed a ton of fun into our little visit.

and in news from nearly a month ago . . . .

2009-09-20T10:27:00.008-05:00

I wrote this post long, long ago, the week of 9/20, I believe. But I never posted it because I was planning to add photos before posting. And then I never did. So this post just sat there. And sat there. And now I feel like I can't post anything else until I get this one up. So, in the interest of opening the way for future posts, here it is:

The past week has been a pretty crazy one. We are certainly hitting that time of the semester when all the deadlines converge upon one another at once. And of course, in the middle of all that, I got sick. Nothing too serious. On a scale of stubbed toe to swine flu, I'd rate it at right about miserable cold. But it was bad enough to make me miss a couple of days of class. Nothing like illness to add to the feeling of chaos.

Earlier in the week, before illness hit, we were both suffering from some achy muscles around here. Last Saturday, we went to Topeka to join Megan in running in the Race Against Breast Cancer 5K. The three of us had been planning to do the race for awhile, although I have to admit, I had a more idealized image in mind of my own preparation for it when the idea first arose. I certainly did not do any kind of training to get ready for that thing, and I felt the effects of it afterward.

Ben and I ended up signing up as walkers for the 5K, since neither of us has been spending a lot of time running lately. (Ben's actually been doing a really great job lately of getting up in the morning and working out on the stationary bikes at the rec center on campus, but for the past few weeks, my exercise routine hasn't consisted of much more than the 20 minute walk to and from campus every day. Oh, well--every little bit helps, eh?)

So anyway, Ben and I walked-jogged the 5k, and were surprised to find out that we could jog the better half of the route. We both finished at a better time than we thought we might.

Megs, on the other hand, has turned into some kind of speed racer! I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who will think nothing of finishing a 5K in under 30 minutes, but when I think back to the Megan of three years ago, who flatly refused to jog no matter what, I can't help but be impressed with how fast she's able to run 5K now. Go, Megan, go!

After we ran the 5K, we spent a few hours helping Megan move into her new apartment. She's having a house-warming party next weekend, so I'll have to put up some shots of her new place. It's super cute, with hardwood floors and a little fenced yard where her dog, Noodles, can run around in the morning.

So, that was last weekend, and the week since has been a bit of a blur of paper grading, homework doing, and used kleenex tossing. Tonight, Ben is in Wichita reading some of his poetry, while I'm trying to make up for the stuff I didn't get done all last week. Sigh. Maybe he'll have some great pictures to share when he gets back.

Heeeeeere's Phil!

2009-09-13T19:37:00.006-05:00

It's hard to believe that we haven't gotten around to introducing our newest member of the family online yet! We've certainly talked about him a lot, and we've taken tons of pictures, but we haven't put those pictures up anywhere for anyone to see. Time to remedy that situation.

As you may know, our cat, Jon Bon Jovi (Yes, it's a mouthful of a name--you can call him JBJ, or Jovi, for short), is a pretty social guy. He doesn't do so well when he has to be all alone for several hours at a time. And, unfortunately, when we're in school, Ben and I are away from the house for several hours at a time pretty much every day. We didn't want a sad kitty on our hands, so, around the time classes started three weeks ago, we decided it would probably be a pretty good idea to find JBJ a new little friend. We went down to the Lawrence Humane Society to see if the perfect little kitty friend was just waiting for us to adopt him and bring him home.

Turns out he was, and his name is Phil.

Phil is a pretty rascally little guy. He's only 9 months old, so he's still a kitten, really, and he is packed full of kitten energy. Luckily, he hasn't managed to completely irritate our Jovi, who is turning into a bit of an old man these days. (Sigh, aren't we all?) The two are the best of buds, almost inseparable, following one another around the house. In fact, our friend Rob commented last night that Phil was a little bit like Jovi's shadow.

Evenings are wrestle-mania time for these guys. It's pretty exciting stuff. And immediately following wrestle-mania is bathtime. That's mutual bathtime, where they take turns bathing each other. Then it's chase each other into and out of the box and/or laundry basket time.

Then it's wrap the kitty bodies around Ben's head time. That's the best time of all! At least it is if you're not a Ben trying to get work done.

Phil likes to chill next to the sliding doors that open out to the deck

Phil in his natural environment, with his favorite toy, a rolled up ball of paper

Jovi's so happy since Phil came to live with us

and then . . . four months later . . .

2009-09-10T13:30:00.002-05:00

So, I am back to my blog. After a four month silence, that is.

In my defense, my absence isn't entirely due to me being lazy and/or neglectful of my dear ol' blog. My absence was, at least partly, due to the fact that China blocked all access to blogger sites during the last couple of months I was in Tianjin. And then Ben and I moved back to the U.S., and I was completely overwhelmed with getting myself re-settled, not to mention completely out of the habit of blogging. And then school started. And then, of course, chaos ensued.

So, my poor old blog just lay there and languished for about four months.

Lucky (?) for me, someone left a (fairly sarcastic) comment on one of my blog entries today, inspiring me to take another look at good ol' blog (and to erase that sarcastic comment--seriously, if you're going to be sarcastic at me, but you don't have the guts to sign your name to your sarcasm, then you are outta here).

I promise nothing along the lines of consistency here, but I think I can manage to leave a little update here and there. And so . . .

Life update: I am thoroughly entrenched in Early China at the moment. I am studying Classical Chinese and Early Imperial China in my classes right now. And I am teaching Confucianism and Daoism in my Eastern Civ classes right now. So for me, it is pretty much all Early China all the time.

Interesting? Perhaps.

Directly related to the area I am interested in researching? Not so much.

Time consuming? Oh, yes. Most definitely, yes.

it's picnic time . . . sort of

2009-05-09T21:08:00.005-05:00

It hasn't all been work and study around here. In fact, we've had some enjoyable times around here lately. We spent last weekend in Beijing with some friends from Lawrence who have been living in Japan this year. (more on that later) And yesterday afternoon, we got together with some friends for a Let's Welcome Summer picnic.

Well sort of.

The weather has been completely summery all week long, sunny and humid, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 80's. But then, around 1:00 yesterday afternoon, just a couple hours before we planned to start our picnic, the temperatures just suddenly started dropping, the wind started blowing, and the rain clouds started gathering.

On the one hand, it was a real relief that the temperatures dropped. Ben and I have been putting off turning on the A/C because it uses so much electricity, and we don't want to have to go buy more electricity units before we leave in less than two months, but our apartment has just been sweltering for the past couple of days. That kind of muggy heat makes it hard to study, hard to eat, hard to sleep--basically hard to do anything. On the other hand, our picnicking plans were threatened by the stormy skies.

Threatened, but not ruined entirely. Instead of going out to picnic, we decided to have an indoor picnic, at our friends Miguel and Xiaoyin's house. Everyone brought a little something to contribute (we brought my new favorite cookies--peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip--yum!), and Miguel cooked up some hot chicken and cheese sandwiches to share. We munched, chatted, looked at photos, and watched Miguel teach our Chinese teacher to dance.

The great feast

Miguel teaches our teacher to dance like a Colombian

Ben and Lawrence eating the last cookie

Good times!

Who's the man? Inhye's the man.

you know you've been in China awhile when . . .

2009-04-21T07:00:00.002-05:00

1.) You're walking down the street, and you see a guy with a giant serrated knife tied to a long pole, which he is using to trim tree branches, and while it may be kind of weird, it's not the strangest thing you've seen this week. Not by far.

2.) You think to yourself that Mr. Pizza (Pizza for Women)'s strange Harvest Gold Pizza isn't bad. Not bad at all. Kind of tasty, in fact. Pumpkin-stuffed crust and all. In fact, it may be even better than their regular potato pizza (yes, there are two kinds of potato pizza. The regular one has potato, ham, onion, corn, mushrooms, and cheese in the crust--kind of boring, don't you think?).

3.) You are so used to reading "Chinglish" translations, it takes you a minute to realize that "Naked Shrimp" pizza is a pretty funny thing.

please electricize

2009-04-20T03:47:00.003-05:00

That's the message that comes up on my (purchased in Tianjin) electronic dictionary when the battery runs low: "Power Low: Please Electricize." Every time it happens, I get these images of Olivia Newton John in her little 1980's leotard, singing "Let's Get Physical." I guess in my mind, electricizing is something like aerobicizing. Ben, on the other hand, always starts humming the Electric Slide when I mention that it's time to "electricize" my dictionary.

Anyway, electricizing and exercising seem to be kind of a big deal around these parts. Especially exercise competitions. You may remember that last semester I participated in a "Sports Day" for foreign students. Well, we had another one of those just a couple weeks ago--the Spring semester version of the event. My camera was broken, so I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately, but let me assure you: much running, jumping, ball-bouncing, three-legged racing, and tug-of-warring fun was had by all.

Ben has recently been informed that he, too, will be participating in a teacher/student Sports Day for his school. He has been assigned to a team, and today he was given his official Meijiang School Sports Day T-shirt. He was so proud of it, when I came in the door this afternoon he just stood and pointed to it. Not that I could have missed it, even without his finger guiding my eyes to the appropriate place. It is bright, BRIGHT caution-orange. You might say it is electric. I guess we can be sure that Ben won't get lost while he's wearing it. Not that he can really get lost in a crowd around here, anyway. We both kind of tend to stand out in these parts.

oh, and also . . .

2009-04-14T02:14:00.001-05:00

just 80 days till we return to the States. Not that I'm counting or anything . . . .

bitter medicine

2009-04-14T01:34:00.003-05:00

I don't think I even realized how long it had been since I last posted here until I got a little message from my mom-in-law (Hi, Nancy!) saying she missed my blog. I haven't been avoiding it on purpose. I think I've just been a little distracted lately, studying diligently for my class, and working my way through some issues in my head. Sometimes when you're in the midst of churning through such things, it's a little hard to write about them, or the other things going on around you.

I've definitely had some highs and lows over the past several weeks. It was a great achievement to test so well and get into a higher level class. I started the semester elated over that news. But I soon discovered that actually being in a class that is three levels higher than the class I started in last semester can be a really stressful, difficult, and time-consuming enterprise. I started the semester at the bottom of the class, and have been clamoring to move up ever since.

I am (I reluctantly admit) not very good at not being the best student in the class. I like being the one who gets it. I enjoy excelling. And unfortunately, in the past, when I haven't excelled at one thing or another, my impulse has been to cry, and then to quit. The truth is, I simply don't excel in this class, and I have spent a few afternoons crying over it. But I've also been working really hard at not allowing myself to quit. All of this is to say that the semester so far has been a big lesson in humility, and commitment, and personal improvement in general, and those kinds of lessons are like drinking Chinese medicine--they may be good for you in the long run, but they sure are bitter going down. And you have to take a lot of doses before it really starts to work.

That being said, I'm working on not allowing this class (and my position in it) to take up such a prominent place in my thoughts. That's good, because there are a lot of other things to appreciate around here, all of which have nothing to do with studying Chinese, or excelling at it. Like the beautiful warm weather (mid-70's!) we've had over the past two weeks. Or the fact that the entire city is full of blossoming trees right now, all of them spilling their little pink petals like snowflakes over the city streets. Or the cool, new cafe Ben and I have been frequenting, which is only a few blocks away from our home. Or the fact that the streets are beginning to fill up with people in the evenings again, thanks to the rise in temperature, and having people on the streets makes every day feel like a party, even when there's no occasion for it. There's a lot to enjoy around here. I'll try to keep you in the loop.

(Also: sorry there are no photos. My camera broke shortly after we returned from our big trip, and I haven't had it fixed, or bought a new one yet. Working on that . . . . )

taste test: "natural & cool" potato chips

2009-03-11T23:47:00.004-05:00

Remember how I said in my last post (yesterday) that I would try to post once a week? Here I am, going above and beyond already :)

I first had the idea for this post the other day. Ben and I were in the little open market near our apartment, picking up some potatoes and Coke zero (which is becoming surprisingly common here), when we saw that the guy at the dry snacks stand in the market was carrying Lay's potato chips. Lay's are pretty common in supermarkets around here, but this was the first time we had seen them in our local neighborhood open market, so we decided to get some.

There was only one bag out on display. When we asked the snack guy for a second bag (they come mainly in little snack-sized bags--or at least what we consider snack-sized in the U.S.), he gave us one bag of regular Lay's, and one bag of . . . get this . . . blueberry flavored Lay's.

We quickly rejected the blueberry flavored bag in favor of something a bit more . . . um . . . familiar, but after we left the market, I got to thinking: Could those blueberry potato chips possibly be tasty? Maybe it could be a blog-worthy experience to test it out.

Turns out the blueberry flavored chips are part of Lay's "Natural & Cool" line of potato chips, although I can assure you there is very little that is "natural" about them. After surveying the available flavors in this line at the supermarket last night, I decided it was time for a taste test, so here goes:

Blueberry: These chips are, as I'm sure you can imagine, really terrible. Or at least to my very American potato chip palate they are. As soon as I opened the bag, I got a full, hearty whiff of blueberry, an aroma I associate with muffins, pancakes, smoothies, or pie--dense, hearty, calorie-rich sweet treats. I definitely do not associate that aroma with potato chips. The chips definitely taste of blueberry--or at least artificial blueberry flavoring. In fact, the flavor is so overpowering, it's kind of like eating a chunk of blueberry flavoring, if that kind if thing even exists. I usually like sweet and salty tastes together, but apparently that preference does not extend to salty potato and sweet bluebery. I'd give these a big double thumbs down.

Cucumber: I had really high hopes for these chips. I can see how cucumber flavor and salty potato chip could go together really well, the cool, freshness of the cucumber balancing the crispy chip. Maybe someone else might enjoy these, but I, unfortunately, did not. They just tasted so . . . um . . . well . . . cucumber-y. I mean, like really strong cucumber. Is cucumber a strong flavor? I don't think of it that way, but in these chips, it really, really is. If I want to eat something "natural and cool" that tastes so strongly of cucumber, I'll probably opt for a natural, cool cucumber. I couldn't stomach more than a couple of these.

Last, but not least, Cherry Tomato: These chips taste like ketchup, which might sound like a bad thing, but after the blueberry and cucumber experience, it was really a welcome flavor. I know that some of you out there (ahem, Jen K) really love ketchup, so this might be the chip for you. It was definitely the most palatable of the three, but I have to say, I'd pick BBQ flavor, or Sour Cream & Onion, or just plain Lay's any day of the week over ketchup-flavor. On the other hand, maybe I just haven't grown fully accustomed to it yet. As I've been typing this entry, I find myself going back to those cherry tomato chips. Like they are calling my name. Like...mmm...like I really could grow to like them. I'll have to finish the rest of the bag to find out.

I wish I could post a couple pictures of the chips, so you could see as well as read about them. I wish even more that I could post the pictures of Ben trying the blueberry and cucumber flavors (he was not pleased). Unfortunately, my camera is on the fritz right now--a situation I hope will soon be remedied.

Anyway, that's it for the "natural & cool" line. My advice: stick with the original. But don't give up hope on a new Lay's flavor sensation. Turns out Lay's has a line of international flavors here, too, including French Chicken and Italian Red Meat. I'll let you know when I round up the guts to give those a go.

apology

2009-03-10T20:14:00.005-05:00

Sorry for my long absence from this blog. We are back to school in the Billing-Cartwright household, in the middle of our second week of classes for the semester. The whole back-to-the-grind thing has been keeping us hopping. I'm firmly entrenched in coursework, and Ben is keeping very busy between the classes he's teaching, and the progress he's making toward preparing for his comps. Unfortunately, all of this busy-ness hasn't left a lot of time for either blogging, or doing things worth blogging about.

In my last post, I wrote about my spring semester placement exam score. I was really happy to have done so well on the test, but my high score left me with a dilemma: what level of class should I actually enroll in? After much thought, perusal of textbooks, and discussion with my teacher from last semester, I finally decided to enroll in the Intermediate 2 class. That's three levels higher than the class I was in last semester, but two levels lower than the class I tested into. Right in the middle sounded just about right.

However, I'm finding that this level is more than challenging. In fact, I'm struggling to keep up on the work right now. We have one or two quizzes almost daily, and I have to work pretty hard to learn the new material for those quizzes and simultaneously make sense of the vocabulary I should have learned before entering this level. This all adds up to me spending 5 or more hours outside of class every day, just trying to study sufficiently and get my homework done. Between 4 hours of class every day and 5+ hours of study, there isn't a whole lot of time for doing much of anything else. Unfortunately, it also doesn't leave me with a lot of brain power to think of anything to write or say when a few moments of free time arise.

So, all of this is to say I may not be such a frequent poster on my blog this semester. I'll try to put something up once a week, but if I miss a week, don't worry. It doesn't necessarily mean any catastrophe has occurred--well, no catastrophe other than me being buried up to my neck in Chinese textbooks, anyway.

put me in my place

2009-02-26T05:10:00.005-06:00

Our spring semester is about to begin. I'm sure that sounds strange to you students and teachers back home who are almost halfway done with your spring semester, just a couple weeks away from Spring Break. But for us the semester doesn't begin until March 2; I guess that's the tradeoff for having our fall semester stretch past New Year's Day.

This morning I had to go up to campus to take my semester placement test. Last semester I tested into (and completed) the Beginners-2 level of Chinese language classes at Nankai University. I could just go directly into Beginners-3 this semester if I wanted, but in our program we also have the option of taking a placement test to try get into a higher level class. I was hoping to skip right over Beginners-3 and get into Intermediate-1.

I had originally planned to spend a good chunk of my semester break studying and reviewing, in order to ensure that I could test into a higher level. Unfortunately, those plans were never really put into action. After spending the majority of the break traveling and recovering from traveling, my last minute plan was to cram for the last week of the break. Unfortunately I came down with the flu Ben has had, so I've spent the past few days doing little but lounge on the couch, nap and watch X-files.

With essentially no study/review under my belt, I felt pretty underprepared when I walked into the classroom this morning. Sitting in the test room, I convinced myself that, while I would give the test my best shot, I would be okay if I didn't test up a level.

Then I started taking the test, and was amazed to see how much I knew without having studied or reviewed. The answers just came to me, completely naturally, with little thought at all. Even when I came across words I didn't know, I felt like I could understand well enough from the context of the sentence to figure them out. I started to think that maybe--just maybe--I might be able to test two levels higher, into Intermediate-2 instead of Intermediate-1. I walked away from the test feeling pretty good, but a little anxious to find out if I had done as well as I felt I had done.

Well, my friend Lawrence called a little bit ago. He was standing in front of the test scoreboard outside our classroom building, and he wanted to know if I wanted him to look at my score while he was there. My heart skipped a beat, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to know or not, but I finally told him to tell me how I did.

He told me I didn't test into Intermediate 1 or 2. In fact, I not only skipped over Beginners-3, but also skipped Intermediate levels 1, 2, and 3, and tested directly into Advanced 1! I couldn't believe it! I tested four levels higher than I would have been at without testing!

I still haven't decided if I'm actually going to enter Advanced 1 on Monday. I'm not entirely convinced that my Chinese level is actually that advanced. I may just try it out for a couple of weeks, see if it's a good fit or not, and then go from there. Or I may chicken out and go into Intermediate-2. Either way, it's good to know that I really am learning, I'm really making progress in my language study--maybe even more than I know.

trip update: Dazu County

2009-02-24T00:42:00.008-06:00

My last trip-related post was about our train-ride to Chongqing. Unfortunately, Chongqing itself was not one of the most pleasant stops in our month-long trip. So much so, in fact, that I'm not really going to post much about Chongqing. Actually the big highlight of Chongqing was the one day we left Chongqing proper to see the stone carvings of nearby Dazu County.

The stone and cave carvings of Dazu county are actually located in a number of spots all over the county, but we had the opportunity to visit only one of these spots. That one location was enough, though. The carvings are generally depictions of scenes and figures, influenced by Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist beliefs. They are incredibly intricate, and really impressive. Some of the carvings are quite large, like the reclining Buddha below. Others are broad scenes with hundreds of small figures, carved in incredible detail. It wasn't really something we had planned on seeing, but it ended up being one of the most impressive places we visited on our entire trip.

One of many Buddhas

Scenes of filial piety

Figures of the underworld

Me and the reclining Buddha

Ben's getting better!

2009-02-24T00:35:00.002-06:00

I hope the last post, about Ben being sick, didn't worry anyone too much. The good news is: things are looking up. The meds are working! Eastern, Western, hot toddies, some, or all--makes no difference to us. We're just glad he's on the road to recovery. Thanks for all your well-wishes and prayers.

He's not 100% yet, but he's definitely on the mend. Hopefully he'll be all better by the time we both start classes again on Monday, March 2.

poor, sick Ben

2009-02-20T23:20:00.003-06:00

Poor Ben has had a terrible cold ever since we were in Chengdu, complete with runny nose, hacking cough, sore throat--all the terrible stuff that comes with a cold. He has had an awful time trying to sleep at night because his cough and congestion (and the accompanying inability to breathe) wake him up. He just hasn't been getting better, and in fact today, he was feeling worse. And his sinuses were hurting. And he was pretty sure he had developed a sinus infection. Poor Ben.

So, we decided to go to a Chinese pharmacy, in the hopes that we might be able to get our hands on some amoxycillin (I guess you don't necessarily need a prescription for that stuff here). Ben is more than ready to get this nasty stuff knocked out of his body.

We walked into the pharmacy, and the first woman we saw asked what was wrong. I told her Ben had a cold, and she directed us to the appropriate counter. The woman there asked what Ben's symptoms were, and she started pulling out boxes of medicine for each of the symptoms. I explained to her that Ben had been sick a long while, hoping she would understand it was serious (I wasn't sure how to say sinus infection). Her response (which I actually had to call Sam to have him help me understand) was that she thought Ben had too much heat/fire in his body, and if you have too much heat for a long time, it will develop into a serious cold, but it wouldn't be unusual for it to last so long. She then pulled out some more boxes of Chinese medicine.

Meanwhile, Ben was standing, looking longingly at the boxes of antibiotics, muttering under his breath, "They have amoxycillin. I just want some amoxycillin." Poor Ben.

We ended up leaving without the amoxycillin, but with a whole bag full of various remedies, including effervescent vitamin C tablets, licorice lozenges, and some kind of pill that I was supposed to take too, because the pharmacist thought I probably had too much heat, too. We also had one box that the pharmacist identified as "Western medicine." What kind, we didn't know.

Ben's many boxes of pills

I just got done giving Ben his first dose of everything: 7 pills, an effervescent glass of vitamin C solution, and a sachet packet of medicine meant to reduce his "heat." Ben was feeling pretty unhappy about walking away without an antibiotic . . . until he did a little research and found out that the unidentified Western medicine was an antibiotic after all.

So, we've got the Chinese herbal medicine, and we've got the Western antibiotics, too. Hopefully something in that mass of medicines will do the trick, and Ben will be back to his old self soon.

trip in review: train to Chongqing

2009-02-20T02:28:00.004-06:00

After we left lovely Guilin, we took a long train (21 hours, I think?) to Chongqing. Along the way we gained a new little friend.

This little guy is probably about 4 or 5 years old, and was riding with his dad in the sleeping berth next to ours. He was kind of scared of us at first--didn't even want to make eye contact, even though he couldn't stop watching us--but we eventually lured him in using Oreos and the opportunity to wrestle with Nathan, the supersized foreigner.

After I took a couple pictures of him, he became enamored of my camera, and asked to take a few shots of his own. Here are some of the things that caught his attention.

The guy sharing our sleeping berth who was not amused, not amused at all.

The bottom half of Nathan's face

The ceiling light in our berth

The patch on the knee of his jeans

Super-close-up of the book Ben was reading

His dad

He probably took a dozen other shots, but this last one was the one that brought about the end of his photo-snapping extravaganza.

Definitely made the 21-hour trip seem a little shorter.

springsick

2009-02-18T21:53:00.003-06:00

I'm taking just a little break from blogging about our trip today to write a little bit about the current state of things (although I am still working on loading more photos (and writing more captions) on my picassa page, so keep checking in).

I am feeling a little disappointed to be back in Tianjin today. It may seem silly, but I think my disappointment is mostly weather-related. Most of the time we were in Guilin, Chongqing, Chengdu and Xi'an, we didn't need hats, gloves or scarves, and some of the days we didn't even need to wear coats. There were days in Chengdu and Guilin in particular when we could walk around with short sleeves, and no jackets even!

Spending so many days in that kind of beautiful weather, I kind of got my hopes up about returning to a warmer, springier Tianjin. I was looking forward to walking around our home city in a light jacket, feeling the spring breezes blow through my hair, and sensing the days getting warmer and warmer as we advanced deeper into spring.

Then we actually arrived in Tianjin, where the temperatures were (still!) at a blustery 28 degrees Fahrenheit. It snowed Tuesday night, a little bit yesterday, and some more early this morning. The temperatures haven't risen above freezing since we've been back, and we've barely left the house in the past couple of days, trying to stay where it's warm and dry.

The other night I was chatting with my sister, Megs, online. She said she had recently bought a spring-colored new purse, because she thought if she carried it, it might make spring come more quickly. I understand that feeling. I've been perusing spring clothing online (even though I can't buy it) and daydreaming about spending afternoons on warm patios with cold beers or hot coffees. In my head, spring is already supposed to be here, even if it is still mid-February.

But the reality outside of my head (confirmed by the reality outside my window) is that we are still firmly within winter's grasp. Here's hoping it will let go of us soon.

our local winter wonderland

more trip pictures!

2009-02-18T05:12:00.003-06:00

I just wanted to post out the new little slideshow gadget on my site--right there on the top left side. Pretty cool, eh? You can see all the pictures I haven't posted on my blog, as well as the ones I have.

The only downside is that I can include only one album of pictures at a time on the slideshow. Since I've divided my photos into albums based on which city they were taken in, I actually have several albums worth of photos, so I can't make them all visible in the slideshow at once. That's actually probably a good thing. If you sat through all the photos I took in the last four weeks, you'd be sitting there for quite a while.

If you're interested in seeing more pictures from our entire trip, you can see them here, in my picasa.com account. I'm in the process of adding more (I took a TON of photos, so it's a long process), so please, check in later to see even more shots.

trip in review: Guilin

2009-02-16T08:31:00.007-06:00

I can't speak for everyone, but my favorite city among the cities we visited was by far Guilin. We were there from January 28 to February 1. I already wrote a little bit about it here, but I'll just reiterate: Guilin was beautiful.

Besides climbing dozens of mountains and exploring their weird, rock-star light-show caves, we also got the opportunity to ride on a bamboo raft down the Li River. The weather was warm and springlike every day that we were there (except for the very first foggy day). It was amazing.

It's hard to describe just how nice it was there, so I'll let some pictures speak for themselves.

Kung-Fu Erin! Hi-YA!

View from bamboo raft

Me in front of Elephant Nose hill

Inside one of Guilin's caves

mmm...breakfast!

New Year's lanterns at Fubo mountain

On top of Fubo Mountain

Misty mountains behind Ben

In the underwater tunnel between Sun and Moon pagodas

Sun and Moon pagodas

trip in review: Wuzhen

2009-02-15T20:44:00.003-06:00

So, I was looking back at the entries I've already posted about our trip, and I thought the best way to fill in the gaps would be to post an entry about each of the places we visited, along with some pictures. I already put up some pictures from Shanghai and Hangzhou, our first and second destinations (from 1/20-1/27). I'll just pick up from there.

Wuzhen wasn't really a destination of it's own, but still cool enough to warrant a blog entry. We took a day trip from Hangzhou to visit this little town. It's kind of hard to describe. Basically, it's built on a series of waterways, and has been restored to resemble a Qing-era village. But people just go on living and working right in the areas of the town that have been restored, so when you go to visit it, it's not like you're walking through a dead museum house of the Qing. Instead, you're walking right through the place where people live today, surrounded by artifacts and elements of a previous era.

Kind of strange.

But fascinating all the same. Also, there are demonstrations put on by the townspeople of a number of crafts, such as weaving, winemaking, and dyeing the blue and white cloth they have been making for centuries.

Ben in a Wuzhen alleyway

Wuzhen market

Play in the public square

River ferry

Ben and Wuzhen dyed fabric

We loved Wuzhen. And then we almost got stuck there. The day we went there was the first day of the Chinese New Year, and so some of the later buses were cancelled that day (I'm still not entirely sure why). We didn't know that the buses were cancelled in advance, so when we showed up to take the last bus back to Hangzhou (where all our stuff was, and where we needed to be in order to take a train away from there the next morning), we were told there was no bus for us.

Oh, man.

A moment of panic followed. And then two really nice girls from Guangzhou, who were planning to take the same bus, showed up like knights on gleaming white horses. Hearing that we, too, needed to get back to Hangzhou, they simply said to us, "Let's go to Hangzhou," and even though we had no idea how they intended to accomplish that, we followed them like puppies. They knew what they were doing. They instantly starting negotiating with a line of taxi drivers lined up outside the station. We all ended up hiring a guy in a van to drive us all the way back to Hangzhou for 300 kuai (about $40 USD). We were all a bit stunned when we realized we had actually made it back.

we're home!

2009-02-15T07:34:00.003-06:00

We made it! We are back in Tianjin. We walked into our neglected (and incredibly dusty) apartment about 45 minutes ago. First task: change into some clothes that aren't one of the three outfits I've been wearing for the past four weeks. Second task: order pizza. Third task: get online and let you all know we've made it back.

Fourth task is going to be kind of a multi-step process: 1.) eat the pizza we ordered, 2.) watch a DVD, and 3.) completely veg out on the couch before falling into an exhausted sleep in our very own bed. Woo-hoo!

The plan is to post some trip photos and stories and stuff tomorrow (probably while doing laundry), so tune in for more fun and excitement really soon!

still alive in Xi'an

2009-02-13T05:38:00.002-06:00

Just wanted to let you, my faithful readers, know that we are still alive and still making our way through China. Still. We are in Xi'an, home of the terra-cotta warriors, right now. Thankfully, this is our last stop before heading home the day after tomorrow. I have to say I am really ready to get home and stay put for a little while. All this traveling has worn me out!

I've pretty much given up on really posting photos and things from our trip until we get home. It's not that it's impossible, but just difficult and time-consuming while on the road. But don't worry--I've got plans for tons of posts (with tons of pictures) to catch you up on our great adventures once we get back home again. We went to see the terra-cotta warrior museum today (all day. . . seriously . . . all day), and got some great pictures of the archaeological digs I can't wait to post.

More on that, and all our adventures, very, very soon.

Ben fits in with the locals (and I helped)

2009-02-04T03:23:00.008-06:00

it's picture time: Hangzhou

2009-02-04T02:04:00.008-06:00

I think I'm actually going to be able to post some pictures, thanks to the wonders of Starbucks and its amazing free wi-fi. You never know how much you should appreciate Starbucks until you've been wandering through China for two weeks with terrible internet quality the whole time.

Just to fill in you moms out there (you know who you are): we're in Chongqing, a big city on the Yangzi river. This is our last day in town--we leave for Chengdu tomorrow afternoon--just a short 5 hour train ride away. I've been under the weather since before we left Guilin, so Ben convinced me to take it easy today, sleep in, rest, chill out at Starbucks for a day. I have to say, it's been a wonderful respite.

Here is a handful or two of shots from Hangzhou. I'll post some from Guilin and Chongqing in separate posts.

View across West Lake, Hangzhou

Goldfish pond near West Lake

Me at the top of Leifeng Pagoda

Ben rides the escalator to enlightenment

Candles in a Buddhist temple

Red lanterns at the Buddhist temple

Happy New Year! (now can I go inside, please?)

trip update: Guilin

2009-01-30T19:17:00.005-06:00

I meant to post this a couple days ago, but then I put it off because I couldn't get my photos to load on our crappy internet connection, but I thought I could make it work if I kept trying. I was wrong, and now we're not in Guilin anymore, but it's late and it's been a long day, so I'll have to tell you about Chongqing and post some photos another day. In the meantime . . .

I know my posts have been few and far between since we've been on this trip. I really meant to get some pictures up while we've been here in Guilin, but the internet connection here has left much to be desired. It seems to be a big problem--the connections at the hostels are too slow for me to get many pictures up in any kind of timely fashion. Maybe I'm just taking too many pictures--I think I have something like 700 so far. I'll try to include more travel stories when we get back to Tianjin, or someplace with a good reliable internet service.

Here's a short update, especially to put our mom's hearts at ease: we are in Guilin, safe and relatively healthy (I seem to have caught a cold somewhere along the way--probably when that kid on the last train we were on kept staring at us and coughing right in our faces without covering his mouth). Guilin is beautiful. It is known as one of the most famous scenic spots in China, with mountains, lakes, and caves everywhere--it was one of the earliest tourist spots in China, attracting tourists as far back as the Sui dynasty (581-618 AD). Yesterday we tried to take a count of how many mountains we've climbed in the three (now four) days we'd been here, and we honestly couldn't remember. Maybe six? Of course, they're kind of short mountains--actually, really weird, jutting mountains, that rise abruptly out of the city landscape--kind of like enormous rocks with staircases. My thighs have had some serious stairmaster-type workouts since we've been here. The last couple of days, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous and spring-like. I didn't even need a jacket yesterday, much less the long underwear I've been wearing for the past couple of months.

We leave tomorrow, February 1, for our next stop: Chongqing. It's north a bit, so I have a feeling it's going to be much colder than it has been here.

Unfortunately, I can't post any photos right now, due to unreliable internet connections. Once we're back in the land of reliable internet, I'm planning to create a photobucket account so, if you're interested, you can see all the pictures from our trip. More info about that soon . . . .

happy new year!

2009-01-25T07:01:00.004-06:00

Tomorrow is the first day of the Chinese New Year. As I type, the fireworks are booming and echoing across Hangzhou. They are sometimes so loud, they sound as if they are being set off right outside our window. In fact, just a few minutes ago, they were being set off right outside our window. It was a bit terrifying--the hostel staff was lighting them right next to the building, and right under a tree. They didn't seem to be paying much attention to how close anyone was standing, or which direction things were shooting. I had visions of everything I'd brought with me (which, admittedly, wasn't much) going up in flames. Now the scents of coal smoke, new year popcorn, and gunpowder are wafting through the entire building.

We spent our New Year's eve bicycling through the West Lake area of Hangzhou. This is a beautiful city, kind of a resort town, to tell the truth, known for it's beautiful lakeside scenery and gardens, as well as its preserved historical sites and artifacts. We climbed to the top of a pagoda this afternoon, visited beautiful gardens, and cycled down lakeside paths. If the chain hadn't been constantly falling off the back gear of my bike the whole way, it would have been an idyllic day.

When we came back to the hostel, the staff was preparing a New Year celebration. We all made dumplings together, then ate them, as well as the plates of oranges, nuts, seeds, candies and chocolates the staff brought out to us. And then there was popcorn. And more popcorn. Then fireworks and more popcorn.

We've had no problems at all getting tickets to anywhere we want to go, despite all the hype about how difficult travel is during Chinese New Year. Tomorrow we plan to take a short day-trip to a nearby town called Wuzhen. It's kind of like the Chinese version of historic Dodge City, set up to recapture a particular time in history. We're just hoping everything won't be closed down due to new year celebrations. Then on Tuesday we leave for a 21-hour long train ride to Guilin. It will be a good chance to catch up on some much-needed rest, I hope.

I tried for over an hour to post some pictures of our day up here, but no luck. Grrr. . . . I'll try to get some up soon.

In the meantime: Good luck and good health to you all this new year! Xin nian kuaile!

we're in Hangzhou

2009-01-24T18:22:00.003-06:00

So, Sally alerted me to the fact that maybe I didn't mention this before: Ben and I are traveling with a classmate of mine, Nathan. At our Shanghai hostel, we all shared a room. So, that's why there was a sleeping Nathan in our room in my last post. That's also why you might see some pictures with a strange American lurking around in them. Don't worry--he's with us.

We got to Hangzhou last night, and I can already tell I'm gonna like this place. Our hostel is right on the main attraction in town: West Lake. Our plan is to rent some bikes today and spend the morning biking around the lake. It will be fun, if the cold doesn't kill us. A cold front came in on Friday, which made it almost unbearable to be out and about on Friday and Saturday. I'm hoping for a bit of a warm-up today.

I've taken over 300 photos in the past week, so I obviously can't share all of them, but here are a few Shanghai highlights.

At Yuyuan Garden, in Old Town, Shanghai

Hot noodles!

On the Huangpu River Cruise

Monks at Jingan Temple

Stone lions guarding the entrance to the Shanghai Museum

travel update: Shanghai

2009-01-22T19:50:00.005-06:00

Well, we made it to Shanghai, after one of the most uncomfortable train rides I've ever taken in my entire life. Our beds in the sleeper car were comfortable enough, but it was just about the temperature of the sun in our cabin. I woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and panting. I had to find a way to squiggle out of my long underwear without falling off of my narrow little bunk or waking up any of the passengers around me. Then I rolled up my jeans and shirt as much as was decently possible. It was still hot. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much that night.

Nevertheless, we've been having a great time since we got here. Shanghai is an interesting city--it has had a long history of Western influence, which is evident in the city's architecture and the people's attitudes here. We've been really busy since we got here. We spent the entire first day at the Shanghai Museum and the Shanghai Art Museum. That night we were able to meet up with our friend, Jen K, who is ending her tour of China here in Shanghai, at a nearby bar for drinks.

Yesterday we visited a Buddhist temple, and took a boat tour of the Bund on the Huangpu River. Then last night we went with Jen's tour group to see the Shanghai Circus, one of the most incredible acrobatic shows I've ever seen. Imagine Cirque du Soleil times 12. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed in the show, so I wasn't able to get any pictures.

I've taken a ton of photos of other things since we've been here, but my camera and cable are up in the room with a still-sleeping Nathan. I don't want to wake him while I dig around in my bags for things. Not to worry, though--internet access is very available, so I'll put up some shots soon.

leaving on a jet . . . train?

2009-01-20T01:44:00.002-06:00

Well, our bags are packed and we're ready to go--well, almost, anyway. Our train to Shanghai leaves tonight at 8:10 pm--it's 3:50 as I write--but we're planning to leave our place just a little before 6:00, so we have plenty of time to get to the station, grab something to eat, and make it to our train on time.

I'm currently trying to reduce my baggage. So far I have narrowed everything down to a backpack and a duffel bag, which I think is an impressively small amount of stuff, considering we plan to be on the road for more than three weeks, and we're going to be changing climate zones a couple of times. But Ben keeps looking at my luggage skeptically, so I guess that means I should try to narrow down further. Or maybe I should just try to pretend that Ben isn't looking at me. Ah, well . . . .

We're going to try to post blog updates and pictures as much as possible during the next three weeks, but don't worry if you don't hear from us for several days at a time. It won't be quite as convenient as usual for us to hop online and post an update. That said, it's not like we're leaving civilization entirely, so . . . well . . . we'll be in touch.

I think I mentioned before that we're kind of leaving our schedule up in the air a little bit, going where the winds blow us, so to speak. But in case you're following along on a map at home, so far we're planning to train overnight from Tianjin to Shanghai, then we'll be in Shanghai until about the 24th. After that, there has been talk of going to Nanjing if we can, or maybe to Guilin, but we will have to see about the ticket situation.

More to come . . . .

travel plans a-brewin'

2009-01-14T23:49:00.002-06:00

Just an update on our upcoming travel plans: yesterday we went to the train station and bought tickets for the first leg of our trip. We were originally planning to take the overnight train to Shanghai on the January 19, but this is a crazy time for travel in China. It's Spring Festival (aka Lunar New Year) time, so pretty much half of the Chinese population is trying to get home for the holidays. There were no more tickets for the 19th when we got to the station, so we ended up buying tickets for the super-fast, super-luxurious train that leaves the evening of the 20th. We're pretty excited--our plan is to travel for about three weeks or so, hitting a number of cities and cultural/historical attractions. We've kind of outlined the different places we most want to see. At the same time, I'm thinking we may run into a number of snafu's along the way, since the ticket situation is so precarious. We're already planning on flexibility being the key word, though, so even if we don't get to go to all the places we most want to go, we know we'll be going somewhere. Next step: narrowing my three-week travel necessities down to one backpack.

not-so-secret (yet somewhat hard to find) treasures of the forbidden city

2009-01-14T20:18:00.005-06:00

If you've never seen the Forbidden City (or Palace Museum, as it is sometimes called), a little bit of explanation may be required. In the Ming and Qing dynasties (about the 15th century to the early 20th century), the Forbidden City was the home of the emperor, his empress and concubines, his eunuchs, the many servants of the palace, and so on. The average Chinese person was forbidden to enter without special permission, thus the "Forbidden" part of the name. And it is truly a city unto itself. There are hundreds of buildings and courtyards, gardens, squares, walls and gates. When you go to the Forbidden City, you spend a lot of time in the open air, walking from building to building, exhibit to exhibit. It is massive--we were there for about four hours, and only visited about a quarter of the area on display.

While walking around the Forbidden City last week, in addition to the entrance fee, we paid a few extra kuai to take a look at a couple of special exhibitions. Actually we only intended to see one of them: the Hall of Clocks, a huge hall containing examples of clocks from the palace grounds, some of which were gifts to emperors, some of which were made by the Chinese. However, after wandering around following a vague map of the palace grounds for awhile, trying to find the Hall of Clocks, we mistakenly paid entry to the . . . what did they call it again . . . ? Something like the Hall of National Treasures? No, that sounds too much like a Nicholas Cage movie. I'm not sure what it was called exactly, but it sounded like the kind of place where the Hall of Clocks might be kept. Anyway, they had exhibits of jade, jewelry, and stone drums, as well as some really beautiful gardens and architecture. Here are only a few of the many shots I took of both of those special exhibits:

Relief of dragons from the Qing dynasty

Entry to the exhibit of ceremonial bells

Bells used during rituals and ceremonies

Ben and the dragon face off

Ben loved this big red door

Just a few of the European clocks on display

Enormous Chinese water clock from the Qing dynasty.

I don't know if these clocks look as cool in the photos, but they were really amazing in the display, incredibly detailed and intricate. Many of them were animated, or crafted to look like things other than clocks (like tables or birdcages).

trip to Beijing

2009-01-13T00:49:00.000-06:00

We had a great time last week catching up with our friend Jen in Beijing. Ben was a bit under the weather (if you ask me, it was more than just a bit, but he was trying to pass it off like it wasn't so serious), so we didn't end up going to some of the outdoor attractions we originally planned to see. The good news is that Beijing is only a 30-minute train ride (and then a 30-minute or so taxi ride) away, so we plan to hit the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven in the spring, when the weather is a little more tolerable.

Here are a couple of impressions from this trip:

1.) The Jianguo Hotel (and its surrounding area) in Beijing is NICE. So nice, in fact, and so convenient, and so filled with Westerners, that at times I forgot I was in China. So, that was a little weird. This trip to Beijing made me feel a little bit displaced. I was certainly in a foreign place, but it didn't feel like the China I live in every day. For example, there was a Sizzler a few blocks away from our hotel. A Sizzler, people! But then I'd step into a subway, and there were people staring at us and giving us the stinkeye like always. Like I said, weird.

Ben in front of Silk Street, Starbucks cup in Hand

Hanging out with Jen in our room

View from our room's patio

Our luxurious accommodations

2.) January in Beijing is COLD! So cold, in fact, that I didn't mind so much when Ben wanted to stay in the hotel room and recuperate rather than walking around in the icy wind at the Summer Palace or venturing out to see some Buddhist temples. I see why winter is the slow tourist season, at least in Beijing. I also see why we might want to re-think our previous tentative plans to travel in any areas in the north later this month.

These are only a few of the very many shots we took at Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City, but I think these show how very cold and bundled up we were all day long.

Stay tuned for more on our adventures in Beijing . . . .

Ben, the Chinese popstar

2009-01-08T01:07:00.000-06:00

Ben and I are in Beijing right now. We came to catch up with our friend Jen K, who is in China as a chaperone with a bunch of students from her school. We've taken a lot of pictures already, and will post more about our trip soon. In the meantime, here's a little story:

Yesterday, before we left to come to Beijing, Ben decided he needed to get a haircut. He generally gets his haircut at this little salon in our neighborhood. The people there know him now, so he pretty much just goes in whenever, no Chinese necessary, and they give him the treatment: wash and head massage, haircut, re-wash, blowout and style. The first time Ben went in there, they were pretty cautious with his head, because they weren't entirely sure what he wanted. When they finished that first haircut, they took a picture of his freshly styled head. The picture hangs on their wall, I guess as both proof of their fine work on his American head, and as a reference point for future haircuts.

The funny thing is, as time has gone on, the two hairdressers there have become increasingly brave and experimental with Ben's hair. Yesterday, the male hairdresser tried to convince Ben that he needed to try something a little different. And then he just went ahead and styled Ben's hair according to his suggestion:

It's just a little more Chinese-pop-star than Ben usually goes for.

In fact, it looks a little bit like this guy, who was on an ad at McDonald's.

Anyone see the resemblance?

well, that wasn't so bad

2009-01-05T20:52:00.000-06:00

Since some of you have been asking, I thought I'd post a little update about my big final yesterday. It went pretty well. I must have studied the right things, because there were only a couple of questions that I had completely no idea about. Thanks for all the well-wishes, prayers, and votes of confidence. They must have done the trick.

Now I have just one more little 10-minute-long oral English final this afternoon, and then I'm free for 7 weeks. Woo-hoo! I can smell vacation, and it's making my mouth water!

time to call it good?

2009-01-04T07:22:00.001-06:00

The past three days (erm, well, maybe 2 1/2) have been packed full of intensive studying, snacking, studying, coffee drinking, and yes, more studying. I think I have finally discovered what it means to over-study. I have reached the point where my brain is a big pile of mush, and all Chinese characters look like a scramble of swooshes, lines, and poky points.

Yep, I think I'm ready for my test.

Just 11 hours till test time. . . .

Chinese medicine

2009-01-02T22:52:00.001-06:00

Ben woke up feeling lousy this morning. He has been feeling a cold coming on for several days, and today felt like it really hit him. Luckily, we were prepared for such an event. My Chinese language partner recently gave me a box of Chinese herbal medicine for colds, since I have been fighting a cold off and on for . . . well . . . it seems like forever. My language partner warned me that this stuff, which you drink from a little bottle through a straw, is very bitter, but sometimes you have to eat bitterness to feel better. He also told me that this stuff will cure all that ails you. When he gave it to me, I was already getting over my last cold, so this box of 双黄连口服液 (erm, I'm not sure how to translate that) has just been sitting on the table in our living room for the past week or so.

Anyway, Ben was feeling badly enough that he agreed (not without a little hesitation) to give this stuff a try. Note the crazy hair on Ben's head: that's a sure sign that Ben is feeling pretty bad. He's still in his pajamas with crazy hair at 1:00 pm.

This is a little scary . . .

but, okay . . . I'll give it a try.

How did it taste, honey?

Not done yet. Two bottles, three times a day.

Nope, second one didn't taste any better.

Whew! Thank god that's over!

Only 8 more bottles to go.

almost finished

2009-01-01T23:39:00.000-06:00

The end of the semester is upon us. Today is Ben's last day of class for the semester. Tuesday was my last day of actual classes, but I still have two days of final exams to look forward to. Monday, January 5, is the big test day. That's the day I will have my written and listening exams. On Tuesday afternoon I have my final speaking exam.

In theory, I am studying like mad right now, reviewing everything we've covered all semester, and getting ready for those big tests. In reality, I have spent the past couple of days doing everything but studying. I did put in a few hours of work on Thursday, New Year's Eve. But yesterday, even though I started out with the best of intentions, I spent the whole day doing everything (i.e., eating at Zhou You's parents' house, shopping at the cool big bookstore, going grocery shopping, watching Men In Black, falling asleep on the sofa, etc.) except study. And if you thought I exhausted my options of "ways to avoid studying" yesterday, well, you definitely thought wrong. I've spent this morning facebooking, messing around online, doing laundry, putting cute little stickers on my laptop keyboard, reading the news . . . I've even considered actually cleaning our apartment rather than sitting down and studying. If you know me, then you know that means I really don't want to study.

On the one hand, I know it's because, after this long semester, I'm pretty much studied out. I'm ready for a break. On the other hand, I'm having a very difficult time convincing myself that studying will be a worthwhile undertaking. We've learned about 1000 new words this semester, and at least 80 new grammar patterns. There's no way I'll have time to thoroughly review everything we've studied, so then, how to choose what to review? How to approach it? If I don't already know it, it doesn't seem reasonable to think I'm going to know it before Monday.

I know, I know...I really just need to suck it up, stop messing around online, and just get to work on as much of it as possible. If only I can get myself to comply with what I logically know I need to do. I'll just keep telling myself, at least studying is more enjoyable than cleaning the toilet.

Goodbye, Juana!

2008-12-28T04:54:00.000-06:00

Over the course of the past semester, I have grown to be really good friends with one of my classmates. Her name is Juana, and she is from Colombia. There are actually a lot of Colombians at Nankai University, and I have spent a fair amount of time with several of them, but I have spent the most time with Juana. We often eat lunch together after class, and we have spent several afternoons shopping and chatting together. Hooray for good friends from all over the world!

However, these are sad days. Juana, like most of the Colombian students I've become friends with, is returning home at the end of this semester. Well, actually, before the end of this semester. She leaves on Tuesday. We've had a series of good-bye events as she has been preparing to leave, because everyone loves Juana and is sad to see her go. Last week we had a good-bye lunch, and many of my classmates attended:

Last night we had a final goodbye party. We went to a bar called Pepper, drank pretty cocktails, danced wildly, and said goodbye to our friend:

We were even entertained a little bit by the staff at Pepper, as you can see here.

As you can see, a good time was had by all. But after she is gone, Juana will truly be missed by all of us. Here's wishing her safe travels and a happy return home. Goodbye, Juana, until we meet again!

Merry Christmas! (Return of the Jedi edition)

2008-12-26T20:24:00.000-06:00

(Before you even ask, I don't know what that title means. I was just running out of "edition" names for this series.)

Anyway . . . For Christmas, Ben's parents transferred some money into his bank account so we could go out and have a nice meal together. (Thank you, Nancy and Darrell Wayne!) Last night, we decided to have our nice Christmas meal at a Thai restaurant near Binjiang Dao, one of the major shopping streets in the city. Thai food may not sound like traditional Christmas fare, and I'll admit, it didn't exactly conjure up images of home and holidays for us either. But I have to say it really hit the spot. It was delicious!

Afterward, we treated ourselves to coffee at one of the many nearby Starbucks (there are three within a couple blocks of each other in the Binjiang Dao area), and then we further treated ourselves to a half dozen donuts from a little shop next to the Starbucks of our choice. There was a lot of self-treating going on last night.

Here are a few shots from our evening:

Ben, his pre-dinner gin and tonic, and our first dish.

We almost forgot to take a picture of our meal: Green curry with beef, Pad Thai, and yet-unidentified green vegetables that I love.

View of Nanjing Lu, the main road that runs through the area.

Binjiang Dao, a walking/shopping street: no cars allowed.

Catholic church at the end of Binjiang Dao. This was erected by the French in 1917.

I think that's the end of our Merry Christmas in Tianjin series. We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

Merry Christmas! (the Christmas Day edition)

2008-12-26T07:28:00.000-06:00

So, Christmas Day for us was pretty laid-back. Originally, we planned to go to one of the fancy-schmancy hotels here in Tianjin and take advantage of its Western breakfast buffet. We really enjoy some of the breakfast offerings by street vendors here in China, but sometimes you just get a hankering for an omelet, waffles, and hot, crispy bacon made by hands other than your own. The problems with those buffets, however, are: a.) they can be rather expensive, and b.) they're like a box of chocolates: you never really know what you're going to get. When someone says Western breakfast, that could mean "just like home," or it could mean cold bacon and a few strangely filled pastries.

After much thought, we decided that our cravings for Western breakfast would be sufficiently satisfied by a couple of breakfast value meals at the nearest McDonald's. So, we got up and, after opening our gifts to each other, we snagged a cab to Mickey-D's and had a couple of sausage egg McMuffins. What could be more American than that?

After breakfast, we headed back home and called our family back in the States. Then we thought we might head out to...somewhere? We planned to take advantage of the extra day off and go visit some of the local sights. But, after calling our family members, we decided we were just to warm and cozy in our little apartment to go back out into the cold. So, instead of sight-seeing, we snuggled up on the couch and watched a few movies. Maybe not the most exciting day in the world, but it was like heaven to me. It was a very satisfying and restful way to spend our one day off--we both had to go back to school the day after Christmas.

Anyway, here are a few shots of our present-opening and Christmas breakfast:

Me and Ben's creative gift-wrap efforts.

Ben's first prezzie.

Ben's pretty excited about his new travel tea mug! We both got each other cool travel cups for Christmas (you can see my shiny new red tea bottle in the picture at the top).

Egg McMuffins, here we come!

Ben got me this coat, hat, and scarf for Christmas. He's the best ever!

Merry Christmas! (the Christmas Eve edition)

2008-12-26T02:15:00.000-06:00

We are really lucky to live in the same city as Sam and Zhou You. The holidays could have been a completely miserable, lonely time for us, even with the friends we've made here in Tianjin. But thanks to Sam and Zhou You, we had a warm, festive (even if somewhat unusual) Christmas Eve this year. We went over to their place, and spent the evening drinking wine, making and eating pizza, and chatting with a few of their friends.

A note about the pizzas: Sam is kind of a culinary genius on this front. He discovered that the flatbreads sold by street vendors (who also sell various meats on a stick, Western Chinese style) make excellent ready-made pizza crusts. Just add sauce, toppings, and cheese, pop them in the oven for about 10-12 minutes, and you're good to go. I didn't get a picture of our pizza masterpieces, but I did get a few good shots from our little gathering (like the one above, of Sam stylin' in his new scarf and Santa hat--ho-ho-ho!) Here are a few of the rest:

Forgive the cheesy grins--we have a couple glasses of wine under our belts.

Zhou You and her co-worker friend

Baker and Wu Shuai

We took a few more pictures of Christmas gift opening, which I'll post in a "part-two." All-in-all, despite missing our friends and family back home, we had a very Merry Christmas here in Tianjin. We hope all our friends and family back home had a very merry Christmas, filled with food, family, lots of prezzies, and a swig or two of eggnog. We miss and love you all!

taste of home

2008-12-20T20:34:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been feeling sad about being in China during this season. I've been feeling sad about knowing that I won't be able to spend time with my family on Christmas, of course, but I've also been a little bit down because I'm missing out on the specific kind of energy that permeates American life around this time of year. I'm not just talking about the frenetic "MUST BUY THINGS NOW" energy that overwhelms you any time you walk into a mall or department store. That is certainly part of the Christmas season, but not really my favorite part.

What I'm missing is something else--a certain kind of energy I'm having a hard time describing. It's a kind of crackling in the air that I associate with absolute possibility. School is out. Offices are closed. Finally, you can do all those things you've been putting off doing, or you can take the time to lounge around in pajama pants all day, should you so desire. You finally have the chance to connect with people you haven't seen in awhile. There is the possibility that you may find yourself stranded inside your home for a day or two thanks to snowstorms, but it is okay, because you don't have the heavy weight of work and responibility hanging over your head, if only for a couple of days. It is freedom, and excitement, and hope for a crisp, clean blanket of snow over everything, at least for a little while.

I'm still not getting at it exactly, but whatever it is, I still miss it. I've been feeling lately like this energy simply doesn't exist in China in this season.

That is, until last night. Last night we were invited to the home of some friends to sing Christmas carols and drink hot beverages. After noshing and drinking and singing and chatting for a few hours, we ventured back out into the night. When we walked out of thier apartment building into the crisp night air, it was snowing! The first snow this season in Tianjin! There was something about the snow blanketing the city, muffling the sounds of cars and people, covering all the dirty grayness that surrounds us every day with a clean fresh coat, that made me feel a little charge of that energy that I associate with this season back home.

Today, everything is covered in snow, and there is a cold northern wind blowing across the city. I have several appointments that I should be attending to today, but I just made a couple phone calls and cancelled them all. Today, I'm going to spend time doing the things I want to do but don't usually have time for. I'm going to sit around in my pajama pants all day, because I so desire. I'm going to be free of work and study, if only for this afternoon. It may not be home, but it is a little taste of that energy I've been longing for.

have I mentioned we eat dumplings here?

2008-12-13T21:12:00.000-06:00

On Friday afternoon, our class teachers threw a little Christmas party for us. I guess I should first note that Christmas as a religious holiday isn't really practiced by most Chinese people. However, the commercial concept of Christmas is being more and more widely accepted. There are Christmas trees in front of many of the major shopping centers here right now, a few Christmas decorations can be bought at places like Carrefour, Isetan (a Japanese department store) and E-Mart (a Korean supermarket). The idea of gift-giving is pretty appealing to many Chinese people.

Also, our teachers are pretty sensitive to their students missing out on celebrating holidays because we are in China, so they made a special effort to recognize Christmas for us. Our Christmas party's main events included:

1.) all of us going to the kitchen in one of the cafeterias and learning to make jiaozi (dumplings), a process that eventually and predictably devolved into a flour fight,

2.) eating all of the ill-formed dumplings we just made, and,

3.) singing karaoke for hours in a really cold room in our classroom building.

A very Chinese Christmas was had by all.

Here are some pictures. Somehow I didn't get any karaoke shots, but I might get some from others, and then post them soon.

"Chef" Miguel prepares to demonstrate his skills.

Rolling out the dough

One of the cooks shows us how it's really done.

Stuffing the dumplings. These were filled with minced pork and cabbage.

Everybody's pitching in.

The whole day was all a lot of fun, and I discovered that many of my classmates are great singers. But I have to admit: I'm really starting to get tired of dumplings. I think it's time to take a break, at least for a little while. It's going to be hard to do around here--they're pretty much a staple of the Northern Chinese diet. It's going to be even harder to break the news to Ben.

perhaps the strangest thing

2008-12-13T21:04:00.000-06:00

I've been wriggling around in my metaphorical seat for weeks, waiting for Ben to post the pictures of our trip to Mr. Pizza to try out potato pizza, which came very highly recommended by his students. Finally, finally he has posted! Check out his entry here.

I have to say that this was perhaps the strangest eating experience I've had in Tianjin. Parts of the pizza were normal: crust, sauce, cheese, ham, onions. And I've seen enough pizza in China not to be too surprised by potatoes or corn on pizza. But mayonnaise? Corn flakes? Pumpkin in the crust? Truly, it must be seen to be believed.

When I told my sister about it, she said, "If I'd ordered pizza, and they brought me that, I would cry. Literally, cry tears." There was no crying involved for us, but I do have to admit, it was a bit baffling.

sleep tight!

2008-12-08T03:56:00.001-06:00

I have this photograph from the first time I was in China for any period of time. It was 2000, and I had spent the summer in Dalian with a group of students, most of them from K-State. At the time the photo was taken, we were in a hotel in Beijing, where we had spent a couple of days before leaving the country, and we were getting ready to check out as a group.

(Darn it all, I wish I had a digital version of the picture, but it was taken in 2000, before I owned a digital camera.)

Anyway, there was this guy, sound asleep in one of the chairs in the hotel lobby. When I say "sound asleep," I mean it. There were about 40 of us students milling around, laughing, talking loudly, even jostling the furniture, but he didn't budge, or even twitch an eyelid. We were all impressed by his ability to keep on sleeping, despite all of our noise-making. So, two of the jokesters of the group--Jay and Jeremy--posed right next to this sleeping guy, their faces just inches away from his, while I took a picture. He never knew it happened.

Public sleeping is an artform in China. I am amazed at Chinese people's ability to sleep in places where I can't even concentrate enough to read a book. I've seen people sleeping in markets, on buckets, in wheelbarrows next to construction sites. Everywhere. While messing around online today, I found a site that captures the unique ability the Chinese people have to sleep when- and where-ever the urge may strike: www.sleepingchinese.com

It is incredible some of the places this guy has photographed Chinese people sleeping. If only I were so relaxed . . . .

Tianjin strikes again

2008-12-06T20:44:00.001-06:00

Well, Tianjin has brought another man down. Or maybe it has just brought the same man (me) down . . . again. I have spent most of the weekend at home with another cold. I really don't seem to have any defenses against Chinese germs and viruses, despite my best efforts to drink lots of water, eat lots of vitamin-C rich fruit, get plenty of rest, and take my multi-vitamin every day (or at least most days).

The bad news is that I really needed to spend this weekend studying diligently, because on Tuesday I have my third-quarter test. With this cold, I haven't felt much up to that task. I pretended to study for a couple of hours last night, while actually watching episodes of House, M.D. Ben bought four seasons of the show on DVD at the main market on Nankai campus a few weeks ago, and it has provided hours of mindless, American entertainment. Needless to say, lacksidasically scrawling characters while listening to House's sarcastic retorts is not the ideal approach to studying.

The good news is that, while I've been under the weather, I have had plenty of time to "do research" for our upcoming travels. Both Ben and I have about two months off for winter holiday, almost all of January, and all of February. We plan to spend some time with our friend Jen K., who will be here for a couple weeks in January, and then we want to spend two or three weeks traveling with one of my classmates, seeing (some of) the sights of China. We know we want to go to Shanghai and Xi'an, home of the terra-cotta warriors. I really want to go to Guilin to see some of the famous mountainous landscape, although I've heard it can be kind of a tourist trap. We would also love to go to Hong Kong. We just need to figure out where else we want to go, and how long we can afford to travel, both in terms of time, and in terms of money. (It will be vacation time, but Ben has some serious PhD work he needs to attend to during the holiday.) I envision this trip being a fairly open-ended one--we might have a general idea of where we want to go, but not necessarily a set-in-stone plan for how long we may stay in each place. All I know is I want to go south--it's getting far too cold in Tianjin to want to spend an entire winter here!

In the meantime, it's time for me to buckle down with my kleenexes and textbooks (and no House in the background) and get ready for this test. The next few weeks are going to be pretty intense study-wise, between this upcoming test on Tuesday, and my final exams coming up in just a month. I'm just hoping Tianjin won't throw any more monster germs my way.

some cultural experiences

2008-12-04T06:28:00.000-06:00

I learned a very important lesson about living in Tianjin today: riding a bike in winter can sometimes really suck. Today was the first time the temperatures have stayed below freezing all day, and the wind was blowing really hard most of the day, too. Riding my bike home, against the wind most of the way, wsa one of the least enjoyable experiences I have had since I've been here. Unfortunately, the temperatures are supposed to stay right around freezing for the next few days. Yay for me.

Another lesson: today, I went with my friend Juana to one of the libraries on campus to study for the big test we have coming up next Tuesday. In the process I learned something very interesting about the way study rooms work here. Apparently, students can put their stuff--books, pencil cases, etc.--on a table and reserve their own study spot all day. It's really crazy. We went into this study room to study, and there were about three spots in the entire big room that were not occupied by people's belongings. However, there were many spots that were not actually occupied by a person: not when we arrived, and not when I left about an hour and a half later. Juana said that every time she has been there it has been exactly like that. If a student did that in America, their stuff would either be stolen, or turned in to the front desk, and their seat would probably be taken. On the other hand, there probably wouldn't be quite so many students studying that hard at the library in the middle of the day in the U.S., unless it were the middle of finals week.

something that isn't food

2008-12-01T06:08:00.000-06:00

I realized as I was writing my last post that 5 out of the last 6 posts on this blog have been food-related. I guess that tells you a little something about what I think is important. Or maybe it tells you what I associate with the holidays. Or maybe it just tells you that, right now, food is my primary window into this culture. That's probably the nicest way of putting it.

Anyway, I wanted to write about something that isn't food. And this is the perfect time to do it, since we have a very recent new addition to our family:

My new bike!

We were eating dinner with some of my classmates on Monday night, when Juana mentioned that there were some people selling new bikes at very low prices just down the street. No, not stolen bikes; just new, relatively low-quality bikes. But hey, what do I need a high-quality bike for, anyway? And at $25, who cares if it's quality or not. Actually, having a low-quality bike will probably help ensure that it will be some time before it is "lost." (Of course, it will probably also ensure that I build up some massive leg muscles--this thing doesn't pedal so easy.)

Ben and I engaged in a little christening ceremony after we bought the bike. First, we took some steel wool and tried to scuff up the paint as much as possible. We especially scuffed up around the bike's logo. Ben even took a little time to scuff up my seat. Then we took handfuls of dirt, and rubbed them in all the places where my hands and behind won't be touching. The goal was to try to make the bike look at least a little bit well-used, less shiny and desirable, to try to deter would-be thieves from taking it. I tried to capture our artificial "weathering," but our efforts didn't show up so well on film. Anyway, it seems to have worked so far--two days later, and my bike isn't lost . . . yet . . . .

food, glorious foooood!

2008-11-29T21:46:00.000-06:00

The apple pie was a hit. It disappeared pretty quickly at our day-after-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner. I very dutifully took my camera with me to that dinner, with the intention of taking some pictures of the guests and yummy food. Unfortunately, as soon as we got there, my coat and bag were shuffled off to another room, and I kind of completely forgot all about my camera once the festivities began. That's kind of what I do. Anyway, I'll just tell you, the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes and everything else (there was a LOT of food there) were all delicious. There were about 50 guests at the dinner, mostly Americans, although there were also some folks from Canada, England, and of course, China. It was really nice to have a little taste of American tradition in the middle of this holiday season.

I've been realizing lately that we actually eat quite a lot of Western food, especially compared to most of my American classmates. I think it's primarily because we have a kitchen, and since most of my classmates live in the dorms, they do not. So, we eat as much of our own cooking as we do Chinese or Korean food. (We eat quite a lot of Korean food here--have I mentioned that? There is a big Korean community here, and so there are lots of Korean restaurants. Also, since he works at a Korean school, Ben eats Korean lunch daily. Sam and Zhou You often like to eat Korean food if we go out together. It all adds up to a significant amount of Korean food being eaten.)

Anyway, I discovered on Friday that one of the Carrefours here (there are several) carries some Duncan Hines mixes, including a blueberry muffin mix. One of our exciting events of the weekend was making (and gobbling up) blueberry muffins on Saturday morning. Ben took some shots, which I briefly hesitated to post since I'm in my PJ's in them, but since I really have no shame, here they are:

This is our silicon muffin pan. It's great, but the only one we could find (i.e., this one) had kind of pyramid shaped spaces, rather than round, muffin-shaped ones. It makes for some funny looking muffins, but they are tasty!

Fresh from the oven! Yum!

Thanksgiving in Tianjin

2008-11-27T08:05:00.001-06:00

First of all: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Thanksgiving is nearly over here--it's about 10:00 pm as I write. I have to say, today didn't really feel like Thanksgiving. Other than a few "Happy Thanksgivings" from my classmates, it was really a pretty average Thursday. For one thing, I didn't get to sleep in. I got up early, did a little homework, went to class at 8:00. After class, I went out to lunch with some classmates (Chinese fast food, not turkey and fixin's), picked up a few things at Carrefour, and then went back to campus to study for awhile.

Ben and I did go out for a "Thanksgiving dinner" with one of my American classmates, Nathan, who was, conincidentally, one of my classmates in Chinese class back at KU, too. No, our Thanksgiving night dinner did not include turkey and stuffing. Instead, it was made up of some of our favorite dishes at a restaurant we frequent just down the street from our house. Have a look:

Ben and Nathan drinking a little pre-dinner tea.

Here's me and Nathan before our fabulous feast.

This dish is beef, onions, and cilantro, heavily seasoned with cumin, and served in a pot over a flame at your table. Spicy and exciting.

These are a kind of pancake, filled with what I think are garlic shoots. They have a very strong flavor--a little goes a long, long way.

This is Ben's favorite dish ever. We get it every time we go to this restaurant. It's green beans and salted celery, lightly battered, tossed with sesame seeds, and then fried with garlic and red peppers.

After dinner, I made the pie for tomorrow's Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Thanks to Ben's years of baking practice, the crimped edges turned out pretty well. I just hope it tastes as good as it looks.

Even if today didn't feel like Thanksgiving, I have so much to be thankful for in my life. I'm thankful for the opportunities I'm having here to meet people, and to learn about Chinese culture. I'm thankful for my friends here. Most of all, I'm so thankful for all of you, my friends and family back home. I'm consider myself blessed to have so much love and support in my life, even if it is (this year) from afar.

I hope you're all having an enjoyable Thanksgiving day. Eat lots of turkey and take lots of naps today--do it up true American Thanksgiving style for me!

practice pie

2008-11-25T18:31:00.000-06:00

Just when I was beginning to despair about missing out on the holidays, and Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing this year, Ben and I got a phone call. It was one of Sam's friends inviting us to a big Thanksgiving dinner this Friday. (We don't get Thanksgiving day off here, of course, so it's just more convenient for everyone to celebrate on Friday night.) Anyway, she gave us all the details, and then, toward the end of the conversation, said: "By the way, I heard you and Ben like to bake. Could you bring a pie?"

It's true that Ben and I like to bake. But it is also true that I have never made a pie completely on my own in my life. I have sliced fruit for pies many times. I think I once helped my mom roll out a crust when I was a little girl. But I've never made a pie from beginning to end by myself. Of course, I didn't mention any of that when she asked us to bring a pie. I just agreed. Later, not wanting to embarrass myself by bringing a complete disaster of a pie to the dinner on Friday, I decided it was necessary to make a practice pie.

This venture was not with a couple of dilemmas.

Dilemma #1: Crisco is kind of hard to come by here, but is kind of necessary for a good, flaky pie crust. So, I had to make a trek out to The Good Friend Store, the local Western grocery mecca, where they carry all kinds of things you can't buy anywhere else in Tianjin. I wasn't sure if they would have Crisco there or not, but it turns out they had both regular Crisco, and butter-flavor Crisco. Dilemma #1 solved! (I also saw they had some carmel/chocolate swirl chocolate chips, which I didn't buy, but which I am seriously considering going back to get.)

Dilemma #2: I don't have a rolling pin. I made the best of things by using a floured smooth-edged glass, but I think I'm going to have to invest in a rolling pin. I just couldn't get that crust to roll out thin enough.

Dilemma #3: I don't have a pie pan. (Yeah, I know. Kind of an important part.) Sam and Zhou You have a pie pan, which they offered to let me use, but it was really cold last night, and I didn't want to bike over to their place in the cold to get it. I had a round cake pan, and I decided that, for a practice pie, that would be good enough. However, I soon discovered why we bake pies in pie pans and not round cake pans. The cake pan was so deep, and its straight sides made it really hard to do anything pretty with the top and bottom crusts, like fluting the edges. Mental note: get that pie pan before you make the "real" pie.

Anyway, I baked the pie, but it was certainly no masterpiece of a pie. I never got a picture of the whole thing--just a post-eating shot. Ben stayed up later than he wanted just so he could have a piece of the practice pie, so we attacked the thing pretty much as soon as it came out of the oven. Since we've already cut into it in the photo, it's kind of hard to see just how ugly my cake-pan pie turned out--although I think you get the idea. But trust me, it was ugly. Yipes.

On the up-side, I ended up with an apple pie that tastes really good, even if it is a terrible sight to see. There were a couple of moments when I regretted ever having promised to bring a pie, since this practice pie seemed such a disaster. But I think I learned some good lessons through the practice pie experience--I'm pretty sure it's going to turn out okay.

just a little fun

2008-11-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

Ben and I (okay, let's be honest here--it's mostly me) have been messing around on yearbookyourself.com. It's this fun little site where you can upload a picture of yourself, and then see what you would look like if you were in a yearbook photo from the 1950's to 2000. Here are just a couple of our fun results.

This never ceases to crack me up. This is a 1990 version of Ben. Love the mullet. Maybe Ben should look into it.

This is the 1960 version of me. I think it looks very much like a picture I've seen of my mom, except she didn't wear glasses.

what's for dinner #1--jiaozi

2008-11-23T18:45:00.001-06:00

Before we came to China, we asked our nephew, Tommy, what kinds of things he wanted us to take pictures of while we were here. He had two very specific things in mind: where we live, and what we eat. With that in mind, I've been meaning to write a post about food for awhile now, and I've been collecting pictures here and there, with the intent of posting them all at once. Unfortunately, I'm not so good at bringing my camera with me when we go out to eat (or anywhere, for that matter) so I don't always get a shot of the interesting things we've had to consume. So, here's the first of what may become a series of entries on what we eat here in China.

I think it's kind of hard to imagine what Chinese food is really like if your only experience of Chinese food has been at Chinese restaurants in the States. We eat some dishes here that are similar to those you can find at your average American Chinese restaurant. For example, one of the first things I ever learned to order was sweet and sour pork (althought I have to say that the sweet and sour sauce at even your most dumpy, hole-in-the-wall restaurant here really is far better than that gloppy pink stuff you find at most American Chinese buffets).

But on the other hand, many dishes here are unlike anything you would expect. For example, many things here (in Tianjin, anyway) are not stir-fried in sauce, or deep-fried like eggrolls, but rather steamed or boiled. Take jiaozi, or Chinese dumplings, for example, which are really unlike anything I've ever eaten at any Chinese buffet in the Midwest (although you can find their equivalent in Chinatowns and nicer Chinese restaurants with dim sum). I guess you can sometimes find fried dumplings on a Chinese buffet, filled with a tight little wad of sweetened meat, but they are nothing like the jiaozi we eat here. Jiaozi here are generally boiled, and can be filled with any number of things, from seafood to beef to pork to mutton, cabbage to fennel to onions to . . . really any meat/vegetable combination you can imagine. Meat fillings aren't usually sweet-ish, but rather savory, and usually include a vegetable and sesame oil flavors. I've seen dumplings accompanied by a kind of sweet sauce in the U.S., but I think that may be a southern China thing. Here in Tianjin, we like them savory and sour.

I went to the Zhou's home (my sister-in-law's parents' home) yesterday for jiaozi lunch. Poor Benny was too sick to leave the house, but they were kind enough to send some home with me. I wish I had taken some shots of the pre-boiled jiaozi. There were several very large bamboo trays of them, all lined up neat and pretty, ready to cook (when you make jiaozi, you make a big batch, because they are pretty labor-intensive to make from scratch). I did, however, get some shots of those I brought home. These were pork and cabbage, and pork and garlic sprout jiaozi.

Jiaozi are usually dipped in dark vinegar, and you can add mashed garlic or red peppers to the vinegar, according to your own taste for them. That's how we eat them at the Zhou's house. A jiaozi restaurant that we have been to a few times serves vinegar and whole cloves of garlic to chew on, along with your jiaozi. Sam says that's his favorite way to eat jiaozi, but I have a hard time bringing myself to bite into a whole clove of garlic. At our house, (when we are eating leftover or frozen jiaozi) we sometimes have chopped garlic in our vinegar, but more frequently just vinegar, because we're too lazy to chop the garlic, and we don't really keep the red peppers on hand.

I think they're best when they're hot and fresh, but they're pretty good leftover, too. And, as I discovered this morning, not bad for breakfast.

Anyway, it's a good thing we like them, because we still have this entire bag left over, even after eating them for dinner last night, and breakfast this morning.

today's quest

2008-11-21T23:26:00.000-06:00

Our big goal for today was to buy a bike. Another bike to replace the "lost" one. We've spent a lot of time discussing this quest. The main issue at hand is, are we going to buy another new (expensive-ish) bike, which will probably be stolen in another week? Or are we going to buy a used (i.e., previously "lost") bike? There are pros and cons to both. With the new bike, it will be more expensive, and it will probably be stolen again, but I won't feel like I'm contributing to the vicious cycle of stolen and re-sold bikes that is so prominent here. On the other hand, a second-hand bike will be cheaper, and will be less likely to be stolen, but probably once belonged to someone who was almost as upset to find it "lost" as I was when mine was "lost."

I've tried to convince myself that, by contributing my brand new bike to the steal and re-sell system that is so pervasive here, I have earned the right to buy and ride someone else's stolen bike. Sort of like a pyramid scheme. I've paid in, even if it's just at the very bottom. I should get something out of it. But unfortunately, I am not easily convinced.

With that in mind, I refuse to buy a second-hand bike. Ben, on the other hand, is much more comfortable with the idea of moral relativity, and thinks buying a second-hand bike is just much more practical. He's probably right, but we decided that if we were going to buy a second-hand bike, it was going to be his.

So, we set out today to buy a bike. That's all well and good, except it turns out that I don't really know where to buy second-hand bikes. I thought I knew where some guys were selling them, but it turns out I was wrong. Then Ben thought he knew another place where we could buy one, but it turned out that they were only selling second-hand electric bikes, which wasn't really what Ben had in mind.

After many hours of walking around, sort of looking for bike sellers and sort of just strolling, we bought this:

No, I don't know what it is. Something some guy was selling on the street. It's kind of like a sweet sticky rice-cake thing, with dates in it. We walked by the guy selling it, and Ben's face lit up. I asked him, "Do you want to buy some of that?" and he got so excited, like a little boy at an ice cream shop. So, we bought some. The only problem is, now we don't really know what to do with it all. I mean...there's kind of a lot of it.

and the real winner is . . .

2008-11-20T08:19:00.001-06:00

Here's another quick update on that Chinese-speaking contest. Apparently there were winners, as we found out about a week later. I got third place. As far as I'm concerned, that's great. Good enough to place, but not good enough to have to go through the whole process again at the next level of competition. Thank goodness that cultural experience is over.

careful what you wish for

2008-11-20T07:28:00.000-06:00

I know it's been a little while since my last post. Or maybe a not-so-little while. I could offer many reasons for my absence. Last week was midterms, which consisted of four tests in two days--I haven't experienced midterms so intense since I was an undergrad. And then there was the fact that we had a little taco party at our place last weekend. Ben and I spent quite a bit of time shopping, preparing, and cleaning house before our guests arrived. (I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I am no better a housekeeper in China than I ever was in the U.S.) So, there have been some things that have been keeping us semi-busy. But on the other hand, life here has become fairly routine. I have been feeling like I've settled into a pretty stardard daily schedule, and within that, there's really not so much to write about.

In fact, just a couple days ago, I was working on a post about how nothing exciting was really happening around here right now, how I was so sorry for my blogging absence, and how I wish I had something more to report. I finished a quick draft of the post, and then had to run out the door before posting it, because I was about to be late for class. I scurried out to the front walkway in front of our building to grab my bike . . . only to find that my bike had been stolen.

This is actually a pretty common occurrence around here. In fact, my friend Juana had her bike stolen from right in front of our classroom building, in broad daylight, just a week ago. It was locked--double-locked, actually--at the time. Bikes are stolen so often here, it's kind of a joke. Like, people ask you, "Has your bike been stolen yet?"

Nevertheless, when I found mine was stolen (or "lost" as the Chinese would put it) I was so frustrated. Argh! I had had the bike for no more than a week. It was a new bike, as opposed to one of the second-hand (i.e., "lost" and then re-sold) bikes that most people ride, which is probably why it was taken. I guess it was a little too new and pretty for quick fingers to resist. But I barely got a chance to enjoy it myself. Plus, now I had no form of transportation to get to a class that was going to start in 15 minutes.

Anyway, the whole experience sent me into a kind of tailspin. I had no choice but to walk to class (and get there about 30 minutes late--it's a pretty hefty walk from our place to my classroom building). As I was walking, I just kept getting more and more angry. I know it makes no sense, but by the time I arrived at my classroom building, I was mad at the entire country of China. What kind of place makes it so easy and common to steal bikes? Who are these jerks who think it's okay to steal bikes. Don't they know how late they were making me for class? How could no one have seen someone taking my bike? And why didn't someone stop these people? It was almost enough to make me hate China.

You don't need to tell me it's not logical--I am fully aware of that--but the experience has put me in a pretty bad head-space for the past couple of days. I've read that this kind of thing is all a part of the transition to an unfamiliar culture--you go through periods when a seemingly small thing (like finding your bike has been stolen in a country where everyone's bikes get stolen) will just send you into a (hopefully short-lived) downward spiral of frustration with the new place where you're living. I guess I'm a textbook example. But knowing that doesn't make me any less frustrated, or make it any easier to just pull myself out of this mode.

In the meantime, I'm really having a hard time caring about my studies. I've been spending a lot of time pining for home, and its wonderland of unstolen bikes and drive-thru restaurants. I've been doing a lot of online window-shopping for clothes that are both attractive and in my size, something that is in somewhat short-supply here. Needless to say, I'm a little homesick. But at least I now have something to write about.

and the winner is . . .

2008-11-07T18:32:00.000-06:00

So, here's a little update about that Chinese Speaking Competition.

I almost didn't do it. I was still feeling lousy from my cold on Friday, and I had kind of a bad day at school. I felt like I was too scattered to be able to get up and recite a speech I didn't really know all that well. I just had these visions of myself getting up there, losing my place or forgetting a line because I was so nervous, and then just starting to cry in front of everyone. I think I've mentioned it before, but I kind of seem to cry easily here. I just did not want to start crying in front of a room of people, whose eyes were all on me.

But, my friend Steffi convinced me to suck it up and do it. That's what Germans are for.

There were about eight contestants in the beginners-level competion, which is where I am. (Two years of study in the States does not an Intermediate make.) I was the second one to go up there. The girl before me, one of my classmates, was excellent. Composed. Clear. She took her time and remembered all of it, even though she had a couple small stumbles here and there. Me, not so much. I got really nervous. I lost my place a couple times. I got distracted by people coming in and out of the room, and ultimately left out one small chunk entirely. I had to look at my cheat sheet at the end to rember the final sentence.

But, ah! the relief when it was over! I was so happy to be finished that I almost didn't even care that, toward the end of the competition there were a couple of girls who hadn't even bothered to memorize their speeches. They just read them from a sheet! How fair is that? It's not hard to correctly read pinyin spellings of Chinese words off a piece of paper. If I had known that were an option, I wouldn't have been nervous to begin with! (Okay, so maybe I cared a little bit.)

In the end, the winner was . . . all of us. They gave us all T-shirts and congratulated us on our hard work. Despite the fact that I am a very competitive person who usually likes to see a winner, and usually likes for that winner to be me, that seemed like exactly the right way for that competition to end. I know everyone worked really hard to prepare for that contest, and everyone deserved a reward for the hard work they had invested . . . except for maybe those two girls who didn't memorize.

it's all in the timing

2008-11-05T22:28:00.000-06:00

I apparently have absolutely no natural defenses against Chinese germs and viruses. I have a cold. Granted, I was attacked from within my home (Ben was sick last weekend with a cold he probably brought home from his many sickly teenage students), and maybe anyone would expect to fall prey under those circumstances, but this isn't the first cold I've had since I've been here. In fact, I think this is the third. If it's going around, chances are I've had it, am in the throes of it, or will very soon get it.

This cold comes at a kind of bad time for me. I found out on Monday that the Chinese Speaking Competition I signed up for about three weeks ago will be this Friday. Yeek. Not a lot of fore-warning. Last Friday, when I asked when the competition would be held, I was told that it would be "in November sometime." I don't know about you, but "November sometime" does not mean the same thing as "one week from today," even if "one week from today" is actually in November.

But that's the funny thing about scheduling around here. It's not really done far in advance, and if it is done in advance, it's not often clearly communicated to those involved. This isn't the first instance where Ben or I have experienced that kind of last-minute notice. In fact, Ben experiences this kind of situation on a nearly weekly basis. He is constantly finding out that two days from now he won't be teaching such-and-such a class, because the students are participating in such-and-such an activity. Sometimes it works in your favor, like when I found out one Thursday that all my classes were cancelled on Friday, because the teachers were all participating in a sports day like the one my class had to participate in. On the other hand, it can work against you. Like when you find out on Monday that you will be reciting a speech in Chinese on Friday, and you haven't even chosen the speech yet.

Ahem.

So, in the midst of fighting off this cold, I have also been furiously memorizing a three-minute speech in Chinese, which I will present in competition tomorrow. I've memorized about 3/4 of it, but that doesn't mean I can present it well. There's a big difference between being able to stumble over three minutes of memorized Chinese, and being able to present it as if it were your own ideas. I have a lot of work ahead of me . . .

who says there's no halloween in china?

2008-10-31T20:43:00.000-05:00

Well, actually, I say there's no Halloween in China. That is, unless you're among a bunch of non-Chinese people who also celebrate Halloween, in which case there may be Halloween in China. But it will be very, very difficult to devise a costume. It takes a lot of searching: there's no "Halloween section" in China's Wal-Marts, and there's no seasonal costume store at any of the many, many malls in Tianjin.

Nevertheless, the foreign students at my school pressed forward. Last night we celebrated Halloween at Alibaba's, a local bar that draws the expat crowd most weekends (and some of my classmates on most weeknights). There were actually a TON of people in costume at this place as the night went on, but sadly, my camera battery died before I was able to take pictures of all of them. So, here are some pics from early in the evening.

Poor Benny was home sick with a cold, but Sam came out to play for a little bit. . .

and managed to scramble together a borrowed costume for this picture. The witch's hat belonged to some girls sitting at our table. I found the gold mask after hours of searching, and grabbed it, thinking I could use it for something.

"Who is that lovely lady?" you ask? It's Nathan (in drag), of course!

Felipe (the mummy) and me. I had a heck of a time devising those kitty ears. I actually used part of a mask like the one Sam is wearing above, and worked a little Halloween magic on it.

Steffi and Felipe. Steffi heard Nathan was going as a woman, so she decided to dress as a boy.

Two (of three) comrades. This is actually probably the easiest kind of costume to find around here. You can buy this garb at a lot of market stalls on the street.

There are a few costumes I really wish I could show you pictures of. For example, my friend Miguel managed to put together a complete pink fuzzy bunny costume, and he wore it all day long. You should have seen the look on our teacher's face when he walked in to class.

the fight at hand

2008-10-27T06:37:00.000-05:00

I've reached a point in our year here where the initial excitement has worn off a bit, and life has really just become pretty much routine. I mean, I don't know if it's ever entirely routine when you're living in an unfamiliar culture, especially when it's so different from your home culture as it is here. But my daily life definitely has a routine pattern: get up; go to class; eat; prepare for the next day's class; eat some more; sleep; rinse and repeat.

The worst part is, the initial excitement about studying as hard as possible, practicing all the time, and really improving my Chinese over the course of the year has kind of worn off. Some days, I walk away from class feeling like I really have a handle on things, like I'm learning so much, like my comprehension level is continually improving. Then, that same afternoon, I'll try to talk to someone on the street, or to the lady in the internet service office, and I'll have absolutely no idea what that person is trying to communicate to me. I've run into enough of this kind of disappointing language situation that my spirits have begun to drag a little bit. That's not to say I'm totally bummed out here, or anything. It's just that I'm not quite so idealistic about what can be accomplished, in terms of language acquisition, in a year as I was when we first arrived. I'm really seeing how long it will take for me to really "know Chinese," whatever that means.

So, I'm kind of fighting to get excited about studying right now. I know studying is good for me. What's more, I know that if I don't study, it will be very bad for me, because things move along so quickly here that it doesn't take long to fall completely behind. But nevertheless, I find it much more inviting to think about snuggling up on the sofa with a good book, than to consider the prospect of doing homework and studying and getting up early tomorrow morning.

This rebellious feeling started about a week ago, and it's been simmering under the surface ever since. I'm fighting to keep it down, but sleeping in tomorrow morning is sounding so, so tempting.

黄崖关长城--Huangyaguan Great Wall

2008-10-26T18:37:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, against my (and Ben's, and most sane people's) better judgment, Ben and I joined my classmates on a trip to see the Huangyaguan Great Wall, a section of the Great Wall that is outside of Tianjin. I say it went against my better judgment because any trip to any section of the Great Wall involves a lot of walking, and usually a lot of stair climbing, too, and my ankle is still recovering from the recent incident. Any right thinking person probably would have bowed out, but I really wanted to hang out with my classmates. And I really wanted to take advantage of the inexpensive price to see the Great Wall. The whole trip (including chartered bus to and from, and lunch) cost me only 15 kuai (about $2). (It cost about $20 for Ben, because he's not a student, but that's still a great price.)

Since climbing was hard on my ankle, I rested a lot, and didn't walk the entire section, which got really steep toward the end. Instead, Ben and I took our time (and a lot of pictures). Here are some of them.

can't beat that with a stick (part 1)

2008-10-22T05:37:00.000-05:00

It's really easy to notice the things that are a pain in the butt about living as a foreigner in China, the things that don't work as efficiently here as they do back home, the things that make me homesick, or tired, or just plain frustrated. I think I've mentioned some of these here , and here, and of course here. But I've been thinking lately that there are a number of perks about living in China, things I'm going to miss when I return to the States, because there is nothing to compare in the U.S. Thus, I want to start a mini-series of posts on this blog, focused on things about China that simply can't be beat.

I encountered one of these today. When I got out of class this afternoon, I realized that my back bike tire was completely flat, because the tube was punctured. Were I to find myself in this situation in the U.S., my only recourse would be to walk my bike home, drive to a store, buy a new tube, and replace it myself. Considering the amount of time it generally takes for me to do such a thing, it is more than likely that several weeks (months?) might go by before I was back in the saddle again. (I suppose I could also take the bike to a bike shop to have someone else replace the punctured tube, but it's not likely I would get the problem solved any faster that way.)

Not so in China. As my Chinese textbook likes to say, China is a bicycle nation (一个自行车大国). Considering the nature of bikes, China is also necessarily a bicycle-repairing nation, and this was completely to my benefit today. As soon as I realized my tire was flat, I had to walk only about 1/2 a kilometer (it would have been shorter, but I wasn't really sure where I was going at first) until I found one of the many (and I mean many) bicycle repairmen who have a stand on the side of the road. Seriously, these guys are everywhere. The photo at the top isn't my own, but there are two of these little stands within two blocks of my apartment, and even more as you near the gate to Nankai university. They're everywhere.

Anyway, I found one of these guys. Ten minutes and 18 kuai (about $2.50) later, I had a competely new, freshly aired-up tube in my back bike tire. Boom. Done. I'm not even sure you could get the tube for that cheap in the U.S., much less the accompanying repair job.

Just one thing about China that can't be beat.

Ancient Culture Street (古文化街)

2008-10-17T20:03:00.000-05:00

Here is the promised post about Ancient Culture Street. This is an entire area, actually a street and several side streets, of market stalls and stands, selling just about every kind of souvenir you can imagine. Paintings. Jade carvings. Jewelry. T-shirts. Bags that say "I China." Mao memorabilia. Papercuts. Chops. You name it, they've got it. In recent years, the whole area has undergone a kind of overhaul, complete with traditional-style building facades and statues commemorating important historical and mythological figures. There are even some vendors who dress in traditional (sort of) Qing-era clothing and hats, with false queues hanging down their backs.

Ben has compared the place to historical Dodge City tourist attractions, and I think that's pretty accurate. It's definitely for tourists, and there were several tourist groups being led through by guides while we were there. But we had a lot of fun seeing what kinds of things were for sale, and thinking about what kind of souvenirs we might want to bring home with us.

Up until the disastrously embarrassing event that brought our day to an end, we had a really great time eating, walking around, taking pictures, and even buying a few little things here and there.

the doctor is . . . in?

2008-10-17T02:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I was right about that visit to the doctor's office being something to blog about. Sheesh. I just got home about 10 minutes ago. And it turns out the problem is exactly what I thought it was: the ankle isn't broken, I've just injured the ligaments. A moderate sprain.

A lot of the doctor's office experience was exactly what I expected. There were several people already in the examination room when we went in. That's kind of par for the course around here, I've learned. People listen in and look on while you're being examined. More than one patient may be examined in a room at a time, and that was certainly the case today. Anyway, I consulted with a doctor, showed him my ankle, and after looking at my ankle for a bit, he sent me to have an X-ray.

So, we went down the hall, paid an X-ray fee, waited a little while (that part of going to the doctor's office is pretty universal), and then I went in for the X-ray. The X-ray tech was a really nice woman who was impressed with my Chinese ability, which was kind of ridiculous, because I know how poorly I was communicating with her. But, I guess I should take a compliment where I can get it.

After the X-ray was taken, a second doctor, a specialist, took a look at the X-ray film, and determined I didn't have a break, but he could see evidence of previous injuries. Sam was kind of impressed by that, since we didn't tell him I had previously injured the ankle. Then we were sent back to the original doctor, who gave us the whole speech I had expected before we went: rest, elevate. He prescribed some meds: something for pain, and another something for joints, although I'm not entirely "for joints" means.

And then it turned bad. They were going to put this medicated wrap thing on my ankle, but before they did, the doctor and another guy (physical therapist? another doctor? I have no idea.) grabbed hold of my leg and started massaging the injured area. Which hurt. A lot. And I tried to pull away. And the doctor kept telling me, "Relax, relax." Which is really hard to do when you're in pain. And the the doctor grabbed my foot, and the other guy grabbed my calf, and they pulled in opposite directions. At which point I started crying, finally convincing them to give up. Meanwhile, I had a room full of people looking on at me crying, which was embarrassing, which made me cry more. I'm a little ashamed of the amount of crying that's been going on around here in the past couple of days, but sometimes, it's the only way to get your point across.

I'm still not sure what that massaging/pulling thing was all about. I mean, I understand the value of massaging an injury, of making sure the muscles and ligaments don't get too tight. But trying to massage and stretch the ankle less than 24 hours after the injury?! That was not good. As Sam said when we were walking out, "If we'd been in America, we would have sued that guy."

Not that it was an all bad experience. But it also definitely was not an all good experience. On the up-side, the whole thing (examination, X-rays, medication, everything) cost less than 300 yuan, somewhere around $40 USD. That's a co-pay in the U.S.!

That being said, it wasn't really an experience I want to go through again. But, as Sam jokingly suggested after we left, maybe that was the point--they make you so miserable when you go in with an injury, you'll be much more careful in the future so you don't have to go through it all again. If that was the idea they had in mind, I'd say it worked for me.

a little excitement for the weekend

2008-10-16T19:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, Ben didn't have to teach, and I didn't have class, so we decided to take a little trip to Tianjin's Ancient Culture Street (古文化街). We both took several photos while we were there, and I will share them and describe the place soon, probably in my next post. However, I first want to write about a kind of ridiculous, traumatic event, which is kind of taking precedence over everything right now.

The whole thing is really kind of embarrassing. After we left Ancient Culture Street, we walked down the street to this shopping center that had a Starbucks in it, to get a cup of coffee, and to chat a bit. While we were there, I had to use the restroom, which was up a floor from the Starbucks.

The thing about most Chinese public restrooms is that the stalls are usually a step or two up from the main floor of the room. You go in, walk up a couple stairs, open the stall door, and do your thing. Which is fine. Except when I walked out of the stall last night, my mind was totally somewhere else; I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, and I completely forgot about the two steps down from the stall. I basically just walked straight out as if I were walking on an even floor. Needless to say, I took a pretty hard fall, and when I did, I felt something pop in my left ankle, and then a lot of pain.

And of course, I created quite a spectacle, which is even more embarrassing. I very soon had about 10 Chinese women hovering around me, including one woman who was trying to pull me up to stand up. Except my ankle hurt too badly to hold my weight. And I was crying. And the woman wasn't giving up on the idea of me standing up--she was very insistent, despite the fact that I kept telling her I couldn't stand. And I was having a very difficult time trying to remember how to say anything in Chinese, so they were tugging on me, and I was refusing to stand, and I was sobbing, and they were all talking a million miles a minute, and I wasn't answering, and more women kept walking in, and hovering. I don't know how long this went on before I finally just forced myself to stand up and hobble out of there.

Getting myself home from there was kind of an ordeal. I had to walk a little, just to get back down to the Starbucks where Ben was, and then to get out to the street to get a taxi. And for some reason (probably because we were so near Ancient Culture Street, which draws a lot of tourists) none of the taxi drivers wanted to use the meter to take us home--they all wanted to bargain on a price, and they all wanted us to pay extravagant amounts. And I really wasn't in the mood to bargain.

We did finally find a sympathetic driver, and we made it home. We live in a fourth floor walk-up, so Ben had to carry me up to our apartment. By the time we got home, my ankle had swelled up like a purple puffer-fish, so I've been icing it and popping ibuprofen like tic-tacs ever since. I couldn't put any weight on it at all last night, but I can hobble around on it a little today, as long as I walk a certain way, and I take very small steps. I'm not sure the picture below really does it justice, but you can see the big, swollen lump on the outside of my left ankle there, and the kind of purplish bruising around it, on my foot. Those aren't supposed to be there.

I'm very sure the ankle is not broken. In fact, I think I know what's wrong with it--I've injured this same ankle in pretty much the same way (although never in a Chinese bathroom) several times in the past. But, to be safe, Sam is taking me to see a doctor this afternoon, (which should be another event worth blogging about) possibly to get some X-rays, and hopefully some kind of brace or wrap or crutches or something to make life a bit more bearable.

I don't even want to think about how I'm going to get to and from class on Monday. Sheesh.

communication gap

2008-10-16T00:14:00.000-05:00

In general, I really like my classes here at Nankai. My classmates are fun. My teachers are generally very enthusiastic and helpful. And I'm learning quite a lot. But there is one thing that, although kind of funny, really gets on my nerves here. Every once in awhile, we'll come across a new vocabulary word, and in an attempt to get us to practice using it, one of our teachers will ask a question, the answer to which we could not possibly know.

For example, one day, in an attempt to get us to use...um...I don't even remember what vocabulary word, our teacher asked us very earnestly, "What do Chinese elementary school students always say?" The room was absolutely silent. Um, lady--how in the world would we know that? Do any of us look like we were once Chinese elementary school students?

Or one day, one of them asked, "If you're a hostest as a restaurant, what should you say when customers come in?" Now, I've heard them mumble off something that ends with "huanying" (welcome), but honestly, I had no idea what the rest of the phrase was. And neither did anyone else in the room. And anyway, when are we ever going to use that phrase? What is the likelihood that any of us are ever going to be hostesses in a Chinese restaurant?

This is a problem among the young recitation instructors (and actually, it's mostly one teacher in particular, who really drives me crazy, although I won't go into that right now). I chalk it up to lack of experience. But it seems that, if your job is to teach language to students who aren't from your home country/culture, it's probably an important part of your job to recognize when there's absolutely no way your students would (or should need to) be familiar with a particular cultural experience.

work it out!

2008-10-15T07:03:00.000-05:00

I've been pretty active since I've been here in Tianjin. Life here necessarily requires a lot of walking and/or bike riding, (no car, you know) so I have some exercise naturally built into my daily schedule. However, thanks to the fact that I don't have to teach or do (much) research during the next year, I have a lot more free time here than I did in the U.S. As a result, I've been feeling like I really should take advantage of that time and do that thing. You know, the first thing I cut out of my schedule when I get busy? That thing that is so easy to talk myself out of doing? You know...that "exercise" thing.

So, tonight I went to the recreation center on campus with my friend and classmate, Juana. She told me about a week ago that, for just 88 yuan a month (about $12 USD), you can use any of the equipment, swim in the pool, and take any of the fitness classes offered every day of the week. I was interested, but a bit reluctant at first, but she finally convinced me to join her and check it out. Tonight we took advantage of the "boxing aerobics" (I'm not sure what it's called, but that's what I'm gonna call it) class that is offered every Wednesday night.

It was an interesting experience, and I regret the fact that I was not able to take any pictures. First of all, the class is, of course, taught in Chinese. I worried that this was going to be a problem. In fact, it wasn't a problem at all, because the music was playing so loudly, even if the class had been taught in English, I probably wouldn't have known what the instructor was saying. It didn't seem to matter much, though. The classroom was packed completely full of people who didn't really seem to know what was going on, but were bouncing around and wildly throwing punches in the air anyway. So, I just jumped right in. You know the saying: when in Rome . . . er, China.

I learned a few things tonight. First of all, I learned that, if any of the Chinese girls in that class got into a fist fight, they wouldn't stand a chance. But I also learned that I shouldn't worry about sticking out like a sore thumb in the gym here. I mean, I do stick out like a sore thumb--there's no way anyone is going to confuse me with a Chinese student--but at least I stick out in the gym the same way I stick out anywhere. Back home, I always worry that my general non-athletic-ness is going to draw a lot of attention in the gym, that people are going to take one look at me and say, "What is that clumsy girl doing stumbling around, jiggling, and sweating all over the place in here?" But here, everyone else is just going for it, no matter how silly they may look in the process, so I may as well go for it, too.

The third thing I learned is that there are also weekly yoga, aerobics, and belly dancing (!) classes at the rec center. I'm planning to go back on Friday night, so I'll let you know how it all turns out.

运动会--sports day!

2008-10-12T21:32:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I've had a cold for the past few days, and it's kept me from wanting to do much besides lay around and watch movies. I'm on the mend, though, so I'll try to post a bit more frequently.

Last Friday, my school had a 运动会 (yun dong hui--a sports competition) for the international students. Each class competed in a variety of events, including (but not limited to) a jump rope competition, a three-legged race, and a tug-of-war.

The whole thing was kind of funny. We all imagined it was going to be a kind of laissez-faire kind of event, but as we are learning, in China, there really is no such thing. There was actually an opening ceremony, where each team had to march around the track while this grand march played over the stadium loudspeakers--like the Olympics, only there were only about 10 people in the stands. Some school leaders gave speeches, none of which we could really hear or understand, and then the events began.

We were mostly reluctant participants when it started, but it turned out to be a lot of fun, thanks largely to my friend Miguel (the guy being kissed in the third picture down) and his overwhelming enthusiasm--he led our entire class in cheers and chants throughout the competition. And then the whole thing turned out to be a little too long (four hours!) to be much fun any more--I was definitely ready for the thing to be over long before it actually was.

On the upside, the event provided a lot of good photo opportunities. I took a lot of pictures, but here are some of my favorites.

random shots of the day

2008-10-04T05:15:00.001-05:00

Walk out toward the entrance to our neighborhood, any day during daylight hours, and you're bound to see this group (or others) playing cards, shouting, and engaging in general rabblerousing.

Anyone want a haircut? You could look just like this:

Ben and I found a great new cafe, just down the street. It's called 5.4 coffee bar. The slogan is: "Who says you 5.4 yuan can't buy good coffee?" (that's about $.75)

The electronics superstore down the street from us was having some kind of sale, or extravaganza, or something. These girls were dancing outside the store (somewhat half-heartedly, I might add), trying to drum up sales.

western shopping paradise

2008-09-28T21:50:00.000-05:00

It is decidedly autumn in Tianjin. Until about a week ago, the weather here was very much like Kansas in the summer. Hot. Humid. Not cool in either the shade or the evening. Then, last Monday, a cold front moved in, the skies opened up, and rain fell for about 18 hours straight. Ever since, the temperatures have been in the 60's and low 70's in the day, and even cooler at night.

I love this kind of weather. Even if it is damp, I would rather be a little bit cool than hot and sticky all the time. Even if it does get up into the 70's during the day, you can rest assured that the temperature will drop back down to the 50's and 60's in the evening, and you will wake up to a brisk cool morning the next day. One of the things I love best about this weather is that it is baking weather. I love making cookies, quickbreads, yeast breads and cakes all year round, but especially as the temperatures drop. There is something so comforting and warming about eating home-baked sweets when it's cool outside.

Unfortunately for me, most Chinese kitchens do not have ovens. Chinese cuisine isn't exactly notorious for its baked goods. An increasing number of families are buying small ovens (like toaster ovens) for their kitchens these days, but ovens are certainly not a standard feature as they are in the U.S. Most of the time, this isn't a problem. We have a microwave and stove-top, and between those two appliances, we can cook almost everything we want.

However, as the temperature began to turn, I began to be very sad about our kitchen's lack of an oven. I didn't want to spend the entire year being unable to make cookies, brownies, or breads. So, Ben, being the sweet, considerate, generous guy that he is, came home from school one day and said, "Let's go to Carrefour and buy you an oven."

As we stood in the aisle at Carrefour, looking at the four options, ranging in price from about 350 yuan to 700 yuan (about $50-$100 USD), I had a mental image of my culinary life in China changing completely. Of course, I would still take advantage of the readily available and incredibly inexpensive Chinese food at the restaurants and food vendor stalls all around me. But with this oven, I would be able to make casseroles! Cookies! Western-style breads! Just beyond the door to our apartment, the world might still be spinning wildly beyond our comprehension, but within our apartment, within our bellies, we would at times be able to experience the comforts of home.

It was not until we got home and began unpacking our newly purchased oven that I realized: we may have an oven, but I may not be able to use it, or at least not the way I would like to. Here, it is not so easy to find many of the ingredients we consider standard stock in the kitchen. For example, I had not seen cinnamon at any of the supermarkets I had been to. Or chocolate chips. Or cocoa powder. Or most kinds of cheese. Or even yeast, which I thought was baffling, considering the fact that I had seen bread at both foreign and Chinese supermarkets.

Thank goodness for my brother's friend, who I will call J. J has lived here in Tianjin for about five years, and last weekend she offered to take me and Ben shopping at some places where we could buy Western baking pans (also very difficult to find) and Western cooking ingredients. The very first place she took us to was almost unreal! It was just this tiny hole-in-the-wall shop in an alley behind some apartment buildings, but it was completely stocked with every Western food you could wish for but never find in China. Tortillas and tortilla chips. Cheeses. Duncan Hines brownie and cake mixes. Bread and muffin mixes. Smoked bacon. Hershey's Cocoa powder. All kinds of spices, including cinnamon. And much, much more--more than I can even begin to list here.

After about 15 minutes there, our kitchen was fully stocked and ready for baking. My most prized purchase was two cans of pumpkin puree. Before I saw them at that little store, I had visions of me trying to roast an entire pumpkin in our tiny little oven, in order to make my favorite fall treat: pumpkin bread. But now I'm all set. My biggest problem now is trying to decide what I should bake first!

the #1 reason I'm enjoying studying at Nankai:

2008-09-26T04:36:00.000-05:00

My classmates are awesome.

Yesterday, Miguel, a classmate from Colombia, invited our entire class to come to his apartment, where we made food and ate together. It was so much fun--we all really enjoy hanging out together, even if we don't all understand exactly what we're trying to say to each other all of the time. There is often a lot of Chinglish/Chinorean/Korenglish/Spanglish (and other combos), as well as a lot of gesticulating involved. But somehow we are able to make it all work.

update on the golden ticket

2008-09-25T04:19:00.000-05:00

So, it turns out the receipt I thought was the right one was actually not my internet service receipt. It was a phone service receipt. So, the other day, when I was supposed to go pay the internet fee, I instead went with the plan I mentioned on the last post: I ate a couple of Oreos, and sat down, putting off the task.

Today, Ben finally put his foot down. We HAD to pay the internet service fee, or it would be turned off tomorrow. So, I screwed myself up, all ready to try to convince the people in the internet service office that they didn't really need an internet account number that I couldn't produce anyway, and that they could probably use a phone number, or an address, to look up our account.

Long story short: We went down there. I asked the woman behind the desk if the phone number was what they needed. She said yes, and looked up our account. And then she told us we didn't have to pay the bill until next month.

Ahem.

Guess it's time for another couple Oreos.

waiting for the golden ticket

2008-09-23T00:03:00.000-05:00

One of the most difficult things about living in China is this: things that were simple, easily accomplished tasks in the States become great big, pain-in-the-butt chores, partly because of the language gap, but also partly because things operate differently here. For example, today I went to the internet place to pay my monthly internet fee. This is a task I wouldn't even go somewhere to do, were I in the States. I would just punch a couple buttons on my online bank account, and then: click. bill paid. done.

But there is no automatic online paying here, so, bill payment must take place in person, a task made all the more difficult by my lacking language abilities. Anyway, when I got to the internet service office today, I realized I didn't have my account number with me, and I wasn't going to be able to pay the bill without it. Then I realized, I had absolutely no idea what or where my account number was! I assumed it was on one of the many receipts we collected in the first few days we were here. So I came home, took out all the receipts we had saved from those first few crazy days, and spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out which one was the one from the internet service.

Now, here I am, half an hour later, thinking I've figured out which receipt is the right one, but I'm not entirely sure. None of the receipts say anything remotely resembling "internet" in bold print across the top, and I'm tempted to just sit down, eat a couple of Oreos, and put off paying this thing for a couple more days, in the hopes that the magical receipt with the magical account number will magically appear.

the most important lesson of the weekend is . . .

2008-09-21T22:53:00.000-05:00

Just because a website tells you that the universal power strip they are selling acts as a converter, and is adaptable to appliances from anywhere in the world, all for just $35, doesn't mean it's true.

Mom brought us one such power strip (thanks, Mom) while whe was visiting last week. On Sunday we tried it out. In the process we blew a fuse in our apartment and completely fried both our modem and our wireless router (both of which we brought over with us from the States). Lucky for us, when the internet account was set up, the guy from China Mobile brought us a modem, so we had a spare lying around, and we now have internet access through that (Chinese outlet-friendly) modem. Unfortunately, we're going to have to buy another router to set up the wireless connection again.

Oh, well. At least Ben and I won't have to lug that modem and router back to the U.S. when we return next summer.

sam and zhou you, 百年好合

2008-09-19T21:54:00.000-05:00

It has been a few days since the wedding, but it's been a flurry of activity all week, so this is my first chance to post about it. However, it's a good thing I had to wait so long to write about it, because I now have many, many more photos to share. I was given a bunch of photos from the wedding last night, most of which turned out much better than the photos I tried to take. I have more than a hundred pictures, I think, but I'll just post a few of my favorites here.

If I were to describe a Chinese wedding (or at least this Chinese-American wedding) in one word for my Western readers, that word would be "loud." I have many other impressions, too. The ceremony was very nice, Zhou You was beautiful, Sam was handsome, the food was delicious, much fun was had by all--but comparing it to most weddings in the States, the clearest distinction I can make is that it was LOUD.

The ceremonies began with hundreds of firecrackers going off as the bride arrived with her attendant in a red convertible. That was crazy--a little bit like a war zone, with flying bits, explosions, and smoke everywhere. Ben and I actually had to run away once the firecrackers started going off, because little burning bits were hitting us in the legs! After the smoke cleared, confetti-poppers (I'm not really sure what they're called, so that's the term I'm sticking with) were set off as the bride got out of the car. That was actually Ben's and my job for the evening--to set off two of those poppers. It was kind of a lot of pressure, actually, because people kept telling us things like: "Make sure you stand here, not here, and with your back to the wind," and "Do it quickly," and "Are you sure you can do this?" But we managed it in the end.

Once we got inside, the ceremony was a kind of amalgamation of Chinese elements and American elements. For example, Sam and Zhou You exchanged vows and rings. But they also included a tea service in the ceremony, in which the bride and groom serve their new parents-in-law tea, calling them "mother" and "father" for the first time. The majority of the ceremony after that was made up of people giving speeches, vouching for the integrity and character of the bride and the groom, and sometimes presenting gifts as they did this. Sam's friend Charlie served as an interpreter for the ceremony, interpreting the Chinese speeches into English, and the English speeches into Chinese. This was really a lovely part of the ceremony, and it was very interesting to hear what each person had to say about these two.

However, even this part of the ceremony was loud. It all took place in a banquet hall, and throughout the whole thing, there was pop music playing, not exactly full-blast, but much more loudly than you might expect at an American wedding. All the guests sat around round tables, and many of them were drinking, smoking, and chatting throughout the ceremony. In fact, at times it was quite difficult to hear what was being said by those giving speeches, at least from where we were sitting. It was also kind of difficult to see. And so a lot of people decided to stand rather than sit. But then they were standing right in front of where you were sitting, so you had to stand, too, or else join the guys smoking and chatting at the table next to yours. In the end, we stood some, sat some, stood some more, chatted a bit, listened here and there. It was a very casual, but festive atmosphere.

After the ceremony, the banquet began, and boy, was it a ton of food. The servers just kept bringing out more and more dishes--more than anyone could possibly eat! And all the tables were supplied with endless rounds of beer, red wine, and baijiu, which is sometimes translated as "white wine," but is actually a kind of clear alcohol made from sorghum. As you can imagine, things became all the more festive as the bottles emptied.

As everyone began eating, Sam and Zhou You changed clothes. Then, throughout the banquet, they went from table to table, thanking all their guests for coming, and toasting them all. That's one thing that seems to be the same about American and Chinese weddings (at least in my experience): the bride and groom hardly get to sit down and eat.

Here are just a few more photos. In the top left photo are Zhou You's parents, Zhou You, Sam, and my Mom. Top right is Zhou You's dad presenting a poem to the couple during the ceremony. Bottom left is Zhou You and Sam with her maternal grandmother (left) and paternal grandmother (right). The bottom right photo is the couple, their parents, and me and Ben.

ahh...love...

2008-09-16T00:08:00.000-05:00

A lot of people have been coming into town for Sam and Zhou You's wedding (which is Wednesday evening), so we've been invited to a lot of events lately: dinner parties, all-day shopping extravaganzas, and bridal showers among them. In fact, all this celebrating has definitely limited my proclivity toward studying. I had a test this morning that I was less-than-well-prepared for. But it's worth it--how often do you get to participate in your own brother's wedding festivities (and in China, no less)?

I'm including a couple of photos of Sam and Zhou You, in honor of their quicky upcoming wedding. I really wish I could share their wedding photos (which I saw last night) with you. Wedding photos in China generally involve an entire day in the studio, and several costume changes, and Sam and Zhou You's photos are no exception. There are a couple in which Sam looks straight out of Saturday Night Fever--they're fantastic. But, alas, I don't have any of those to share. . . yet!

I will try to take (and post) plenty of pictures of the wedding. From what I hear, it should be quite a lively event.

let the festivities begin!

2008-09-12T22:04:00.000-05:00

So, I have completed one week of Chinese class, and I've managed to slide (mostly unscathed) into a three-day weekend. Tomorrow is Mid-Autumn Festival (zhong qiu jie), a traditional Chinese holiday I know very little about, except for what I've read on Wikipedia. Apparently it involves celebrating the harvest, appreciating the full moon, lighting lanterns, and putting pomelo rinds on one's head (?!). I do know that people give, and eat, a lot of mooncakes around here at this time. I also know, as of yesterday, that I don't like mooncakes. They're kind of oily, and they have a bit of a funny taste to my tongue. Not fully sweet. Not savory. Just kind of . . . sweetish, heavy, and, well, blech. Or at least the ones I tasted were.

Nonetheless, I'm pretty excited about this holiday. First of all, it means I get a much-needed extra break from classes. I feel like my brain is in a bit of a fog here. I'm learning tons, but I'm also a little overwhelmed by all the new information being thrown at me. Studying language in an immersion situation is, I'm finding, all-consuming and a bit exhausting. Hooray for 3-day weekends!

Secondly, I'm excited because my mom is coming to visit this weekend. Sam and Zhou You's wedding is on Wednesday evening, and Mom is going to be here for the week, for the festivities. We're picking her up at the airport tomorrow night, and I can't wait to see her. For me, that's a celebration all in itself.

comments are welcome

2008-09-11T01:01:00.000-05:00

I guess I've had this blog set so you had to log in to comment. This is no longer true. I changed the settings so anyone can comment. So, please: comment away!

small world after all

2008-09-11T00:27:00.000-05:00

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind. My classes started on Monday, so I have now finished four whole days of Chinese class. I have class for about three hours a day, and then I go home and have about three hours of homework to do for the next day. We actually had our first test the second day of class! So, it's a pretty intense learning environment. But the thing about intense learning environments is that you either do or die. I have to stay focused and do all my work, or else I'll get lost pretty quickly. As a result, I feel like I have learned as much in the past four days as I did in an entire month in the States!

I was pretty anxious before the first day of class. First, I was worried that I had been placed in the wrong level. I knew I didn't do very well on the language placement test last week, and I was worried that either 1.) I would be placed in a very low-level class, and that it would all be pretty boring to me, and I would have to go through the headache of being transferred to another class, or 2.) everything was going to be just as difficult as that first test, and I would spend the entire year wondering what the heck was going on. But, it seems like the school is doing a pretty good job of putting students in the right place. I've found that the class I'm in is a pretty good level for me. I'm not at the top of the class, but I'm certainly not at the bottom, either. I have already learned most of the grammatical structures we've talked about in class so far, but I'm learning tons of new vocabulary, which is something that I really needed. So, ultimately, I know enough to know what the teacher is saying (most of the time) but I'm still being challenged to learn more and more.

I was also kind of worried that I would be the only (or one of the few) Westerners in my class, and that I would be surrounded by Japanese and Korean students who would all be able to talk to each other, but that I would be left completely out of the loop. Not the case at all! My class is made up of students from everywhere: Germany, Kazakhstan, Columbia, Finland, Russia, France, the Ukraine, as well as Korea and Japan. And the really reassuring thing that I've discovered this week is that most of them were worried about exactly the same things I was anxious about--about their placement, the difficulty of understanding the teachers, and even the most basic things, like where to get food on campus. I don't know why it surprises me to find out that everyone is worried about the same things I'm worried about, but for some reason, I always think I'm the only one freaking out. But I've discovered this week that we're all kind of in this process of discovery together. And I think we're all finding that there's really not that much to be worried about, after all.

this post is worth 6000 words

2008-09-07T01:44:00.001-05:00

The other night, I took a really cool video of the market in the alley at night. It's a really vibrant place in the evening because all the street food vendors come out and set up shop, and everyone comes out to buy snacks, drinks, fruit, and vegetables. It's all lit up with strings of lights, and it's a very exciting place.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to upload that video to my blog (yet). I'll post it as soon as I'm able to get it to work.

In the meantime, here are some shots taken over the past few days. They don't really share a theme; they're just kind of random pictures: some of the canal running by Nankai University's campus, one of my bike amidst many, a couple shots of the neighborhood around our apartment, and a picture of Sam eating hot pot (a traditional food in much of Northern China). Like I said, random. But here they are:

when "simplified" isn't simple

2008-09-04T22:32:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy week here at the Billing-Cartwright abode.

Ben has nearly completed his first week as an English/History teacher at a Chinese International school. It's been a pretty hard week for him, I think. He's had to deal with a lot of unexpected situations, while trying to gauge: 1.) exactly what level of language ability his students actually have, and 2.) what exactly his employers are expecting of him as a teacher. Add to the mix the facts that he doesn't speak Chinese or Korean, and he has never actually taught history (or high school students, for that matter), and it all makes for a pretty stressful week for Ben. But he's done a great job of making the best of things, and I think he's starting to feel more and more comfortable at work.

I've been pretty busy, too, which is why I haven't posted much in the past couple of days. This week was registration and orientation week at my school. I told you a little bit about day one of registration. Well, yesterday, I took part in the most stressful part of registration, which was a grueling language placement exam. Before you ask, I'll just tell you: it didn't go so great. But then again, I guess it didn't go so badly, either.

One problem was that I showed up about 5 minutes late, thanks to my bike tire going flat again. (I hope I have finally taken care of that problem for good, or at least for good for awhile.) The test was broken into four 20 minute segments, so I had to do the first segment, "vocabulary" in about 15 minutes. That was a bad way to start the exam. I started out pretty anxious, and that was before I had even read any of the questions.

Another problem was the fact that, in mainland China, they use jiantizi, or simplified characters. For the past two years, I have been studying fantizi, or traditional characters. Sometimes simplified and traditional characters look mostly or somewhat the same. But sometimes they don't look anything alike at all. That element made reading the test rather difficult at times, and made me move very s l o w l y through the exam. Even when I had learned the vocabulary, I sometimes didn't recognize it because the characters looked so different. That really heightened my frustration level.

Also, all incoming students of all levels took the same test. That means there were questions for people way below my learning level, but there were also questions for people way above my learning level. When you get to several questions that you just completely don't understand (full of words you've never seen or learned), it can be a rather intimidating situation. In the end, I think I let myself get overwhelmed over the course of the test. I probably could have scored better if I had just taken a deep breath, relaxed, and been able to calm myself down, but . . . no. I totally botched the last section, the reading comprehension part--I hope no one I know ever sees that section, because it was embarrassingly bad.

Anyway, the result, as I found out this morning, was that I was place in Beginner's level 2.
Before the exam, I thought I might be placed in Beginners 3 or Intermediate 1, so my placement was a bit below my expectations. On the other hand, immediately after the exam, I wondered if they would have a low enough level to place me anywhere, so I can't be too unhappy.

I spent some time talking to Sam about all this (he has a lot of experience both studying Chinese language here, and advising others who are studying Chinese here), and he convinced me that, no matter where I'm placed, it will be a good opportunity for me to learn simplified characters, and to really solidify the vocabulary and grammar points I have already learned. I think he's right. I bought my books this morning, and I can already see that there is a lot of vocabulary in them that I don't know already, so I know I'll learn a lot this year.

Next step: learn the simplified versions of the hundreds of words I already know. Before Monday. (um. sure. I can do that.)

school days, school days . . .

2008-09-01T19:07:00.000-05:00

Today is Ben's first real day of school. Yesterday morning, he had to be at the school for an all-school assembly-type thing, where they welcome the new students and introduce the teachers. It was also the first day he was given the books he is supposed to teach from. That is kind of short notice, but is also kind of the way things run around here.

But today is the first day of teaching. He was prepping lessons last night, and I think he's ready to go. Good luck, Benny!

Here are some shots of Ben getting out the door for his first day of school. I hope he'll have some good stories to tell when he gets home.

Here he is all packed up, and showing off his address card, which he will show to the cabbie, who will (we hope) take him to his school.

Look out world, here he comes! (I know he's going to tell me I'm a dork for posting that under this picture, but...well...he's right. I am a dork.)

the word of the day is . . .

2008-09-01T04:19:00.000-05:00

Registration at Nankai University began today. For some reason, I had it in my mind that it was going to be a rather quick, organized process. I even told Ben that I would pop downtown afterward and pick up a coffee maker, so it would be all set up before he got home from school. Heh. Yeah, right. I guess I temporarily forgot I was living in China. If there is one word that characterizes Chinese life, it is "bureaucracy."

In bureaucracy's defence, I kind of got off to a bad start. I originally thought I would ride my bike over to the building where registration was supposed to begin, but when I got outside, I found I had a flat tire. It shouldn't have been a surprise--the tire was flat when I inherited the bike from some of Sam's friends, and we suspected it had a slow leak. But, I haven't quite figured out where to have my bike repaired yet, so instead of taking it somewhere to be quickly fixed and then riding over to the registration location, I decided to just hoof it.

I mentioned before that our apartment is located very close to one of the gates of the university. This is true. However, it is not located very close to the building where registration (or at least the first step of registration) occurred. The gate is on the far southwest corner of campus. My destination was in the far northeast corner. So, the walk was about 45 minutes long (it probably should have been more like 30, but I got lost a couple of times).

When I finally made it to the room for registration, the smokestacks of bureaucracy began chugging along. First I had to fill out two, nearly identical forms. Then I had to attach photos to those forms. After standing in line for about 45 minutes, I had to sign my name a couple times, procure my passport three or four times, and fill out another form. That was all step one.

By the time all that was completed, the room was closing down for lunch, so they told me to go to a particular bank that was located on campus, and open an account there, so they would be able to put my monthly stipend directly into the account. That was a painful process I won't really go into. Suffice it to say, opening a bank account when you don't know the vocabulary involved in opening a bank account is a very difficult ordeal. But, I did find the bank, fill out another form, procure my passport once again, and was, through difficulty, able to open a bank account . . . I think.

The best thing that happened to me was that, while I was trying to fill out the forms to open the account, two American guys from Minnesota came in, and the had to complete the same process. They were able to help. . . a little. But more importantly, they informed me that, in order to complete the next step of registration, I would need to have at least two more passport photos than I had with me. Good call, guys. So, I walked most of the way back to the apartment (Ben met me part of the way there) and got some passport photos.

Then, on to another building, where once again I had to fill out a form. It seemed identical to the first ones I filled out that morning, but I may have been hallucinating at this point in the process, having been exposed to heat, wind, and lunchlessness. I showed my passport again, gave them some photographs, and was given a student ID card. Now we're talking--finally, something to show for all this walking and signing and standing in line.

I was then quickly ushered into an adjacent room for a "Chinese interview." Basically, it consisted of a woman asking me (in Chinese, of course):"How long have you studied Chinese? At what level would you describe your ability? How well do you write characters?" Based only on my answers (and no proof thereof), she then told me she would put me at "Intermediate II." That seemed about right to me, but what do I know? Also, I'm not really sure what purpose the interview served, because actually, I have to go back on Thursday for a real interview, where her decision to place me at Intermediate II will be either confirmed or proven inaccurate.

So, finally, five hours later, I'm done. Right? Wrong. Now it's back to the first building (which, by the way, is on the opposite side of campus from me once again) to prove I have opened a bank account, and provide my bank account number, so that deposits will be made on a monthly basis.

Whew! That was a long six hours, chock-full of walking long distances and standing in long lines. And in the end, Ben actually got home about 3 hours before I did. After all that, we rewarded ourselves by going downtown and picking up that coffee maker together.

Now, we just need to get our hands on some coffee . . . .

feelin' good here

2008-08-31T04:09:00.001-05:00

This afternoon, Ben and I made a big round of errands. We walked down to a nearby shopping area and bought a printer at an electronics store. Then we went to Carrefour (yes, again) and picked up some groceries and other things we couldn't get at the local market.

Later, we walked over to the market we discovered the other morning, and bought some fruit and vegetables for dinner tonight (Sam and Zhou You are coming over for dinner, and then we're all going to try out some wines, to help them determine which wine they're going to serve at their wedding in a couple of weeks). As we were walking home after our visit to the market, the sun was shining, and a cool breeze was blowing through the narrow alleyway to our apartment building. I took a deep breath, and thought to myself, "I am really happy, right here, right now."

Today is the first day that I really feel like I'm getting a handle on life here. It's funny, because my sense of comfort is totally tied to my knowledge of where I can buy things. I have my supermarket figured out, and we've found the best place to buy normal-tasting milk (or least milk that tastes how I expect milk to taste). I have my local place for produce figured out. We've found a couple of nearby restaurants where we can go out for meals. It's all coming together.

Maybe it's a sad statement about American culture that the thing that makes me feel most at home is knowing where I can buy stuff. I may be rationalizing here, but all those things I'm buying are actually necessities for life. I prefer to think of my growing comfort as an indicator that my most basic needs are being met, not that I'm addicted to consumerism. Am I just kidding myself here?

Meh. Who cares. All I know for sure it's that I'm really starting to like it here.

discovery: jian bing guo zi!

2008-08-28T20:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, Ben had to leave the house really early. When he came back several hours later, he was all excited because, as he was walking out to the main road just behind our place to get a taxi, he saw all these street vendors along the way. They had never been there when we walked out later in the day. He decided then and there that we were going to get up early this morning and go out and buy some breakfast from street vendors.

Well, we got up (although not really all that early) and headed out to check it out this morning. The vendors weren't in the same place where Ben saw them yesterday, so he started to get disappointed at first. But then we saw one little lone cart on the corner of this little side street, where a woman was making jian bing guo zi.

How to describe jian bing guo zi? They are a bit like crepes, but more eggy and totally Chinese-style. Basically, the vendor pours a little batter onto a hot griddle, and then uses a squeegee-type tool to spread the batter into a perfect circle. She then cracks an egg (or in our case, two) on top of the crepe, and breaks it up using the squeegee. She sprinkles green onion and cilantro across the top of the egg, and then flips the crepe while the egg is still soft, to finish cooking.

Once flipped, she paints chili paste, pickled vegetables, and some kind of sweet sauce (hoisin sauce?) across the crepe. Then, she puts a crispy fried flat rectangle of dough in the center, breaks it up into four equal pieces, and folds the crepe around it, till it's all tucked in nice and tight. Voila! Breakfast is served in a little plastic takeaway bag. The result is the perfect combination of sweet, salty, spicy and crispy. Yum!

I forgot to take my camera with me when we went, and I couldn't keep myself from gobbling the whole thing down before taking a picture once we got home, so I have no photos of the experience (the one at the top is, sadly, not my own). But I have no doubt that we'll be back, and there will be plenty of photo opportunities in the future.

(Incidentally, we also discovered that a complete market exists down the alley just beyond the jian bing guo zi woman's cart--how we missed it's existence before now, I'll never know. I'll take photos and post more on that soon. That pretty much means we don't need to go to Carrefour 17 times a week any more.)

I'm just glad it's not all by hand

2008-08-28T03:04:00.001-05:00

This may not be the most exciting post ever, but it is a little slice of our daily lives here in Tianjin. Washing clothes in our apartment is a bit more of an involved process than it is back home. Yesterday was the first time I felt like I had really mastered the whole process, which for me meant that I completed the task without dumping water all over the bathroom floor.

Allow me to demonstrate:

First the washing tub of the machine has to be filled with water. This is done semi-manually. I don't have to carry buckets of water in from the village well or anything, but I do have to turn on the water faucet and keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't overfill, or that the hose doesn't come loose and spray water all over the place.

Then add soap, turn the dial, and wait for the first cycle to run through. That's no problem.

Next, you have to drain the tub. This is where it starts to get tricky. The first couple of times I did this, I managed to get water all over the bathroom floor. You see, most drainpipes in China are not so good at the drainage (don't ask me why, or how, exactly--I'm not sure; I just know that, in my experience, they often don't drain so well). So, if the draining hose of the machine is placed directly into the drain in the floor, there will be water everywhere.

The solution is to drain the water into a bucket. But keep an eye on that. Because the tub holds more water than the bucket can. Also, the last bit of water in the hose won't really drain into the bucket, because it's kind of uphill climb, so you must very carefully transfer the hose from the bucket to the drain in the floor, hoping not to dump out water in the process.

The next stage is to re-fill the tub for a rinse cycle, and then to drain the tub again when the cycle is through. This whole process is pretty much a repeat of everything above. So, again, here are several points when the probability of spraying or dumping water all over the floor is pretty darn high.

After the rinse cycle, you manually transfer the clothes over to the spin-tub part of the machine, and run them through a spin cycle to get all the excess water out. Again, this is another step during which there is a high probability of dumping the spun-out water on the floor, so it is another replay of the bucket/drain process described above.

From here, it's all pretty easy: remove clothes, shake out the wrinkles as best you can, and hang them up to dry.

I've managed to make some pretty massive messes in my attempts to perfect this process. In fact, right after I completed a load in which I dumped almost no water, and I felt like I had become an expert, I did another load of laundry in which absolutely everything that could have gone wrong, did. I dumped water on the floor while draining soapy water. I forgot to set the tub from "drain" back to "normal," so when I re-filled it, I was actually dumping water everywhere...the list of mishaps goes on and on.

It's a good thing we bought a mop and bucket on our first trip to Carrefour.

a misconception

2008-08-28T02:33:00.000-05:00

Lately we've been repeatedly encountering a particular misconception. Here's one example:

This afternoon, our landlord (who does not speak English) brought over some bookshelves for the office area in our apartment. I couldn't remember the word for "bookshelves" in Chinese, so after he set up the shelves, I asked him what they were called. He told me: "shu jia." OK--great. Then in the next breath he said (in Chinese), "You put books on them."

Ahem. Yes. You put books on them. I'm not an idiot, man. I mean, these are clearly bookshelves. I just didn't know what they were called in Chinese.

But this wasn't the first time my/our lack of linguistic ability was confused with general ignorance about the world here. Ben has encountered similar situations. For example, when Ben takes a cab, being unable to speak Chinese, he shows the cabbie a card or a piece of paper with an address on it. On a couple of occasions, when he has arrived at his destination, the cabbie has acted completely shocked that Ben is able to read the amount of money he owes the cab driver and give him correct change. No, he can't pronounce his destination in Chinese, but that doesn't mean he can't read a digital display of arabic numerals and match it to the arabic numerals on some paper bills.

I'm not saying this kind of thing doesn't take place in the States. It's like how some people, upon realizing they are talking to a non-English-speaker, just speak English louder and LOUDER. No, they don't speak English, but that doesn't make them deaf. Well, we don't speak Chinese (well), but that doesn't make us idiots.

I don't mean to sound angry about this phenomenon (does it come off that way?). I mostly find it laughable. Just a little quirk of being verbally challenged in a foreign country. Anyone had experiences like this?

next step: learn to read a menu

2008-08-26T19:47:00.001-05:00

Ben and I went out to a restaurant for dinner last night. We're on a quest to get to know our neighborhood a bit better, to become familiar with the local restaurants, shops, and other businesses that are within walking distance. So, we went to this restaurant across the street.

The entire experience convinced me that I really should have spent more time this summer learning to read the names of foods in Chinese, and less time reviewing the vocabulary from the lessons in my textbook. I ordered a couple of dishes that looked like something semi-familiar in the photographs in the menu. What we got were:

A very oily dish consisting of some kind of green vegetable and pieces of unidentifiable seafood (eel? salted fish?)

A very spicy dish that came in a pot over a flame. It was pretty tasty, but full of peppers and...we soon discovered...some unidentifiable meat item which we think was probably intestine of some sort. However, Ben wouldn't allow me to say out loud that it was intestine. At least not while he was eating it.

A nice, cold vegetable dish, consisting of greens in sesame oil, and which was absolutely necessary to put out the fire in our mouths after eating dish #2.

So, the task for today is to learn to recognize the names of food items beyond "tang cu li ji" (sweet and sour pork) and "hong shao niu rou" (beef braised in soy sauce). Sorry KU Chinese class, but you've really let me down here.

this place we call home

2008-08-25T23:43:00.001-05:00

One of the most positive things about our move to Tianjin is that we really, really like our apartment here. It far exceeds any expectations we had for where we would be living. If you've been following the preparation for the move on my previous blog, then you know that we had some periods of serious anxiety about where we would be living--on campus? off campus? how expensive? how close to campus?

Thanks to the efforts of Ben's employers, and the help of my brother, we have been able to move into a place right next to the campus of Nankai University. Walk about a block north, and you reach the west gate of the campus. Pretty sweet.

(We still don't really know for sure exactly where Ben will be teaching--his employer is a company that matches teachers and schools at the schools' request, on an as-needed basis. But it's very likely that he'll be teaching at a school near this neighborhood. He'll find out soon, probably next week.)

Anyway, this place is big, has great light, is in a nice little neighborhood, has an a/c unit, has decent bathroom fixtures, and has a brand new bed and wardrobe, bought by our landlord upon move-in. It's affordable (the same price it would have cost to have Ben move into the dormitory with me), functional, and quite comfortable.

Here are some shots of our new place:

This is Ben "studying" (read: surfing the newly hooked-up internet) in our somewhat sparse office area. Zhou You's (Sam's fiance's) dad is loaning us a second desk to put in here, so we'll both have a place to study/work. The walls are pretty bare in there--not much to show.

Our living room: fully equipped with the longest sofa ever. The other day Ben and I lay down on opposite ends of it and watched The Lord of the Rings.

Bedroom, with little enclosed sunroom-type area just beyond--ideal for hanging laundry to dry. Let me tell you: that bed is huge. It is also very hard. I haven't quite got used to that, yet. Oh, soft American bed, how I miss you!

Bathroom. Believe it or not, that shower was the selling-point of this apartment for us. Neither of the other two apartments we looked at had enclosed showers; they just had shower heads coming out of the wall, and a drain (sort of) nearby on the floor. Mopping up after every shower can be a real headache, so this was very appealing. In the far right corner, you can see our little washing machine.

And this is our little kitchen. Well, actually, it's just the inside part of our kitchen (cabinets, fridge, table). Just beyond that door at the end of the room is another little room with a cooking area: gas burners, sink.

It's feeling more like home every day.

Here I Am

2008-08-25T01:46:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems my old blog is one of the many sites that cannot be accessed in China; for whatever reason, wordpress.com is completely blocked. But, as with so many other situations in China, when one pathway closes down, you just find yourself another, more accessible path. Our experience in China so far has been all about finding "work-arounds," (like circumlocution, for example, which is a skill I find myself using on a daily basis).

Anyway, I wanted to quickly post an update. The past week has been a bit of a blur. We arrived in Tianjin last Sunday (August 17) and thanks to a lot of help from Ben's employer and my brother Sam, we moved into our new apartment two days later. One week and 17 trips to Carrefour later, we are pretty comfortably established there. The only thing we are lacking at this point is internet service, which is supposed to be set up tomorrow sometime. In the meantime, we have had access to the internet only when we go somewhere with free Wi-Fi. Thus, our sketchy communication thus far.

I have a lot to write about: our apartment, for example. And our experience trying to get registered at the local police station. And the girl who sells us our bottled water who has become our new friend. And my brother's fiance's very cool family. But I'll save those posts for another day (maybe tomorrow?). In the meantime, I just wanted to say all is well here. We are healthy and safe, and we've been generally well cared-for. (So stop worrying, mom.)