St. Mary Has Nothing On My Panda

      I don't know how many of you remember it, but a few years ago there was this grilled cheese sandwich that sold for 28,000 dollars on ebay because it looked like the virgin Mary. Well, a few days ago I had my first piece of Chinese toast, and to my complete suprise what did I find when my bread popped up as toast? A panda bear ! Thats right, China just became a lot cooler - see picture for details.

     Anway, for those of you who are wondering, I am not completely better yet, but I have been feeling well enough to go back to school which is great. I have almost all new kids, and my schedule is way crazier with the new semester, but I love it. Not only do I teach everyday, but now I also get the opportunity to be taught daily too. On Monday's and Wednesday's we have Chinese lessons from Candice, Tuesdays are art lessons, Thursdays our school chef gives us cooking lessons, and Fridays we take Kung Fu with master Spring (as in Water). These lessons really start to make me feel like I'm being integrated into Chinese culture and I love it. In so many ways I think I was born to be a full time student. I love learning so much that it is almost hard to tell which I love more..being a teacher or a pupil. Though I admit that I would love school a lot more a lot more often if it were as laid back as my "schooling" is here..I'm definitely not keeping up the Chinese scholastic standard required of most of the kids here. Just across the street at the Kaiyin school, the kids stay up until 8 or 9 studying even though they are only 8 or 9 years old. It will be long past dark when their parents come to pick them up.

    Speaking of parents, this past Thursday was our first parent teacher conference, and it was definitely weird being on the other end of it as the teacher rather than the student or parent. It was a fun time though because conferences here are more like a big party than anything else. The school tied the conference into the New Year's lantern festival, and that meant we got to solve riddles for prizes and make/eat traditional Tangyuan filled with sesame paste or peanut butter. The stuff is kind of weird because it has the taste and consistency of hardening elmers glue, but it's certainly edible and at least it's non-toxic.

   It really is hard to describe how much I love it here. The longer I'm here the more it feels like home, and the more friends I make. Chinese people are so friendly, and they are just my type because once you've broken the friend barrier you've also broken the physical bubble. Once you are friends, the Chinese dont hold back...its all about big hugs, holding hands, or even just walking arm in arm. When we first got here we all thought it was a little weird how "physical" they are, but now it's just another thing to smilingly shake your head at, and say "I love these people."

 

Love to you all,

Courtney

Its Not the Chinese Experience Until You've Experienced the Chinese Hospital

For those of you who know me, or at least know me well, you are familiar with the fact that I can survive for abnormally long periods of time on very little sleep. Three hours is generally my goal during the average school semester, and 5 or 6 does just fine during the summer, so why, you may ask did I fall asleep at 10:30pm Saturday February 12, and not open my eyes again until nearly 6pm the next day? That's over 20 hours of knocked out exhaustion, but alas I still don't have the answer to that question. Even so, one would think that after such a deep sleep all physical ailments might be abated; however, that night I was in for a rude awakening. As I got out of bed, I was flooded with dizziness and a strong migraine-like headache. The slightest noise was yelling, and the dimmest glow was a floodlight. I quickly went back to my bed for refuge, but was left with little comfort as I was given the ruthless onset of a 102 degree fever. Not my best of days. My roommates noticed something was up and called my head teacher to come over and check me out, which she did of course, and soon thereafter there was a taxi ready to take us both to the hospital. That first hospital visit still remains a bit of a blur. I was so crippled by my acute sensations that basically the whole time I was there my eyes were closed and my head was between my knees. The doctor asked my Chinese coordinator (and therefore translator) a few questions, took my temperature, listened to my breathing, had a quick look in my throat, and before I knew it I was out the door with a prescription for five different medicines to pick up at the counter. I don't exactly know what he used for the basis of his diagnosis, but I will give Communist medicine this much - they certainly are speedy and cheap. I was in and out of there within 30min, I had my drugs in hand with the appropriate doses, there was virtually no paper work to fill out, and the whole thing only cost 60 quai...less than 50 jiao for the doctors' visit and the other 59.50 quai for the prescriptions. The pills weren't so bad either, but the throat medicine is akin to what you might call the pure taste of evil. Gag reflex doesn't really cut it at that point. They do give you a little straw for it, which is kind of cute...I suppose if I didn't have to drink 4 little bottles a day, I might even go so far as to say I like it. I take that back. The stuff is wretched.

            Anyway, the next day I slept a bunch more, and drank as much liquid as I could in my awakened hours, but things weren't better - sadly, they were worse. And because I'd like to keep the six followers I have now, I leave the rest of those little details to your imagination. This of course, meant another special visit to the hospital this morning, but because all of my fellow teachers were at school, it also meant I was going unaccompanied. Our coordinator (Candice) called me up around 7:30 or 8 and told me that she'd called someone to come pick me up, so there was going to be a silver Cadillac in my parking garage in 15 minutes and I was supposed to be ready by then (Note: If it's not a luxury car, it's not a car in China). Obediently enough, I groggily changed into the warmest clothes I currently posses and took the elevator down to the garage level. I'm not sure what I was expecting by her description, but somehow when I actually got there it seemed much more menacing and action-movie-esque than anticipated. Perhaps it was the way the driver slowly rolled down the tinted window to the passenger door, and in a deep voice grunted the Chinese version of "Get In." Regardless, I got in the car, and he sped away. The whole thing was against my better judgement I guess you could say. I mean, I was sick, I really just wanted to go home, and yet there I was in a speeding seat belt-less vehicle with a man I'd never met before. Smart. Anyway, so we're driving around town, and I trust he knows where I'm supposed to be going because I certainly don't, when he stops. I look around not having any idea where I am, and he tells me to get out. Great. Thank you. It's not freezing or raining or anything. With all the gumption left in me, I get out and head towards the stairs hoping that I might find Candice somewhere nearby. Thankfully, however, I suppose my pathetic, frail damsel in distress look struck the right chord in his heart because he made a quick phone call, and then made me get back in his car. A little later we wound up at the hospital and a few minutes after that I was greeted my Candice’s' warming hello.

       So now it was time for round two of Chinese Hospital Expose, and this time I was alert and ready for it. The place isn't quite as bad as I'd been told by other people in the past. It was mostly just sterile looking - white walls, cute little white nurses outfits with white caps, white face masks etc etc. The doctors don’t really have their own rooms; they're more like their own separate cubicles or something. As I looked around to take it all in and yet continue to remain upright, I saw a team of doctors casually stroll a woman covered in blood in on a stretcher. That was a strange sight to see. I've never been so close to someone so injured before. I got to see her face - the details - the pain, and yet no one seemed like they were in a rush about anything. As I thought back on all of the doctor shows I've seen in my lifetime, I realized it was nothing like it. The place wasn't ER or HOUSE or Grey's Anatomy. It wasn't an awful place by any stretch of the imagination, and I don't mean to be the voice of condemnation; there were simply just things that required getting used to. There are things you just take for granted in Western Hospitals like heating, smoking prohibitions, or public refuse prohibitions. I wasn't horrified by it, just sort of awed. It is bizarre to see something you think is a universal order become so quickly a matter of simple cultural preference.

    I mean, not everything about Western Hospitals is preferable. Everyone in America complains about waiting and waiting and filling out paper work and waiting some more, but here that is just not an issue. I have no idea why since Zhongshan itself has a population just over 2,000,000 - you would think it would be crowded, and yet, there was no line between me and my doctor. Patients just go in as they please - from what it seemed they don't even have to sign in because they each have a copy of their own health records which they personally bring to the physician. Just like the last visit, this visit was short and sweet. There was a little more chatting, some more breath listening, a quick blood pressure test (which was taken over my long sleeve shirt, jacket and coat because when I went to take them off they freaked in protest), a second gander at my uvular area, and then another healthy set of prescriptions. I was informed that I should no longer take

any of the pre-prescribed prescriptions (not to my dismay) but just to take the new three I had been given. Plus, I need to go and get a few "injections" and have some blood work done. Other than that it was done and done. I'd take these Chinese doctors over my Thyroid doctors any day. I mean, I was a little worried about the last part - the idea of an infection from an injection doesn't sit well in my mind, but 3 hours and 2 IVs later, I came out a much revitalized woman. Apparently dehydration and a parasite will get you every time. Haha.

Love you all, Stay Healthy  -Courtney

Back Home

We all know that good vacations are long and somehow seems short, while bad vacations are generally short but feel like they drag on and on. Luckily for me, however, this spring festival vacation has been the perfect median. There is practically nothing that I would change about the whole thing -except maybe the suction cup octopus massage thing at the very end...I should have known better since I bruise so easily. Anyway, aside from that, the trip was AMAZING. Even the sleeper buses (gross as they were) were something to be humorously remembered. A sleeper bus is basically just like what it sounds like - a bus that you sleep on. For those of you who have seen Harry Potter, it is somewhat like a really dirty, mildewy version of the Knight Bus.

When we climbed on, they made us take off our shoes and we had to hop onto these short little individual bunk beds...its a shame that we are just a little taller than most Asians. The drive was a little more than 9 hours, although technically it was supposed to take around 12, but our driver was speeding and honking like a mad man the whole time so we got there a little faster :). I was grateful for that though because the bus was soo hot. I have no idea how I'm going to handle their summers, since it's only February and yet everyone was sweating and greasy. It looked just like all of the movies anyone has seen about Asia - where someone has cholera or something and they are covered in perspiration. Not the prettiest depiction I admit, but it really is just what it felt like. The air in the bus was pretty gross too - a mix of smells from mold, chicken feet snacks, muffins, smelly socks, BO, and smoke. Oh yeah, that reminds me - in China there are no smoking laws whatsoever so that means that smoking is anywhere and everywhere except for basically just an airplane. When you're chilling on a bus for 9 hours, its a pretty big bummer when the guy next to you decides he needs a lite. Somehow though it endears me to this place. It's sort of like being back in New York :) Anyway, the rest of the bus was really no better - the curtains were yellow and stained with all sorts of I don't know what. The windows were so dirty that at one point when I looked up and saw a fly near me I tried to wave it away, but it didn't move because it was stuck to some sort of goo on the sill - I couldn't tell you how long it had been there.

All of that stuff you get used to though -even the squatters (which I finally used for the first time). What you don't get used to is the view. When those "avatar" mountains (as we call them) come in to view it subsides all other feeling. The constant smog covering the landscape dims their beauty, but only slightly, and what cannot be captured on camera is definitely captured in memory. It is one of the single greatest things you can see. Hour after hour it was just so easy to sit and stare at these mountains and the villages in between. The smog actually creates a sense of mystery and depth to the scene...it all makes sense to me now why the Chinese use watercolor so much - it really is what their country looks like. Because of the New Year though, everything was decked out in red...even the streets are red because no matter how small the town, every single home has a pile of red firework shells left in front of their door.

Once we finally got to Guilin it was pretty late at night, and we really had no idea where to go. The fog/smog was settling down in the city and the red glow of the midnight shops made it feel like we were in a scene of Miss Saigon. After walking around somewhat aimlessly we were approached by a man who told us he was visiting from Thailand, but he could show us the way. By the look of him, he was certainly not the number one person on my "people to trust" list, but it was late and we didn't have many other options so we followed him on the tiny backstreets of Guilin. Thankfully, after quite some time we finally reached our hostel. Aside from the few rats, it was quite a lovely place. The beds are made up of wood planks and sheets, but I can sleep anywhere so I don't think it would have even fazed me except for the other girls' mentioning it. :) Our room wasn't heated and we each only had one small blanket so that night we froze...but by now I'm getting used to that so it was all right too. The next morning we caught a bus to Long Shan where they told us we were stranded because there were no outgoing buses to Ping'an...our rice terraced destination. After a while, the traveling fiascoes just start to make you laugh. You know they are a hassle, but you always get through them, and eventually we did this time as well. Upon our arrival in Ping'an we were met by our hotel's owner, and he was a sweet man who walked with us the twenty minutes up steep stairs to our rooms. The walk was intense, but totally worth it, and it only prepared us for the rest of the week ahead of us. Anyway, the Liqing Hotel is part of the Ping'an village and so it is literally located on the rice fields. It has a gorgeous view and it is in the middle of everything. After the hostel the night before, we naturally expected the worst from this small town, but this hotel was AMAZING. It was beautiful and huge, and the best part was it only cost us 60 quai a night...which translates to a little less than 10 American dollars. :) That night we went shopping and climbing, and we hiked over to the village of Long'gi where you cannot help but feel so peaceful. Life just moves so much slower there. You cannot hear cars or planes. You cannot see lights. There are no roads, but only tiny terraced alleys in between small huts. The people all go about their regular business...washing clothes, repairing homes, and maintaining their fields. The only noise that can be heard is the clucking of chickens or the quiet voices of the gathered village people. The silence is almost tangible. It is far different than being in a secluded forest or something because the people are there and they are close together, and yet there is still no hustle and bustle. It is perfectly serene. They all come together to help build houses, and they all welcome you with their soft smiles.

Sadly, we only could stay in Ping'an for a night, and so the next morning we headed off to Guilin again. This time we visited Elephant Trunk Hill and we saw the famous "Twin Pagodas." While we were there we were approached by a man who was not from Guilin, but who was visiting family for the New Year; however, when he saw us he got soo excited! Evidently he had learned English in college, but he was not often able to actually practice with foreigners, and so as he claimed he had lost a lot of his vocabulary and now he spoke "Chinglish" more than anything else. As far as any of us were concerned, however, he spoke brilliantly! He told us his story - about how he had grown up in a small village about four hours outside Guilin, and that all of the villagers there are tea farmers. His mother told him when he was young that if he did not want to be a poor tea farmer that he had to work extremely hard; he definitely did, and he went to University to study calligraphy and literature. It was so wonderful to hear story after story from him. When we met him, he had been walking home with his wife and daughter, but after he met us he asked if he might take us to a little tea place down the road to treat us to some of his village tea. We were hesitant at first, but he explained that it was Chinese custom to accept, so we did. It was so fun to watch them prepare the tea, and listen to him explain how it was made and what the differences between teas are. He talked to us about caffeine and how his village tea doesn't have any in it which makes it much healthier for the body. After sharing his tea with us, he also gave some other favorites of his including Jasmine, Flower, and a certain Black tea...the village tea was our favorite, and I wish you could have seen the genuine smile on his face because of it. He told us how honored he was, and how he couldn't wait to tell his family of our preference.

Later that night he showed us a small place to go for dinner, and then he left us to go be with his family again, but not before telling us that if we wanted he could take us all over Guilin and give us a tour before we had to leave in the morning. We gladly accepted, and then we got to dig in to dinner.

       I admit it, before actually living in China I was never actually a huge Chinese food fan. My dad loves it, but I have never had a knack for it. Since I've been here, I have had both the good and the bad, but it has always been something way different from what is cooked in America. Well that night at dinner, we finally ordered American sounding Chinese food like Sweet and Sour Pork. I cannot describe to you how much better it is. I think America should abandon trying to pull off sweet and sour because they will never be able to do it like the Chinese. This stuff was AMAZING. That being said, however, the Chile they made us was also extremely amazing - it may be one of my all time favorites. When Chinese food is done right....whew...that stuff is so good!

       The next morning Tom, the man from the night before, took us on a small tour of Guilin. He took us to the Princes Palace, which is also his University, and then he took us to a colored cave which was pretty cool. That afternoon we caught a bus to the Li River where we got on a bamboo raft and floated in the slightly cold breeze for nearly two hours. It was beautiful to see those mountains. Its hard to remember that you are even on the same planet because it looks so different from the world you are familiar with. After our little raft adventure we caught a bus into Yongshuo, which is a little town in the middle of all of these mountains. It is very touristy, and it was the first place where we weren't stared at for being white, since there are quite a few foreigners there. For the last three days of our vacation we had so much fun renting bikes and biking around the city for hours at a time. We went to some nearby caves, and these caves were phenomenal! The best I have ever been in - including Mammoth Caves. The tour guide actually even let us go and explore by ourselves for nearly an hour which was incredible. The caverns are huge and there is an underground river throughout the entire thing. We had to take a canoe to get inside, but because the entrance is so low you have to be completely over so you don't hit your head, then once you're in, everything expands exponentially. It was gorgeous. We got to swim in the natural pools, bathe in "the muddy bath", and relax in the natural hot springs at the end. Of all my experiences it definitely makes my top 5 as well. When we left the cave, we walked around the village a little bit, and we were able to hold some monkeys which was pretty cool. The next few days we shopped for souvenirs, rode bike some more, and went on a few more hikes. Something to know about hiking in China verses hiking in the States is that rather than just going up a dirt incline, in China you have to climb hundreds of stairs to go anywhere. Throughout the trip I think it would be easy to say I climbed at least 3,000 steps - maybe more. It definitely becomes a full body workout. Anyway, the views from the hiking makes it totally worth it! I loved being there.

     The last night there we hung out with Yainnis and Sunny (our hostel owners) and we taught them all sorts of dances which was soo much fun. We loves these two... up to date I think they are all of our favorites! They love us a lot too and even put our pictures up on their website for their hostel! Anyway, we had such a great time that we actually decided that we wanted to go to a near by club for our last night party! Clubbing in China is kind of funny too because as soon as they see Americans, they only play American music, but its weird stuff like "whats going on" from 4NonBlondes or Justin Bieber stuff. They also play slow songs which is really funny too. Regardless, it was a great time, and we met a ton of great people - mostly foreigners. The next morning it rained and we just relaxed a little and then went to get massages - for those of you who have already seen or heard...yes this is how I got the 20 large, perfectly circled "hickeys" on my back. While they were doing my massage, they put these weird jars that they burn on my back...it totally hurts, and from what I could tell they are completely useless unless you're just looking for a good story to tell later. Anyway, overall the trip was phenomenal, and I wish I could go again...there is soo much to do and I think we could have spent a month there and still not have seen it all!

The Head of An Elephant in Melancholy Madness

About ten minutes ago I woke up to the sound of pounding drums, trickling water, and loud Chinese singing that only recently switched to the voice of Celine Dion...welcome to Chinese New Years Eve in the morning! Monday started our New Years Vacation, so on Tuesday we decided to actually do something with it. In one of our rooms, we were left a list of day trips that the girls before us had taken; as we looked through them, we saw a place only two hours away that was described as the best place to shop outside of Beijing. On top of that there was a Folk Culture Village for us to explore over 30 different Chinese minorities and their dances. Without much planning, the seven of us were sold on the idea, so the next morning before dawn we caught a bus to catch another bus to catch a third bus to go Shenzhen.

Though I was tired from staying up too late the previous night, my eyes were wide open nearly the entire journey. Up until that bus ride I don’t think that I'd really felt like I'd been in China. I had had some shocks with food, or bathrooms, or people's stares, but it was nothing compared to what I saw then. As I left Zhongshan, my mind was thrown back to Friedrich Engles' "The Great Towns," where he speaks of the stark contrast between the up and coming streets of industrial England, and the poverty by which it is supported.

"A town, such as London, where a man may wander for hours together without reaching the beginning of the end, without meeting the slightest hint which could lead to the inference that there is open country within reach, is a strange thing. This colossal centralization, this heaping together of two and a half millions of human beings at one point, has multiplied the power of this two and a half millions a hundredfold; has raised London to the commercial capital of the world, created the giant docks and assembled the thousand vessels that continually cover the Thames. I know nothing more imposing than the view which the Thames offers during the ascent from the sea to London Bridge. The masses of buildings, the wharves on both sides, especially from Woolwich upwards, the countless ships along both shores, crowding ever closer and closer together, until, at last, only a narrow passage remains in the middle of the river, a passage through which hundreds of steamers shoot by one another; all this is so vast, so impressive, that a man cannot collect himself, but is lost in the marvel of England's greatness before he sets foot upon English soil. [3]

But the sacrifices which all this has cost become apparent later. After roaming the streets of the capital a day or two, making headway with difficulty through the human turmoil and the endless lines of vehicles, after visiting the slums of the metropolis, one realizes for the first time that these Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human nature, to bring to pass all the marvels of civilization which crowd their city; that a hundred powers which slumbered within them have remained inactive, have been suppressed in order that a few might be developed more fully and multiply through union with those of others. The very turmoil of the streets has something repulsive, something against which human nature rebels. The hundreds of thousands of all classes and ranks crowding past each other, are they not all human beings with the same qualities and powers, and with the same interest in being happy? And have they not, in the end, to seek happiness in the same way, by the same means? And still they crowd by one another as though they had nothing in common, nothing to do with one another, and their only agreement is the tacit one, that each keep to his own side of the pavement, so as not to delay the opposing streams of the crowd, while it occurs to no man to honour another with so much as a glance. The brutal indifference, the unfeeling isolation of each in his private interest, becomes the more repellent and offensive, the more these individuals are crowded together, within a limited space. And, however much one may be aware that this isolation of the individual, this narrow self-seeking, is the fundamental principle of our society everywhere, it is nowhere so shamelessly barefaced, so self-conscious as just here in the crowding of the great city. The dissolution of mankind into monads, of which each one has a separate principle, the world of atoms, is here carried out to its utmost extreme."

Engles continues on to describe the utter poverty that is the outskirts of London. While I do not necessarily suggest that China particularly embodies the atomization which Engles describes, I have found that there is a strong correlation between 18th Century England and Modern China. Being American, I believe that I cannot feel the isolation that is perhaps so much more prevalent here - people, rather than hanging their heads in indifference towards me and my companions, seem opening interested and awed by us. However, the London that Engles describes is almost the perfect depiction of what I felt on the shores of Hong Kong. It is all "so vast, so impressive, that a man cannot collect himself, but is lost in the marvel of [its] greatness before he sets foot upon [its] soil." I remember the first night I was in Hong Kong; all I could think was how big everything was. There is construction everywhere, and the thousands of cranes bring back the images of Dickens' Hard Times  "where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness." It is a city of marvel, but I have never in my life seen such industry. Though I have extensively studied the Industrial Revolution, I have never understood it until I came here. China's growth proceeds at an unfathomable rate. In so many ways it is every bit as advanced as the Western World, and yet, there is a distinct seam that shows where the tear is between the old world and the new. It is every bit as distinct as it was for the English nearly 200 years ago.

At this point, I know that most of my roommates have stopped reading out of boredom, and probably many of the rest of you have as well. These English tangents frequent my thoughts, so excuse my digression. The point of all of this is simply to say that yesterday it amazed me to see the stark contrast from Hong Kong to the town in which I live, and even more, the contrast from Zhongshan to the farming communities on our borders. The two hour bus showed us swamped field after field - each attached to a small, often stick, home. I was filled with the images I have only seen through the romantic window of National Geographic – actually being there was something indescribable. My thoughts took over; I no longer wanted to talk with the excited girls around me; I just wanted time to soak in the reality around me. I felt, in those moments, a profound respect and love such that my thoughts thereafter turned to self deprecation. My role in life seemed so transient so insignificant until I had this time to absorb this culture so close and yet so different from my own. I was traveling from one city to another – to go shopping no less – but my thoughts were only on the in between; the places I was spending no time, but just passing through. It is a feeling that made me feel more real than I think many have the opportunity to experience. Peru had changed my outlook, but China, even in just four weeks, has changed who I am. I wish I could live there just so that I never abandon the realities I have found.

Once we finally got to Shenzhen we were hit with the fact that we had NO plans. We knew what we wanted to do, but naively we expected that everything would be in the vicinity of the bus stop. We had a book with the name of the place we were trying to go, but we soon found out that “saving face” in China has a whole other meaning than we originally understood. See, rather than just telling us “no, I have no idea where that is” Chinese people will ALWAYS give you directions for where to go – even if they are completely wrong. Because of this, we ended up taking a 45 minute bus to another city in the middle of no where. From there we were told to take a taxi to another place about 20mins away. Once we got there and realized we were STILL in the wrong place, we decided to the nearest hotel and ask for help again. She was much more helpful, and got us another taxi, which meant another 20mins, but this too did not take us where we were trying to go. It dropped us off somewhere amazing called the Window to the World, so we stuck around for a while, but there was still no shopping to be seen. By this time the day was almost over, and we hadn’t seen what we’d come to see, but it was time to head back. We took the subway metro back to where we thought the bus stop was, and when we got off it was completely ironic. As soon as our white faces were shown to the general populace, we had about 10 people come up to us telling us to come to their stores. It turns out that the whole day we had been searching for a place that was only across the street. It was 6 stories tall and put New York’s

Canal St

to shame. We had an hour to shop, but then it was time to go home. Our feet were aching like mad, but at least I think it has opened our eyes for what to expect when we head to Guilin tomorrow!

I cannot even begin to explain Chinese New Years – I know that I will not do it justice….especially in writing…so just ask me about it when I get home J Much Love.