Dreams

Last night I had a dream Prince William (yes, THAT Prince William) proposed to me. He abdicated the throne, then handed me a half million dollar diamond ring. Hey, at least I didn't expect to be Queen!

I love when my brain dreams up these kinds of scenarios. I mean really, it was the happiest dream I've had in a while. Thanks, brain! You made me smile today.

Four Companies That Own Me

1. Amazon.com
2. Target
3. iTunes
4. Google

Rain Part II

It started raining here last Friday and hasn't stopped since. I feel like I am living in Ray Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains." And here is the forecast for the rest of the week:

Chongqing

59°F

Current:Rain
Wind: N at 2 mph
Humidity: 94%

Today
62° | 53° Thu 60° | 55° Fri 62° | 57° Sat 64° | 57°

Laws and Leaders

A Chinese person told me something I thought was worth passing along, for those of you who are interested in Chinese culture:

In China, people do not have a lot of respect for laws, but they deeply respect their leaders and do not question them or criticize them (at least, not openly). The leader of the country is like the father at the head of the family: you do what the leader tells you to do because he is the leader.

But in the West, people often criticize, question, and make fun of their leaders. Leaders are people just like everyone else. But laws are taken very seriously (usually) and people keep the laws outside of getting caught. They follow rules because because it is the right thing to do.

For what it's worth, I think this is an accurate summary of some of the differences between China and the West, based on my observations here.

Rain

It has been raining for five days straight in Chongqing. Now I know how to feels to live in Seattle. And there are no doors on the stores here so water gets trudged in everywhere, except for a nice mall I went to (to catch the subway in the basement, not to shop!) and they had a doorman wrapping umbrellas in plastic wrap so no water dripped on the floor. Great idea!

When I come home for my winter break visit, I am definitely bringing back my wellies.

3 Pictures of Where I Live

My apartment building. It is the school's hotel on the 1st three floors, and teacher's apartments on the top two floors. I live on the 4th floor.


This is the front gate of my school.

The cross street at the end of my block. I cross this street several times a day. You can see the escalator I referenced in another post.

(click pictures to enlarge)

3 Pictures of Where I Live

My apartment building. It is the school's hotel on the 1st three floors, and teacher's apartments on the top two floors. I live on the 4th floor.


This is the front gate of my school.

The cross street at the end of my block. I cross this street several times a day. You can see the escalator I referenced in another post.

(click pictures to enlarge)

SAD Lamp

When I lived in Utah this past winter, I used a SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) sun lamp at my work desk. I bought this one on Amazon, a bit pricey, but the light projected really well at any angle. I set it up next to my laptop and I turned it on for about an hour in the morning and again in the afternoon. If you have a tendency toward SAD, I cannot underestimate the difference a SAD lamp can make. The only bad side affect was coworkers asking me what I was growing at my desk. ;)

Our medical office here in China (they are awesome and give us anything we need) gives SAD lamps to people living in high pollution cities because the sunlight doesn't reach us very often. I have been feeling so down in the dumps the last few weeks and duh, I remembered my SAD lamp. It is on my desk right now, I hope it makes a difference. (This one is small and has to be angled toward eye level. I miss my big desk version.)

You can also get standing SAD lamps for rooms, but these are even pricier. If you have a desk for a computer, the desktop version works very well because you want the lamp within your sightline, not directly in front of your eyes. Keep it within about a foot of your face, off to the side, and you are good to go.

NatureBright Sun Lamp, Amazon.com, $129.99

Clarity

I don't know what causes it, but I love the day that your head and heart finally clear and you can say to yourself with confidence and clarity: that guy is a jerk and treated/treats me badly and I am worth more than that. And you see the small bones he throws at you for what they are. And then you have the liberating confidence and self-esteem to not ever want to speak to him again.

This short speech nails it. For the past year I've been able to relate to this character far too well. A movie can't change my life, but it sure can open your eyes a bit.

Qipao

I bought black satin fabric to have made into a qipao (chee-pow), the traditional Chinese style dress. I chose this length and collar style, but mine will have little cap sleeves. I got the fabric at the wholesale market for about $8.00, and it'll probably cost another $10-15 for the tailoring. All in all, still a pretty good deal for a formal custom-tailored dress!

My fabric is black with a subtle black cherry-blossom pattern embroidered/embossed into it. If I like the dress enough perhaps I will get a red or pink version made as well.

2008

An article from 1968, predicting what daily life in 2008 would be like. 4 hours a day of actual work? That sounds about right. The stuff about the computers? Prescient. But I still want my car I don't have to actually drive.

via gawker.com

Chinese street BBQ

Hot, spicy and oh so delicious. One of the things I'll miss when I leave.

Good Things

Remember Martha Stewart Living? She always had a section called "Good Things." So as part of my effort to enjoy the present, here are some "Good Things":

1. Technology! I can keep in touch with friends and family. I don't have 24/7 internet access, but when I get on and see emails and updates, nothing makes me happier.

2. Really cheap cell phone service. My cell phone costs me about $3.00 a month to use. Eat that, Verizon! And no contracts.

3. Delicious bottled tea. Jasmine tea is very popular here as a cold drink, and you can buy it bottled just about everywhere. Light and refreshing and just slightly sweet, it's my favorite tea drink.

4. Dim Sum on the street. There are street vendors selling dim sum and Chinese BBQ all over the place. (Pics soon!) It isn't cheap or healthy, but it is plentiful and readily available, if you want it. And it makes your walk anywhere quite an adventure, all the smells and smoke. Occasionally I do treat myself to veggie potstickers on the way home. A lady sells them right outside my gate.

5. Little Chinese kids. They are just the cutest things ever. Today I was behind a little 1 1/2 year old or so girl with her mom on the escalator. She had on a little red traditional Chinese coat, and little red shoes. She kept sticking one leg waaay out in the air, preparing to step off. I could hear her mom keep telling her "Not yet." Finally she got to the bottom and got her leg all ready to step off and leapt off the escalator. She was just so cute. It made me smile.

Mandarin

A quick language update:

I have a tutor I meet with twice a week, for one hour each time. Her name is Cassie and she works for the school and she is really nice. We work on speaking Mandarin and writing Chinese characters. The plan is for me to continue studying with a tutor for the full two years I am here. (The Peace Corps pays for it, hooray!) Next week I start a Chinese calligraphy class here at the school. It's something I am really looking forward to. Maybe when I get back to the U.S., I can earn some side money drawing Chinese tattoos! haha.

I passed my language test with the Peace Corps, I scored an Intermediate Low (the bare minimum they expected from us). Some people scored much higher, but whatever, I can dance better than they can!

Time

One of the hardest things about being here is accepting that my Peace Corps service will be nothing like I imagined. I always thought of Peace Corps as living in a hut, helping people with their daily needs, making people happy, etc etc. And my experience is nothing like that.

There are three goals of the Peace Corps: providing trained men and women to train other men and women, promote understanding of Americans abroad, and promote understanding of other cultures in America.

So as I sit in my apt., surrounded by millions of people, most of whom couldn't care less I am here, watching other teachers getting paid and living well for what I am doing for free while struggling financially, I have to focus on the benefits of being here. They are not what I thought they would be. In the meantime, I cry a lot. I get really lonely. I get really frustrated. So bear with me, my peeps. I'll be happy here. It's just going to take some time.

Bone Sucking

A couple of days ago the Dean of my department took us (the foreign teachers and a few Chinese staff) out to dinner. One of the specialties at this restaurant is a soup that is served with the meat bones broken in half, sticking up out of the pot. It is tradition to drink the marrow from the bones with a straw when the meal is over. I tried not to smile too big at the other foreign teachers when the Dean declined on my behalf because I am a vegetarian. Not that there's anything wrong with drinking marrow from bones with a straw but...I'll stick to Diet Coke with my dinner, thanks!

Also, one way to gauge how nice a restaurant is is by the type and availability of ashtrays at the table. This place had little individual glass ashtrays at every place setting. Very nice!

Thank You...Not

In Chinese culture, you don't say thank you to friends, family, or people who are helping you as part of their job, because they are just fulfilling their role like they should. For example, you don't thank parents for anything because they're your parents, they're SUPPOSED to help you. If you DO thank them, it is insulting to them. it means you don't think very highly of them. You only thank strangers or people who help you when it is NOT their job (such as when someone gives you directions on the street or something).

They think it's weird that Westerners say thank you so much. It is one of the hardest things I have remembering here, I am always biting my tongue a second too late. And I always know if I have committed a "thank you" faux pas because they get really embarrassed and stammer out a "you're welcome." (In Chinese, of course.)

Oh yeah, this is also why you don't tip: they are paid to do their job, to give them a tip would be insulting.

Survivors

You often see very small, elderly people here. And when I say small, I mean small: sometimes only 4 feet tall or so, most likely because of malnutrition they suffered as children. And when I see them, I never fail to feel a combination of sadness and awe: an estimated 30-70 million people died of starvation (and other reasons) between 1945 and the 1970's in China. These are the survivors. They might be tiny, but they have more strength than I hope I ever have to find out I have.

Tips, plus Happiness

In China, you don't tip anyone. Not restaurant staff, not taxi drivers, not the hotel bellman. I still feel bad when I leave the table or the taxi without tipping, and I carried my own suitcases to the lobby rather than ask someone to do it whom I couldn't tip. I'm sure I'll get over it before I leave. And then feel grouchy when I return to America and have to leave tips again.

Also, I realized I didn't come here to be happy or enjoy myself, I came here to learn and help people. And ironically, I feel much better now that I don't expect to be happy here. I hope that will come, but if not, it will still be a good experience. Maybe people say their first year sucked, and the second year was really fun. So, perhaps that will be the case with me.

My neighborhood

This pic was taken on the skytrain bridge a block from my apartment. It is a pretty good representation of my neighborhood. Very busy and full of neon lights. I am with another PC volunteer here. We were in a larger group going downtown. But PCVs are the best so we stick together!

Relationships

Before I got to China, I heard many times that everything here functions off of relationships, the "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" theory x 1000. Here is one example of how it works:

My lovely coworkers in San Antonio sent me a care package by Fedex. It arrives in China, but doesn't get delivered for 3 days because Fedex can't figure out the address. Hmmm....but I have received boxes from my mother sent to this address through the post office with no problem. Weird. So I look into it further...

It turns out the boxes my mom sent me also don't have a complete address, but didn't matter because when the mail arrives at the local post office, they just deliver it to the general post office for my school, who then calls the secretary of my dept., who then calls me and tells me I have a package and to go collect it. My school has a relationship with the post office, no complete address needed.

Fedex doesn't have this relationship. (In fact, when I asked my dept. secretary how Fedex packages are delivered, she said, "I don't know, I've never heard of Fedex.") I didn't realize I don't have a complete address, but Fedex sure did. I ended up meeting the Fedex driver at the front gate to my school. I flagged him down as he drove by and he stopped in the street and gave me my box. (And he didn't speak English, btw. I speak more Chinese than I thought to be able to arrange this plan!)

Morals of the story: 1. Even a large international corporate like Fedex is going to have problems transitioning business to China. 2. Perhaps understanding how China works can translate into some employment opportunities for me upon my return. 4. I don't have a real address and no one here seems to mind. 3. Don't send me anything by Fedex or UPS. The postal service is the most reliable way to get things here.

Graham Crackers and Milk

Take a drinking glass, fill it with broken (not crushed) pieces of graham crackers, pour in cold milk and eat it with a spoon. (My dad taught me to make this long before Golden Grahams hijacked it.) One of my favorite treats, and an awesome bedtime snack. I also love graham crackers and cream cheese frosting sandwiches. Basically you can never go wrong with graham crackers.

I think it tastes best with plain grahams, not the cinnamon or chocolate variety.

Other yummy snacks my parents would make us:

-a smashed banana, sugar and milk in a glass, eaten with a spoon

-maple snow (fresh snow mixed with maple syrup and cream)

Miscellaneous

A couple of random things:

1. You can't flush toilet paper in China, the sewer system is not built for it. So every bathroom has a little garbage can next to the toilet to dispose of used tissue. You throw the bag away every few days. In a related note, no, there is no Lysol here. I know.

2. You can smoke anywhere. I still get surprised at people smoking indoors. Today I had lunch at this little hole in the wall (the best food is at the hole in the walls) and the cook came out of the kitchen with a cigarette dangling from his lip. I love that my cook was dropping ashes while cooking my food. Seriously, it is so China! (They cook the food to boiling so I know it is germ free.)

3. You have to shove your way to the front to get on a bus, train, or light rail car. Foreigners are often shy about this at first, but I have become fearless. Today I squeezed a girl like a watermelon seed when she tried to cut in front of me. Haha, she thought I would be an easy target I am sure. NOT SO MUCH.

4. You can get a pedicure with painted pictures on your toenails for about $3.00. Another female Peace Corps volunteer took me last week as a little cheer me up. So now I have black toenails with pink cherry blossoms on them.

River Views

Last night I went on a boat trip on the Yangtze River to celebrate the birthday of one of the guys here. I was able to take some pictures of shore from the boat. Here are two of my favorites views from the river.

Bridge

Last night I took a boat ride up the Yangtze River. Here is a picture I took while passing underneath one of the many bridges that connect the districts (boroughs) of Chongqing.

BFFs

I always say there are two kinds of friends:

1. The ones you hang out with because it's convenient: you have the same job, or live in the same place, or share some common activity. You like them and enjoy their company and remember fondly your time spent together when you move on. But when it is no longer convenient to be together, you drift apart.

2. The ones that are still your cherished friends no matter where you live, what your job is, what new adventures you pursue, how much your tastes change or how you choose to live your life. When you move on, you take each other along. Your friendship shifts and adjusts to the new person you are becoming, but it doesn't falter or weaken. You still have the same affection, love and respect for them that you had when you first met them.

Today is a friend's birthday from the 2nd category. Our lives are wildly divergent, but I still like her more than most people I have ever met. Knowing her is still a joy, even after 20 years of friendship. (20!!!!!) I love that we as human beings are capable of this kind of attachment to one another. It is quite remarkable.