Tongue Saver Idea

This morning while teaching a class I took that first swig of my oolong tea and OH SWEET DRAGONS, THE PAIN, my tongue is still scorched from the scalding hot water. And the thing is, I guess I am not very smart, this happens to me all the time. (Boiling hot water for tea is provided for us at school all day long.) I'm evidently terrible at calculating heat loss divided by time lapse. Or time lapse divided by heat loss. Whatever.

So then I had the best idea ever: why not make tea/coffee travel tumblers out of that plastic-y material they make mood rings out of? You could easily see when your coffee or tea moves from boiling-hot to drinkable hot-hot, and determine your favorite color of hot. No more scorched tongues! Has anyone invented this yet? (I ask because I had the idea to put television shows for sale on the internet about three years before iTunes came out, and hello! I don't want that to happen again.) If not, I'm inventing it now. I want one!

Related: have you ever had a great invention idea you found out was already invented?

The Power Of Food (And Bathrooms)

Chongqing is trying to kill me, one infection at a time. After my last post, I caught a bad cold. At least it wasn't the flu again? I have a tradition of catching Thanksgiving colds, so if this cold thought it was going to stop me from gorging myself at the hotel, oh no it did not. I pilled-up, and gorge I did. Three servings of mashed potatoes, a half a wheel of brie and three desserts later, I was the fullest I've been since I came to China. (It was also my first time having sushi on Thanksgiving.) Our group stayed for about 4 hours, and it was such a delight to feel like my old self again, for at least a few hours. It's pretty incredible the power that foods have on our psyche.

Friday night I went out of town with a couple of friends to visit another friend for the weekend. I was still popping down cold medicine pills every few hours, and I almost didn't go, but our trip was a lot of fun! Here is a picture of us having lunch at a very typical roadside restaurant, eating steamed dumplings. Please notice the seats and the background kitchen tools etc. These are my favorite places to eat because they are very inexpensive and serve freshly prepared, piping hot food made from local ingredients. You order fried potatoes, and someone in the back starts cutting up fresh potatoes; no 'frozen thrown from a bag into a deep fryer' potatoes here. It's a luxury to be able to eat the way we do in North America, but it is definitely not better.

(I was purposefully not looking at the camera.) Our long distance bus stopped at a rest stop, and it had the biggest squat toilet bathroom I've ever seen here. So of course I had to take a picture. At this point, I'm pretty much a connoisseur of Chinese bathrooms:

My goal for December is to stay healthy! I have a lot of things to say about luxury, Chinese culture, and perceptions of Chinese culture in American pop culture, so if you are interested in that, stay tuned. Plus I'll probably have some silly things to say, as well.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Running, Happy Thanksgiving Plans, And The Best Christmas Pageant Ever?

Today I went running out at T's and took a few pictures along the way:

A power line worker having a nap in the trees:

An elderly man sitting on his porch reading a book:

Just for you, Techno, a Chinese chicken coop:

A woman doing the wash, and two de-feathered ducks for dinner (hanging on the pole):

Pretty much everyone thought I was crazy for running for no reason. I stopped to talk to a few people along the way. I could see it in their eyes, "Why are you running if no one is chasing you?" One guy stopped on his motorcycle and backed up to offer me a ride back to town.

So last year's Thanksgiving was not great. I taught all day, and then we had possibly the worst Thanksgiving dinner ever of dry chicken. So, this year, my thoughtful mom sent me money to go to a hotel in the city serving Thanksgiving dinner for expats. Really good food, and I am so excited!! 10 of us are going, and I am going to eat and eat and eat to my heart's content. I'll post pictures after Thanksgiving of what a Chinese Thanksgiving looks like. Most Chinese know about Thanksgiving, they way most Americans know about Chinese New Year, but it isn't really celebrated here. However, I get texts all day long from my students wishing me Happy Thanksgiving, and I treasure those. They are so thoughtful of my American holidays.

Today Andrew and I were asked to co-host a Christmas pageant our students are putting on on December 23rd. I'm being given a script! I have no idea what this is about, but I can't wait to find out. I'll keep you all informed!

Happy Thankgsiving!

Chinglish, Taxis, and Rugby: Just Another Week In China

1. Chinglish thing I said on the phone:

"I hope you feel very a lot better." The word for 'very' is frequently used in Chinese articulation. I try to break my students of adding 'very' to everything, but looks like I've caught the 'very' bug. D'oh!

2. This week I jumped into a taxi while it was making a u-turn in the middle of a busy intersection. I could see a bunch of people waiting on the other side of the street for a taxi, so I darted out in traffic and jumped in while it was pausing in the u-turn. The driver didn't even blink. I could hear people on my side of the street saying, "Look at that foreign girl!" I think I now have my PhD in Chinese Taxi Hailing. I wonder how my skills will transfer to NYC taxi hailing?

3. A couple of the Peace Corps guys here play on an expat (mostly British, Australian and American) rugby team. Our team always loses. There aren't a lot of foreigners in Chongqing compared to other large Chinese cities, so I think our team pretty much accepts anyone who wants to play. Yesterday Renee, Kristen and I went to see them play a game against a Beijing team. Spanked! But you know what? Rugby players are kinda cute. So now we are rugby fans. (Note to self: learn what the heck is going on in rugby.)

Two Chinese Products I Don't Want To Live Without

Packaged dry beauty face masks (Hello Kitty, of course!):

I also bought green tea powder, which I mix with about a 1/4 cup of hot water. The mask expands and soaks up green tea solution, and I wear it for about 1/2 an hour. Green tea is great, it makes my skin look very clear and even. It costs about $2.00 for 12 masks and a box of green tea powder, super cheap! *sniff* I will miss you dry masks when I leave China. I also make masks with really cheap red wine (heated), which has high levels of acid. Also great for the skin, like a little mini acid facial at a spa.

My electric hand/body warmer:

It comes pre-filled with some kind of fluid, plugs into an outlet, heats up in five minutes, and stays warm for two hours. Did you know I don't have heat? I live below the 'heat line' the Chinese government drew across China; people above the line get indoor heat, people below it don't. It doesn't freeze here, which is why we don't get heat, but it does get down to 35F/1C, which is pretty darn cold. We wear coats at all times. And girls carry these electric hand warmers. I also have an electric heating pad under my sheets and heat lamps in my bathroom. I have a heater fan that doesn't keep the room warm, but does at least take the edge off the cold. I basically live with this electric warmer all winter, and I'll invest in a transformer to use it back in the U.S.  (I can't find anything like it on Amazon, which means it doesn't exist in America.) I love it.

My suitcase is going to be full of little dry masks!

Classy

Today I was walking with T. through the square near my house and I started laughing at something he said and the bright green gum I was chewing flew out of my mouth and landed at his feet. He had to do a little skip thing to avoid stepping in it. To his credit, he didn't flinch. I started laughing even harder. Just call me Grace.

Flushing, Queens + The Neverending Parade Of Cute

I'm finally recovered from the flu; I'm not sure if the Chinese strain is the same as the U.S. or Canadian strain, but  it sure knocked me out. I'm back to my old self now, though. Hope you all have stayed healthy, and continue to be healthy.

The last few weeks I've been panicking about leaving China. I know the economy back home isn't great and I worry about finding a job. But I also panic because I don't remember anymore how to live without China. How can I go back home and have no more contact with the Chinese language and culture and people? It has been almost my whole life here, how can it vanish into a black hole of nothingness overnight?

One option is to stay here and relocate to very developed and easy-to-live-in Eastern China (Shanghai!) and find a well paying job, which with my qualifications, is probably more possible than in the U.S. right now. The other is to seek out a Chinese community in the States where I can go to Chinese school and shop in Chinese shops and have interaction with Chinese people. I watched a movie here a few months ago about Flushing, Queens, and the large Chinese expat community there. I don't know much about Queens, and I had no idea this large "Chinatown" existed outside of Manhattan. In fact, I'm still not quite sure where Flushing actually is, only that it is in the Northwest part (I think?). (Manhattan is also an option, of course, but more expensive.) I probably won't do this, but the fact I'm thinking about it? It makes me realize how much China has become a part of my life.

And if you saw cute Chinese babies all day long, wouldn't you want to continue being a part of it too?

This baby was having a nap at the grocery store. (She's a rich baby, she's wearing a diaper.) Her mom was so flattered I wanted to take her picture. Really, I wanted to take the baby! (And I say that as someone who is not baby hungry in the least. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm missing that gene). So I settled for a picture. I'm constantly surrounded by The Cute.

Flu, Part II

Somehow this flu is still kicking my trash. A new virus (probably not) or a resurgence (more likely), I'm not sure. In any case, I'm way behind on my correspondence, but I can't bring myself to do very much but sleep. I did find out the person I crashed with on Halloween also has the flu; I guess it wasn't the goats after all. In the words of my little brother, "Ew, outbreak monkey!" And with that, this outbreak monkey is going back to bed.

How Goats Are A Theme In My Life Right Now

Last Tuesday I went biking in the countryside, and saw a mamma goat with four little baby goats (one of which was sunbathing!). I couldn't resist stopping for a few minutes to play with them. (Little known fact: I love goats! My family used to have pet goats, and they are smart like dogs.) But two days later, I was one sick puppy. Is there such a thing as Goat Flu? I am feeling better now, still some bad fatigue and achiness, but wow, it really knocked me off my feet. Hence the lack of posts lately.

And these are the other goats in my life: the Chinese "Happy Goats", aka Xi Yang Yang, a local kid's cartoon taking China (the world?) by storm. It's a simple cartoon about cute little goats who have to fight off a wolf; the wolf doesn't want to eat the goats, but his wife makes him try. All the goats have their own little nicknames and skills and they always succeed in besting the wolf, but the wolf always comes back for another try. This show is also popular with adults (the line here between child and female adult entertainment is blurred), and you can't go anywhere without facing down various types of Xi Yang Yang paraphernalia for sale: toys, handbags, underwear, balloons, jewelry, candy, clothing, shoes, etc. It's a Xi Yang Yang world, all day, every day.

These type of phenomenon are interesting, because literally over a billion people know about this show, and yet, I bet it's unknown in most of the West. (But I'm not sure: have any of you heard of this show?) It reminds me again why China is such an alluring business market: you make it here, you don't really need to make it anywhere else.

Popular/Unpopular

It's been interesting to me to see which things from my home culture are popular here and which are completely unknown, even though in my eyes, they are comparable products. These things listed as 'popular' are well-known to people in my city; that is the average Chinese person you meet here would know and like them. The 'unpopular' category are things I consider popular in the U.S., but are unknown here.

Popular TV: Prison Break (they LOVE it), Big Bang Theory (this one surprised me), Lost, Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty
Unpopular TV: 30 Rock, The Office, The Daily Show, CSI-type shows, Reality TV

Popular Fast Food Chains: KFC, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway
Unpopular Fast Food Chains: Wendy's, Taco Bell, Carl's Junior, Quizno's

Popular Candy Bars: Snickers, M&Ms
Unpopular Candy Bars: Everything else

Popular Movies: Titanic (oh man, you have no idea), Forrest Gump, Gone With The Wind, recent action movies like Transformers
Unpopular Movies: Comedies, Indies

Popular Songs: My Heart Will Go On (it's the unofficial national anthem), Hotel California, Country Roads (Take Me Home),
Unpopular Songs: Just about everything else

Popular Singers: Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Avril Lavigne, Green Day
Unpopular singers: anyone country or alternative

Popular Junk Food: Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Cheetos (meat flavored), Lays potato chips (meat,veggie and fruit flavors like blueberry, cucumber, mango, tomato, chicken and beef), Coke/Coke Zero, Pepsi/Pepsi Max, Mountain Dew, Sprite
Unpopular Junk Food: Anything cheese flavored, crackers, anything not Oreo or Chips Ahoy, rootbeer, regular diet drinks, Dr. Pepper, doughnuts, anything maple flavored, any type of corn chips

Cheese and peanut butter are not popular here. (Although in my experience, peanut butter is not popular anywhere outside of NA.)

I wish I knew the reasoning behind why these particular products are so successful; I don't know who has failed, and who simply hasn't tried to market here. Pepsi and Coke are pretty much equal here, and my students are always surprised when I tell them Coke is more popular than Pepsi in the U.S. I also find it interesting to see glimpses of Chinese clothing, decorations or backgrounds in tv series such as Ugly Betty or Prison Break; a quiet nod to their overseas market, perhaps?

Bus Adventures With Chinese Grandma: Don't Forget Your Stockings!

Last night I was taking the bus to a friend's campus and sat down next to a grandma. Now, in the words of my friend Patrick, "Chinese grandmas are the sh*t." It's true: they can do anything and exude a quiet confidence I aspire to. (Also, they can totally snake all the good veggies at the market before anyone realizes what's happening.) They rule with a silk fist. You don't mess with a Chinese grandma.

And to a Chinese grandma, all the world's a grandchild, especially a lone foreign girl. I sat down next to grandma in my short skirt and knee-high boots, sans stockings, and she immediately began chastising me for being bare-legged. I explained I don't have stockings, and she started running her hands up and down the bare-showing parts of my thighs, trying to warm me up. After a year and a half here, this didn't faze me (haha, I first wrote "phase" me), but I still had to laugh at the image of a Chinese grandma feeling up a random foreign girl on the bus, all the while chuttering in rapid Chinese about my lack of stockings. (I know chuttering isn't a real word, but I mean something like 'muttering and chattering'. Is there a word that combines those two things? There should be.)

This week I also had a grandma slip ahead of me in the grocery store line as I was paying in order to inspect everything I bought and help me bag it up in my reusable bags. (My friend: "What's she doing?" Me: "Being a grandma, I guess.") Another grandma held a spot for me in the train station bathroom because she was under the impression a foreigner would never get a bathroom stall if she didn't guard one for her; she actually shooed people away! It was very sweet, and I was really touched by her kindness. She was so thrilled I could speak Chinese with her, I think she was ready take me all the way to Chengdu.

I treasure these little moments. I'm glad I live alone a regular Chinese neighborhood, not a foreigner enclave with a car and driver/translator, as many expats here do. Although it's tempting at times to segregate myself from a sometimes difficult cultural experience, I know I'd be missing out on a lot. This is one of the great things about Peace Corps service.

Halloween Fun, Halloween Awkwardness

First the fun:

We had an expat Halloween party at a friend's house with lots of refreshments, glowsticks, cookies and candles, what could be more fun than that? Here's a picture of me in-costume (as old-school Britney Spears, with 'Rambo'):

A few of us crashed at the party site instead of going home that early in the morning. I fell asleep around 4:30 a.m., which wouldn't be a big deal except someone started pipe construction at 6 a.m., right outside the bedroom window. On a Sunday morning, are you kidding me? I hate it when Chinese work ethics collide with my sleep time!

Now the awkward:

Later in the morning, we decided to get Chinese brunch (which here is just 'lunch' early, there are no brunch foods, that's a little joke) but all I had to wear was my Halloween costume. And here's the thing I learned: Halloween costumes are like Cinderella's pumpkin carriage: good for one night only. That getup, which had been so fun only a few hours before, now felt utterly ridiculous. At least the locals learned a little something about Halloween costumes! But that was a long walk home through my campus, I definitely shoulda come home in the dark. I'm not sure if none of my students saw me, or if my students pretended NOT to see me.

Hope you all had a great Halloween!