Can’t See The Salad For The Dressing

A couple of random things:

Last Saturday night I went for a quick run at my campus track. I was about halfway through when this guy decides to start running with me, like 6 inches from my elbow. Um, hello buddy, you are NOT welcome here! I hate running with a partner, especially an uninvited one who just decides he'll be my new best friend. I tried to speed up and slow down, to no avail. My only choices were to ignore him or stop running. I ignored him. I could see him turning his head to stare at me every few minutes, but he never said a word to me. I finished my last 6 laps and when I stopped, he left the track.

Now, in Chinese culture it's okay to get really close to people. But I still think it was weird. If this had happened in America, I’d have been worried he was going to follow me home and eat my liver. As it was, I was just annoyed. I knew he didn't mean anything by it, but it made me uncomfortable. I am NOT A TOY OR AN ANIMAL! I am a person. I think some people here forget that.

I think I am going to start running at V.'s school. They have a nicer track than mine anyway.

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Here is perhaps my favorite scene from Community so far:

 

 

Yup, this would totally work on me, too.

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This Saturday I will host a dinner and dessert and movie night at my apartment for a few close friends. I got an Easter box from my mom, including a 1 lb chocolate Easter Bunny that has 2,600 calories. I can't bring myself to keep it around, so I'm melting it down to make fondue. (I did break off and eat the ears, though; they are the tastiest part!) R. and I will make fresh pound cake for dipping in the fondue. I also got a bottle of Brianna's Asiago Caesar dressing, so we are going to make chicken Caesar salads, eat fondue, and then watch Ninja Assassin. V. said, "Salad? I'll just eat the dessert." I told him I don't want to eat salad so much as I want to eat the Caesar dressing; this just saves me the shame of eating it by tablespoon. I think some men don't really understand the concept of salad. Hint: it ain't always about the vegetables.

Chinese Wedding Invitation and Ceremony

My Chinese friend Cassie is having her wedding ceremony on April 10th, and this week she hand delivered my invitation:



Isn’t that marvelous? I love it! It’s quite stylish in my part of China for this kind of wedding invitation to be used in place of a paper invitation. Cassie is a modern and stylish girl. The invitation is engraved with their names (the top two lines), the phrase “100 Years of Harmony/Togetherness” (the larger middle line), the name of the hotel where the ceremony will be held, and on the bottom line, the date of the ceremony. It was given to me in a nice satin lined box, along with a little box of candy. Of course, this wouldn’t work for a couple who needed to list all their parents info, formalities, etc. But, I quite like this style of invitation: interesting to look at, and to the point.

I say she is having her wedding ceremony, not her wedding, because she was actually married last October in the license office. Couples who want to get married must be of age (20 for girls, 22 for boys), and take their ID cards, hometown registration papers and a few photographs to their local marriage license office. Their documents are checked, a license is issued and an oath taken. And that’s it, now you’re married. And in my city, it only costs about $1.50.

Many couples get married and then have the ceremony at a later date. This is partly because you should go to a monk, fortune teller or astrologist to choose the best date for your marriage. It’s based on your and your fiancée/fiancé's date and time of birth. Or it may be a generally lucky day, such as days with lots of 8s in it. The hotels and ballrooms fill up those days, so you might get married on that date at the office, but have your ceremony a year or two later. Cassie tells me it is not uncommon to celebrate your marriage and your child’s first birthday at the same time.

I have also found out some things I didn’t know about single moms and the status of their children, which really helped me understand some of the common decisions made regarding these women and children. I will write more about that later this week.

The Toilet With A View

Phew! This turned out to be a much busier week than I anticipated. A good week, but busy.

I recently was having dinner in a nicer Western-style restaurant in a local mall. I walked into the Western-style toilet stall at the back of the bathroom and saw this:

I hesitated for a moment, then convinced myself the windows were treated on the outside with a reflective covering and no one could really see me. But honestly? I would have used it anyway. My privacy paradigm has certainly shifted over the last almost-two years of living in China. So if you want to see my bare bum, all you have to do is move to Chongqing.

I do think it’s funny someone saw this space and decided it was a good spot for a toilet.

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As promised, a few more videos.

This one shows me eating hot pot, the traditional Chongqing meal, at an automated rotating table. Each person at the table has their own little pot of spicy, spicy broth, into which you drop whatever you want to eat; when it’s cooked, you fish the food back out with your chopsticks. The table rotates throughout the whole meal, and you just grab what you want as it goes by. I kinda love hot pot. And auto-rotating tables.

I took this video at a dance/singing competition my students hosted; they asked me and Andrew to be judges. It was one of those surreal intercultural moments I often experience here; students in Chongqing, China, dancing to Rumpshaker in a totally non-ironic way. Where did they even hear this song?? I have no idea.

Not a video, but a picture of how floors are numbered in China; it’s a bit different than in North America. The ground floor is numbered, and what would be our 2nd floor is called the 1st floor. So in this mall near my house, there’s a lower level, ground floor, THEN 1st floor. This messes me up all the time when I’m asking for directions, because some buildings are migrating to the American style of counting, but others still use the Chinese style. So I end up just wandering around until I get to the right floor.

Life in Chongqing, In Video

I’ve found a bunch of videos I forgot I made. I’m going to post a few today and tomorrow. They’re all with my camera, so not high quality. I need a Flip.

Here’s a recent video from a restaurant. It shows us ordering a local specialty dish made with scalding river rocks; they are added to a bucket with oil, and when the oil is boiling from the heat of the rocks, beef and veggies are added. I especially like this video because it gives you an idea of the noise level in Chinese restaurants, and it shows how diverse Chinese food is.

Here I am on a booze cruise last year on one of the rivers straddling Chongqing (this side is the Jiangliang, not the Yangtze). It gives a pretty good view of the Chongqing skyline. You can hear me in the background saying, “Does it have Anderson Cooper?”

Names withheld to protect the innocent, but here I am with a few friends last winter in Xi’An. We were in our hostel room and maybe had a little cabin fever, but it was freezing outside! The drink they’re talking about is baijiu, the traditional Chinese liquor made from rice that is basically rubbing alcohol as a drink. Someone added baijiu to one of the beer bottles and you see the results*….

The worst part is my laugh, I’m a little embarrassed by it. I sound like a dork. You can also hear me at the end saying, “I’m not taking that.” “Fuling special” refers to the town where Nicole lives; she was with me on the bed. My favorite line: “Honestly? If I didn’t know that that, that that was what that was?” Huh?

Oh, sorry it’s sideways, I thought I could rotate it, but I can’t. But still amusing!

*He says a cuss word here, so if that offends you, don’t watch.

Wait, Does This Mean You All Really Know Kung Fu, Too?

Today in English class I needed to add up a large string of numbers from the chalkboard, the results of a poll we’d done in class. I got out my trusty calculator and was about halfway way through when the students started yelling out the total. I turned around with a surprised look on my face and said without thinking, “You did that in your head?” They just shrugged. D’oh! Dumb American teacher, twelve o’clock! I was tempted to tell them we don’t learn math in school in America, but they wouldn’t have gotten the joke. Er...yeah. Joke. I’ll stick with that story.

Gotta love teaching in China.

Love and Hate and Trust: Eight Hours in the Life of a Peace Corps Volunteer

The Hate:

Last week I had to go back to Chengdu to get my permanent crown put in. I got up at 5:30 AM, caught the 6:40 AM bus for my 9:00 AM train, and all was well, until I realized my bus wasn’t going to the train station. The driver changed the route, for reasons that are still a mystery to me. In that moment, when I realized I had no idea if I were going to get to my train on time, I was filled with contempt for this place that can so haphazardly change things at the last minute with no notice and no concern for those affected. I really wanted to punch Chongqing in the face, and I felt like a Peace Corps failure for not being able to keep my cool in the face of this cultural crisis. The bus driver didn’t know which nearby bus went to the train station, but I did manage to find an empty taxi during morning rush hour (thank you, taxi guardian angel) and get the train station in time to catch my train. But it took me a while longer to get over that rush of anger and anxiety I felt.

The Love:

Later that day in Chengdu, I was riding the bus from the dental office back to the campus where I was staying. It was rush hour, and the bus was so crowded that people were jumping on through the middle doors. I noticed them passing down their electronic bus cards to the front of the bus to be scanned for their fare, and my American mind thought, “Oh, they are friends traveling together, and just got on through different doors.” But I soon realized that no, none of these people passing around bus cards knew each other. And I thought how wonderful it was that they trusted their fellow citizens enough to turn over a valuable bus pass, not just to one person, but to the 8-10 people it took to get it down the bus aisle and back (sometimes with wallet attached!). And I had this love in my heart for China and the Chinese people, that I could be a part of this kind of community. I started helping pass the bus cards for them, and because I am 5’10” in my shoes, my ability to reach over lots of heads made it go a little faster. They looked kinda tickled that a foreigner was getting involved in their ritual, and that made my whole day. 

During training our director told us something along the lines of, “If you find yourself wondering how you can stand to stay here one more day, wait half an hour, and something will happen that will make you never want to leave.”

It was a little more than a half an hour, but on this day, this was very true.

Fit To Strip, And Other Things I Love Right Now

Those of you who read here before I left for China know it used to be called “Stuff I Love.” In memory of times gone by, here are a few things I love right now:

1. Fit To Strip, the workout DVD by Carmen Electra. I know, I know, it sounds lame, but disc 2 is a calisthenics routine that has nothing to do with stripping and everything to do with building strength in your core, legs and upper body. I used this DVD before I ran a half marathon a few years ago and was the most toned I’ve ever been. I let myself get chubby after my dad died, so I’m back on a strength training/toning regime, and this DVD is part of my new routine (along with running, weights and yoga). It kicks your butt in a really good way.

Amazon.com, $12.99

2. Community, the tv show on NBC. One of my friends in the U.S. prodded me to watch this show, and it takes the place in my heart that used to be occupied by The Office until The Office turned kinda lame. (Sorry, but you know it’s true.) Abed and Troy crack me up; long live their Donde Esta La Biblioteca rap! Also, Joel McHale naked is so much yummier than I never imagined. Thanks, ratings ploy! It totally worked.

Community recaps, nymag.com

3. My new panda wrist rest, advertised on the packaging as glow in the dark, but it’s only those little floaty thingies that glow and they’re hard to see inside the plastic. So, glow fail, but panda win! Sorry, I don’t know where to buy this outside of China. But if you’re in China, I got it at Sanfu.




4. WeiEast face cream. Katie at Scattered Starlight introduced this product to me, and it’s a new favorite. I’ve mentioned before how serious the Chinese take their skincare*, and I’ve gotten compliments from Chinese girls on how good my skin looks after using this. As an added bonus, it’s not actually made in China, so it’s free of skin whiteners and other ingredients you don’t want to know about.

WeiEast.com

5. Tostitos Queso. This is junk food, and I love it. Judge me if you must, but a bowl of warm cheese and warmed tortilla chips is a little bit of heaven in my mouth. I brought some back with me to China in my suitcase.

I think you can buy this at pretty much any grocery store in America, you lucky dogs!

6. Undergear.com. Warning, this website is not suitable for the faint of heart, or maybe those at work. It’s men’s underwear and pajamas and workout gear, and my friend sent this link to me, and I sent it to a few friends here, and we all spent a good hour on gchat, sending each other links from the site and cracking up and drooling. I never knew there were male equivalents to push-up bras, but now I do! This guy’s pretty handsome. I’m not recommending the shorts, just the guy.

Undergear.com. I recommend the sleepwear, swimwear and underwear links. Oh, and can’t forget this. It's kinda strangely hot!







7. And while we’re at it, I love gchat. I stopped using msn because of all the spam, and because Vista didn’t seem to like it and kicked me off every few minutes. Skype is great but not everyone uses it, and it takes a lot of bandwidth to run. Yahoo Messenger seems sorta 1998. But gchat? So convenient! No need to add anyone, and if you miss a chat, they email it to your inbox. I think on MSN, you had to log back in again before you got offline chats. Gmail isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty great. I deleted my Facebook account, so happy I did that, but you can pry my gchat from my cold, dead hands.

Ok, that’s it for this edition. Next time, I’ll be back with more China stories.

*Recently a Chinese friend was asking me if I knew another teacher on campus,and she said, "She's in her early 30's and sometimes has bad skin." I've never heard skin used as a major descriptor before I came to China. They aren't kidding around about their skin.

So What Do Peace Corps Volunteers in China Do, Anyway?

I know from this blog it seems like all I do is fight with taxi drivers and hang out with my friends, but I do Peace Corps stuff too. For those of you wondering what Peace Corps does in China, this is your lucky day!

-Peace Corps has different job categories in different countries, such as teaching, business development, agriculture, social services, and healthcare. In China, all we do is teaching. The Chinese government forbids us being involved with any other type of work while we are here.

-This program started in the early 90’s on a trial basis. A few years later, a contract was signed. As part of the contract, the Chinese Ministry of Education decides where to place volunteers. This is unique; in most countries, the Peace Corps decides where to place volunteers.

-Our first priority is to teach English courses at universities in three provinces (Gansu, Sichuan and Guizhou) and one municipality (Chongqing, where I am). These are traditionally some of the poorest parts of China. I teach Oral English, Intercultural Communication, Listening, Tourism English, Research Writing, and American Culture. We create our own syllabus and course materials.

-We also do projects on the side, such as English conversation nights on campus, English movie night, Prom/Dances (these don’t exist in China for students) and other types of activities. Some volunteers tutor at elementary schools or community places.

-We are encouraged to find side projects, and here are some of mine: I tutor business faculty in business English, I do English movie night, I have office hours for students to come talk to me informally, and I help the Howard Johnson hotel in my city with English translation. (That last one I am doing as a favor to a former English student at my university who now does the marketing for HoJo in my city.) And the odd pageant hosting job, tree planting, whatever our school asks us to be involved in.

-We don’t receive any payment for anything we do. We receive from the Peace Corps a monthly stipend for food and clothing replacement. The universities where we work give us a place to live; Peace Corps pays our rent to them directly. In some places the school provides internet and telephone services, but they don’t have to do this. We pay for our own cell phone service.

-We also spend time studying Chinese and we are encouraged to make Chinese friends and integrate into our communities. We are tested yearly on our oral Chinese proficiency. We are also tested right before we end our service, and get a certificate documenting our proficiency level for future schooling or job opportunities. 

And, of course, fight with taxi drivers and hang out with our friends and eat a lot. It’s a unique life. I’m glad I lived it for a while.

A Couple Of Pictures

Andrew took this picture of me on the back of the airport bus. I cropped out the people around me and now it’s kinda too small. But anyway, a recent-ish picture.



And my student sent this to me a few days ago. It’s from the holiday pageant I hosted. This is not Andrew, it’s a student who joined me on stage to introduce something. The lights really washed me out, but I’m wearing a trapezoid-cut neckline silver matte shirt and a fake-diamond necklace. And black shoes with my floor length skirt. And a diamond sparkle headband. (And a smirky look on my face, apparently.) Next time, I need to remember my camera. I kept the background in because I thought you might like to see it. A flaming guitar, so Christmasy!



And now Andrew is smirking...

My good friends, whose wedding I went to in NYC a few months before I came to China, are having a baby in July. I’m really excited for them, and I bought them this cute coat for their baby. My favorite part are the ears on the hood.

By The Time We Got There, It Was Dinner At Tiffany’s*.

There is a phenomenon of giving directions in China that I still don’t understand: people will only give you directions to the next block. For example, “Go straight ‘til the next intersection, then turn left.” Now, you as a Westerner might think that means that after you turn left, you’ll be there. Oh no, my friend. This is just the beginning. If you don’t see what you’re looking for after you turn left, you ask someone else, and get the next set of directions. You will keep doing this, block after block, until you arrive at your destination.

This happened to V. and I when we were in Chengdu for training. I needed to get to Tiffany & Co.* to get some jewelry cleaned, and he came with me. I didn’t know where Tiffany was exactly, but I figured it was downtown near the other big shops. Turns out it was in a new shopping plaza built a little zig-zaggy ways away from where we were. It took four sets of directions to get us there. Yup, that’s about right.

Also, be aware: you will always get some directions, even if that person has no idea where you should be going. Saying, “I don’t know” is a loss of ‘face’ in Chinese culture, so even if they have no idea, they’ll still give you directions. The next set of directions might send you in a totally different direction. It means one of those people has no idea. Have fun deciding which one!

By the by, there was a Victoria’s Secret near the Tiffany, the first one I’ve seen here. Bras were over a hundred USD, and even those cheap little $5 dollar thongs were the equivilant of $60 USD. Say wha? It’s like they’re trying to turn Victoria’s Secret over here into an Agent Provocateur or La Perla equivalent. Ridiculous.

After our luxury adventures, V. and I stopped for dinner at a “Western” style chain restaurant out of Taiwan. Here’s a picture of what our meal came out like:



Yes, that is fried chicken steak (w/ pepper sauce), spaghetti w/ peas and a fried egg, all on the same plate. So don’t feel bad when American Chinese food is nothing like what you get in China; they get it wrong, too.

*This is a brand new Tiffany & Co. store, the first in this region of China. Also, why is the name in the novella/movie possessive? I’ve never noticed before that that is weird. But it is.

Boundaries And Prairie Dogs

T. and I were talking several months ago, and he said something offhand I really liked: “One of the great things about being an adult is you get to choose who is in your life.” Such a simple phrase, but something I wasn’t always very good about implementing. My friend FloJo also gave me a talking to; she told me, "Not every person you meet gets to be in your life at all times." She said this in reaction to the 'prairie dogs', those guys that pop up out of nowhere to contact you every few months to make sure you're still on the line. You know the type. Not bad guys by any means, but, maybe I don't need to be in everyone's line? I think this is what T and FloJo were trying to teach me. But I don't always mind, this is the problem!

T. also told me that for many men, if you tell him you are unhappy with something and he keeps doing it and you still accept him in your life with no boundaries, then there’s no reason for him to stop and he probably won’t. I have no idea how universal this is for men, but it was interesting to hear his take on it.

One revelation I have had in the past year or so is realizing that some men and women, even if they are straight, just don’t seem to really *like* the opposite sex all that much. They might love having sex with them, or love having their ego validated by them*, but like them? No, I don’t think they really like them all that much. You don’t treat badly the people you like.

I think living in China and being outside of my cultural comfort zone has allowed me to have some new perspective into healthy male/female relationships. And perhaps more importantly, what is not healthy.

*I personally think this is the bigger reason.

The Taxi Driver Who Tried To Hand Me Over To The Police

So the other night I’m taking a taxi home from dinner with friends in another part of the city, and we pass a cluster of policemen off to the side of the road, and my taxi driver says, “I need to stop because you are a foreigner.” At least, I think that’s what he said, his dialect accent was pretty strong. I said, “What? Why?” He said, “You are a foreigner, I have to stop.” WHAT? So he stops and pulls up to the police and the police look at him like “What the hell are you doing?” and motion for him to keep moving. They actually yell at him, “Don’t stop here, drive on!” Um, taxi driver? I have no idea if that was some sort of joke on your part and you thought it was funny?  Or you just don’t know that foreigners don’t have to stop and talk to all policemen they pass? Whatever it was, that was weird. Please don’t do that again.

We had dinner at a Korean barbecue place, all you can eat. The funny thing to me about Korean barbecue is, you pay to cook your own food. Part of the reason I eat out is so I don’t have to cook! It was pretty good, though. They had quail’s eggs, so we made the tiniest fried eggs ever:



Here’s a shot of our table:



I’m showing you this because it was one of those recessed-into-the-floor tables, where the seat is floor level and your legs hang down below the floor, and at the end of the night I was climbing out and fell over and crashed onto the table. I was near the back so most people were out of the room, but my friend Erin and I laughed for about 5 minutes straight. Luckily the grill was off and I was not hurt. I have balance problems, I fall over all the time. Just another night in China.

And oh, I can’t forget this picture! I took it at the train station on the way home from the dentist:



This outfit is pretty standard for China. Proportionately, she looks great: the length of the jacket and shirt, the tight pants and boots, it all works. The colors and patterns were cracking me up, though. It just doesn’t matter here what combinations you wear. It’s awesome.

I got my temporary crown put on. It took three hours. Is that normal? It was not fun. I go back in two weeks to get the permanent one put on. I hate traveling that far to the dentist!

Remembering Dad

March 2nd is my dad’s birthday. (I use the word ‘is’ not ‘was’ because I decided dying doesn’t cancel your birth.) When I was in the U.S., I stayed the night with my step-mom in their house. It was hard to be so reminded of him. The things I inherited from him are currently in storage. It reminded me it’s going to still be hard to go through all those things, even three years later.

My step-sister made this photo collage of my dad with pictures of him and his grandchildren. I thought it was really beautiful and want to share it with those of you who knew my dad. Those of you who didn’t know him, maybe now you will “know” him a little. (Click to enlarge)



March 11th is the anniversary of his death. It is hard not to think about all the days leading up to the day: the last meal, the last time he was coherent, the last words we said to each other. They've been on my mind a lot lately, as well as all of the repercussions of that day. I’m still trying to make sense of them. In some things I have found a measure of peace, but other things are still tough. My consolation is that I learned to be a stronger, and I hope, a more empathetic person.

Shanghai and New York City and Me

Well, according to your comments, of those who stated a preference, half prefer window and half prefer aisle. You window people, I admire your bladder control!

In my last post I mentioned that Shanghai is more developed than NYC. I’ve never lived in NYC, only visited two or three times a year for work or pleasure. I’ve been once to Shanghai. So, that’s my background in both cities. Here are a few reasons I think Shanghai is more developed:

1. The maglev train. As of this writing, the maglev in Shanghai is the fastest train in the world. It runs 268 - 310 miles per hour. There’s a station at the airport, and it takes seven minutes to get from the airport to the city. Now, can you imagine arriving at JFK and getting to Penn Station in seven minutes, for $6.00? How nice would that be?

2. Transport cards. In Shanghai, you can buy one refillable card and use it to pay for the subway, buses, or taxis. So convenient! I especially love that you can pay for a taxi with them, I hate carrying a lot of change. And they use hot spot scanners instead of turnstile runners, a little faster and less error prone.

3. Bus stops on the street have electronic signs telling you how many minutes until the next bus on that line will arrive. Subway trains arrive every 5-10 minutes, every time. (Hello 6 Train, can you hear this?)

4. The subway is super clean, super brightly lit, and super safe. My favorite feature is the ceiling to floor glass walls separating you from the train. It’s quiet in the stations because the glass walls muzzle the noise of the train. It’s like being in a space station in 2001: The Shanghai Odyssey. (Quiet except for the people, of course.)

5. In every taxi, there is a sign for a city hotline you can call if you are having trouble with your taxi driver. They print the sign in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Maybe NYC doesn’t have this because it would be overloaded? I wanted to write down the number and call it from Chongqing, but I forgot. Next time!

(I’m sure you know people in China don’t vote, so all of this is done based on what the government, not the people, choose.)

But despite how developed Shanghai is, here are reasons I still love New York City more:

1. Diversity. Shanghai does not have the diversity of foods, population or thought that NYC has. Until you can get falafel, tacos or hot dogs on a single street corner in Shanghai, NYC will always win.

2. Beauty. In Shanghai, they tear everything old down and build new. Historical preservation can be taken to an extreme, but I love the old architecture of NYC. If you haven’t seen my youtube video of NYC firehouses on the historic register, you can see it here. It’s still one of my favorite photographic collections I’ve done. And don’t even get me started on the NYC bridges: gorgeous. If you want to see my general NYC photo collection, click here.

3. Personality. NYC has an arrogant confidence that is appealing. It’s dirty. It’s crime-ridden. But it’s where millions of people from all around the world with little to their names came to start a new life. It’s where people still go to really succeed. It has a world renowned fire department and beautiful architecture. It’s one of the greatest cities in the world, despite it’s flaws and scars. (I also think it has more eccentric, crazy people, but maybe that’s just the romantic in me.)

I leave early tomorrow morning for the dentist, wish me luck!

Eight Things That Have Happened Since Leaving America

1. Just like I’ve heard happens with the pain of childbirth, I’d blocked out just how bad the air is here. When I landed in Chongqing, I couldn’t see the ground until we were right on it. It looked like Oklahoma during the Dustbowl. The locals call it ‘fog.’ I can’t figure out if that’s a mistranslation or wishful thinking.

2. But anyway, I’m home! It just feels good to be back in my own apartment, walking these familiar streets, back into my routine of veggie market, fruit market, bus rides to visit friends, crowded sidewalks to navigate, and of course, the really delicious, spicy street food. Yum. I start classes next week.

3. From Beijing to LAX I had the best spot on the airplane that is not first class: last row in the front section of the plane before the exit, aisle seat, right next to the bathroom. Lots of space, no one kicking my seat, and easy access to the bathroom, perfect! (I always request an aisle seat.) On the way from LAX to Beijing, I got stuck clear in the back, next to the window. Ugh. It was the worst. So glad to be off of that plane. What about you, are you a window or aisle person?

4. At LAX, I got racially profiled, in a good way; a TSA agent had a Spanish man talking to her in rapid Spanish (is there any other kind, really?) and she looked over at me and said, “Hey, can you translate for me?” I thought, YES, I still look Spanish! And no, sorry, I can’t. (I probably could have, but I knew she could find someone who definitely could have.) In China, I’m just an American; I miss the rest of my identity.

5. In the gate area for my plane from Beijing to CQ, I was the only foreigner, and this kid started at me for a full three minutes. (And by kid, I mean 18 years old or so.) Ah, I’m back to being a foreigner in Western China. On that plane I was also in the back, but on an empty row next to the bathroom. This girl came back to use the bathroom but it must have been her first time on a plane because she couldn’t figure out how to open the door. I asked her in Chinese, “Did you want the bathroom?” and pushed open the door for her. She was so shocked. I’ll never get over being shocked at how shocked the Chinese are that I can speak (some) of their language. It’s not Vulcan, after all.

6. Last night I managed to stay awake for three hours in a row (jetlag, you win) and went to a restaurant/bar with friends to celebrate our friend Elena’s birthday. The bar had tater tots! So random. We were sooo happy to have tots, though, it was like we won the tot lottery.  This is what I love about China: small things make us so happy. Btw, Elena is from Palermo, Sicily, and was here for 6 months studying Chinese law. She invited me to come visit her in Palermo. Um, YES.

7. I was watching the video for “Empire State of Mind” today and tried to imagine a song called “Shanghai State of Mind.” Nope, can’t picture it. NYC is not as developed as Shanghai, but it’s got a special something these other big cities don’t. (And no, it’s not as developed, but more about that later.) I downloaded the video to show my students, they are going to love it.

8. Every day I was in America, I ate corn tortillas with melted cheese and Frank’s Red Hot Sauce for breakfast. I miss them.