Earthquake Premonition?

I swear I am not making this up.

Tuesday on the bus coming home at lunchtime I had the thought that I should buy bottled water because if there is an earthquake, I'd have nothing to drink if the power went out. Which, I say this with love, with the infrastructure the way it is here, it will. (I have to prepare water with an electric machine or buy it bottled. And bottled still isn't super-clean of metals here, so we are advised to use our machine as much as possible.) So I made a mental note to pick up gallon or two later that day. (I used up all my previous supply when I had the Slumber Party Weekend.)

And about an hour later, I'm having a rest, and the bed starts shaking. A small earthquake, only 5.0 but still: AAAAAHHHHHH!!! (Official report here.) Do I have earthquake premonition, like an animal? Or was it a prompting? Either way, my new goal for leaving China: don't die in an earthquake. This is added to 'don't die in a bus fire or a tunnel fire.' If these things don't happen, my time in China was a success.Yes, I have set the bar very low. But for my region of China, reasonable.

What Happens When You Make The Silliest Decision Ever?

I've been reflecting on my close-to-two years I've spent in China. How have I changed? How have I NOT changed? What have I learned? That sort of boring thing.

And I've mentioned this before, but it's been a stronger feeling for me now: this is probably the silliest thing I've ever done. There is nothing wrong with Peace Corps, or China; they are both worth experiencing. But ME in Peace Corps China? On paper: ridiculous.

I read a good book about grief after my dad died. It said you shouldn't make any major life decisions for at least one year, because basically you are too sad to look at anything objectively in your right mind. I applied for Peace Corps weeks after my dad died. It was just something I always wanted to do, and maybe I felt like life is short and fragile? So, yeah. That's how I ended up here.

I had my education completed, a good job with opportunities, a super cute apartment I still miss and feel sad I don't live in now (click here for pics!), and a good life in America. My friends have houses and/or children and are responsible, fun adults. I didn't have the house or kids, but I was slowly being indoctrinated (haha, kind of). My friends? Super supportive. Pretty openly thought I was mad for walking away from so many things and doing this, but super supportive. I could not have done it without them. But still...what was I thinking?

And I mention this because even though it was probably one of the silliest decisions of my life, these things have a way of working out for our benefit. I am intensely, intensely grateful for this experience. I had a chance to take a step back, take stock of my life, look at where I was going and where I want to be, and see more clearly my faults, my strengths, my blessings and gifts. Things in my future will be different because I did this silly thing. (I am not being facetious when I say silly. It was in fact silly!) And because I truly believe in the value of telling kids that what they can achieve matters. I had teachers who did this for me, and it's an honor to be able to give back.

I mention it out loud, in writing, for those of you who might not know where your decisions will lead you, and worry about that. And I'm here to say: make all the "right" or "wrong" decisions you might make, and if you want to find the good in life, you will be lead to find it, no matter what. I really believe it. Now, moreso than ever.

On a housekeeping note, I have about 70 days left here in China. I fear a lot of what I am going through right as I prepare to leave will be boring to read about (philosophical or administrative), so I will be posting less. But, still posting. I fly home August 7th (!!!).

Slumber Party Weekend, Plus the Awesomeness of Pulled Noodles

This weekend our Peace Corps regional director came to Chongqing in anticipation of the big meetings going on this week in Beijing, so several volunteers from nearby areas came into town to have dinner with him. A few of them crashed at my place. I'm not a woo girl, but, WOO, so much fun! It was just one big slumber party, and I love playing hostess, so I had a great time having them here.

Saturday lunch we went for noodles. I don't think I've posted pictures before of how delicious pulled noodles here are, so here goes. First, the cook prepares the noodles by pulling the freshly made dough like taffy, pounding it down, then pulling again and again until it strings up into noodles. It's magical. Here are a few pictures (notice the tables and chairs--these places are very casual):

And a close up of the dough-- he's smiling because he's shy:

The noodles are put into big pots of boiling water standing by:

And then the freshly boiled noodles are added to a bowl of beef broth, spicy oil, beef chunks, onion and cilantro:

Not very healthy, but delicious!

Pajamas As Fashionable and Cool Daily Wear

A recent article in the New York Times about the attempt to curb the wearing of pajamas as daily wear in Shanghai tickled my funny bone and made me realize how much I forget to write about here. (Click here to read the article.)

You see, it is very common to see people in their pajamas at all hours of the day walking the streets of my city. And it would appear, other cities in China. And it is so common place, I've never written about it, because it has ceased to surprise me.

My first year here, I was sort of in mini-meltdown mode 3/4 of the time. And a lot of the wonderful and strange things about China I should have been writing about then, I wasn't. And now...I forget they're remarkable. I have failed you, my dear blog readers, for bringing you the thorough reality of life in China!

But here's one: people wear pajamas as daily clothes. I suppose it is not so different from running around in gym clothes/track suits? The most popular pjs here are quilted. They do look very puffy and comfortable, I admit.

Follow Up About The Certificates/Chinese Cultural Info

Several of you have asked why they didn't simply stop handing me certificates if I wasn't supposed to be handing them out, and laughed at me instead.

I am not being facetious at all when I say, TIC. This Is China. We say this all the time here. Things don't make sense or have any sense of logic from an American cultural point of view, and you'll go crazy if you try. So you just say "TIC" and move on.

My opinion? The certificate girl was freaked out she was helping a foreigner.  I often underestimate how nervous they get around foreigners. And she wasn't "in charge" so she didn't know what to do when I didn't stop after 4. (She was holding the entire stack.) If you are not the boss here, you don't get to make any decisions. I am sure she was expecting me to stop after 4, and when I didn't, she didn't have any power to do anything about it. So she kept handing them to me and let me keep going.

I know that sounds strange, but that's how things are here.

China is extremely culturally insular. 95% of the population shares the same racial and cultural background. So I think they just often forget we have no idea what their 'norms' are. No one explained to me what was expected of me because it didn't occur to them I wouldn't know. This is extremely different from America culture, where we don't make that assumption because we live with a lot of diversity, whether religious, cultural, racial, etc.

I could have asked her, or someone else, "Why did you do that? Why did you let people laugh at me instead of telling me what to do and fixing it?" But that would have been criticism coming from a foreigner, which would be a serious loss of face for them. So either I lose face by being laughed at, or they lose face when I criticize them. It's a bigger deal to them than it is for me, so I took one for the team.

That's the best I can explain it.

But I still wish she wouldn't have asked me that on camera.

Really?!?? AKA, Cultural Mishaps in China, They Will Happen

After judging a speech competition all morning at a school that is not my own, I was asked to hand out the second place prizes. They also asked some other teachers, but I missed the details because they only gave them in Chinese and I didn’t understand everything. I was only supposed to hand out 4 of 12 prizes. But the prize girl kept handing me certificates, so I kept handing them out, while the audience laughed at me. I didn’t know what was going on, so I just kept going until someone stopped me. Later, I was interviewed for the school news, on video, and the girl interviewing me asked me this question:

Random Girl: “When you made the mistake and everyone was laughing at you, what did you feel inside?”

Really, random girl? Really? On camera you ask me this? Really?


Two years ago, this would have devastated me. Now, I just have to laugh and say, “Oh well! Such is life in China.” Cultural mistakes will be made. It happens.

For the record, I told her I felt that it is maybe good to tell a foreigner what you want them to do, but now I have learned the custom for handing out prizes. That’s not actually what I was thinking, mine had a few more curse words in it, but I felt that was the appropriate thing to say. Sorry, not a textbook Peace Corps volunteer here!

Reason #362 I'm Gonna Miss China

#362: The conversations I have here that I will have no place else. For example:

T., holding out to me the t-shirt he wants to wear that day: "Does this shirt smell too much like hot pot*?"

And I love that he doesn't ask me if it smells like hot pot, but if it smells too much like hot pot.

I take the shirt. I sniff.

Me: "It smells a little like hot pot, but unless someone buries their face in your chest, it'll be okay."

T.: "Cool." (Throws on the shirt.)

I'm really gonna miss China.

*I routinely shower after eating hot pot, because yes, the smell somehow permeates everything. 

Nicknames For Foreigners In The Middle Kingdom

The Chinese name for China is ‘Zhongguo,’ literally ‘Middle Kingdom.’ In traditional Chinese culture, China is the center of the world, between heaven and earth. We like to use this name ‘Middle Kingdom’ when we are talking something that is really different from America. I don’t know why, we just do. That’s why I’m using it here.

About nicknames: if you are a foreigner in China, you are gonna get called something. Count on it. Some common things I hear:

1. Laowai (pronounced ‘laow why’). This is a generic word for foreigner—it literally means ‘old outside,’ as in ‘old outsider.’ There are debates as to whether this word is an insult. It can certainly be used as an insult, but in my experience it is usually used passively. But, it is not friendly. This is not someone who is happy to see you.

2. Waiguo pengyou (pronounced ‘why gwa pung yo’). This means literally ‘outside kingdom friend’ and it is a friendly way to talk about/to a foreigner. I have had Chinese citizens say to me, “You’re not a laowai, you’re a waiguo pengyou.” E. told the story of taking a taxi and wondering if she was going to be ripped off, but then she heard the driver tell his friend over the CB that he was driving a waiguo pengyou, and she knew she’d be okay. T. and I were called waiguo pengyou by the farmer’s family.

3. Aiyi (pronounced ‘I eee’). This is my favorite nickname, and it means “Auntie.” This is usually from grandmas telling their grandkids to call me aiyi, and I take it as a very big compliment. It means you are trusted.

4. Your professional title. My professional title is “Laoshi” (pronounced “laow shuh’)which means ‘teacher’ (literally ‘old master’). The title comes after your name. (My Chinese surname is Feng (pronounced ‘fung’), so here I am Feng Laoshi.) Strangers I meet sometimes call me this after they find out I am a teacher, and people in my neighborhood I buy things from also call me this.  Because China is a hierarchical society, everyone has a title. Whenever I talk to bus drivers, waiters, cooks, taxi drivers, sellers, etc. I use their title (without a last name, because I usually don’t know it.) This is really different from the U.S.

5. Yanggui (pronounced ‘yong-gway’). This means ‘foreign devil’ and is a pretty big insult, but luckily I’ve never heard it used toward me. Sometimes foreigners call themselves ‘yanggui’ as a disarmament gesture, or to show they know the insult, and it usually gets a reaction from a Chinese person if you do this. I think it makes them uncomfortable, or so I’ve heard.

Hiking and Biking In The Countryside

This past weekend I went to T.'s and we spent some time in the countryside. We biked to a mountain, then climbed up the mountain with the bikes, then stashed the bikes and continued over the mountain into a farmer’s valley. I felt so like Maria Von Trapp!  But I didn’t sing anything. There was a lake at the bottom of the valley, so we headed down there for some drinks and relaxing before hiking back out.

Here’s a picture of the valley we hiked into:

 

It’s hazy from humidity, but you can see the lake down there in the bottom, and white farmhouses dotting the mountain side. It’s amazing to me how they can farm on the steep slopes of the mountain.

We hiked past a farmhouse and the owners met us and brought us into their home. They gave us fruit soup to drink out of a pan— frozen apricot-like fruit that had been made into a sort of compote, then watered down and boiled. You could drink the fruit broth and eat the little fruits with a spoon. We sat on tiny chairs and took turns with the pan. I tried to get the name of the fruit from them, but they didn’t speak Mandarin and didn’t write, and I couldn’t understand their Chongqinghua name for it. Sad.

They wanted us to stay for dinner and spend the night on the farm, but we told them we needed to get home. That is just such Chinese hospitality, to invite strangers to stay at your home just because they are passing through. I am in awe of how giving people here are.

Here’s a picture of T. with the farmer’s dad hacking up greens with a machete-type knife. We’re not sure what they were going to be used for. I said I hoped not eaten, as they were all over the ground, but who knows! You can see T. holding the fruit soup pot:



They live in very humble circumstances. I felt like I was in another era of China, it was so different than life in the city. We stayed there with them for a little while, then finished hiking back out.

The path up the mountain was very muddy, and I must be part piglet, but it was this gorgeous, thick red mud and I wanted to lie down and roll in it! But I sort of got my wish because I kept colliding with my muddy bike tires, getting mud all over me. And on the downhill ride home, all that mud came flying up off the tires, splattering all over me. I took a shower when we got back, and T. was teasing me that it looked like Pig Pen had been in there. Ah, I was a happy little piglet, though. Here’s a picture of me when we got back to T’s apartment, many hours later. As you can see, I was wiped out, but it was a good feeling to have worked out that hard. And I’ve got mud splattered all over my face and clothes. It’s a good look for me, I think!



I slept like a dead person that night. It was a really good weekend.

How ‘Sexting’ Gets You In Trouble When You’re Not Even Doing It, Plus Joel McHale

I was asked to do a lecture this week on the English language for the Foreign Language students at my university. Part of my lecture focused on the ways in which new words are added to English. Two ways are*:

1. New meanings for existing words
2. Making up new words

For #1, I used the example of the word ‘text,’ which used to mean only written works and/or speeches, but now also means SMS messages. And from this new usage of the noun, we also made the verb ‘to text’ and added the words texting, texted, etc.

For #2, I gave the example of the words ‘sexting’ and ‘sext,’ which from what I read online are pretty popular words these days in American culture. I didn’t say much about the meaning of the words themselves, only that they were made up, derived from ‘texting,’ and meant that the text had a sexual topic. I explained that we went from ‘text’ to ‘texting’ to ‘sexting’ back to ‘sext’ in new word formation; that’s awesome from a linguistic etymological process point of view, and a good illustration of how flexible English is.

So now I’ve given my lecture to the 350+ English students in the lecture hall, and I’m doing the Q&A. There are a couple of great questions about accents, usage, etc. and then *this* kid stands up:

Random Male Student: “May I ask you a personal question?”

Me: “Yes.” (Thinking it would be how old I am, how much money I make, something common for China.)

Random Male Student: “Have you ever sent a sext?”

Me: !!!! *Um, are you kidding me with this? For real, you just asked me this in an auditorium full of people?* *Rapidly formulating an answer that doesn’t focus on me so I don’t give in to his crossing of the ‘personal’ line.*

Me: “I think many people in a close relationship have done such a thing.”

Random Male Student: “Oh.” *pause* “Can I have your cell phone number?”

Well, what could I do at that point but laugh? I mean, everyone else was. So that’s what I did, I laughed. And said yes, anyone can have my cell phone number. And sure enough, he came and got it after the Q&A was over**.

Lesson learned: sometimes students are more interested in the subject matter than the etymological process.

*These are not the only two ways, just two ways I talked about relevant to this post.

** Trust me when I say I will never hear from him, he just wanted a foreigner's # a la the taxi driver.
_________________________

On a related note, anyone see Community this week? Funniest tv episode I've maybe ever seen in my life. And what I said in my head when Joel McHale stripped down to the sleeveless tank: "DAMN, SKIPPY!" Yes, I speak in all caps in my head. JM has perfect muscles. I want to lick his biceps. I’m just saying is all.

UPDATE:

Picture. You're welcome.

Washington Heights, Luggage, Etiquette and Friendship

During our trip I found out my friend J. is going to Columbia in the fall to do a masters program, and asked me if I were interested in being roommates. Hells to the yes! J. is great, she is one of the nicest girls I know. I told her about Washington Heights*, which is where my cousin lived when he went to Columbia, and so we are officially putting WH on the table as a possible apartment location. Now, I have no idea if this will work out, or if I’ll be able to find a job in the area, but it’s fun to dream about. I have long loved Washington Heights, and even for just a year or two, would love the experience of living there. We agree living in China is great preparation for living everywhere else, because we have learned to live with so little. A crappy little apartment in Washington Heights? No problem. A couple of other people I know here are also going to NYC for work/school, so I would have some friends in the area as well. And we could go to Chinatown together and relive our crazy China days.

Two of my four-wheeled luggage wheels broke. Luckily they didn’t break completely off, but they wouldn’t spin properly and were all banged up. (Note to self: stop dragging the suitcase over curbs and stairs— pick it up!) When we got out of the taxi at the hostel, the owner greeted us and noticed my luggage wasn’t rolling properly. He offered to have it fixed for me, and the next day found new wheels for my luggage AND had his handyman repair the luggage for me. And he wouldn’t take any money from me at all for it. There are just good people in the world. (I bought him a nice bottle of liquor as a thank you gift when I left.)

I was reflecting on this trip about my friendship with E., which was near instantaneous and is a delightful part of my life here. She doesn’t live in my city so I don’t get to see her often, but I just admire and respect her and have so much fun with her. It was a treat being able to see her for a whole week. It’s amazing to meet people you feel like you’ve known for years. They are a gift. I’ve had the chance to make some really good friends like this in the Peace Corps, and it’s one thing I’ll take away as a lifelong blessing.

Thus ends this All In Rebecca’s Head post.

*A neighborhood in northern Manhattan, around 181st street.

Home From Vacation, Chengdu Hostel Recommendation

I am back in Chongqing after a full week away at my conference/music festival trip. It was great! I'm glad to be home, though. I got a sinus infection boo hiss, so I am laying low today while I wait for the antibiotics to really kick in. But, just wanted to mention a few things now:

1. Best taxi moment of the trip (and possibly of the last two years): our young taxi driver taking a few of us from the train station to our hotel asked me in Chinese if I like Lady Gaga. I said yes, knowing how popular she is here. The driver popped in her CD and started singing loudly to 'Bad Romance'; he had no idea what he was saying, but he was going for it, and it was covered in awesome sauce.  And of course I sang along, and when we got there he knocked five yuan off the meter! So my new nickname is 'The Taxi Whisperer.' I think I'm going to write a book just about about my taxi experiences in China.

2. The music festival was so much like a music festival in the U.S., we sometimes forgot where we were. As R. said, "I keep getting shocked by hearing people walking past us speaking Chinese!" It was a pretty cool park venue, and event. My new favorite band is Pet Conspiracy; they drink crazy juice for breakfast,  but they were a lot of fun. E. and V. and I worked it in the stage front mosh pit at another show, luckily no lost shoes or injuries. (We were laughing pretty hard imagining having to call our Peace Corps Chinese doctor and explain we got injured in a mosh pit; I could just hear her: "A what pit?" They love those kinds of phone calls, I know.) When am I ever going to be near a Chinese mosh pit again? So I had to do it.

E. took lots of pictures, I'll post a few when she sends them to me.

3. After the hotel (which Peace Corps paid for during the conference), those of us staying for the festival switched to the Sim's Cosy Guest House backpacking hostel, and it was really, really great. In fact, I liked it even better than the hotel. Our room was like a little cabin, with wood floors and furniture, a koi fish stream just outside, plants and trees and a little wooden porch with chairs. The garden, restaurant and bar areas were charming but spacious, lots of hot water, and there is free wifi everywhere on the grounds. And a free DVD screening room with couches. I'm pretty sure we'll go back another weekend, just to hang out. Chengdu is home to the Panda Sanctuary as well as being a major stopping city to get permits into Tibet, so it is a very popular stopover for travelers. There were backpackers from all over the world at the hostel.  We had such a great time, we even skipped the last day of the festival and hung out all day at the hostel, playing cards, watching movies, and chatting in the gardens. And all for about $6 a day. If you are going to Chengdu, stay here if you can.

I'm back on my own computer so I have access to my VPN again, so I'll be catching up on all of your exciting lives!