Puking, Falling, Toothbrushing

Last night I got a bad case of vertigo, which brought on some serious nausea, which meant tossing my cookies in a little garbage can next to the couch. Have you ever had vertigo? It's a beast. And I hate throwing up. I'm a groaner, moaner thrower-upper. It's just not normal for your insides to want to become your outsides, you know? I was with T., so he had the fun job of watching me puke (and helping me out). Friends who help friends when they puke are real friends.

Then, this afternoon I was walking down a road under construction in a long skirt when I tripped on the uneven ground and fell out of my 3-inch heeled sandal, but couldn't get my legs far enough apart to stabilize myself because of the long skirt. Bags in each hand, I crashed to the ground in a totally clumsy and ungracious fall. A bunch of construction workers saw me, but no one came to help me. I scrambled to get out of the road so I didn't get hit by the big dump truck coming up behind me. On top of my ruined sense of pride, I sprained my ankle. Maybe high heels are not so practical for the uneven pavement and dirt roads of China. Or, long skirts are a bad idea. One of the two.

This is a picture of an anonymous man's sink:

There are six toothbrushes in this picture (including an electric one and travel one that are hard to see). In case you were wondering why anyone has six toothbrushes at one time around their sink, he did have a good explanation, but I thought it was pretty funny nonetheless. If I ever need a toothbrush, I know where to go.

My Buddhist Scroll and Other Weekend Pics

In the past I've only purchased souvenirs for friends and family, so this weekend I splurged a bit and bought something for myself. I need something to remember China by, right? I found this beautiful Buddhist icon fabric wall scroll, and I couldn't resist. I'm so happy to have this to bring home with me. It's just perfect for me.

Just for comparison's sake, this scroll cost the equivalent of $40 USD. I have no idea what something like this would cost in America, but I am guessing more than $40. This scroll and really good oolong tea will be my two splurges to bring back with me to America.

J. came down for the weekend, so we had a little get together last night with friends. Bugles on the fingertips never stops being funny, right? (My hand-- I'm silly, I know.)

And here is what we had for lunch yesterday, a Uyghur dish called Chao Mian Pian 炒面片. It's a tomato based spicy sauce, with freshly made noodles, tomato, green pepper, onion, cabbage and beef chunks. Soooo delicious. (It doesn't taste like Italian food at all, the spices are different.) I had no idea Uyghur food existed before I came to China, but it is now some of my favorite Chinese food. I gotta find a Uyghur restaurant in America, I can't go a lifetime without it! (Uyghurs are a Turk ethnic group in China, and many are from XinJiang province in Northwestern China. The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon desert scenes were filmed in XinJiang. It's beautiful up there.)

Separated Families and Social Change

I’ve been conducting oral interviews this week in English for part of my students’ final exam. One of the things we talk about is their childhood. A few telling facts:

-98% of my students are first generation college students

-About 90% are from the countryside and their grandparents and/or parents were farmers

-About 75% did not live with their parents while growing up because their parents had to leave the countryside to find work in a city in another province in order to put their child/ren through school; instead, most of my students were raised by their grandparents. The kids felt a lot of pressure to do well in school because their parents were working so hard to pay for it. (Farmers are often not subject to the one child rule.)
 
(One girl is a twin, and she said her grandparents could not afford to keep both her and her sister, so she stayed to live with her grandparents in the countryside and her parents took her sister to work with them in the city. She has spent all her life away from her sister. She said,”It’s sometimes weird to me that there is a girl who looks just like me that I don’t know very well.” Another girl got a little emotional remembering her mother getting on the bus to leave their village, leaving my student behind. These stories broke my heart a little. It was an effort to keep my face neutral while they were speaking.)

-All my students want to be teachers or work in business; they speak very respectfully of their parents and grandparents, but they don’t want to be farmers. Their dream is to buy a house for their parents.

It is true that Peace Corps volunteers are placed in more needy areas, so my students’ experiences are not true for all Chinese college students. But, I venture that there are more kids these days in my students’ shoes than not, i.e. first generation college student/non-farmers. I think we often judge China through the lense of our own society’s development and position. Economically, our countries are closer and closer everyday. But socially, I’d say my students’ lives in China are more akin to how things were in the early to mid 1900’s in America.

Real-Time Life-In-China Moment

It's 12:10 AM Beijing time and I'm awake because I just got done watching the nail-biting U.S. soccer game online (yes, I'm a soccer fan now, thanks China!) and answering texts from my students congratulating me on the U.S. win. I usually ignore texts my students send me after 10 PM until the next day, but tonight I made an exception. They were too cute! Congrats U.S. soccer team! What an ending! Onto the next round!

Btw, if you are not watching the U.S. team, you are missing out!

Danny Zuko and the Power of the Red Leather Dress

Sometimes I wonder where I get my ideas about which men are attractive and worth investing in, and then I remember: Danny Zuko. *shaking my fist in his general direction*

I was but an impressionable five year old when I first saw Grease. My dad bought me the album at our base PX, and I might or might not have secretly kissed his picture on it a few times.

Danny was THE boyfriend I wanted when I grew up, cocky attitude and all. I blame him for any poor dating choices I’ve made over the years.  And the fact I don’t mind guys who smoke cigarettes perhaps as much as I should. Also, my love of tight leather pants; but Sandy was right: they ALWAYS WORK.

I also remember having a huge crush on Mr. Ice Castles himself, Robby Benson. Sort of like Danny Zuko, but after being rolled about in cotton candy and sugar sprinkles. A little toooo sweet, if you know what I mean. But my 10 year old self thought he was bees knees.

But it does seem as though Olivia Newton-John and I have the same taste in men, because I found this video on YouTube, and oh man, I GOTTA GET ME A RED LEATHER DRESS! This video is almost 30 years old? And I would still lick all manner of things off that guy. I guess tastes don’t change so much over the years.

(And yes, I know this has nothing to do with China. I like to indulge my non-Chinese life now and then, too.)

To Sir, With Love + My Teenage Popstar Mom

Those of you who watch Glee know the season finale had a version of the old song To Sir, With Love. My mom loves this song and used to sing it all the time when we were little, so it was a nice surprise to hear it on the tv.

For those that don’t know, my mom was a teenage popstar in Chile. She plays the guitar by ear, too, so when we were growing up, we spent lots of time singing while my mom played for us. It was like non-stop karaoke in our house. She sang from age 14 to age 19, when she came to the U.S.

A while back I put a few of her songs on YouTube, along with some of her scanned magazine pictures. You can see/hear her here. She is the young one on the front row. (We have a box of magazines and other stuff, I’ve just been really lazy about scanning it all in.) Her stage name was Tina Vilches. If you read Spanish and Google her name, you’ll find some stuff online about her. I get fan mail for her on the YouTube site, and I forward it to her. It always makes me chuckle a bit that people know her in this way.

Sometimes people ask me what it was like to have a former teenage popstar as a mom. Well, it was probably very different from having a mom who wasn’t a former teenage popstar, but it was also a lot of fun. And, I kick butt at karaoke. Thanks, mom!

Video Log: Chinese Products

A short video I made of some...interesting products I have come across here.

I made a few English mistakes, oops! I know you still love me, even though my English can be crappy these days.

The Shadow of Lost Time

When I first came to China, I was living in the aftermath of the hurtful actions of a man I knew. I thought his actions were my fault. And I spent so much time trying to figure out what I did wrong to make him do these things. And trying to fix it.

And my only regret about China is this: in all the turmoil of adjusting to China, I lost all that time I spent trying to figure out why a man would act this way. I know now, there was nothing for me to figure out. There was nothing for me to fix. And there was nothing I did that made him treat me how he did. Sometimes, a jerk is just a jerk. I wish I could have learned this lesson without the firsthand experience I unfortunately had; but, because that is not possible, I resolve to at least never forget it. Or let it happen again. 

How I wish I could have experienced the hardship and turmoil of adjusting to life in China without his actions forming a terrible shadow hanging over me. I sometimes still fantasize about how much easier my transition would have been if these things hadn’t happened. I mean, jerks happen, but that was especially cruel timing! But the good news is, although I can remember feeling utterly terrible, I don’t actually feel terrible any longer. I’ve blocked how terrible the reality of that time actually was. Our brains are merciful.

Don't be like me! Don't let shadows cloud a great experience!

My Stripper Days, Plus Dancing Bebe(s)

So, true story: when I was around 7-8 years old I thought stripping was the best thing ever. I wanted to be a stripper when I grew up, and I used to put on my dad's soundtrack to The Sting, crank up Hooker's Hooker, put on all the clean clothes from the laundry room and play stripper for hours in the living room. (I always stopped at my own clothes! I only took off the extra laundry!) My parents, being the laid-back parents they are, didn't freak out or chasten me for playing stripper. In fact, I don't remember them ever saying anything to me about it, ever. And one day, I just stopped thinking I wanted to be a stripper. Please note that at age 8, I had only a marginal idea of what strippers actually did; I thought it was just wearing pretty clothes and dancing, two things I still think are pretty awesome.

As an adult, I asked my dad why he never told me to stop playing stripper or to stop saying that when I grew up, I wanted to be a stripper. And my dad told me, "I knew you'd grow up and realize there was more to you than that."

I was a dancer from the time I was could walk. I try to tell people, it's in the gene pool; Latin babies just know how to dance. (For those that don't know, my mom is Chilean. And she was a Chilean pop star when she was a teenager. I should write about that sometime.) And here is proof:



If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a watch; this kid is something else!

Shocking Moments

You might wonder, after two years living in China, does anything happen that shocks me? Or have I become so inured to the chaos of daily life that I take everything with a blasé grain of salt?

No, things still shock me. Here are two recent shocking moments:

1. I was asked to help with an English speech competition sponsored by a major Chinese educational book publisher. Oratory has an influential cultural history in China, so speech competitions are a big deal. The topic was being a good public citizen. One girl opened her speech with the following statement:

“We didn’t cause the earthquakes, but our hands built the buildings that failed. Our hands made the milk that killed the babies.”

I was shocked to hear this spoken out loud, by a young girl, in public, at a speech competition attended by the school’s Party officials. These things are not spoken of here in this manner. They’re just not. My Chinese counterparts appeared to have no reaction at all. (In Chinese culture, such a clear non-reaction usually means something.) It is going to be interesting to see how this young generation of Chinese react to things as they move into positions of power.

2. I was at a taxi stand with friends in a shopping square and there was a really long line for a taxi. This woman with lots of shopping bags jumped the queue and hopped into the next taxi. Everyone waiting in line started yelling at her, which she ignored. (The Chinese yell at each other in public constantly, so this doesn’t have as much power as it would in America.) BUT, the security guard moderating the taxis' exit from the square parked himself in front of her taxi and would not let it pass. He kept walking back and forth in front of it to block it from leaving. We were shocked to see someone stand up for queuing norms! And  even more shocked to see someone take the initiative to say, “This taxi isn’t leaving.” In general, the Chinese are taught to do the opposite of take the initiative; you wait until someone tells you what to do, or else.

The woman was having a hissy fit, yelling about how much money she had blah blah blah. Eventually she called the police and they got involved and she finally got to leave the square. But while were were standing there watching, we were in awe of this lone security guard, standing up for what was ‘right', regardless of how much money this woman had. We wanted to buy him a beer or two. Way to be, security guard, way to be.