Choggles

'Choggles' is a combination of two words, 'China' and 'goggles.' Choggles are similar in function to beer goggles, but with a broader spectrum. For example, you buy some cookies. Are they good cookies, your friend asks you? They're choggle good, you say, meaning, not good if you're in America and have access to Mrs. Fields, but good when you're in China and desserts are commonly sweetened with red beans. What you mean is, these have a little sugar in them, not beans, and are somewhat edible.

Choggles make it difficult to remember what you like and don't like. You wonder, do I like this because it's good, or because I'm wearing choggles? Is The Hangover actually this funny, or do I just miss Western irony and sarcasm so much, I'm willing to laugh at even the weakest examples of it? Is that guy actually hot, or is he just a lot taller than me and therefore I can't take my eyes off of him? And so on.

How long does it take choggles to form? I think food choggles form first, within a month. Entertainment choggles, about 6-9 months. And dating choggles? About a year. But I also think dating choggles are the strongest. You always know when you're wearing food choggles; dating choggles are pretty transparent.

Choggles might make you watch movies/tv shows, eat foods, and think about dating people you'd never consider watching, eating and dating in your pre-choggles life. Which is not to say choggles are a bad thing; choggles expand your horizons and experiences. But what happens when you take the choggles off? Do you still want to watch, eat and date those things? I have no idea. I'm about to find out, though.

Housekeeping note: I leave later today for my isla vacacion. I still haven't decided if I'm taking my laptop along. So if I go MIA, it's because I'm on the beach. Holla!

How The Chinese Eat (With Video and a Cute Guy To Boot)

This video clip is from a movie called Sophie's Revenge. (Original Chinese name, Fei Chang Wan Mei « 非常完美».) There's a scene where the lead girl and guy are eating dinner together, and it struck me as an excellent example of eating culture in China, so I want to share it with you. It's a short clip, about 1 minute long. Ignore the dialogue, it's not important. A few things I want to point out:

1. Notice how he puts food into her bowl? It's very polite to do this for someone. I do it now, too.

2. Chopsticks should be held high up on the stick. I often now see American shows where I think people are holding the chopsticks in a really weird way. No wonder the Chinese think we don't know how to use them!

3. Almost all food is eaten out of a small bowl like this. You fill it with rice, then just keep adding food on top and eat down the rice until it's gone. No big plates or bowls (unless it's a big bowl of noodles).

4. The pick up the bowls and hold them in their hands throughout the meal. This is common and not considered bad manners.

5. At one point, she holds the bowl very close to her mouth and sort of rapidly shovels the food in. This is also very common and not considered bad manners. I do this sometimes, but not often, just because it still feels a bit weird to me to do it in front of others.

6.Not an eating observation, but I think this actor is really handsome. He's ABC (American Born Chinese) who has family in Taiwan, and is pretty famous here. There are a few actors and singers who are very famous here who are ABC, but are completely unknown in the U.S. (Not sure about Canada.) His English name is Peter Ho. The actress is Zhang Ziyi, best known in America for her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She is one of the most famous people in China.

Police Registration and the Hukou

Here in China, all foreigners must register with the local police within 24 or 72 hours of your arrival. Usually tourists are staying in a hotel approved for housing foreigners. (Hotels must be approved for foreign guests by the government and there will be a sign in the lobby displaying their approved status.) The hotel takes care of registering with the local police for you. When you check in, they'll make a copy of your passport/visa and fill out a form that has your passport info, the number of days you are staying, the city you came from and the city you are going to next. Sometimes you sign, sometimes not, but they give it to the local police. If you are staying with friends, you must go to the police station yourself to register. If I have a friend who comes to visit me for more than 24 hours from another city, I'm supposed to let my school know so they can register my guest with the local police.

Foreigners are also required to carry their passport with them at all times. If you get stopped by a policeman and you don't have your passport, they can give you a warning, make you pay a fine, or make you spend 2 weeks in jail, depending on what they want to do. Our Peace Corps security office has told us it is okay to carry only a copy of your passport and visa if you are in your home city, but if you travel, you must carry the original. So I have a copy of my passport and visa tucked into a zipped pocket of my purse at all times. I've never been asked for it, though. As of February 14th, I will also have to use my passport to purchase train tickets. It is a new law we just found out about.

Chinese nationals all carry ID cards, similar to our Social Security cards, but with pictures. They also have something called a 'hukou' 户口 ('who ko'). The hukou are a type of registration papers for where you live. From my understanding, it used to be that you had a hukou for your city or village, and you were not able to travel to or move any place outside of your hukou. You could be arrested or sent home. But now, there is only a rural/urban split for the hukou, and it mainly applies to buying or renting property, not traveling. For example, a friend here has a Chinese girlfriend. She looked into renting an apartment here, but her hukou is still registered in her rural hometown, so she can't rent an apartment here until she changes her hukou from rural to urban. You can apply to have your hukou changed, but it seems to be a bit of a process, because she is still working on it. However, I was also told recently that the restrictions for our city have been lifted, and anyone can rent or buy an apartment. Laws seem to be very fluid here. I was also told that in a popular city like Shanghai, it is difficult for people with a rural hukou to rent an apartment in the city. But, I wouldn't have a problem as a foreigner doing so.

I recently heard my city will also be actively working to get people who move here changed from rural to urban hukou so the city can receive more federal funding. I imagine this is similar to a city or state wanting to make they have accounted for everyone for voting and tax purposes. So maybe it will be easier in the future to change from a rural to urban hukou.

I will write more about my recent trip in coming days, but I thought this might be interesting to you, and it has been on my mind as I prepare for and go on my trips.

Training, And The Sweetness Of Kleenex

(I found internet access so I can post by email, but sorry, I can't see anyone else's blogs or make comments. I will have a lot of catching up to do!)

My week of training is going very well so far. I spend half the day in Chinese class, and the other half listening to guest speakers and completing activities. So far we have had the NPR Beijing correspondent come speak to us (really interesting!) and now we have reps from the State Department who specialize in education here doing some training with us. It's like being back in grad school, and I am eating it up. And we are all here in a hotel together, so there are lots of fun times eating and playing together after the work is done. Overall, a great way to spend the week!

I complained before about Spiderman Syndrome, so I feel I should also share this small anecdote: V. and I were watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon earlier this week in his hotel room. Near the end of the movie, he got up and put a little travel pack of tissues in his pocket, then came back to his spot. Well, if you've seen this movie, you know the end is heart-wrenching! Sure enough, a few minutes later, I start with the sniffling and the watery eyes. V. silently pulled the pack out of his pocket and handed me a tissue. It was very sweet. I think we had talked before about how I cry every time I watch this movie, and he remembered. He is such a gentleman, and I really appreciate all the men out there like him who are caring and kind. Thanks, guys, you make life a little bit sweeter.

Hope you all are having a great week!  Tomorrow my director's niece who lives in this city is coming to meet me for lunch. I'm excited to see her again and introduce her to my friends.

I'll be here for a few more days; the time is flying by!

Random Eclipses Are My Life Now, Plus Food and T-Shirt Pics

Yesterday there was another eclipse here; I had no idea it would be happening, so it was quite random to look up in the sky and see the moon partially blocking out the sun. R. and I were on the bus going to meet up with folks for dinner, and I noticed people along the side of the road taking cell phone pics of the sky. I thought maybe a new building had been lit up or something. Then we happened to pass empty air space and see it, briefly, mostly obscured by smog of course. It was pretty neat, and pretty random. But too many buildings and too much smog, so no pics this time. It didn't get fully dark or cold like the full eclipse last summer, though, which is still one of the coolest things I have ever witnessed.

I thought you might like to see one of the Chinese dishes I make here for myself. This dish is chicken, tiger prawns (which are like a cross between a green pepper and a jalepeno and I love them), green onions, garlic, Sichuan-pepper infused oil, french-fry cut potatoes and spicy chili black bean sauce. I think it's very good, and super easy. I've learned that stir fry is so popular in China because it uses very little fuel; small pieces of food cook quickly. For so long people have not been able to afford much fuel, so stir-frying evolved as a solution. Baking a potato or a cake is a luxury here, because it requires a lot of energy.

I leave tomorrow for training at Peace Corps headquarters, held in a neighboring province. It's a chance to see people who are assigned to other parts of the country, so I really enjoy going. Of course, we also have city pride, so we wanted to make a t-shirt for those of us here in Chongqing. I made this design in Photoshop and had it printed up yesterday. This t-shirt cost $6.00 and took ten minutes to make at the t-shirt shop.

A few in-jokes in the design:

• We call Chongqing "The Chonx." 
• Posh Corps refers to the fact we get hot running water, unlike many other Peace Corps volunteers in the world. (However, we also deal with psychological hardships they don't, but that is another post.) 
• 1415 refers to our program year designation: I'm a China 14, meaning I came in 2008, the 14th year of the program. The volunteers who came in 2009 are China 15s. (When I leave, I'll be replaced by a China 16, and so on.) 
• The 'yellow glow' is, of course, a joke about our lack of sunshine. 
• The gray background is supposed to be smog. 

I like making t-shirt designs, it turns out. I'll probably make some more before I leave.

I think I'll have internet access while I'm training, but I'm not sure. If I go MIA, that's why.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Anxiety, and Being Honest With Yourself

This is difficult for me to write.

(My dad, before he died, was very open to sharing with others the lessons he learned from having cancer. He wanted people to not to feel alone. He was also a very good listener, and encouraged people to share with him things they didn't feel anyone else would understand. I'm trying to follow his example.)

Anxiety is a problem for me. From stories my mom told me about my childhood, it's something I've probably always had. I've struggled with it as long as I can remember, but I thought everyone did.

Some things that cause anxiety are easily forgotten. Anxiety sometimes resulted in achievement, due to panic, so I haven't always recognized it as a problem. Some things that cause anxiety are long-term, and not easily forgotten.

In the past, I've dealt with anxiety through medicine and self-medicating, not by addressing the anxiety itself. I don't think this is uncommon.

Just prior to arriving in China, I had an experience with another person that caused me a great deal of anxiety, both at the time and afterward. I self-medicated and used a lot of denial to try to deal with it.  All of our continued contact made me anxious, both because of the past experience and the way things were between us now. The only way I knew to relieve myself of the overwhelming, at times unbearable, anxiety I felt was to stop contact. (I could not have articulated at that time, though, that I was feeling abnormal levels of anxiety. All I knew was how painful any thought or contact with him was.) I met someone here I trusted and confided in, and they recognized that the high levels of anxiety I experience are not healthy or normal and encouraged me to seek healthy ways to deal with anxiety. It has been a long and painful road, and it's not over yet, but I've been getting help with this. No more self-medication. No more denial. Instead, mental strategies and solutions, and ultimately, the confidence, to deal with it.

The most difficult thing was admitting I had anxiety I didn't know how to deal with. And have had for a very long time. I got really good at hiding it from others. I always thought of myself as very capable, so admitting it was like admitting a personal failing. But now I realize, it's an opportunity to be a stronger person. I still have moments of intense anxiety; I don't think those will ever go away. But I am learning to manage it in healthy ways, and making progress.

There is no shame in seeking help if you don't feel like you can deal with the things that happen to you. Whatever skills are missing, you can find and make a part of your life. I can't change the past, but I can have control of my future. I hope you know you can, too.

-----

Thinking and praying for the people of Haiti today. Wish there were a way for me to go help. Another tragedy, it's not fair some people suffer so much.

Flushing, Queens (Again) + The Gift Of Options

I'm getting to that point in my service where people are asking me what I'm going to do when I get home. For those that don't know, before coming into Peace Corps, I had a real life adult business job, a real life adult apartment full of real-life furniture, a car, etc. I still have the car, and the furniture (thanks mom for your storage help!), so it's time to decide about the job. (I've done my Masters but at least at this time, I'm not going to do a PhD. Maybe in a few years, we'll see.) My goal is to be an ESL teacher, either corporate or government.

I've narrowed down the cities where I'll be job-searching, and I have thrown NYC into the ring. I always thought if I moved to NYC I'd live in Washington Heights, but I really do want to live in a Chinese community. So, in the near future, I'll be making a trip back to NYC for a tour around Flushing, Queens. I've never been there, and I have no idea what it's like. I just know a lot of Chinese live there. I really have to get a feel for a place to decide if that's where I want to pursue living. Who knows, maybe I will get there and realize it's all wrong for me! Which would be helpful, I can cross it right off my list. But it might be great, too. It's not trendy or cool, but for my purposes, it would be fine. And I bet I could find a really good Mandarin school there.

In February, I'll start putting out feelers and resumes and making use of connections to get my name out there.

My service is over in mid-July. I'll be flying to Shanghai to spend some time with friends at the World Expo, then continuing on to the U.S. I'm sure I'll be staying at my mom's house while I figure out how far away I'll be shipping all of my stuff.

Scary, but exciting too! I have no money, and no idea where I'm going to end up, but I have options. I'll be okay.

Those Sneaky Canadians!

Two stories:

R. went to Beijing last week with some visiting American family and friends. They were on a bus going to the Great Wall, discussing China, Chinese culture etc. They were also jockeying for new seats and started talking about an empty seat next to a Chinese guy sitting in front of them.

R. to her sister, in English: "Do you think that seat is available?"
Chinese guy, in English: "Yeah, this seat is available."
R., in her head: "Oh crap, he just understood everything we've been saying about China!"
R., to the Chinese guy, in English: "Your English is really good! Which [Chinese] province are you from?"
Chinese guy: "Ontario."

Hahahaha, this still makes me laugh! And it reminded me of the time last year when N. and I were checking into our hotel room and having trouble with the card key. These two kids, and their mom, were opening the door to their hotel room across the hall at the same time we were struggling. The two kids (about 9 and 10) came over and helped us with our key, and told us in English how to insert it and jiggle it around etc. Nicole told their mom, in Chinese if I recall, "Your children speak English really well." The mom: "They're Canadian."

I was thinking the exact same thing as N., she just said it first. D'oh! Lesson learned: watch out for sneaky Canadians! Just teasing, I love you guys. Real lesson learned: always wear clean shoes, you never know when you'll be putting your foot in your mouth!

In Fact, You Don't Know His Heart

Today I learned* that the movie He's Just Not That Into You is translated into Chinese as In Fact, You Don't Know His Heart (其实你不懂他的心). And really, that's just so accurate, isn't it?  


*I decided my Chinese textbooks were super boring and unmotivating, so now I study by reading popular culture magazines. It's slow-going, but I'm learning a lot.

Cute Things My Students Said On Their Final Exams

Final exams are over!  Hoo-freaking-ray! But I did chuckle a few times at some of the things they came up with on their final English exams. A few examples from my Tourism major students, about Mardi Gras:

“Mardi Gras is the Oily Tuesday” (I love how her language processing center made the connection from ‘Fat’ to ‘Oily’)

“In Mardi Gras day, children always go to other’s house to get sweets, and say ‘trick or treat.’ It is celebrated on December 31st.”

“It is celebrated during the month which is before the Christomary.”

“Mardi Gras is have one die but no one sad.”

“Mardi Gras is the people who don’t eat meat.”

And my personal favorite:

“Mardi Gras is paradise in the street.”

A few things they said about differences between Western and Chinese eating customs:

“In America, you can drink too much wine at diner, but in China, you can drink as much as you want.” (I’m not sure where she got this idea, but probably from a tv show or movie where someone says, “I drank too much wine at dinner!”

“American will use a                 to avoid the polute.” I have no idea what this means, but I’m curious about that missing word.

A few items that can be eaten politely with the hands:

“Chili” “Apple drinks” “Chopsticks”

This student really believes all Americans are cowboys:

“A motel is a place where offer some services for person and the horse which is used in travelling.”

But one of my favorite moments was from an English major doing an oral presentation about Hawaii. He showed a picture of a beautiful Hawaiian sunset, and underneath he had written the caption “The sun its gonna rise!”

I also learned that ‘carousel’ is translated directly from Chinese as ‘galloper.’ I kinda like ‘galloper’ better.

My students are adorable.

 

Technorati Tags: China,teaching,words

You'd Think This Would Be An Easy Thing To Remember...

The tour guide who led me around JinSha Relic Site gave me a mic to wear so we could keep in touch while I checked things out close up. Related: I think he had been trained how to conduct tours for Westerners because he stood really far away from me at all times. I couldn't figure out if he were standing unnaturally far away, or if I have just become so accustomed to having no personal space it seemed super far away but was actually normal Western spacing. I think this means I'm totally going to embarrass myself in America by standing 6 inches from someone in line at Target.* But I digress....

So he and I were both wearing mics, and mid-way through the tour I needed to use the bathroom. I went on my way and it wasn't until I was washing my hands that I realized my mic was still on. OOPS. I was mortified! I hope that either A: we were far enough out of range of each other that he couldn't hear me or B: he turned his mic off.

Note to self: when peeing, turn off all transmission equipment.

*I'm pretty much planning on going to SuperTarget everyday I'm home. It's my happy place.

Apology, Toasts, Pictures and Potties

First of all, I read back over my recent Spiderman post, and I cringed. I am so mouthy sometimes. I've been working on controlling myself when I "get my Latin up" as one of my friends puts it, but sometimes I say things without thinking. I sounded harsh, and I didn't mean to. I made a goal not to talk about my personal life here, and I feel like I kinda violated that on that post. So, apologies, I'll refrain from future discourse like this.

Toasts: it's not just what's for breakfast. During formal dinners, either family or business, it's traditional to give toasts to each other throughout the meal. I don't really enjoy this tradition, because I just wanna eat all the delicious food, you know? But it's an important part of the culture here. (During our training period, we even had a banquet to teach us this custom. It's that important.) You must give the toasts in the proper order, or it's a big faux pas; the most honored person in the room, then the next, and so on. So if you go to a Chinese dinner, you need to pay very close attention to the hierarchy of the room. The Chinese LOVE hierarchy, and if you don't respect it, you lose.

So at dinner with the family, I knew Baba (Dad) and Mama should have my first toast, as they are the oldest and therefore most important. But I couldn't remember who the oldest brother was. Argh! Then I noticed the brother sitting closest to Baba-- yes, it must be him. (It was.) I toasted him, then all the other brothers down the line, and his sister. You should always keep your glass lower than the person you are toasting, and it becomes a game. During one toast, we lowered our glasses so much they hit the chair, and they got a kick out of that. One of them said, "She is Chinese now!" I took it as a compliment.

A few more pictures.

Here I am on New Year's Day with my director's little sister, her husband and her daughter. (After being up all night NYE, literally, plus a four hour car ride, I look a little busted! But I know you all love me for my personality.)  I was laughing when they took the picture. This was her 40th birthday party; how amazing does she look?

Below is me, my director's son, and my director's niece. She is darling! I'm going back to this city in two weeks for Peace Corps training, and we made plans to get together while I am there. I'm excited to see her again, as well as the sister and family above.

Related: I thought I was a picture ham, until I moved to China. THEY WIN. Also, the finger shape I am making means "8" and is a good luck sign in China. Yes, all numbers have an associated hand gesture. The more you know...

And finally...a picture in a hotel room bathroom stall. Western toilets are still rare in my part of China, and are usually only found in Western restaurant and hotel chains. (And luckily, my apartment.) So, sometimes some instructions are needed:

The end. Thanks for reading! I hope you found it worthwhile. And yes, I will keep writing while I am on my vacations and at home. You are stuck with my nonsense a while longer! 

I Got To It, And I Crossed It!

Breaking news: in three weeks, I'm being taken to 'China's Hawaii', an island located off the south coast of China called Hainan. Here's a picture:

I know, I was surprised too! It's a gift, and I'm extremely grateful for it. And excited! We stay for a week, and I return a few days before I leave for America. I won't know what to do with all that sunshine, but I'll be nice and rested for my trip back to the U.S.

Okay, a few more tidbits about my weekend trip:

We visited a place with one of those swing-y bridges:

I love bridges, but they also make me dizzy; when I was 15, I was hiking with my dad and fainted off the side of a foot bridge into a river. The little girls wanted to cross the bridge, so I sucked it up, grabbed their hands, and away we went. A large sign at the entrance says not to swing the bridge, but why get on a swingy bridge if you're not going to swing it? So of course, quite a few boys got on and started monkeying away. The little girls got frightened and squealed and grabbed my hands tighter, and I wanted to tell them, "Listen, I'm not the one to cling to here! I'm scared too!" And then I thought, is this what it's like to be a parent? Being scared, but knowing they're even more scared, so you just keep moving forward? That was my strategy, and it worked. We made it off alive! Hooray!

One of the neatest things we did was visit the JinSha Relic Site, near Chengdu. At JinSha, someone discovered pottery relics in the dirt, and as archeologists dug deeper, they uncovered a 3,000 year old village, complete with graveyards and ancient palace. My director's brother-in-law is an archeologist there (they are still uncovering relics), and he arranged for me to have a private tour of the site and museum with an English speaking guide. I LOVED this, it's now one of the highlights of my time in China. It was incredibly kind of them to arrange this for me. I learned that among the relics they found is this gold piece above, which has now been adopted as one of the Chinese icons of cultural heritage. The archeologists speculate that the four birds represent the four seasons, and the 12 sun rays are the 12 months of the lunar cycle. They sold gold replicas in the museum shop, but waaay out of my price range. But, I love this piece now, I want to buy a print for my home.

Last night I went and saw Avatar in 3D; after my experiences here of being a foreigner trying to integrate in a historically closed-off society, I think I saw it through different eyes than if I had seen it at home. Anyway, hence the delay posting about my trip. I'll finish up tomorrow.

New Year Adventures of Panda Girl

My new favorite hat:

You might think this looks silly, but animal hats are all the fashion here. I'm so wearing it when I go to the U.S. in February to see my grandma; she is going to crack up when she sees it, and I can't wait. It's a great hat, btw, it feels like you're wearing a blanket on your head. I've started wearing it to bed to keep warm.

New Year's Eve turned out to be much more fun than I anticipated. My friend T. organized a trip up a mountain to ring in the new year, but as I told him, not only do I not climb mountains in the dark in the dead of winter, I don't even pretend I want to. So instead I went to my friend V.'s house. V. is awesome, because A: he is from the South, so we speak the same social language, and B: he loves brie and baguettes, tomato salad and nutella as much as I do. We ate these yummy things for dinner, then went downtown to meet up with a few friends. We watched fireworks and rang in the New Year at midnight in a beer garden with other revelers, then went into a club and danced the night away. Our mountain friends came down off the mountain to join us, so it was a big all-night lovefest. What a great way to ring in the new year! Here's a picture of me trying to eat J.'s nutella. As you can see by his face, he did not think this was as funny as I did.

My New Year's Day weekend trip was so interesting! And so Chinese. I'll tell more about in the coming days, but it ended up being just me, the director of the Foreign Affairs Office, and his whole extended family. I was honored he asked me to spend the weekend with his family. They were wonderfully hospitable to me, and made me feel very welcome. I was on pins and needles the whole weekend, making sure I didn't do something to offend anyone. (There is a strict pecking order in Chinese families. I'll talk more about this later, too.) My director's nieces were very cute, and took a liking to me. They always wanted to sit next to me and hold my hand. Here's a picture of us in the backseat of the car:

And here's a picture of part of the group in a city called DuJiangYan, a World Heritage Site located near Chengdu, Sichuan province. At this place, they started using dams and irrigation 2,600 years ago, and the same system is still used today. Pretty neat:

I'll post some more pictures tomorrow, and give more details about my trip. Hope you all had a great New Year!