Good Things to Send to Someone Overseas

Here are some of my favorite things I brought back with me. If you know someone living overseas, these might be things they'd really enjoy:

Dry spice mixes, like pesto, alfredo, chili and taco seasonsings

Dry ranch dressing powder

Dry hot chocolate mix

Protein bars (Clif, Atkins, Slimfast, etc.)

Swiffer dusters

Comet powder

Hot sauce

Individual lemonade packets (the ones meant for water bottles. I brought back tons of Cherry Limeade and I am loving these)

Microwave mini chocolate cakes - just add water

Peanut Butter cups (peanut butter is a very American/Canadian thing. When I offered to bring things back for fellow volunteers, this was the number one request!)

These are all things that are difficult to find overseas, are pretty small, and can make a big difference in the psyche of someone living without the comforts of home. 

Purple Roots

I dye my hair roots dark, and luckily there is no shortage of black hair dye in China. But the black dye I used today turned my roots purple!  Either the box had the wrong color dye in it, or there was some weird chemical reaction. Anyway, now I have purple roots. Fun! 

Instability

I've read a few reports recently concerned about the stability of the hundreds of millions of peasants in the countryside who rely on factory jobs to survive. Many, many factories have closed, due to the poor economy in the West and reduced orders for goods. 

Traditionally, government coups in China have been instigated by peasant revolts. (The Communist takeover in 1949 was the result of a peasant uprising.) From what I have read, the peasants have been more willing to accept corruption, human rights abuses, and other injustices because they were making good money. As long as the money was flowing, the government was not too concerned about revolts from the peasants. 

Now the jobs are disappearing, the money is disappearing, and there is nothing to placate people's anger over the hardships in their lives that they attribute to the government. I don't know what is going to happen here. I do know that if there is any instability that arises, we will be evacuated before we are placed in any danger. So I am not concerned for myself. But I am concerned about the lives of the people here. 

We are not allowed to talk openly about this here, of course. 

How China Views the U.S. Human Rights Movement

This article was on the front page of the Chinese English news today: 

Source: Xinhua | 02-26-2009 10:59

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Department interfered with the internal affairs of China and some other countries again, groundlessly criticizing them in its 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices presented to the U.S. Congress Wednesday.

The report turned a blind eye to the efforts and historic achievements China has made in human rights that have been widely recognized by the international community.

It willfully ignored and distorted basic facts, groundlessly assailing China's human rights conditions and making random and irresponsible remarks on China's ethnic, religious and legal systems.

It also pointed its fingers at the human rights conditions in some other countries such as Russia, Pakistan, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Cuba, Iran, Somalia and Zimbabwe.

The U.S. State Department has issued a report almost every year since 1977 on the human rights conditions of other countries, using it as an excuse to interfere with others' internal affairs.

Famous

Did you know I'm famous in China?  Well, I am. People on the street take my picture, stare, sometimes even film me. Today I happened to run into two of the other American teachers at my school, we stopped in the plaza to chat for a minute. One of the guys suddenly said, "Don't look over, but that guy is filming us." It didn't really phase us, we just kept talking. You get used to it. Foreigners are still such a novelty here, people are curious about us. I understand the staring, we catch them off guard. I don't really understand the taking pictures and filming though: are you going to make a slideshow/video for your next party??

One thing I loved about being back in America is blending in. I don't really enjoy the attention we get here, but I've gotten used to it. I didn't even look over at the guy filming. In the end, it doesn't really matter. 

Chinese Cartoons

I found a kid's channel on CCTV that is the equivilant of PBS, so I leave it on quite a bit to practice listening to Chinese. They speak more slowly and use simpler language, so it's great for a learner like me. I can't really bring myself to sit down and watch it for more than about 15 minutes, but they do have Thomas the Tank Engine, SpongeBob SquarePants, Teletubbies, and a really cute little penguin cartoon called Penguin Clan, all dubbed in Mandarin. I wish they had Chinese Sesame Street, now that would really be fun! 

I also study with Rosetta Stone software on my computer and study characters and grammar with a few study books. And I try to memorize characters from my dictionary. It is very frustrating at times to not be able to learn more quickly than I am. I can't help but think if I had been in France or Spain for 8 months, I'd be speaking a lot better Spanish or French than I am Chinese. But, I'm going to keep plugging away. 

Listening is the hardest part, as in having to talk to Chinese people and figure out what the heck they are saying!  Reading is the easiest, I can do it slowly. It's just a matter of memorizing the characters. So it takes A LOT of time, but it's not necessarily hard. Anyone could do it with enough time.

Clocks

I added two clocks to this page, one in China (which is all on one time zone) and one for U.S. Mountain Time. But the box is doing weird things on my end. Is it doing weird things for you too? Or does it look okay?  If it's weird to you too, I'll play around with it to fix it. Let me know! 

My birthday party was fun. I made a big pot full of chili in my rice cooker, and we also had cornbread and apple cake and sugar cookies. Around 15-20 people came and we just spent time talking together and eating. My kind of evening. 

Birthdays in China

My birthday is tomorrow. I've invited some of the other volunteers to come to my apartment for a chili dinner. (I brought the spices back with me from America.) I also brought back some of that sugar cookie dough mix and I'm making cookies tonight. In China it is a tradition that you take your friends out for dinner and YOU pay, not them. So, I am sorta trying to celebrate the Chinese way. 

I was at the store and they had one birthday cake candle and it was a 7. I am not sure what you do all the other years here!  I thought it was pretty funny though, because they had a few candles, but they were all 7's. Cake is not really popular here. You can get it, but it's mostly weird foamy stuff that is only sorta sweet. Kind of a cross between shaving cream and whipped cream. So I'll just stick to the cookies and chili. 

Update

Hello!  Sorry it has been a while since I have written, but it is mostly because nothing very eventful has been happening, so that is a good thing! 

I had a great 3 weeks at home, and got back to Chongqing with no problems. It was just a very long trip though, almost 48 hours with layovers. Phew, was I happy when I finally made it! My luggage arrived with me with no problems, and the three boxes of supplies I mailed to myself also got here with no problems. I was definitely watched over. 

School has not started yet, so I am just preparing for classes, working my lessons, studying Chinese and fixing up/cleaning my apartment. Hence the lack of updates, not much going on here yet. 

But, I do feel much more at peace being here this time around. I don't know why, but it is a blessing to feel good about being here. Marilyn reminded me that my dad used to say a lot of happiness is managing expectations, and I guess this time around, I know what to expect. It does make a big difference. 

I love you all, please drop me a line! I have a local number you can call, it rings to my computer through skpe. It's 801-542-9378. I am 15 hours ahead of Mountain Time. Call me anytime! 

Update

Hello!  Sorry it has been a while since I have written, but it is mostly because nothing very eventful has been happening, so that is a good thing! 

I had a great 3 weeks at home, and got back to Chongqing with no problems. It was just a very long trip though, almost 48 hours with layovers. Phew, was I happy when I finally made it! My luggage arrived with me with no problems, and the three boxes of supplies I mailed to myself also got here with no problems. I was definitely watched over. 

School has not started yet, so I am just preparing for classes, working my lessons, studying Chinese and fixing up/cleaning my apartment. Hence the lack of updates, not much going on here yet. 

But, I do feel much more at peace being here this time around. I don't know why, but it is a blessing to feel good about being here. Marilyn reminded me that my dad used to say a lot of happiness is managing expectations, and I guess this time around, I know what to expect. It does make a big difference. 

I love you all, please drop me a line! I have a local number you can call, it rings to my computer through skpe. It's 801-542-9378. I am 15 hours ahead of Mountain Time. Call me anytime!