Pingyao/Taiyuan Trip and Various Things

Sorry for the big gap since I last posted, but not too much that has been that noteworthy has been happening lately. I'm this is mostly due to the fact that the environment that surrounds me has become quite normal to me. I'm sure once I come back to the States, I'll think to myself, "Wait, where are all the babies pooping and peeing on the street?" or "Why can't I drink alcohol in this taxi?"

As my time here in China winds down, I feel as though I'm ready to complete this experience and move on to the next step. However, I have about two months left and I'm definitely going to keep on living it up.

- We formed a foreigners' soccer team and we usually have at least one match every weekend. There is no league, per se, but our captain is well connected enough that he can arrange matches against teams made up of students, co-workers, etc. Our team is made up of Africans, Canadians, Koreans, Indians, Scottish, and English among others. Tyler, our field captain (as opposed to Hugo, our managerial captain), is incredibly competitive and likes to make a competition out of most things...not to mention something he has a lot of passion for (soccer). In fact, he is the one that regularly won all those drinking competitions at Seven Club. The first few times we played he would yell at people and be a general jerk. We nicknamed him Tyrant Tyler. Finally Francis had enough of it and ripped into him. He still yells a little bit, but most of it is positive encouragement. In any case, it's been lots of fun so far playing a game that I haven't really played since I was 8.

- I played my first game of cricket! It was a pick-up game but it was good fun. It's not nearly as confusing as I thought it would be, but it's like the imperialistic, aristocratic version of baseball (at least on some levels).

- A couple weekends ago, my school took us on a trip to a mountain outside of Taiyuan and then to Pingyao, which is one of China's only remaining ancient cities (meaning that it hasn't completely modernized and still has some structures from hundreds of years ago). We had one guide for both places and he was absolutely awful. It wasn't that his English was terrible (but it was bad enough that the Chinese people that work in my foreign affairs office were making fun of him), but it was that he didn't explain ANYTHING to us. To me, the job of a tour guide is to explain the cultural/political/religious/etc. significance of a whatever it is that one is taking a tour of. The entire tour, we had to ask our guide to explain most everything. Oh! But he did explain some things: "This is a tree trunk." or "This is a wooden table with wooden chairs." (I am 100% serious). One pretty odd experience we had during this trip occurred when we were on top of the city wall in Pingyao. Within the city wall is a prison and we could see the prisoners waving to us from their barred windows. So we waved back. We probably gave them the most amusement they had all day long.

The pictures above are all from the trip.

- Considering the recent weather we've been having (80s mostly), our classrooms can get fairly toasty without any air conditioning. So I come in with shorts, birkenstock sandals, and a t-shirt already sweating while some of my students are wearing two or three layers of clothes. I turn on the fans and my students begin to whine (Chinese girls universally have this annoying whine that makes them sound like they are spoiled 7 year olds). They say, "We are going to catch colds!" Then I usually go on a rant for a few minutes about how no one in the history of the world has ever caught a cold from a fan.

Despite the advent of modern medicine in China, there is still a firm belief in some traditional, pseudo-scientific fact views on sickness and health. One of them is that you can catch a cold as a direct result of being exposed to the cold weather (even just wind) for an extended amount of time. This, of course, is not true. However, one is infinitely more likely to catch a cold from lack of sleep (proven), lack of vitamin D (proven), or change in behaviors such as a result of winter weather like spending more time inside and being in closer proximity to others (proven).

I asked one of my students about this and they said there is an old saying in Chinese that basically translates to "Don't take off your winter clothes too soon in the spring and don't put your winter clothes on too soon in the fall"...didn't really answer my question...but OK.

In any case I am going to do a mini-presentation on "How One Actually Catches the Cold" in my classes this week. Terri thinks I'm mean for doing it, and I may be a jerk, but it must be done! I will be merely providing them with scientifically proven facts concerning the common cold...with a fair bit of biting sarcasm thrown into the mix.

- This weekend I am FINALLY going to Qingdao, which is the beer capital of China (producers of TsingTao beer, one of the worst beers I've ever had in America is considered the best beer in China! Who would've known!) I'm going with Amit and this Scottish guy named James "Jimmy". Good stories shall abound...I think we are going to go for a hostel that is right on the beach! Woo!

- Also I am visiting my Norwegian friends, Bjorn and Hanne, in Hainan (the Hawaii of China) at the end of May. Speaking of, I don't think I mentioned this but at their going away party back in the beginning of April, Bjorn, me and a few others went to a restaurant at 4 or so in the morning. Basically we made a mess of things and started using our chopsticks as drumsticks and the various dishes and glasses as percussive instruments. I can't imagine what kind of racket we were making, but one of the waiters commented that it was "very good." Every once in a while during our jam, Bjorn would yell, "YI PING PIJIU" which means "one bottle of beer." After a while of repeating this phrase, a waiter came in, which stopped all the music for a moment, and said, "Yi ping pijiu ma?" Which essentially means "You want a beer?" I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard, but I think you kind of had to be there.

- I am beginning to plan my travels for after I am done teaching...top of the list is Thailand! We'll see how my finances are looking at that time, but I wouldn't mind just chilling three weeks in Thailand.