A Chinese Thanksgiving

I'll admit, I was a bit sad about the prospect of my first
Thanksgiving ever without turkey. Even in Hong Kong, we could get
Thanksgiving dinner- and introduce Thanksgiving to our foreign
friends. Which was definitely a great Thanksgiving.

Here, I had the day off except for a Chinese lesson. Yang Haiying
chose to take me to the Antiques Market, which was great. A random big
building with lots of little antique shops- mostly jade, or
calligraphy paintings. This one shop showed me a very long scroll- it
was the four seasons that they could only show me one season at a
time, due to it's huge size. It was a mountain scene, but all
connected together, and flowing from one season to the next. gorgeous!
Painted by an 80 year old man who has been painting since he was 8
years old, and who took 6 months to paint the scene. Another highlight
was finding a shop with violins hanging. I told them I played and
asked if I could try one. The old guy there played me some folk songs
he knew, by ear, and I played a bit (very rusty, haven't played in
months!) and even tried some music. He was really nice and very funny-
said the only English he knew was "please come in" and "very good." We
went around the market, which included a pet area with fish and
hamsters, tea shops, and stores I would classify as "random crap." One
store owner seemed excited to direct me toward batiks with Jesus and
other religious scenes- very weird. Because I am a foreigner I
suppose?

The market was quite cool and not something I can say I might have
found on my own. Maybe I'll head back there when I have some more
money saved up, because there's real jade and some good quality
paintings there.

I celebrated Thanksgiving in my own way by watching the Thanksgiving
episodes of Grey's Anatomy, and "Slapsgiving" of How I Met Your
Mother. I'm also doing some Thanksgiving activities in my classes.
Since my family and friends are quite fond of board games, I am trying
to play a version of "Imaginiff" in my older class. I think it will be
fun since we all know each other somewhat by now.

Then I asked all the teachers at the school to eat dinner with me.
After some discussion, we decided to move Dumpling Friday to Thursday
for a special Thanksgiving. This seemed appropriate to me since
Thanksgiving is all about bonding, and Fridays are our bonding time
over good food. We got our usual favorite dishes as well as a pumpkin
dish. It was this sort of crazy basket filled with pumpkin, corn,
meat, and pancakes. Somehow seemed very "Thanksgiving."

Certainly, I missed my friends and family on Thanksgiving. And having
a real T-day dinner. But, cheesily, I gotta say that I am thankful for
the guys at the school- they are good friends. And my Chinese
teachers. I also am employed in a job I like in a place I like. life
could be worse!

Still Exploring

These two days off after our long weekend of teaching always seem to
fly by much too fast. Luckily, it's been sunny and much warmer here-
even getting up into the 60s, which is quite nice considering the
highs barely in the 30s. I walked around quite a bit and did some
shopping. Of course, grocery shopping is never mundane in China- as I
was checking out, the old lady behind me looked through my entire
basket of stuff I was buying, even picking up and touching things. I
was buying cereal, a very foreign product, at Walmart, to be fair.
Then, I found the shelf of English books at the Foreign Languages
Bookstore, which a pretty random selection of books- mostly classics
and a few other things. I bought Freakonomics, which I've been wanting
to read for a while. It was certainly a better selection than I
thought it would be, although I'm pretty sure it's the only place to
buy English books in the city. After that, I went to a place I'd never
been- Momo Tea. I really should try to go more places, but when I'm by
myself I find myself reluctant to try and find somewhere new where I
can order/has an English or picture menu. But this is a great
discovery! It's a Taiwanese style tea place, and they also have lots
of snack and dinner foods- including sandwiches, Thai, and Korean
foods. Plus, the waiter was super excited to see me- he spoke some
English, so I could order really easily.

Otherwise, I've been attempting to start my lesson plans for
Thanksgiving weekend, and plan my big vacation in February. I will
probably be meeting up with Kate and Siggy from the 14-23, in Hong
Kong and the Philippines. If anyone will be in Hong Kong then let me
know! Or if anyone will be in Asia from Feb 1-14- I will probably be
traveling by myself during that time. It's hard to decide where to
go-so many possibilities! I am thinking about Malaysia/Thailand, or
maybe Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. I might join a tour to meet people,
still deciding. I love planning these vacations though- it's so nice
to have something exciting to look forward to!

I can't believe it's almost Wednesday- tomorrow morning I have Chinese
lessons and teach my starter class. sigh.

My Liveblog of "Samantha Brown in Beijing"

I am on The Travel Channel's mailing list. You may know that I am
obsessed with the Travel Channel- mostly for Anthony Bourdain's show.
Today they told me that I could get a free Travel Channel Episode,
which as it turns out is Samantha Brown in Beijing. Samantha Brown
hasn't done Asia before. Her show is more the cheery American goes to
see touristy stuff, while Bourdain's is more the digging deeper-eat
street food- get drunk with locals type. But it's turning out to be
totally entertaining.

First she visited the hutongs in Beijing. These are the old school
alley ways that you can only reach by pedicab. This brings me back to
my high school trip, when Zoe and I shared a pedicab and our entire
orchestra had a fleet of them. But man, Samantha Brown speaking
Chinese really boosts my self esteem. At least I somewhat try to do
tones! Her "duo shao qian" (how much?) made me laugh pretty hard. And
apparently, her pedicab cost 200, which seems like a ripoff. Not that
I know how much mine cost 8 years ago but it was probably like 200 for
all of us.

Also, she was explaining how the subway is easier to use post-Olympics
because there is so much English now. There's English everywhere in
Guiyang too! But I'd like to see her try to navigate the squeaky,
bumpy, crowded Guiyang bus system. Oh, wait, she just was trying to
buy a subway ticket- "yi ge" means one! Come on Samantha, that's what
you want!

I'm totally jealous that Sam is wearing tube tops and shorts.
Especially since I was just outside, where everyone has on ridiculous
coats, scarves, and cartoon character earmuffs. And we're still cold!

Now she's in the Forbidden City. She can't believe how large it is. As
high schoolers, we quickly got over our sense of wonder and felt like
we were in a never-ending land that kept repeating itself- it all kind
of looks the same. Oh guess what? I know the pipa song that is
playing- does that make me a Chinese music nerd?

Oh yes, she's in the Peking Duck restaurant! That is a good memory.
They just said "gambei," which they claimed is "cheers" but is really
more like "bottoms up!" As in, down your whole glass. Well, I have to
give Sam credit for eating duck's tongue- never had it. Although I've
had ox tongue, which is not a weird flavor but it's more the texture.
Because there's a tongue already in your mouth. Ooo, a behind the
scenes on the cooking of the duck, in fireplaces.

I'm starting to realize that the Great Wall was not so crowded when I
climbed it. Maybe because it was rainy? Although I do remember both
small children and old people practically running by me, which was
upsetting as I huffed and puffed. Although I gotta recommend the Great
Wall- seeing it is cool, but climbing it gives you such a sense of
accomplishment.

Samantha just tried fried starfish. It looked hilarious at the end of
a stick. All of my HK friends who went to Beijing had scorpion at that
night market, I think. Well, that's the end. I don't know how long
this is free on iTunes but I'll recommend it! A good intro to China!

Chinese Calligraphy (back into my life!)

Today, for my Chinese lesson, Yang Haiying and her friend from
university taught me Chinese calligraphy. We only did the numbers, for
about an hour, but believe me, doing the strokes properly is much,
much harder than it looks. Back in the day, when I was maybe ages
8-12? I had a Chinese calligraphy kit with an instructional book and
brushes and stuff. It was a pretty decent set and a pretty quality
book, I realize now. I mostly did bamboo and flowers and stuff. But it
did teach my some basics about strokes. Like the number 1 (yi) may
just look like one line. It's so much more than that though. You have
to get used to holding the brush straight up, rather than slanted. and
applying the right amount of pressure at the right angle. Plus, it's
all really quite mathematical- the placement of the strokes within a
box. So I definitely appreciate the beauty in good calligraphy.
Especially the script-ish version that Haiying's friend was able to
do. Who knew though, when I was a weird kid who taught herself Chinese
calligraphy when she was 8, that I would be doing it in China now?
It's really fun though. I have to admit, I enjoy it a lot more than
speaking. Plus practicing speaking takes a lot of guts, where
calligraphy just takes lots of concentration. So hopefully I will do
some more next week.

Otherwise, it's my last full day off before the work weekend. And it's
still freezing. It makes it difficult not to stay in bed all day,
curled up with my space heater and a book/laptop. Alas, I must do all
my lesson plans.

Ice Cold!

It is freezing cold here in Guiyang. Like, even I know what 0 degrees
Celsius is. There is no central heating either. So the school gets
pretty cold- we have heaters in all the rooms. And space heaters. But
it's still cold. I have the coolest Guiyang fashion though- Hello
Kitty quilted pajamas. They are ridiculous, I love it.

Due to the cold, I don't have much to report because I can't say I've
been up to much. Now we're into another work week- those days off sure
fly by. Since I am the only American at my school, I'm the only one
who really cares about Thanksgiving, and probably the most I'll get to
do for it is have my students make hand turkeys. I do love the food
here, mostly, but I will miss having a Thanksgiving dinner.

Otherwise, I am just starting to brainstorm ideas and plans for my big
Chinese New Year vacation. Especially at the moment, tropical beaches
are sounding nice...

A Few More Taiwan Photos

Here are some more Taiwan photos, courtesy of Kate:
http://www.xoopit.com/s/2142bx0urqqivgm9zmf0

This Past Week

I can't believe we're already into November! I was thinking about how
Thanksgiving is so soon, and then it's Christmas season after that.
Wow. Time flies and whatever. Speaking of, we just found out when our
vacation for Chinese New Year (which is also called Spring Festival,
for future reference). It's 22 days long, which is great. February
1-23. To get such a long vacation, we do have to make up some classes
in January. But that gives me lots of travel time. I'm going to see if
I can meet up with Kate and Siggy for at least part of it. And also,
if any of my adventurous friends are going to be around Asia in
February or want to meet up, let me know. I'm also thinking that this
would be enough time to go to Australia. Though I'll probably still
wait until after my year contract to do an Indonesia/Australia trip.
But I do miss my Aussie friends. So maybe. Otherwise I'm thinking a
tropical vacation-
Malaysia/Philippines/Thailand/Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos- one of those. Or
maybe even some travel within China- I do want Kate and Siggy to be
able to see Guiyang. We'll see.

Last week, I had my usual Chinese lessons. My 3 teachers have split up
my lessons- Yang Haiying does more cultural lessons. Last lesson she
taught me about minority cultures in China, of which there are 55, by
the way. Miao and Dong people live in Guizhou province. She brought
her dance teacher to the lesson, who taught me a few simple dances
from of the Miao and Dong, Tibetan minority, and Xinjiang people. It
was great, and very interesting. She also played some songs of each
minority, which I loved. As you all know I'm pretty into world music.

Otherwise it was a standard weekend- very busy and long days. I taught
my reading and writing class about American colleges and universities,
which was fun because I showed them some Bryn Mawr pictures. I found
out that I will have an additional lesson- I will be doing 2 hours a
week one on one with Philip's student. Philip has been teaching this
girl 12 hours a week, private lessons. She started with no English
(she's about 20), and is now up to grammar and reading and writing.
Very impressive work ethic, you have to admit. Obviously you have to
be quite wealthy to afford that kind of tutoring too. We definitely
get some of the richest families in Guiyang. Which is weird, I have to
remind myself that this is the poorest province in China, yet we see
the richest people.

By the way I still can't access facebook so I'm sorry if I haven't
responded to messages on there! You can email me: meganobrien86 at
gmail.com if you want to talk to me. Keep in touch!

Halloween and More

This past weekend was Halloween weekend. Actual Halloween was on the
Saturday that is one of our marathon days. I made a jack-o-lantern
basket out of paper and filled it with candy. We made masks and played
games in all of my classes. I made a Halloween playlist which included
such classics as Thriller and the Ghostbusters theme song. My starter
class was very cute; four-year-olds get super into Halloween. My
favorite class is LM2b on Sunday, which is the second book after
beginner, so the kids are around 8-10 years old. They are amazing- I
don't know who named them but we have a Ramon, Montana, Gabe, Dale,
Zusie, and Chalie (that's right, no 'r'). They get excited by even the
most ridiculously boring English book exercises so they loved
Halloween, and even shouted "Michael Jackson!" when Thriller came on,
which I thought was impressive. They also said "Michael Jackson is
'game over'" which I thought was accurate (lots of weird phrases the
kids know in English come from video games- game over, K.O., and fire
in the hull!). In my older reading and writing class, the ever crazy
and ever brilliant Mike promised to dress up. Mike is a 12-year-old
with excellent English and knowledge of Western pop culture, and well,
everything. When we discussed poetry he started reciting Shakespearian
sonnets, I kid you not. He wore some kind of mummy attire, which
you'll see in my photos. It's been a Halloween themed month so we
listened to Halloween tunes, read about horror movies, and played a
version of the game "Mafia," which they apparently play in China too
(weird?).

Anyways, it was a fun weekend with candy and games in my classes. So
that was cool. My days off have been pretty uneventful. On Tuesday my
electricity went out (the whole building- again), so I got a smoothie
at Highlands Coffee and used their internet. Plus the weather has been
nice so I've been walking around lots. After that I sort of
accidentally ended up along the river, below the street level. It was
amazingly quiet compared to the endless city noise, and very peaceful.
I walked to a sight I've been wanting to see, the "symbol of Guiyang."
It's called Jiaxiu Tower. And as I walked toward it, suddenly it was
ablaze with white lights. Check out the pictures- it looks almost
magical. Plus I didn't feel like a freak taking photos there- it's a
scenic spot so there were lots of cameras out. There's also a garden
of some kind, which used to be an abbey according to Lonely Planet.
I'll probably head back some time and check out the inside. Anyways,
it's a great spot. Peaceful in a very loud city and beautiful at
night.

Here are all the photos I mentioned:
http://www.xoopit.com/s/2142bx0urqqiv5k776i2