Silly China!

1.12.11:

There are so many funny things that happen here.

#1) This is the picture I was taking when the girl shrieked once she found out I was from America. I was trying to be incognito as I took a picture of this tea kiosk. I wanted the picture especially for my mom. She drinks morning tea, afternoon tea, and evening tea. Sometimes she forgets about her tea, and it gets cold!

What Southerner would want cold tea? Good thing microwaves were invented. I’m not sure if my parents would have much need for their microwave if mom didn’t have to heat up her cold, hot tea. Anyway, not only is she a tea drinker but she also works in the gastroenterology unit of her hospital and is a huge advocate of getting enough fiber in one’s diet. So nonetheless, this picture was perfect for her.

#2) On Tuesdays I pick up our pay from our office / school base about 20 minutes away by bus. Cheny is pregnant and is due in May. She is ADORABLE and buys everything she needs over the internet. (That seems to be the way to do it around here. Everything in a regular store is so expensive.) She even bought a super cute “baby on board” window tag to hang from the back of her car. Thinking about it, this TOTALLY cracks me up because it’s not like ANY of the other drivers in Qingdao will be able to read what it says!

So the funny part is that she had on a new purchase this past Tuesday.

I noticed it immediately and asked her about it. It seems in China pregnant mothers are very concerned about radiation poisoning, especially from microwaves and computers. Radiation from the outside world is very dangerous for the growing baby. So… they wear radiation vests! Cheny ordered hers from the internet. She got the less expensive style for 100 Yuan, but she said that some of the higher quality, thicker ones are about 1000 Yuan. She laughed and said that the cheap one was fine for her. I told her pregnant mothers didn’t wear those in America, and she was very surprised. I asked if I could take a picture and she gladly obliged.

#3) Ha! Love this one! Our college students have to be ready to talk, write, read, and listen to ANYTHING in English. One of our students, Holly, has her IELTS test in a week and a half and is frantically practicing and studying basically around the clock. During our break one day she was talking through some potential speaking questions. She was talking about KTV. KTV is a place where people LOVE to go sing karaoke. They have these KTVs everywhere. Holly asked if we had them in America and I said no. She was shocked. I told her that people usually go to bars/pubs to sing karaoke or some people just buy a machine of their own. She couldn’t believe it and then began to say, “Well, what if a business man wants to…” (this is where the conversation starts).

Assuming she was going to ask about a businessman renting a KTV space, I blurted out, “Noo, that wouldn’t happen. Americans are shy.” I know that ‘shy’ isn’t the perfect word in describing why most Americans don’t blurt out, “My Heart Will Go On” in front of their fellow colleagues (whereas Chinese college students and business people do) but, no other word came to me at that moment.

Her response was a mix of astonishment and disbelief. “Americans are shy?

... Americans are shy?” She exchanged some comments back and forth in Chinese with fellow student Ben, and then shot back, “What about Lady Gaga?? Isn’t she American?” I chuckled to myself, envision her outfit when she performed for the NBC Today Show this summer, and obviously started to agree that Lady Gaga indeed is not shy. Holly carried on her exchange with Ben. Soon their conversation stopped and she tried to disprove my theory once more, “What about Brad??!!” HA!

#4) Last one. At the beginning this same class I asked the students some brainteaser type questions at which they were allowed to call out the answers. It turned into a competitive game. The first of seven questions was, “Approximately how many languages are spoken in the world?” (7,000) and the second was, “Which is the most widely spoken language in the world?” (Mandarin) (I didn’t think of these questions, it was in their book and the teacher’s manual gave me the answers. I let them think I was just TOTALLY smart.)

It took them forever to figure out the first answer, even after me totally reenacting Price is Right games stuck in my head, but Ben quickly shouted out “Chinese” for the second answer. I told them that Chinese wasn’t specific enough. I needed to know which kind of Chinese.

After a few seconds of confusion Holly desperately wanted to steal the point from Ben and so called out, “Ordinary Chinese!” (Seriously??) She actually even tried to defend herself as being right!

I eventually had to GIVE them the answer and even spell it for them on the board. I made them research what “other” language people speak in the southern part of the country.

Silly China!

11.9.10 - Qingdao Starbucks

My computer has had a lot of problems recently accessing the internet, including today. I am at Starbucks where I am pretty sure I should be able to get WIFI, but my computer is not able to pick it up. That’s actually one of the reasons why I’m here on my day off, so it’s extra frustrating. Sorry friends and family, I was going to try to Skype and update the blog, but no luck. Fortunately all is not lost, as most outings do lead to amusing adventures.

I got here right at 10:00AM. I haven’t had my usual Starbucks favorite of a skim vanilla latte (thanks sister Lindsey) since leaving so I was excited to finally enjoy one. I asked the girl at the counter if they had skim milk. She replied yes in a way that I felt silly for even asking. I ordered my grande vanilla latte with skim milk and the price came to 51 RMB. That my friends, was crrrazy. I glanced up at the board and noticed that a grande latte was 26 RMB (around $4) and then wondered how much the shot of vanilla cost me. She handed me the receipt and there were two charges, written in Chinese symbols of course, one for 20 and one for 30. I didn’t want to be so bold, but I asked her what they were for. She said the vanilla latte was 30 and the skim milk was 20. Wow, I thought, it’s a high price to be healthy in China. As I a grabbed my latte, found a table, and waited for my computer to turn on, I began thinking about my next blog. It was going to be about how impossible it is to find healthy things to eat here. As my mind kept rolling about what to say, and then I felt discouraged noticing that my computer couldn’t access the internet, the girl who took my order brought me my mug of warm skim milk.

Who knew that being a coffee drinker would be so confusing?! Erin, go’head and pour one out for a little calcium.

Say What??? Some funny things…

1) “but there are MANY old, dead, smart Chinese men…”
Explanation: One of our college students, Holly, a great student and a professed lover of history (she even could remember who King Henry VIII was in class one day!), took us to eat at one of her favorite restaurants just outside of the East campus (pronounced, please, in Chinese-English as East campers). On the walk, Brad was talking about the mountains in and around the city of Qingdao. He remembered my dad explaining that one of the mountains around here had something to do with Confucius, but couldn’t remember which one. He asked Holly. Holly did not know who Confucius was. Here’s how the conversation pretty much went down,
Holly: Confucius?
Brad: Yeah, Confucius, you know, the really smart old guy.
Holly: I don’t know Confucius.
Dana: He was the very good man and was very smart and was a big part of Chinese history
Holly: Oh, well maybe that is his English name and I only know his Chinese name.
Dana: Oh, right. (thinking I’m being sooo supportive….)
Brad: Come on, he’s really old and really smart …
Holly: Oh, he is alive now?
Brad: No, he is dead.
Holly: laughing, shaking her head, and pretty much thinking we’re ridiculous Americans, but there are MANY old, DEAD, smart Chinese men.
CONVERSATION O.V.E.R..

2) Riddle: An English speaking American and a native Chinese speaker try to communicate in a shop in China. What language do they speak? ……..Spanish, of course! Explanation: Brad was eyeing something in one small shop and was trying to ask a question about it. The Chinese man in the shop tried to talk to Brad in English, but was having a difficult time so he asked Brad if he spoke Spanish. Brad said he did a little, so he and the Chinese man spoke in broken Spanish instead. They were able to communicate enough to understand each other. Thank you to Spanish teachers everywhere!

3) On Sundays Brad and I both have tutoring classes. We have noticed subtle differences between cultures here and in the U.S. recorded in the workbooks that these classes use. Both of my classes are mix of grades 4-9, though the majority of the kids are in 6th grade. I teach two levels of English, but in the lower level the students were learning the word ‘preference’ and had to choose which beverages listed were their preference. Beer was one of the choices along with milk, soda, fruit juice, etc. I thought that was pretty funny – then came Brad’s class.

One of Brad’s Sunday tutoring classes is comprised of four (two girls and two boys) 2nd graders. Preparing for his most recent class, he was looking through the teacher’s manual for suggestions about the lesson. On the top of the “Unit 2” page, in a shaded box, was the heading In this unit the pupils learn to understand: (obviously the objectives of the lesson… so very important)
Don’t forget (the potatoes).
My head hurts.
Stay here.
Damn. My new jeans.
I want to sell (this necklace).

Damn, I should have been teaching that lesson! What does Brad know about new jeans?!

All By Myself

9.15.10: I AM AT THE BEACH…. ALL BY MYSELF! Today is my day off. We’ve had a few super nice days in a row. Two days ago, Monday, on Brad’s day off, he wanted to come to the beach in the afternoon so I absolutely obliged. It turns out it is right by Huawen College’s campus. On Monday when we came I thought I was going to have to go back yesterday (wow, it really was yesterday. It now feels so long ago.) for work so I tried to memorize what I was doing. Brad had been told by Cheny to get off the bus after the mountains had ended so he relayed that to me. He also made a point to show me the bus sign when we got off and then also told me that one time he made a mistake and got off the bus too early. It made for an long walk but he still got to Huawen none the less. (He has to teach there on Sundays.) Since we had to wait for a while to catch the bus to return, I also noticed a number of banks across the street. This was all key information for my return solo adventure.

Okay. I CAN DO IT BY MYSELF… right?? I hung around the dorm in the AM and waited for Brad to get back from the morning college class. Poor guy, he has to double down on his classes today. Teach the college kids in the AM and the middle school in the afternoon. Yesterday he did too since I had to teach at the primary school. We went to lunch together and had a nice time with some fellow Americans from BYU. Brad went off to the middle school. It was time.

I decided to bring along Brad’s bathroom towel instead of mine since his is orange and mine is white. Mine would have a much higher risk of getting stained by the dark sand. Besides, he offered.

So I got to the beach ALL BY MYSELF! I bought water ALL BY MYSELF! I found a place to sit ALL BY MYSELF, and then I sat ALL BY MYSELF! Hmm… I didn’t want to get bored so I brought some casual reading that was left for us in our room by Madam Jiang, the riveting Common Knowledge about Chinese History. I also brought something else. I was so proud of myself for this… my new netbook with the go-go-gadget long battery life to play some favorite ENGLISH tunes! I put my (Brad’s) towel out and placed my book and water beside me. Then I opened my computer and pushed the play link on my i-tunes playlist. Two guys in jeans and white t-shirts, under an umbrella, and a good enough distance away so I was sure they couldn’t hear anything turned around and stared. I turned around too to see what they were looking at. Whatever it was I’m sure it was exciting because they were turned around for a while. I saw a guy walking this way. Maybe it was him. What?

I so enjoyed my time at the beach. It was beautiful and the music was so fun. I never got to the book. Next trip, I’m sure.

9.15.10 PM: Brad wanted to take a trip for a few things so we went out. On the way down the campus to the bus stop we realized that neither one of us had a camera. First time that has happened since being here. We joked that something H.U.G.E. was obviously going to happen.

Brad played a fantastic game of pantomime with a lady at Carrefor who was able to play it right back. It was definitely the most impressive game I’ve seen him play yet as he does do it often. Most store workers don’t understand and just giggle and shrug instead. Not this lady; she was ON IT! She helped us find a perfect hotplate (it even had some directions in English) and a tea kettle that would work with it. The Chinese government did a GREAT job with her assignment!
On the way home we traveled down a road not yet traveled (not the first time) to find something to eat. It was flashy and bright so we thought there was bound to be something somewhere soon. There were in fact many places to eat, they just happened to be all fish places. I saw the famous tanks with the live fish soon to be fish food. The places were packed; they just wouldn’t be further packed with these two brunis (sorry, wrong continent).

We walked on.. and on. We came up on a CFY – Care For You – restaurant. I actually have seen a couple of these around and have peeked in their front windows before. I’ve since wanted to try one but didn’t know we had one close to us. We went in. We were led upstairs and sat down at a table and left with a menu to check off what we wanted. We looked around. There were large shallow pots in the middle of every table. WE WERE AT A CHINESE MELTING POT!!! Awww – it made me ink! We also didn’t have a clue what to order as the menu was in Chinese and no worker spoke English. The manager stepped up to the plate to try to help us (She had a white shirt on and everyone else had on green.) but couldn’t either. They all just laughed at the confusion. Fortunately there was a large group of people celebrating at the table right next to us and they knew English very well. Brad told them they could all be Americans and they laughed. At least it was a happy atmosphere! We told them some things that we wanted and they checked the appropriate words. We still had to order fish (we chose shrimp and crab) but at least it was dead when it came to our table and we cooked it. Shout out to the Butlers on the Toogoodoo who showed me what shrimp look like when they come out of the water and taught me how to peel a shrimp with the head still on. Who knew then I would actually NEED to know that info and teach it to Brad! Well, I declare! (That was for you, Elloree.) On that “shout-out” note, we ordered crab because the people at the table behind us had it. If Emily Richardson hadn’t taught me about her famous crab pasta I wouldn’t have recognized it! Thanks, Em! Great Success!