This is my best friend. She's fat.

Last week I gave my freshman English classes a writing assignment. They were to write a short biography of a classmate, and then read it to the class. The boys were funny. They would make jokes about their friends, or say that they spent a lot of time playing computer games. Nothing really out of the ordinary. But then I noticed them saying things like, “My friend is a very cute boy.” Wait…what? And it wasn’t just one or two that said it. About half of the boys said that their guy friends are cute! They didn’t mean that they were attracted to them, nor was there anything “lost in translation.” They were simply stating that their friend was good-looking. And it wasn’t a weird thing to say. No one laughed or seemed surprised. Except me. No one heard me though. J

I thought nothing could top that, but then the girls started speaking. They said nice things about their friends, “she’s pretty, she’s kind, etc.” They talked about their friends’ likes and dislikes, “she likes to read, she doesn’t like sports, etc.” Then I heard,”She’s fat because she likes to eat a lot.” Wait…what? I looked over and expected to see the (very skinny in my opinion) friend burst into tears and run from the room. But she didn’t! She simply giggled and nodded her head as the rest of the class joined in laughing with her! The next girl got up to speak and told the class that her friend doesn’t exercise, so she’s fat. And on it went! “This is my best friend. She likes to watch movies. She’s a little fat.”

I’ve learned that there’s no such thing as a personal question here. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask people how old they are, how much money they make, how much they spent on something, and more. People don’t think twice about telling someone that they’re fat, or that they’re not very good-looking. A lady once told me that my curly hair was messy, and that she could tell I was a foreigner because I was fat. Not because I had fair skin, big eyes, and spoke terrible Chinese, but because I was fat. J I don’t know if this candidness is a good thing or not. Maybe some things are just better left unsaid.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Part of living in a different country means eating new foods. When I’m out with friends or students I like to try different foods, as long as they don’t look too suspicious! When I’m home however, I like to eat what we call “Western” food. To you at home in the states, that’s just the everyday food from Wal-Mart or Publix. Sometimes going grocery shopping here is “Like a box of chocolates. Ya never know what you’re gonna get!” And when you do find something that you don’t expect, like a favorite candy or baking supplies, it can make your entire week! Often times we’ll go to the Western food stores and come home feeling like we’ve found buried treasure. So I wanted to show you some of the things I consider treasures, that you might not think about at all.

Here are some of the "Western" foods that are actually sold in China. See if you can figure out what they are! :)





Who would have ever thought that you could even find Nutrisystem foods here?? :)

Freshmen and Frustrations

Last week the Freshmen started their classes. I thought I was only going to have one Freshman class, but I ended up having 3 more added to my schedule. I wasn't too happy about it, but then I found out that I would get paid extra for those classes, so that made things a little easier to accept. The Freshmen though...they're something else. :) When you walk into the classroom for the first time, there's a loud "OOH!" and then whispers of excitement. The cell phones come out and they start taking your picture. It's all flattering at first, they sure know how to boost the ego! :) But then each time they talk to you it's, "You're so beautiful", "Do you have a boyfriend?", "Do you think you're beautiful?", "What kind of boys do you like?", "Do you think I'm handsome?" (oh yes, I got that question!), "How old are you?", "How old do you want to be when you get married?", and on and on and on! It gets kind of annoying after a little while, but they can be kind of fun, and they hang on your every word!! Unlike...

My Juniors!! Most of the time they're pretty good. But they can be so frustrating!!! I think the biggest problem for me to deal with is that their classroom experience is different than what I'm used to. In American university classrooms, the teachers encourage discussions, students ask questions, and learn to think critically. My experience has been so different here! When I ask a question, I get blank stares. I understand that there's a slight language barrier, so I give them a little extra time to process the question. Then they look down at their textbook and read a sentence that may or may not have anything to do with what the question was about. When I try to initiate a discussion, I get nothing. The students look down at their books, or look at their friends with a "Is she serious?" face. They're not used to an interactive classroom. They're used to being lectured at. They're not used to critical thinking, they're used to memorizing their textbooks to find the correct answer.

And the cheating!! Oh my word! It's practically an art form. Now not all of them do it, but the ones that do have perfected their craft. They write the answers on the desk, shamelessly look at a friend's paper, leave their notes or textbooks wide open on their desks, or just ask someone what the answer is. I had one student that missed a quiz because he was sick. When he came into class the next day I gave him the quiz and told him to go directly into the next room to take it. He went back to his desk, grabbed his cell phone, and tried to walk out. I told him to give me his phone. He did, but then went back to where his friend was and asked him for the same quiz that I had already handed back to the others! You have GOT to be kidding me! Right in front of my eyes! It wasn't like I was distracted or anything, he knew that I was watching him and waiting for him to leave. I went over, grabbed the quiz and told them (and the whole class) that if they ever pulled anything like that again they would get zeros. They just kind of smiled, and the kid went to the next room and took his quiz. He got a 100. I'm still trying to figure that one out... But whatever. Cheating is a big problem here. It's almost expected. So now I have to make them sit at least one seat apart from each other, and I'll make them switch desks to throw them off a little. I have to be just as creative as them.

I now have even more respect for teachers and all the junk they have to put up with! I only wish I had been a better student! Now all the stuff I tried to pull is coming back to bite me in the behind! :)

The Death Star and Moon Cakes

A couple of weeks ago, I woke up one morning and in my groggy, blurred vision state, I thought the Death Star was outside my window! If you don't know what that is, you must be a girl with no older brothers. :) It was actually just a big advertising balloon. Still, it was a little startling first thing in the morning.

 

So last weekend was the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival. I don't know too much about the history behind it, you can read about it here: http://www.chinavoc.com/festivals/Midautumn.htm . I just know that we get a few days vacation and people give us Moon Cakes. Moon Cakes are these small pastries that can be filled with nuts, fruit, or eggs. Really, you should open the link and read about them. :) The outer cake part kind of tastes like the outside of  a Fig Newton, but there's not much of it to snack on. Last year was my first experience with them, and it wasn't really something I was looking forward to having again. This year I was given a beautiful box from the university where I work. So I tried one just to make sure. It was filled with a red bean paste. I wasn't a fan. :)

School Days

I already mentioned that I would be teaching business this semester. I thought that I had mentally prepared myself, but when I got my schedule I realized that I was dead wrong. I found out that I was supposed to teach three sections of Marketing twice a week, an Oral English class, and a Personality Training class that, after teaching for two weeks, I’m still not sure what that is! J It’s a class for the tourism majors, and it focuses on interviewing and writing resumes. But back to Marketing. Marketing‼ After having a mini panic attack, I actually flipped through the textbook and scanned the lesson plans that a friend had given me. Not too bad. I think I maybe kinda sorta can handle this a little bit!

So teaching those classes hasn't been as bad as I thought. I realized that I knew a lot more about Marketing than I thought I did! The students have been fun. After about a week of being shy and nervous in front of a foreign teacher, they started warming up and letting me get to know them. Even though I have a tough time putting the right name with the right face, some names and faces I just will not forget! All of my students have English names, but some of them aren't really names. Some of the more unusual ones are: Vesslan, Leaf, Jackgai, Kaka, Cherry, 2 boys named Messi, Lother, Star, Rock, Began, Prince, and a girl named King. I guess that’s better than a boy named Sue. J

Slow Boat to China

Well, not a boat exactly, but a fairly slow trip. :) I left Tampa on a Thursday evening and flew to Atlanta where I would board my flight to China (via Korea). When I checked my bags, I knew that one of them was going to be over the weight limit. I was just going to pay the extra and be done with it. But the lady at the counter helped me find some some space in the other bag and shift things around a bit. After putting what we could where we could, my bag was still overweight by three pounds. But through the repacking, the lady had seen my teaching books, told me that she was once a teacher too, and with a wink, let my 53 pound bag slide through. PTL!!When I got to my gate, I was told that the flight would be completely full and I would have to check my rolling carry-on to my final destination. Checking a bag at the gate makes me a little nervous, and the thought of it making three transfers (two of them being overseas) made me even more nervous, but I had no other choice. I just trusted that HE would take care of it, and got on the plane. The flight was horrible, and I'm not a huge fan of flying anyway. We dipped and rose up and shook side to side. The hour and a half flight couldn't end soon enough. When I got off the plane I felt queasy and didn't feel like boarding a 13 hour flight after that. I had a three hour layover in Atlanta, so I walked around the International Terminal trying to clear my head, settle my stomach, and get some air. You know, as much fresh air as you can get in an airport. After a while I felt fine and was hungry, so I got my last meal in America; Arbys!! Yum! :)

Time to board the plane! As I walked reluctantly (or should I say enviously!) through the spacious and comfortable first class, I found my window seat in the economy section. A Vietnamese lady sat down in the aisle seat so there was an empty seat between us. The doors closed and as we prepared to take off, I was delighted to realize that the seat was going to remain empty. The Vietnamese lady and I smiled at each other and we were both happy for a little extra room. When we got to the altitude where we could take off our seat belts, the lady stood up and moved a couple of rows ahead where there was a completely empty row! She said she was going to move up there and I almost cried tears of joy when I realized that I would have the whole row TO MYSELF!! That never happens to me!! And here I was, fortunate enough to have all this space on an international flight! PTL!! For once in my life, I was thankful to be short because I could stretch almost completely out and lay fairly comfortably across the seats. Since I had been awake for almost 24 hours, I was asleep in no time. When I woke up about 5 hours later, I felt rested but still tired. I didn't want to sleep too much and ruin my chances of beating jet lag once I got to Qingdao, but I really wanted to take advantage of having all three seats! So I popped in a Tylenol PM, and went back to sleep! :) I woke up with about an hour and a half of the flight left. Just in time for a meal (I slept through the other one!), and one movie. I landed safely and smoothly in Korea, got a little something for breakfast, and boarded my last flight of the trip. It was about 8:30 AM on Saturday morning when I arrived in Qingdao and was relieved to see that all of my luggage made it too. PTL!!

All in all, it was a very smooth journey. The long flight was the best I've ever had. I still had jet lag, but being able to sleep comfortably and stretch out made it all worth it! From the overweight luggage to the empty seats, I know that HE was watching over me. :)

New City, New Adventure

So, after a great year of teaching in Mengzi, I felt direction from the Father to move to Qingdao and take a teaching position there. I found out that I would be teaching all Business classes, with maybe an English class thrown in there. I graduated with my degree in Music, and have never taken a business course in my life. After having a mini panic attack, I decided to buck up and accept the challenge.

Little did I know that challenges would come from all over the place! The first challenge was telling my friends I was leaving, and then telling my family that I wasn't coming back home. Both were hard, but everyone was encouraging. Then came the challenge of packing and shipping. Last year I had spent a little over $200 dollars shipping some boxes to Mengzi, and I reallllly didn't want to do that again. I've also never used the Chinese postal Service, and had no idea how reliable it would be. I had noticed that the Seniors were bringing a lot of their things over to the post office on campus and were apparently shipping them home. I thought I'd check it out and see it that would be something that I could do as well. I found out that as long as I was shipping my things within China, I would be able to send them right from there and the post office would give me the special student shipping rate because I was a teacher. Great! So I went back to my apartment to pack up two big boxes. As I was taping up the boxes of books and kitchen supplies and other heavy items, I realized that there was no way that I could carry these even one at a time across campus. It's about a 10 minute walk from my apartment to the post office. So I called my friend Sara who has a scooter, and she came to help. Normally two people can sit comfortably on a scooter with a box or other item resting on the floor between the driver's feet. However, my boxes were just a little too big to fit. They wouldn't fit on my lap either. Hmm. Now what? Sara suggested (Mom, don't read this part!) that I sit backwards on the scooter and hold one box while it balanced on the back. This was going to work! So after two trips back and forth from my apartment to the post office with me sitting backwards, my boxes were ready to ship. Except...they weren't. We found out that that in order to get the student price, I had to ship them in this big white bag that looked like a huge rice bag. No problem, I'll just get two bags and put my boxes inside of them. But the boxes were too big. So Sara and I had to unpack my beautifully and carefully put together boxes and try to put them in the bag so they would be secure. After doing the best we could, we lugged them inside to get weighed. Both of them were just at the weight limit. One was a bit over, but the weighing lady just looked at me, smiled, and with a little wave of her hand said that it was fine. It was only then that I wondered how we were going to close the bags, when the lady whips out a big needle, some really big thread, and starts sewing my bags shut! Meanwhile Sara was addressing the label trying to figure out how to translate the destination into Chinese characters. I asked another worker how much it was going to cost, and braced myself for the answer. She did a little computing, and to my delight told me that the total for my two bags was going to be 140 yuan. That's about 20 bucks. :) So after the whole 45 minute ordeal, I walked (or rode on the scooter) away wondering if those packed full, sewn shut, hopefully addressed right rice bags would ever reach Qingdao. A couple of weeks later I got word that they did indeed reach their intended destination, and as I unpacked them last week I was happy to discover that everything was there and only one of my mugs had a teeny tiny crack in it. I can handle that. :)

After that the challenges that came didn't seem quite so big. :)