Returning Home

The final week in China was the busiest time of the entire trip. We gave our students the final oral examination, said goodbye to a multitude of students, packed up, and cleaned our apartment. I alone had over 800 students who took the final pronunciation examination. Fiona was kind enough to help me with some of my biggest classes so that I could finish up in the allotted hour and half period. Grading, compiling, and curving the grades took longer than it should have because everything is still done using paper and pen at the school.

We also attended four going away parties! The first one was our idea, but then the students (as usual) took it into their hands and organized the whole thing. It was an American style pool party BBQ. Unfortunately it was a cool and rainy day but we still managed to have a lot of fun eating Chinese BBQ and swimming in the spring fed pool (no chemicals added!).

We had a rushed dinner with the University president who received his PhD in math from the University of Glasgow so his English was very good. We also had a “banquet” with a few faculty members. We tried many Chinese delicacies such as congealed blood, cow throat and stomach villi (not as good as it sounds).

Last but not least for our final English corner, our students put on an elaborate show complete with games, pictures, gifts, skits, and many musical performances. The Chinese students are so organized and put so much thought into their welcoming and sending off ceremonies. They are also extremely sincere and romantic. They say things like “I will never forget you.” “Never say goodbye.” “Although we will be far apart, we will still be together in our hearts.” “Can’t get you out of my head, can’t get your out of my heart, can’t get you out of my life no matter if we are apart.” “My heart will be empty without you.” I tried to keep up, stammering things like “I’ll miss you, it has been great, you have all been great friends” but I felt like my bland statement of feelings didn’t hold up.

We spent the last day packing, cleaning, and saying goodbye to the students who we were especially close to. It’s traditional for Chinese to exchange gifts when saying hello or goodbye so we had to scrounge around for gifts such as some American change, sea glass, etc. Not enough really. We received some beautiful paintings and meaningful trinkets and felt very lucky to have such wonderful students. After leaving at 4:30 in the morning we made an arduous journey from Chongzuo to Nanning to Hong Kong to Thailand.

Because this blog is about China I cap the Thailand story to just a few details. We went to Pataya which was the world capital of prostitution and just an insane party (at least for the visitors). We went to a little island called “Kohl Larn” which was beautiful and we ended up staying in a most beautiful hotel room for quite cheap.

We then traveled up to Chang Mai to visit Erica who is an old friend from high school. Since graduating from Barnard she has been teaching in Vietnam and now Thailand. She had a beautiful house on the edge of the city and taught young kids in the Montessori Method. If I was going to live in Asia again, it would probably would be in Thailand. Go to China if you want to see a something unaffected by western culture, go to Thailand if you want to be comfortable and enjoy yourself.

Looking back on China I could make some basic conclusions: The government owns a lot, the people own a lot less. By and large, the Chinese are good people. They are traditional, innocent, and seem very happy given their lack of resources.

The Chinese also like Americans, and probably anyone of European decent. In fact, if can’t find a job in America, China is a good place for you. Check out this article: http://current.com/entertainment/comedy/92517344_for-rent-in-china-white-people.htm

Erica said that Asia is the new California. I agree with her in a certain sense. For instance, there is a real movement of "young hipsters" who are choosing to pick up their roots and move to the far East. There is a plethora of jobs and although they do not pay well by western standards, the cost of living is so low that it is in fact very easy to live quite well. On the other hand, Asia has a long ways to go before it catches up to the west. The average standard of living is still much lower than that of America and economic inefficiencies run rampant. There is much work to be done in Asia and much opportunity for those who seek it.

Homemade Chinese Dinners and the Detian Waterfalls

We are down to the last final weeks here in China. Today I finished teaching my last English major class because for the next 2 weeks I will be doing small discussion groups with my students. The discussion groups are their final exam and since I have so many students I have to spread it out over 2 weeks. We have been practicing the discussions for the past 3 weeks and I’m confident that they will do well, although I’m sure there will be a fair share of grammatical errors. The other exciting development for my classes is that I’ve set up a pen pal relationship between Gunn High School (the high school George and I both attended) and my students. My students are so excited to have an American friend. The students they are writing to at Gunn are taking Chinese language classes, so the American’s write in Chinese and the Chinese write in English. Getting everyone’s email addresses sorted out has been a process because email is new for many of these students. For some, their pen pal letter was the first email they have ever sent, EVER. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself that I got these kids using email.

Our last two weeks have mostly been centered around our students. Two weeks ago we had 10 students come over and cook us Chinese food at our apartment. Our kitchen is pretty small and we had to use every spoon, bowl, and chopstick that we had. I went shopping in the afternoon with them to buy all the ingredients, which was a different experience from where George and I go in the market. George and I tend to steer clear of the outdoor meat market because they sell everything there, including dog, goat, and every part of the pig and chicken. It also is not a very clean place. However, my students prefer to buy their meat here, so I spent a good part of an hour trying to hold my breath. This place is enough to make you become a vegetarian. I saw a goat head being blow torched and parts of the throat and intestines of all kinds of animals. The chickens are cut in half, with these things that look like tomatoes attached to their insides. I couldn’t figure out which part of the animal that was so I asked. “Oh, that’s the egg!” And yes, they eat the half developed eggs too. The students prepared us delicious food, but I didn’t really get to learn to make much of it because there were just too many people in the kitchen.

The orange thing is the chicken's egg... yum yum!

Trying to learn how to make Chinese food. I look so big next to them!

Gambay! (Bottoms up!)

That weekend we were also the judges at a singing competition some of the English majors held. The students are very creative in coming up with ways to entertain themselves, since there isn’t much to do around the school outside of class. Their singing wasn’t anything amazing, but it was entertaining and the student that won was the only one to sing in English. Afterwards, they insisted we sing for them too so George and I sang some Beatles songs for them.

Us and our singing students after the singing competition

TC and his wife Xue Chen over for dinner the next day and I made them a good southern meal to remind TC of his home in Tennessee. TC had told us that there was a place to buy boneless frozen chicken breasts so we tried to find them. Unfortunately, we don’t know how to say “I want boneless frozen chicken breast” in Chinese. George kept pointing to his chest and flapping his arms, but I was afraid they would think he meant “I want a chicken heart”! We managed to get chicken thighs, so it was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn for dinner. Xue Chen ended up shopping at the same shop later that afternoon and the owner told her about us and our acting skills. Xue Chen knew what we were looking for and thoughtfully bought us some chicken breast, so we have been enjoying chicken sandwiches ever since.

The next weekend we had a different, smaller group of students come over again for dinner. This time 5 students came and I went shopping with them again. George has managed to get out of shopping both times, while I have had to endure the stench of the meat market. This group of students made a different set of dishes that all involved the same pork, onion, and carrot mixture that was prepared in different ways. Again, it was delicious and I need to get them to write down how to make all this food before we leave.

Some of the food the students made

After dinner with our great chefs!

Last Saturday we took a day trip with TC and Xue Chen to the Detian Waterfalls. The waterfalls are on the border of China and Vietnam. They are the second biggest waterfall that’s on the border of two countries. The biggest, Niagara Falls, is much more massive, but Detian is also very impressive. We took a boat ride onto the river and felt the waterfall spray on our faces. There is a market at the top of the falls that supposedly is in Vietnam so I think we can say we have touched Vietnam soil. There was lots of Vietnam coffee and candy for sale, as well as other trinkets. We forgot to charge our camera battery the night before so we only got a few pictures, so I apologize for not having many pictures of the waterfall and market. TC has a lot more, so once we get the pictures from him I’ll post some more.

The beautiful waterfalls

On a boat ride by the waterfalls

We wandered into the art building last week to look at an art show that the art majors had to show off the work they have done this year. We liked a few of the paintings and asked if we could buy any of them. The student refused to sell them to us and said he would give them to us. We didn’t want to take them for free, so we gave him a quarter, a nickel, a dime, a few pennies, and some sea glass we found on the beach. The student was happy with this trade and we got 3 paintings for less than a dollar and some sea glass.

We only have 2 weekends left here and we don’t have much planned. We just want to enjoy our time left in China and think about packing up our bags. Talk to you soon!

From Longzhou to Hong Kong

In the past three weeks we have continued to plug away at our English lessons and take enjoyable trips during the weekends. Three weeks ago we witnessed a school wide event which pitted department against department in a singing competition. A group of about 60 students from each academic major sang the Chinese National Anthem and then another song of their choosing. Listening to the repetitive Chinese National Anthem 15 times would not have been so painful if not for the fact that it is blared from the loud speakers at lunchtime every single day. Fiona has it memorized word for word. Here, English majors sing Michael Jackson’s “We are the World.” They got second prize behind the music majors.

That weekend we ventured into the nearby countryside on our moto and saw some pretty flowers and some very remote towns.

In Chongzuo city we noticed an endless flight of stairs going up a hill and decided to walk up them. The Chinese really like stairs that go straight up a steep hill. No weaksauce switchbacks in this country!

At the top we found yet another military barrack with some sort of Chinese military tomb. It’s hard to imagine that there was a big war between China and Vietnam in this town less than 60 years ago. There were also nice views of our town (click on the photo for a larger view). We brought a watermelon to eat up there. Every day we have eaten at least one watermelon – they cost about 50 cents but are a little small. We put them in the freezer for an hour or two and then cut them in half and eat them with a spoon. Delicious = “May Way” or “Howzha” in Chinese.

The next weekend we visited Connie, an American English teacher who works at our school’s other campus in the city of Longzhou. We left on a rainy Saturday morning and rode our moto for two hours to the west northwest through the beautiful karst mountain landscape.

We even saw a herd of wild mountain goats.

Connie has been teaching English in China for twenty years and gave us several great tips about teaching. In the background is an amazing bridge that seems a little out of place given the small size of Longzhou.

Longzhou was a French colonial city and you can see evidence of this in the architecture. The French occupied the area mainly for spice production. These days the westerners are long gone and with no rail road or freeway running through town, it is becoming antiquated. We found a woman in a dilapidated building making flat noodles the traditional way.

We walked out of the city and took a little ferryboat across the Zuo Jiang River (The same river that runs through Chongzuo) where we found some cute Chinese children playing in the water.

There are no fat kids and no obese people in China. Sometimes we see a slightly overweight adult, but it is rare.

Connie had a much more cozy house than ours complete with a strange little dog called “Shao Hua” which mean little flower in Chinese. We also saw a pretty funny looking dog hanging out in a hair salon.

Connie said that this part of Guangxi province is probably poorest place she has ever taught. I knew my students were poor but I didn't know they were poor for China. The majority of my students' parents are farmers. I have repeatedly suggested in my lessons that they should travel to Hong Kong if not America but they act like it is only a far fetched fantasy. I hope they think I am optimistic and not arrogant.

After enjoying a thuroughly western breakfast, Fiona and I filled up our tank of gas and hot tailed it back to Chongzuo.

And now for the visa fiasco story:

Fiona and I were instructed by our agency, VIP China, to get a tourist visa when we came to China. Although it is technically illegal, this is what most foreign English teachers do because laws like these are not strictly enforced in China. However, our school preferred that we had legal work visas and a deal was made; VIP China was going do the paperwork and pay for our business visas. So we sent our passports to Beijing expecting to receive them in two or three weeks.

Long story short it took two months for us to get our passports back and VIP China didn’t get us visas. They didn’t even submit our passports for the visa application process. I have a feeling they didn’t want to pay the 7000RMB price and they didn’t want us to pack up and leave the country. It is illegal in China for foreigners to travel without a passport so we had a couple sketchy situations where we were asked for our passports but feigned confusion and the officials had let things slide. Good thing they like Americans so much.

What’s worse, VIP China sent us our passports with only a week left before our tourist visas expired. We could renew them but to do this we had to leave and reenter China. If VIP China had sent us our passports just one week earlier we would have been able to get Vietnamese tourist visas and taken the one hour train ride to the boarder and back. But now we had to go all the way to Hong Kong and they were not going to pay for plane tickets.

We begrudgingly bought train tickets and then next day we found out that VIP China changed their minds and now would be willing to pay for plane tickets. Talk about poor communication skills! In the end, we spent over 44 hours traveling from Chongzuo to Hong Kong and back – 32 hours were spent on a train.

Moral of the story: if you go to China, don’t use VIP China.

But at least we got to travel to Hong Kong. It was very interesting seeing Hong Kong for the second time. The first time we saw Hong Kong we had come straight from San Francisco and it seemed like a very Chinese city but this time it felt like a very western city.

We couldn’t believe how clean and orderly things were and how different the people acted in Hong Kong. People were not so pushy. People were quiet. People actually queued up in lines instead of bum rushing. It sounds like I am saying that Chinese mainlanders are rude and self centered, but they don’t have malice in their hearts, it’s just a different way of doing things. More chaotic, less systematic. Maybe it’s because Hong Kong was built by the British, but I think it’s probably because Hong Kong just has a lot more money than mainland China and so such systems can exist.

Before we left for Hong Kong Fiona happened to be read a Yahoo! article which listed “The Weirdest Festivals in the World.” One of them was “The Steamed Bun Festival” on the small island of Cheung Chau about a 45 minute Ferryboat ride from Hong Kong. The festival could be summed up as an offering to the Steamed Bun Gods – if they do really exist.

There were steamed buns and steam bun themed things everywhere.

There is even a game played at midnight where people scramble up huge towers of steamed buns and collect as many steamed buns in a sack as they can in a set amount of time. Good fun.

And delicious too!

No cars are allowed on the island and it felt more like Venice than China. Even in the heat the scenery was extraordinary.

The next day we went swimming on Stanley Beach on the south side of Hong Kong Island (The city is on the north side). The water was surprisingly clean and pretty warm. We ended up swimming way out to a buoy and back.

Coming back to Chongzuo was a little hard because going to Hong Kong felt like we were heading back home and then we were yanked back into our lives in China. We are now almost 80% done with our stay here in China and are planning many of the things we will do afterwards. Before we leave for America we will stop off in Thailand. Hopefully all will be quiet on the Bangkok front.

-George

Our travels take us to Nanning and Pingxiang

Over the last two weeks we have done a little traveling. The weekend before last we went to Qingxiu Mountain , in Nanning. It was recommended to us by one of our students since we mentioned we liked to go hiking. We had a feeling that it wasn’t the American version of what going hiking on a mountain was, but the Chinese version. And we were right. How can it be that different, you ask? Well, the Chinese don’t seem to appreciate nature, as nature, but would rather add some covered walkways, carved rocks, giant trees, neon lights, and loud music.

The walkways on Qingxiu Mountain

This tree is not natural, but has been moved here to provide for a better park. I have no idea where they get trees this big or how they move them!

We got bombarded by a group of students at the park, who also each took a picture with us individually

The park was packed with tour groups and students going out for a day in the sun. Once we managed to break away from the mainstream groups, we found that the park was actually really big and it took us the better part of the day to walk around most of it. On our journey we came across a dinosaur park, Thai temple, zip-line, boat rides, and areas to feed the fish.

A field where everyone is having picnics

George riding a dinosaur

The fish know where the food is!

We managed to find a “trail”, or paved walk way in the woods that ran parallel to the road. We were the only people on it, because the Chinese people prefer to walk on the road itself.

A view of Nanning from our walk

After our walk, we ate an American meal of Pizza Hut and went to Walmart to stock up on cheese.

This last weekend was Labor Day and we had Monday off from school. Friday night we boarded a train with one of our students, Margret, and headed to Pingxiang, the border town between China and Vietnam. Margret’s friends from high school were coming from other universities to spend the holiday weekend together and we met up with them on the train. Pingxiang has a famous BBQ street and that was the first place we went after arriving at about 10:30 that night. We had our first real Chinese chow mein – I was starting to wonder if that really was a Chinese dish because I hadn’t had it yet! The BBQ was delicious and we were full after all the food, which included some pig snout and chicken fetus. Our friends met a Pingxiang local on the train and she ended up spending the weekend with us and showing us the best places to go. This was helpful for the most part, because none of us had been here before, expect for when it came to finding a hotel. She recommended a hotel for us that would cost about $6 a night. The hotel was probably the worst place I have ever thought about staying in, and after sitting in our room for about 5 minutes George and I decided we were not tough enough for this. There were no towels, no toilet paper, no hot water, one pillow, and the bathroom reeked of urine. The floor was so dirty I didn’t want to take my shoes off and the windows were wide open when we arrived, begging for mosquitoes to come and feast on us all night. We found Margret in his room and told him we were spoiled Americans and really could not stay here. The only other hotel he knew of was the best one in town, so we went to the other end of the scale of Chinese hotel cleanliness. We felt a little silly saying we didn’t want to stay at the first hotel, but the next morning Margret called asking if they could put their bags in our room for the day because they were going to move to our hotel too. This made us feel better about being a little snobby about the first hotel, but it was really bad!

The Pingxiang local we met on the train had a friend who was a security guard at the gate between China and Vietnam. Unfortunately, they couldn’t let us through but our Chinese friends got to go onto Vietnamese soil to take a picture. The Friendship gate was built around the 1950’s when there was a war between China and Vietnam about the location of the boarder.

Our group outside the Friendship Gate

Thousands of people died during the war and China built a big wall to defend the border, straight up the side of a mountain. In the end, the border was set a kilometer further into Vietnam and the wall turned out to be unnecessary. We hiked up many, many steps to get to the top of the mountain and get a good view into Vietnam. It was a little foggy, which didn’t provide for a great view, but if it had been sunny the hike would have been way too hot.

A view of the mountain we climbed

Lots of steps!

Vietnam is behind us in the fog

After climbing back down, we spent the rest of the day eating and shopping. The town has a lot of goods from Vietnam, including snacks, shoes, and street vendors willing to trade your Chinese Yuan for the Vietnamese Dong. The town is also famous for the wood carved furniture. I wish we didn’t have so far to travel to get home, or I would have bought some because it is so beautiful. We did buy a small wooden candle holder as a souvenir to remember the city.

Pingxiang at night

We arrived back at our apartment in Chongzuo to find it being attacked by flying ants. These ants are probably about 1 ½ inches long and they figured out how to fit under our screen doors on the balcony. We spent all night killing the ones that got in to our house and filling the runner under the door with water to prevent more from getting in. The next day there were piles of them everywhere. Luckily, this seems to be a one night swarm and we haven’t seen them since. However, all the ones that died that night have now been rotting in the sun and there is a foul smell in the air when we go outside. George saw a man picking through the piles of ants and putting the live ones in a bag – I guess he is going to eat them?

Dead flying ants on the ground outside our apartment

We have been playing a lot of cards and continuing our motorcycle rides. We have finally seen some blue sky, which is a rare thing in China. It is nice to have a change from the gray, smoggy sky. I was starting to miss my California blue sky a lot! When the sun comes out, all the students take out their umbrellas.

The students walking to class with their umbrellas

They do not want to let their skin get dark because it makes them look like peasant farmers. They think it is very funny when I tell them American’s lie in the sun to get darker!

Out and About Chongzuo

The Yushu earthquake in Qinghai province has dominated the news here in China. Wednesday was China’s official day of mourning. At 9:30 in the morning air raid sirens blared and there was a moment of silence. No one was allowed entertainment for the day; every TV channel played the identical morose montage and all entertainment-based websites were offline. As an outsider I can’t help but wonder if this government policy inspires more frustration than compassion. It seems like the government treats its citizens like untrustworthy children. For all the talk of modernization, China has some maturing to do.

Mature or not, there is no doubt that the times are a changing in China. Rapid economic transformation is evident by the countless factories and high rise buildings springing up out of the land that was previously 5’x10’ farm plots. Change is also evident by the generation gap between our students and their parents. I think the current generation shares many of the same traits that the baby boomers have. They are in fact a bit of a baby boom themselves with more than 200 million people between the ages of 15 and 25. They tend to be both economically and culturally more liberal than their parents. They borrow money rather than save money and they value trends and fashion even more than Americans. They love what is new and hate what is old. There doesn’t seem to be much counterculture here. When these kids grow up and have money they will make a great consumer market.

Another odd thing about China is how a craft that took weeks of painstaking work to make only will sell for a couple of dollars. Labor has no value in China. Minimum wage is ~$1/hour but it isn’t enforced. The government doesn’t bother enforcing things like that. They care about political and social stability, and economic growth. Things like expired food, pollution and traffic laws (China has the highest traffic accident morality rate per capita of any country) are simply not priorities here.

Enough social exposé, let’s get on with the happenings of our lives.

A few weeks ago we told our students we hated it here and we were going to go back to America… “April Fools!!” A few moments of bewildered silence passed and then suddenly all the students screamed at the top of their lungs, “AAAAAAAAAh!!!” One of Fiona's students said "You should not joke. I almost cry!" We got them good.

I’ve been teaching the non majors a new topic each week: personal introductions, phone calls, school, family, jobs, and this week, talking at work. The school asked me to teach the students cultural awareness and get them to talking out loud in English. I try to keep them learning and also keep them interested. Many students flipped out when I told them about same-sex and interracial marriages in the United States. My PowerPoint presentations are getting increasingly detailed and lengthy but there is nothing as useful and entertaining as describing things with diagrams and photographs.

The past two weekends we have chosen to stay at home and ride our “motos” (Chinese for moped) around the area where we live.
We have explored in just about every direction. A few times we have ended up going down long single track dirt roads and getting to little impoverished villages that feel like they are waaay out there.

No way these places are on any maps. Perhaps we are the first foreigners to ever venture here. Everyone looks at us like “what the hell are you doing here?”

The rides have given us a sense of the local surroundings. To the East and South there lies beautiful farmland country, farmers, tractors, water buffalo and not much else.

To the North lies the center of our town called “Jiangzhou.”

Jiangzhou straddles the meandering Zuo Jiang River. We found an ancient leaning tower on an island in the river.

Past the Zuo Jiang River are beautiful karst mountains and about an hour into these mountains lies another small town whose name is unknown.

To the West is the new development of Chongzuo City (our school is part of this). It is an area about 2x4 miles composed of brand new roads and streetlights. Only about 15% of the land has buildings on it and the rest of the land is abandoned banana plantations. The buildings are all less than three years old and they tend to be 4-8 stories tall. At each construction site there are little shanty towns that house the construction workers. There are very few people or cars on the streets and it seems like a brand new ghost town. There is no way this development is economical and is obviously a result of government planning.

This photo is of a local in front of our school.

This illustrates how they build roads in China. They lay a foundation of cement about a foot thick. I figure given the abundance of cheap limestone and coal, it might be cheaper to build the roads like this, not to mention that these roads will hold up for a long time.

Last week we went to our first “KTV” which is Karaoke Chinese-style. Basically you go into something that feels a little like a nightclub except there are dozens of private rooms complete with Karaoke machines, deafening speakers, lasers, and black lights. T.C. invited us to a company party there. Fiona and I sang a few songs and played dice games. It was pretty fun but it was one of those things that you need to have a few beers in you to properly enjoy the experience and we never got there.

We have been getting our fruits and vegetables at the outdoor market. It is a huge farmer’s market that goes on all day and is a little cheaper than the grocery store. It has just about everything you want and more, including dead dogs laid out next to the cages of dogs ready to be butchered. One man’s best friend is another man’s dinner.

-George