Imagine

Getting messages of any kind through has become an obstacle course each day. Nothing in China is easy.

There have been hours of misery and yes, one more complete day of misery...imagine this: You are teaching grade school in China and all they have for a bathroom is a huge long trough that you have to straddle and then squat while trying to hold your breath because if you breathe you think you will lose your stomach. There is no sink and therefore no soap and of course so toilet paper. Add to this diarrhea. Now, I am not saying this happened to me, but just imagine it. And if it did happen to me, I might have been unprepared because up until that time I had no intention of EVER using the torture bathroom.

Fortunately, the teaching has finally become some kind of "fun."

Your Mama

Amy's classes were drawing family trees. As she was walking around, one of her students (one who liked to get his friend sitting next to him to do all of his work) tried to hide a paper in his desk. She asked her assistantm Lily, to go back and see what that was all about. Lily retrieved a paper with a picture of his friend's mother...it read (in Chinese)"Matt's mother is a female tiger!"

The cure for heat stroke

This morning when I came in to school, Sunny, my assistant, looked very pale. "I have heat stroke" she said, which was a very strange thing to say as this is BY FAR the coolest day yet, out of all eighteen days we have been here it is the only day that I am quite sure I will live. So during our entire third grade morning class she sat in the back and was not translating anything. After class, the teacher, Chris, said to me, "Sunny must stay here for the next ten minutes." I was very curious as to what was planned because Chris had prepared a bowl of water and was pulling Sunny's hair up. Sunny had not returned to the break room when it was time to go to the next class, so I went alone. Five minutes later the teacher, Chris, showed up to translate for the class. "Sunny is resting in my classroom," she said.

After that class, Sunny was in the break room with about six long, deep red scrapes down her neck. It looked like someone had tried to strangle her. "Sunny, are you OK?" "Oh, yes, I am much better!" She explained what Chris had done, and it seems to be something like the application of water and then very hard, deep pinching. I thought back to the class we had taught last week, called "What's the matter?" and how strange it must have been for them to say "I'm hot" and "drink some cold water!" when really it should have read "I'm very hot" and "apply water and hard, violent pinching!"

I was very curious as to how Sunny's cure would progress...well, at lunch, I told her that in America if we are that sick, we go home! She was so pale and almost fainting. She looked at me kind of shocked and said, "OK, I will go home." I offered to pay for a taxi for her since her bus ride is over an hour and she would not agree. "The air conditioning is making me sick!"

One of the strangest parts of this story is that NONE of the kids even flinched when she walked in with her strangle scratches. It's simply what you do when you have heat stroke on a very cool (relatively) day!

Today is going really well (I am writing during my lunch break). I can receive hotmail here but must type my messages in Gmail...see, logic does apply! The kids have mellowed and seem to be learning at least some English. I feel very relaxed and peaceful about my job and hope that no changes occur this week.

Last night Amy and I walked all the way around the canal which looks like a huge Green Lake (about five miles). There had been another thunder storm so it was nice and bearable outside. At one point on the pathway- out of nowhere, really- we saw a HUGE blow up castle, the kind kids jump in. This colorful castle, juxtaposed against the gray sky, was so sad and the sadness was enhanced by the fact that there were no kids there, only about four grown-up workers. Why they blew that monster up in the middle of that trail is another Ancient Chinese Secret, I guess. How did I know to name my blog "...in a State of Confucian?" That nails it! OK, back to work without Sunny...this should be interesting!

Buddhas, ballroom dancing and badminton

Given the good time I had this weekend, I may have agreed to come despite the sweat. Two of our TA's, Lily and Lynn, took us to a National Park that was just a ten minute taxi ride from our hotel (Keyan). By the end, we were more confused than we were at the beginning as to what kind of park it actually was, but I will try to describe it:

Picture about three times the size of Woodland Park Zoo with trails, pathways, canals,bridges and lots of temples and sculptures. I don't know how many times we turned a corner to gasp... at a two hundred foot stone Buddha (completed by three generations of a family), or waterfalls or trails with interesting themes. My favorite trail was called "The Finger Path" and was decorated with Chilology sayings and huge representations of very nicely manicured hands holding the objects referred to in the sayings. We took boats to islands and tasted wine at one of them -"Inebriation Island" - where, by the way, we had to wait out an hour long spectacular (and kinda scary) lightning storm (not a bad place to have to wait...)

One island had many sculptures interpreting the writings of the famous writer from this area, Lu Xun. Another island had a beautiful waterfall, which we stood under and waded in the clean, cold water. It was a hot day (until after the storm) and we had to suck on iced blocks of water to live through the heat. One temple in particular was quite beautiful, and we took about an hour to read the stories depicted in the pictures about the life of the Buddha. After seeing so many Christian churches and art pieces all through Europe, this new form was especially interesting for me. The strange thing about this park is that is was almost empty...evidently the government has been investing in parks like these, but we wonder how they keep them running (don't they know they should install a Magic Mountain ride?). We thought it was much more beautiful than Hangzhou and Westlake (their "heaven on earth").

Last night we just walked down to the canal where the carnival was taking place, only this time it seemed to be badminton night - birdies flying everywhere - and I also got to see the ballroom dancing I had heard about. One group was doing kind of a techno swing dancing and another a waltz.

Both yesterday and today I was feeling good enough to get up and go running at the canal...how great that felt. I know this week will be much better just because I feel so much better. Being sick in a foreign country, especially if you are teaching, is just no fun at all.

Today Pamela took us to "the largest pearl factory in the world." My favorite part of the day was the hour long van trip out there because we passed through villages and saw a lot of green mountains...it takes a while to get out of the industrial masses. The factory was overwhelming - just strings and strings of pearls, white, pink and grey. I managed to get a few pretty cool pieces but overall I thought a lot of it was very gaudy.

I'm spending the rest of my time uploading pictures for my brother to post...did you know I haven't been able to access my blog at all since I've been here? Fortunately, my brother set it up so that all of your posts come into my hotmail account (when it is working, of course!) Bye for now!

Just Breathe

Today after school, Amy and I walked over to "our street" across from the hotel. By day it is a street with ordinary sidewalks; by night it is tranformed into Sir Fry Street. I know I have already mentioned this, but I have to paint the picture again: ten foot long carts come out of nowhere and suddenly plates and plates of chopped vegetables and live creatures line up for you to view. Underneath the carts are buckets of live fish; only when you order does the fish give up its life - freshness counts for everything! I have been tempted by the guy who is always grilling a beautiful whole fish at the end of the street; maybe I will have to eat one of his masterpieces. I have yet to try the long necked clams, but I have had quite a few stir fries with thick noodles and an assortment of veges.

Tonight, Amy and I were determined to try some of the beautifully skewered vegetables; we thought they would be grilled on the open grills manned by the Middle Easterners...but we found that we shouldn't assume anything - ever- here. We were told to put veges and fish in a basket. These contents were dumped into a huge pot of boiling water to par boil, then they were lifted out and put in cold water. Then, into a metal bowl it all went and up came another lid and inside that cauldron was a red broth which was scooped out with a ladle and poured into our metal bowl; we had ordered soup! You just never know. So we said, oh, they don't grill those veges on the stick, too bad...but ten minutes later another vendor was grilling veges.

We have met people from so many countries here, all doing business in textiles. The Middle Easterners stand out, surely; however, we have met plant managers from Norway, Switzerland and the Czech Republic; all during the day, men pedal huge loads of fabric in every direction. I suppose millions are made each minute in our polyester suburb!

Back to my night: Amy and I parted ways and I went to my hair washing place. I felt like singing "these are the people in my neighborhood" because on the way there I saw my noodle maker, my stir fry friend and the guys who gave me my foot massage last week; they all waved and said "Ni Hao" --but it's my hair salon that really appreciates me now! They cheer when I come in! I got my hour and a half massage and my same guy (wearing a pink shirt and holding hands with another hairdresser) loves to dry my hair. I guess he feels comfortable with me now because he asked if his friend could touch my hair. They love it! At one point, I opened my eyes while he was drying my hair to see about fourteen sets of eyes glued to me. I forgot to mention that on the train last weekend, Karis said that some girls sitting next to her were waiting for me to put my head up from a nap and when I did, they looked at each other and ooooooohed over my blue eyes!

OK, three posts is enough for now. Hotmail works today, phew! I must go home and sleep because this weekend, I am seeing a silk factory, a pearl factory, and getting a tour of some special lakes with Amy and her TA tomorrow. Hope all is well at home, and breathe that air!

A night with the girls

Yesterday five of us went "home" with two of our TA's, Sunny (mine) and Maggie (my favorite bubbly TA). They go to a University outside of Shaoxing and it took us an hour and a half on the bus to get to a very institutional campus (of course, we ooohed and aahhhed over it, they were so proud to have guests...)(there is one really cool thing...you look up to the hill behind campus and there is a HUGE winged creature up there. Sunny says he holds back the floods from Shaoxing. We asked if we could go up there to see him and his pagoda and they said, yes, it's only a few hours' walk! which would kill me in this heat!)

After an hour of walking around their stark campus, Sunny took us to her dorm room. When we walked in I thought, oh, this is about the same size as dorm rooms in the US...and then we counted the beds - one, two three four five SIX! Six people to a room that would fit two Americans, each person with a four by six cubicle for clothes and books! Each bed had a bamboo mat on it and on top of the cupboards were bags filled with bedding. No air conditioning, only fans. Well, after this long hot journey, three of the others decided to go home but Amy and I felt really badly because Sunny and Maggie had told three of their friends about the American teachers coming and had wanted to take us to dinner, so we decided to stay, drenched with sweat as we were, so that we could honor them and meet their friends.

It turned out to be a lovely night; I especially liked one of Sunny's friends, Annie (they all named themselves English names when they got to college). So the five of them took Amy and me to dinner in this little dirty looking place where we were seated in a private room and where the girls ordered us a feast...DELICIOUS! Annie was telling us all of the good qualities of each dish...eggs make you beautiful, fish makes you smart and tofu is good for your skin. They ordered the regional specialty, which was fish soup made with preserved cabbage. They were so gracious to us and oh boy do they think everything we say is funny! Five times the owner of the restaurant came in to tell us to be quiet, but those girls were so loud and giggly! They secretly paid for our dinner and we think they spent a week's salary on us, but they couldn't have been more happy about it. Amy and I agreed that we made the right choice to stay...what a great night.

A note about the heat. It is hard hard hard for me. If I had known how hard I would not have come. I am learning to just live with constant sweat, but I dream often about Seattle air and temperature and I'm sure when I return I will only have the good memories and will appreciate what I have one million times more!

The Story of My Week

(Let me start by saying: it's a little hard to begin typing, not knowing if this text will magically disappear; on two occasions this week I have spent at least an hour typing a message only to lose it, but here goes)

When I left you Monday, I went home and my sore throat turned into a very bad fever which lasted all night. In the morning I was dizzy and had no voice and therefore Debbie the nurse told me to stay "home" and that she would take overmy classes (she is doing a different job and could do this). I spent the day sleeping off what seems to be The Day of Fever I Must Endure in all Foreign Countries (except this fever was not met with a needle in my behind administered by a Guatemalan mother!).

The next day I went in feeling about 50% better; although I was completely drained of energy by the fever and the heat by the time I arrived at school - then Pamela our hot, perfectly dressed coordinator showed up wtih about two minutes until class started to give us the workbooks that all the kids had received in the morning. uh, excuse me, workbooks? To go with the crappy "curriculum" we've not been teaching for six days of a four week course? "Just begin with unit three" she told us. I arrived at my first class of 15 third graders and they were all crazy about their books...level one books, and I had been teaching them level two. Sunny ran to ask Pamela about it and she said, oh! we made a mistake, they are level one! So, frantically, I tried to skim over the lesson while dripping sweat because the air conditioning is broken in that room. As the day progressed, the books were a curse; the other teachers were using them to fill time in their own classes so if we planned to use them, too bad! It was chaos. In one class I had kids climbing under tables and flicking cards at each other and you know what? I just didn't care. I wanted to take my fever home and never come back! The others all experienced the same kind of day and we just looked at each other in a kind of China bewilderment.

The rest of that afternoon was horrible. Jeff knows how low my teaching lows are, but Jeff you have never seen this! I have never wanted out of anything so badly, ever!! But that evening, I had a Stuart Smalley talk with myself...for those of you not familiar with this Saturday Night Live skit, Stuart is a pudgy middle aged affirmation counselor who tells his clients to look in the mirror and say "I am smart enough, I am good enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!" So I did my own version of this, telling myself it can only get better and that this is just another one of those skin thickening experiences. The irony hit me that I was self talking about skin thickening in a place where the people are so tough in their everyday lives;they don't complain or slow down, they just do what they have to do in very harsh conditions.

Anyway, the next day I walked into class with a plan and I have to say, good for me. I taught my older ones the old cheerleaders yelling into the stands cheer "(5th grade class), how do you feel? and they answer "We feel awesome, oh we feel so awesome, UGHHHH!" They loved it. After a day of getting used to the workbooks that we didn't know we were getting, they are kind of nice and now our curriculum makes a bit of sense. So the good ending to the school story is that Thursday and Friday were good days and I will make it through, (an American thickening some skin, truly...) It's hard for us to leave the thought behind "just think if we had had the same students and the whole curriculum from day one?"

Somehow I have come up with fun songs or games for every day (with a lot of help from some of you, thank you!) but some highlights have been teaching them to sing my own arrangement of "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" where I split the class in two and had them do the "sock it to me" part toward each other; they also loved "Anything you can do I can do better" when our subject to teach was "can" and "can't"- - they YELL "Yes I can! No I can't" so loudly! (my fourth grade class has 35, my fifth grade 38!) The other magic working in my classes are the stickers that Jaci and I bought at the dollar store before my trip...if only I had bought a million (and a lot more Spider Man!) These kids will do anything for a sticker. Another winner was today; I had my third graders make those "little paper folded things" -- you know, the ones that you choose a number, then a color, then you get a fortune inside. I got the idea from a South Park episode Dennis showed me about two weeks before my trip (the boys wanted to get their hands on the "future telling device"that the girls had. I had them put their words of the day inside because they were "dance" and "jump" etc, so they were thrilled with that and with the stickers they got for "doing it right."

I am not a grade school teacher, though, thank God thank God thank God. Thank God I am not a grade school teacher! Mom, HOW do you do it? By the way, I was not able to save Annie...but we are in touch and she is doing OK and meeting other people in Deching; she is enjoying the high school kids...I will see her in Beijing in two weeks.

I would have to say that one of the most surprising thing to all of us is that in every class, there are five or six boys who are seated in the back and they don't seem to be expected to learn anything. In most classes, the classroom teachers stay in the room while we teach and they don't make the boys get out paper or pens and they just goof off and talk the whole time. I was completely, completely blind sided by this - thinking that these kids were going to be so respectful through and through. I have to say though, the girls are ALL sweet and smart and eager, and the boys who are make up for those who are not. I had better post this before it disappears!