Frisbees and International Relations

Last night Amy, Karis, Miguel, Jess and I went down to the water with a frisbee. Everyone was playing carnival games and dancing and playing badminton as usual so it was a bit difficult to create a space. However, we were successful and in not more than five minutes a crowd of about 100 people gathered around the Americans and their funny throwing thing (none of my students, and apparently not many Chinese, have ever seen a frisbee before!) After a few minutes, we began to ask kids who were watching on the sidelines to throw by gesturing toward them with the frisbee; the first five literally recoiled from the offer and ran away! But then a ten or eleven year old stepped out and made it known that he was ready to try. He became permanent in our throwing group and then more people started to get involved. In about twenty minutes, we had eight others in our group, including a Pakistani robed in gold, an Indian man robed in white and a couple of punk rock teenagers. Everyone was laughing and having such a great time; especially watching Amy with her antics. Every time the frisbee went outside the circle, a little Chinese boy (about two years old...he had probably just learned to walk) would run with all of his might to fetch it and bring it back to Amy. None of us wanted to break the spell but when we did turn to go, we all waved goodbye and received a hearty wave from the crowd. We decided that that ten year old will be an ambassador someday.

The clams were fantastic last night and will go back tonight; I have lured Kim to come with me.

Today was fun...the kids were fun. One of my fourth graders asked me such an interesting question (through Sunny) "How can you graduate from university and not know Chinese?" What an honest question...one I didn't quite know how to answer. My third graders have invited me to a birthday party tomorrow so I am looking forward to that, and my fifth graders put on skits today for the class. They are so cute, I got them on video. The really smart girls (who "worship" me, can you tell I really enjoy writing that?) performed a whole skit with an investigative reporter and everything. Tomorrow I am going to have them write ten sentences about themselves to be video taped and sent back to America...if they do the sentences, they can enter a drawing for prizes, consisting of the things I brought from home and do not know what to do with-

All in all I have mixed emotions about leaving now. I feel I am just starting to make some progress, but would I stay? NO! Do I love China? Well, I like China, but I think the main word I would use to describe my feeling about it is CONFUSION, or Confucian, whatever.

I was actually heading for the dirty cafe so that I could send some pictures but it had huge padlocks on the doors and a sign in Chinese...who knows what happened, but I don't know if I will be able to send from this clean cafe, which doesn't seem very clean now because the guy across from me is spitting on the floor about every five minutes. It's really disgusting!

Go to The Beautiful Place

Sunday we asked the hotel for advice as to what to see. The girl at the desk wrote the name of "A beautiful place" for all of us, that we just HAD to see. By the way, when we got there on Saturday, we asked for a map of the city. "Oh, we only have one! We are only a three star hotel. At four star hotels, more English maps." Note to self.

Anyway, seven of us filled two taxis to go to the beautiful place. About a half an hour later, after crossing numerous bridges, in an area that somewhat resembled Lake Washington, the taxi containing Debbie, Miguel, Karis and Jessica behind Amy, Gale and my taxi abandoned the trip. But we were determined that we must be almost there so we pressed on. Finally our taxi driver stopped and he seemed to be asking us where the heck we were wanting him to take us. "The beautiful place?" we offered hopefully. He was frustrated. It was all beautiful, but he was baffled. Finally, he took us to a pagoda which was really out in the middle of nowhere. We were fascinated by the street lined with people selling plums and tea so we decided to risk not getting an easy taxi back to the city. What a day we had. We had stumbled on some old Taoist caves, which were vast and cool and where no other white people were in sight. There were three caves: The Rain Cave, The Third Cave and the Sunrise Cave (in that order). What we gathered was that they were used for retreats and we wanted to become Taoists and stay there forever.

However, after an hour we had to emerge, so we sweat our way all the way to the top of the pagoda (a journey that took about 20 very hot stair climbing minutes) and were treated to a very good view of the plum and tea forests from the top. We felt so lucky!

When we got down we bartered for some tea and then focused on getting back to the city so we could meet our group for the bus ride home. At first we asked a tour bus of University Students to let us ride with them but they had no available seats and their bus driver annoyingly obeyed the law and wouldn't let us stand. A guy who was standing nearby heard us and of course offered to drive us for a very hight rate (the taxi meter charged us about $12 for our 1/2 hour ride...this man was going to charge us more than twice that). We got him down a bit and he drove us about ten minutes toward Suzhou when he saw a taxi driver changing a flat tire. We thought he had stopped to help him, but little did we know he was selling us to him. He got us out of his car and put us into the taxi cab, then told us we were paying the driver what we had agreed to pay him. "We will pay the meter" we said, which made him very angry. What followed was lots of very loud yelling in Mandarin between the driver and the swindler, some of it right in my face. Finally, the driver handed the swindler a very large bill and drove off with us. He was acutally nice and we could tell he felt badly about the situation. Anyway, we got back in time to eat great Japanese food (enoki mushrooms wrapped in tenderloin, potato croquettes, tempura, udon noodles, etc) before our bus ride home.

Now it is Monday afternoon. School was crazy today for some reason, I think it was the game I tried to play that Karrie recommended, using fly swatters to hit word categories. I would explain but the clams are calling. They liked it but they were SO ear piercingly loud over it. During lunch I went to get a massage from the abundant blind person but he was nowhere in sight (!). I did get a very good hour long massage from a seeing man though, and it was a very good way to spend a lunch hour and three dollars! Only four more days of teaching!

Broken Wing!

On Saturday morning, Our Brady Bunch headed to the bus station at 6 am, smarter and wiser, having pre-paid for a nice air conditioned bus ride to Suzhou and expecting to find the evil voodoo doll (or whatever they found in that episode). We agreed to split up once we got to the hotel and we did so...it worked so much better for all of us to go at our own pace and see what we wanted.

I will sum up the day like this: beautiful classical gardens, the Cultural Revolution paraphenalia I had read about lining the streets (Mao watches, lighters, Little Red Books, t-shirts with him eating at McDonald's, propaganda posters, etc) and yes, lots of lovely women like the Lonely Planet claimed. In the afternoon it was so hot that Amy and I took a taxi back to our nice hotel room and watched an HBO movie about a street dancer, Honey Daniels, who saves her street kids by opening a studio for them. It was the worst movie ever, but we couldn't have been happier.

Later that night, Kim, Amy and I joined up for a boat trip that cruised the perimeter of the city in the smaller canal. We decided that in China you just have to keep making your own happy hour so we bought food to go (club sandwiches at a restaurant by the boats) and beer so we could have a picnic. A New Zealander businessman (buyer of cement), Richard, had decided to venture out of his hotel and so he and his food joined us. We were treated to 80 minutes of vegas lights along the water, with green lighted trees and beautiful temples and landscapes. For the last half an hour, we went to the top of the boat and were commanded to "duck" (in Chinese) every time we came to a bridge. The bridges came RIGHT over our heads...like blind mules in Venezuela, this would never happen in America!

After the boat trip, the four of us (Richard included) wandered into a night club with strobe lights and very loud European music. In the middle of the bar was an island, behind which danced about ten beautiful bikini clad women, complete with tassles and sequins (spelling it right this time). They drank and smoked while they served. We were shown to a table where we had our own personal attendant, a guy of about 20 or so, who wore a green night light ring which he swerved in and out, up and down, using perhaps the worst dance moves I have ever witnessed, dancing for our entertainment, I guess, and to serve us little wedges of watermelon and peanuts. His main job was to pour our beer in little tiny glasses every time they were emptied. It is evident that everyone in China has a job, but this was very peculiar and not to my taste. I don't like to drink a lot of beer, but I don't like an bad dancing attendant at my table waving a green light ring around, filling my glass every two seconds! I guess the girls were going to come out from behind the bar and dance on the pole but we didn't wait to see it.

Instead, we found a bar with pictures of Nirvana, Oasis, ACDC, David Bowie and the Beattles on the wall. Just our luck a punk band was just about to play. Amy just about flew through the roof she was so excited. She met the band, called "Broken Wing" before they took the stage...they were so nice and clean cut, except for one token long haired guy. They sang their first song, Green day's "American Idiot" to their largely American crowd, then went on to play Ramones and Sex Pistol covers. They had one original song (they played it twice to get mileage out of it) called "F--- Education." Every once in a while I stop and think about what has changed in the last ten years or so and so this seemed quite monumental...singing anti-American songs is perhaps a stepping stone to their own political criticism. Amy was their biggest fan "YEEEEWWWW, Broken Wing!"she was yelling in support.

A Long-Necked Clam Happy Hour

When I last blogged (I am not lonely any more, thank you all for your emails, you can't imagine how good it is to feel remembered in a country that makes sense!) I was heading to Stir Fry Street to try the clams, at last. Well, I got them to go (after a lot of pantomime and pointing) then went into the grocery store to buy a drink (stir fry vendors only deal in live fish and vegetables). I was just about to leave when I thought, oh yes, I want some peanut butter for my hotel room and I went to the back of the store and ran into....AMY!

Amy, who had been gone for two days, disappearing into mystical Shanghai without a trace, possibly never to return, the last picture of her in my mind one of extreme trauma. Well, an understatement would be to say that it was just SO good to see her. She had just ordered from our Noodle Lady so we bought very cold beer and decided to make our own happy hour. I decided to have the NL make me an order of noodles, and I mixed my long necked clams in with them and I was in heaven. Sitting there for an hour catching up with Amy and hearing about her Midnight Train to Shanghai trip was one of those moments you only experience if you sign up for a crazy teaching assignment in China for the summer and your new friend loses her passport and you happen to run into her in the grocery store when you are buying peanut butter and drinks for the long necked clams you just bought on Stir Fry Street. By the way, Amy was practically singing the National Anthem, she had been treated so well and had been issued a new passport in just one day. Phew.

Wow, those clams were good. I am heading to get some more after my next two posts (I'm going to have to make it quick...)

The abundant blind person massages the center

During our two hour lunch break we sometimes wander around town or we might take a rickshaw back to the hotel to take a nap. Today I just walked down a street I had not been down before. I saw a sign that read "The abundant blind person massages the center" so I looked inside and saw many massage tables. As I was peeping in the window, a woman saw me and ran to the door. Through gestures, she indicated that she wanted me to wait for just a moment and eventually came back leading a man by the arm. She pointed at his face and I saw the whites of his blind eyes. He was, of course, the abundant blind person. I didn't have time for the massage of the center, but I am very curious about getting a blind massage...I've gotten every other kind! We will see.

California Beef Noodle Restaurant, Built in a Day

A few weeks ago we all went to an Indian restaurant about two blocks from our hotel (most of the time I rage against my comrades' lack of food adventure and go out on my own) and next door there was a restaurant under construction called "California Beef Noodle Restaurant." Only the frame of the interior was completed and two-by-fours were laying all over the place. We all mentioned that it was too bad it wouldn't be finished until after we left. Now, I am not making this up...TWO days later we walked by that restaurant, and it was COMPLETELY OPEN FOR BUSINESS. There was a reader board menu, tables, chairs, customers...clean, uniformed workers standing at the door to great us. It was really weird. So ever since then, when we see any kind of construction, even big sky scrapers, we say "Oh, I wonder what it will be? We'll have to come back tomorrow and find out!" I had read that there are more cranes in China than everywhere else in the world combined...the rate of progress here is unbelievable. What a place!

I'm Turning Chinese

It's Friday afternoon, it's 92 degrees but "it feels like 103" according to the internet. Right, more like it feels like 150! But I hear Seattle is the same.

So, the end of week three and now a confession: I looked in the mirror on Monday and instead of having a Stuart Smalley talk with myself, I just said, "your life sucks!" I can tell you that now because I feel one hundred percent differently today - and today the power was out...no air conditioning! So I have been thinking about all of the things I have become accustomed to in just three weeks:

-how to use a fan properly. Sunny asked me a few days ago, "have you ever used a fan before?" and then said "I can tell" and gave me a lesson in fan etiquette.
-being a walking American attraction. Everyone locks their eyes on "The Marjie" (as the kids say) wherever I go...especially during my walks in the morning where I am the only one wearing shorts and tennis shoes.
-crossing six lanes of traffic with no signals. Sharing the crosswalk with rickshaws and cars and scooters and bicyclists and buses.
-wearing my hair in a ponytail. I hate ponytails on me but here I have had to forgo all vanity since sweat is a constant part of my "look."
-No make up...what's the point?
-Two hour, six dollar massages and one dollar humbow, dumplings or noodles.
- 30 or so kids repeating everything I say
-the threat of having to use the torture bathroom every minute of every teaching hour
-about fifteen very high pitched voices of Chinese twenty something girls during fifteen minute breaks
-creating ESL curriculum for six hours of teaching per day with a target audience of very active, very loud Chinese kids. I can surely do a better job than the "Let's Go" people...I wonder if there is any money in it?
-constantly scrounging for cold or frozen water and when finally finding frozen water, waiting forever for it to melt.
-people cooking pretty much in the six lane road and all down every side street at night.

This morning I was thinking about my return to Seattle and I had the thought, "It may all seem so dull!"

Anyway, classes have been great. Sunny and I are a good team and we continue to come up with games and have gotten each class involved in competitions, Team One and Team Two games; we have them chanting cheers so loudly that the other teachers are asking me "Tell me what games you are playing!" The one they loved this week was so simple. I would take one of my flash cards and hide it in my book and ask, "What is in my book" and they had to guess in a series of yes or no questions in categories, each team taking a turn. They were crazy over it.

My girl fans are just so cute. They have all written messages to me on their name tags - Jill's says "Hi Marjie!!! (with a heart) and my favorite - from my favorite student, Lily. She wrote "I worship Marjie" on her name tag. Being openly worshiped in writing is great. For those of you who taught Andrea Trias at Meadowdale, she looks just like her. When I asked the class "Where do you want to travel?" Lily said "I want to travel to Mexico" (where Andrea's family is from of course..we all agree that many Chinese could pass for Hispanic, easily). It's very rewarding to hear these kids speaking English and understanding it. Today after lunch when I asked them "How are you?" They answered as they always do.."I'm fine thank you, how are you?" I said "I'm hot!" and they said "We're hot too!" I said "I want ice cream!" and they said "We want ice cream too!" then I kept saying things that would be nice on a hot day and they would repeat it. Then I said "I want a very hot pizza" and they all, in unison, said "We don't want a very hot pizza!!" I guess you had to be there, but remember they knew nothing three weeks ago. Sunny and I just exchanged a look like, That Was Cool!

Maybe the best part is that the boys are now (mostly) on board. I really made an effort to include them and gave them nicknames...like the one who likes basketball is "Yao Ming" and another I just call "Basketball." At least they are not talking the entire class period now and they love the games and the prizes I invested in (best money ever spent).

The bad part of this week: Amy lost her passport. She and Karis went into Shaoxing Wed. night and she lost it somewhere between Starbucks and the hotel; she probably left it in the taxi. Big tough Amy was sobbing in the morning so Pamela had one of her other teachers take her to Shanghai to start the application process. I felt so badly for her. Amy left me a message this afternoon saying she got her passport and would be back tonight, so I'm sure she will be full of stories.

Tomorrow we are all heading to Suzhou - about an hour outside of Shanghai. This city is one I had marked before coming to China because my neighbor, Jade - a landscape architect - had visited there recently and loved it. The Lonely Planet says it is known for its "classical gardens, silk factories and beautiful women (no mention of the men...are they all trolls?)"

[See Suzhou and the other places Marjie has been by clicking on the "See Maps of the Area" link in the right sidebar under the clock]