May I please have some dysentery? Surely, coming right up.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I’m just feeling like I’m always biting off more than I can chew. Again, too much stuff I want to do. My Chinese language studying has been slacking because priorities and time have been spent elsewhere. Besides tonight (7/14/11), I hadn’t touched my guitar in a couple weeks. My excuse for that, though, is that it’s just so damn hot. I did, however, finally purchase a fan. It beats air conditioning in my mind, and I’m much more comfortable when going to sleep. It also uses little to no power, so it’s a nice alternative. You’re welcome China/world. Yes, I’m aware that using a fan is not much of a going green gesture, but it’s something. I just don’t know how to go about studying Chinese sometimes. I have a couple programs, and of course the internet can be your best friend at times. Maybe my motivation has just been lacking for whatever reason. It’s always tough when you’re learning and studying by yourself. This is what I do with most things. It’s challenging, more sometimes than others. My reasoning with that is, why do I need someone else? I can do it myself. If other people can do it themselves, so can I. The problem with that logic is I could probably learn 20x faster if someone just showed me. That’s how I learn best, by watching. It is what it is, though.

Yeah, it’s hot. But you know what? I’ll take it over the cold any day, so please ignore my minuscule complaints. I happen to love warm summer nights. You can walk outside at 2 in the morning and still be perfectly comfortable (though it can be a bit uncomfortably hot here at times). It’s nice. But man, no stars whatsoever. Between the ambulant lights and the pollution from them and the city, I can hardly see any stars. Most nights, I can count the number of stars looming over my head. On a side note, there’s a pretty awesome storm brewing right now. I turned off the lights for a few minutes and sat by my window eating a mix of nuts and raisins that I put together. Really challenging, I know. Awesome to watch, though. I’ve looked up so many times into the buildings surrounding my own to see if I see anybody in their windows. No, I wasn’t creeping. I just noticed that I never see anybody when looking up in the past, so I’ve searched for people a few times. I never saw anybody until now. I saw a girl standing on the top floor of a building looking out her own window, admiring the makings of the storm. Quite the lightening show. Don’t be fooled. That’s not the only thing going on. The wind is super strong and the thunder is raging beside it. Rain just started as well.

So dysentery?  Yep. Dysentery. As many of you already know, I caught myself a nice little case of dysentery. What a lovely experience! Seriously. Ha, good one Jeff. It’s a nightmare. I’ve traced it back to what I believe came from raw salmon that was eaten during a bit of a seafood feast I had on the 23^rd of July. I didn’t feel great on Monday night following that Saturday. It wasn’t much, just felt a little sick or perhaps like I was going to be sick. I hate being right. The next morning, I felt terrible. I wanted to take off of school, but did not want to lose my bonus or pay for the day. So after much debate, I decided to just stick it out and go to school. That was not fun. I suffered from a headache for the entire day. My head was throbbing. I was also able to enjoy fevers and stomach pain throughout the day. I had no appetite, so I came back up into my apartment during my break and slept for an hour. Despite all this, I went to the afternoon school anyways and fought my way through that. Another terrific experience. That was a long two hours. I came home and slept for another 4 hours. Woke up and still did not feel great. That was about the time when bathroom troubles began. Without getting into much detail, I probably went to the bathroom more than 40 times in 4 days. You do the math. I took off Wednesday. The unfortunate part about that day was that my afternoon school wanted me to go in to meet parents that were considering sending their kids to the school. They simply wanted to see the presence of a foreign teacher. The only reason I did that was because they covered my taxi fares (which I have yet to get reimbursed for) and I got paid for the entire 2 hours despite only being there an hour. I only talked to the parents for about 5 minutes. The school even wanted me to tell them that I was sick, but had come out there just to meet with them. Taking advantage of my illness, awesome. I did feel a little better in the evening, so I attempted going to school on Thursday. Not my brightest idea. I only made it through 3 classes before I had to retreat home. Fevers and other discomforts forced me out. I actually was feeling better Thursday night, but decided it would be best to take off Friday as well. I didn’t want to go in just to have to leave again. I figured some rest would be the best idea. Good thing. Long story short, I caught a fever later that did not subside. I was burning up for hours before going to the hospital. My fever was recorded at 40 degrees Celsius, so about 104 Fahrenheit. I forgot my passport, but fortunately, my fever was high enough that they had to treat me. This blog is about honesty, so despite how embarrassing this was, I’ll post it. Prior to be given a blood test, I was asked for a stool sample. I did not want to do this. The thought alone was disgusting, and I was given a small little plastic container thing. Great.  After arguing about my desire to do such a thing, I manned up and started my walk of shame. I stepped outside to enter the adjacent bathroom which contained none other than the classic Chinese squat toilet. I had never used a public bathroom in China for going #2 and my first experience involved collecting a stool sample to boot. I don’t even use public bathrooms in America for the bodily function referred to as #2. I’ve maybe done that a maximum of 5 times in my life, and when doing so, I use a lot of caution. Aka, covering the seat in toilet paper. Anyways, it was a humbling experience.

It’s a good thing I went there, though. I was in complete disbelief when I found out I had dysentery. Dysentery? What is that? I thought that was some kind of old age sickness that I read about in history books and stumbled across in the old pc game, Oregon Trail. Well, it’s very real. After taking one of the 4 meds I was given, my fever subsided pretty quickly. I came home and sat in my bed wrapped in my blanket to sweat out anything remaining fever-wise. I got soaked in about 20 minutes. Disgusting.  Despite all this, I had plans to go to Qing Dao the following morning. We proceeded. I got zero sleep that night. This was possibly from anticipation of a trip, or possibly something I began to experience which I found out to be restless leg syndrome. It’s quite strange. I would be lying in bed at night and get this strange almost tingling feeling in my leg which results in me having to move my feet and or legs. It can be quite annoying. I attributed it to a lack of nutrients/vitamins due to my lack of eating for the past few days. Believe it or not, ignoring it and putting it out of my mind did help me. I also trapped my feet under a blanket, which seemed to help. I thought I was going crazy, but looked up what I was experiencing on Google and knew instantly that had to be it. It’s lessened since eating regularly again and hopefully will continue to do so. I just put it out of mind best I can.

Qing Dao was interesting. Not the best place to be, but nice to get out and see another part of China. I took the express train there, which just started up in Beijing about 2 months ago and has experienced many problems. Fortunately, I had none both to and from. It was a lot like taking an airplane. The train station was massive with lots of people. The train travels at about 185 mph. Took a little under 5 hours to get there I believe.  Qing Dao is a coastal city, so the aroma of seafood and sea floods the city and constantly fills your nostrils. It was a bit of a dirty city. Trash lies all over the streets. LLLLLAt least where we were. I just can’t understand the logic. People just throw their garbage on the streets. I wish someone could explain it to me. This is your city; don’t you want it to look nice? The answer is simply a lack of any kind of thought behind it at all. They just don’t care. I’ve witnessed this kind of thing in Beijing too, so don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen people throw garbage on the ground plenty of times without a care in the world. Ignorance is bliss, after all. The streets are kind of cool though because there are lots of hills, so you’re constantly walking either up or down. The drivers there completely ignore this, and drive like Nascar is watching their every move looking for their next prospect. Kind of wild. Oh and how could I forget, I was a celebrity over there. More so than Beijing. People stared like no tomorrow. They would turn their heads, turn around multiple times, look me up and down, whisper to their friends, and so on. They weren’t even discreet about it. Some tried, but they had no idea what they were doing and it was so obvious. The tactic I employed was to simply stare back and force them to turn away or just maintain eye contact in attempts to make their staring more uncomfortable. It didn’t work great, but it made me feel better. It was kind of annoying at times and quite rude. Luckily, I got used to it previously in Beijing. This was much, much worse though. People would even call out foreigner or American in Chinese right in front of me.

The coolest part of the trip was simply walking amongst the rocks during low tide and discovering all the little sea creatures residing in the tide pools. I found lots of crabs, fish, snails, hermit crabs, and even sea anemones. Pretty cool. The difference between high and low tides at this one place was ridiculous. The rocks that were once naked to the eye stretched on forever during low tide. They were covered in crustaceans and many people walked on them to catch creatures of their own. Old women were out snagging snails and clams for a meal. They had all kinds of tools to do so too. I thought it was neat. It reminded me of Acadia in Maine. Unless you’re immediate family or have been there, you won’t understand the reference. I’ll sum it up quickly. My siblings and I had visited there and wandered among the tide pools and discovered lots of cool things there as well.

The worst part of the trip was probably the mountain adventure. After seeing photos online, I was pretty pumped to do some serious hiking and discover some really beautiful looking scenery. This did not take place. I mean, it wasn’t terrible, just not very exciting – especially since I had already built it up in my mind. Went to a few different areas and none contained what I was there for. There was an area that could not be accessed because the road was closed and I’m led to believe this area held all the beauty I was in search of. Too bad. I was quite frustrated and angry that I was not able to see what I had planned on seeing. That was the whole reason I wanted to go hiking in the mountains. Things never go according to plan, do they? My fame did travel up the mountains as well, though. At one point, I was asked to take a picture with a few people.  I was pretty annoyed at first and kept saying no and in Chinese asked, ‘Why, because I’m American?’ They finally backed off, but then I felt bad so I decided to take the picture with them and another group. Haha. Whatever. Oh, and I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before. Hiking in China, unless you’re far out in the country, is quite a different experience. It’s nothing like it is in America. You won’t get a real nature experience and find some solitude to enjoy the experience and take it all in. There aren’t rugged hills and terrain that you need to trek through. No, no, no. Nothing like that. Instead, most hills are covered in nicely laid stairs for your convenience. Forget seeing any kind of animals that might live there. No, there are far too many people for that sort of thing. I was even boosted up towards the top in a chair lift before doing some stair climbing of my own. It’s just slightly disappointing, but you still get some amazing views.

I went to an aquarium that was decent. It was no San Diego Zoo (I’ve never been, but I know what it looks like), but I saw plenty of cool things. I even got to feed seals. They would clap and spin in some cases with your encouragement and make lots of noise in order to get the precious food you held onto.  Got there a little late, so I avoided the first show that was taking place there and went and looked around instead. The next show was at 1:30. I started to wait in line around 12:45 prior to and was probably about the 5^th one in line. I thought people were bad in Beijing about lines. Man, what a bad experience there. People are ridiculous. I take my lines pretty serious, but they hardly exist here. On the Beijing subways, they exist until the doors open, and then people just flood the doors from every direction without any regard to the people around them. I get such joy out of blocking people and stopping them from cutting the line, and I do it quite frequently. Sometimes I make it obvious, and sometimes I do it subtly and simply come off as an annoyance. Learn what a line is and we wouldn’t have this problem, people. But this aquarium was my worst experience by far. Once it got closer to the time when the doors would open, people started to disregard the long line that had formed and simply stepped up and waited on the sides or forced their way in the line. Not on my watch. I had waited early and got there specifically to get a good seat in the front row, and I was going to get it. This one woman really irked me. She was trying to get in front of me. Ha, I don’t think so. I do my part to enforce lines, lady. So you picked the wrong guy. After attempting to block her out with my leg and body, I finally said ‘ni hao’ a couple times, which she ignored for the first few, until I tapped her on the shoulder. I then attempted in Chinese to ask if she could see everyone else while gesturing to the rest of the line. She didn’t care. I then took other action and just used my body to really force her out and make sure she was not in front of me. She resisted, but that was a battle she was not going to win. She kept pushing and started to say something; luckily the woman in front of me told her she was wrong. She still didn’t care. The pushing continued, but I conquered. The doors were going to swing out from the center, so I was hoping a lot of the people that decided to sit on the sides would have a hard time getting in. Man, once those doors opened, all hell broke loose. I felt like I was standing in a mosh pit for a rock concert. I’ve been there and done that many times and it’s not really pleasant. Had I not braced myself on the one door, I would have been pushed right out of the center to the other side and missed the entrance completely. It was full-on madness. People were screaming, fighting, pushing, etc. I lost my cool and let loose some vulgarities of my own. It was just so ridiculous. The beast within me reared its ugly head. In the end, I got a front row seat. Unfortunately, that stupid woman did too – not too far from my own. I wanted to drop kick her. I felt bad for her little girl who was crying. She got squashed in the midst of that mob and it was that mother’s own stupid fault. People. I’ll never understand them.

The show was only about 30 minutes or so, but it was pretty cool to watch. I got a lot on video. I had no idea you could train belugas like that. They were amazing. I also had no idea dolphins could jump as high as I witnessed. They reached crazy heights. At one point, the announcer picked a girl from the crowd and asked her to hula hoop. This girl was crazy. She was decent enough at it, but watching her was a little weird. You’ll have to just watch the video. The sea lion was also great. He was quite skilled. There was also a little show that we got to watch afterwards too located in a different area. Not nearly as good, but amusing to say the least. The clowns were kind of funny. One was pretty decent at throwing knives and demonstrated his skill. After that, they picked someone from the crowd. He was asked to stand against a moveable wooden wall and they led you to believe the one guy was going to throw knives and attempt to avoid hitting the person. In actuality, they would cover his face with a hood and quickly stick the knives in the wood, then take off the hood and reveal to the person what supposedly took place. It was interesting.

Overall, not a bad trip. Stayed in a hostel that wasn’t half bad. The food was actually really good. It was mostly western, but that’s what I needed after finally being able to eat following the dysentery. My diet consisted of bland rice soup and rice for a couple days. I was so hungry and all I could think of was food. When I finally began to return to a normal diet, it was amazing. I ate most of my meals there and I’m ok with that. I had my first real breakfast in China there; eggs, bacon, a hash brown and toast. Thank you. I only real ate one local type of food in Qing Dao. It was squid on a stick (squid chuanr). Delicious. Had to eat it before I left. I was worried about the local cuisine on my stomach and also didn’t trust a lot of it, which was probably for the better. Again, not a bad trip, but I’m happy to be back in Beijing. I used to think Beijing was dirty, but after returning from Qing Dao, it looks ridiculously clean.

I have a month off before returning to work. The good news about returning is that I won’t have to attend my afternoon school anymore. I’m now full time at the morning school. I’ll miss some of the kids over there and may go visit, but ultimately, I’m happy about that. I didn’t really like that school or their methods. I can enjoy the rest of this week to myself, but next week, I have a job lined up with a library. I’m not too enthused about it, but I’ll be making 2 months’ salary in 10 days (10,000 yuan). Yes, please. The job is a day camp sort of thing in which teaching will take place as well. I’ll be there all day from 9-5. Again, not crazy about it, but the money will more than cover my trip expenses (about 2,000) and give me plenty of extra. Perhaps I’ll use that for future travels here. Regardless, it’s not a bad thing. I can also get some more experience and see different methods of teaching that I can adapt and use for my own. It’s important to take advantage of the opportunities you’re given. I was recommended here by one of the mothers of my one of my students that I was tutoring for outside of school. Networking and making contacts. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

There are a lot of things that I wanted to include previously, but may or may not include now. Some of the stuff seems irrelevant, but we’ll see. A lot of this is old news, but you might find some of it interesting.

School had been starting to go slower the closer I got to break. The days were longer. I wasn’t as enthusiastic, and I was getting bored with things. The kids were getting worse and worse too; typical of kids nearing summer holiday or anyone for that matter. I just started to ask the kids what they wanted to do so we ended up playing the same games quite often. I only have about 4 or 5 good ones anyways, but they just seemed to want to play one or two of them. I didn’t care. I figured, as long as they’re learning, what difference does it make what game we play? Let them play what they want if it helps. I still liked to play Bei Kou Bei (back to back) at the end of the week when I could and separate the classes into two teams. I could only do this with my older classes for the most part, but I enjoyed it. I like the competition amongst the kids. Some take it pretty serious, occasionally too serious. Kids would cry from time to time or just refuse to play. I dragged some up despite that, but it didn’t always go well. In my one class, the kids always fought with each other whenever we played it. I found it quite comical. One of my favorites in the class, Dunny, would always antagonize some of the kids on the other team and showboat after he won. His team only lost once to my recollection and he cried. Poor little guy. I did my best to get him back on his feet after the loss. The mute kid in one of my classes actually started talking with me one day and did pretty well for a little while before reverting back. Little Yoyo, who is pretty shy in another class of mine, got better and better. She just kind of mumbles most of the time, but at least she’s trying and she was always enthusiastic to participate when I called kids up to interact one on one verbally. Many times, she would just stand up there even after completing her own and wait to go again for another round. I allowed it because I figured the more help she had the better. She came a long way and still has a long way to go, but I’m happy with the progress she’s made. She reminded me of our family dog, Goober. No, she’s not a dog. I just found commonalities in her social behavior. You just have to be gentle and take your time with some kids. Do your best to encourage them and eventually, they’ll start to come around.

Well, yesterday I decided to venture off to somewhere. Beihai Park ended up grabbing my attention when I was looking for parks to visit online. Great choice. It was beautiful and fairly large to boot. I had looked up directions on how to get there including numerous buses I could take to get there prior to leaving my apartment. They sort of worked. I ended up asking someone in Chinese where the park was. Fortunately for me, he spoke English. He directed me across the street and ended up crossing and joining me with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather eventually. They were headed in the same direction, so it was impossible for me to get lost or so you would think. We did, however, miss our bus stop because we were talking and not paying attention. Haha. Go figure. Upon arrival, the first thing that grabs your attention is a big lake that rests in the center of the park. Boats are scattered all over it. I glanced at the map of the park (I stress ‘glanced’) before heading off. Let’s be honest, I’m more of the jump in and go type. I don’t do a lot of reading when it comes to manuals and that kind of thing. (I tend to ignore my Pop’s gentle prodding with ‘RFM’). I was curious what this place had to offer, though. I picked a great day. The weather was with me and a gentle breeze continuously cooled me off. Like Beijing itself, the lake was surrounded with weeping willows. And I happen to love weeping willows, although I couldn’t give you a logical reason as to why, I just do. They’re cool. I chose a side of the lake that seemed to get to things that were more appealing faster, and I picked the right side. There were lots of old buildings and things of that nature, not to mention the giant White Pagoda.  I’ll put up pictures of it as well as the sign that gives you a little more insight on its history. You had to climb up to see it and it was quite interesting. The thing that interested me the most here was actually something that normally wouldn’t interest me so much. Upon entering the ‘Round City’ within the park, I soon came across a giant jar known as the Jade Jar. It wasn’t too exciting, I suppose, but for some reason it caught my attention. It was just interesting reading about its history and imagining the emperors of the past utilizing it. The sign had mentioned one had used it during his feasts and had it filled with wine. I just found the whole thing kind of neat. I got some great pictures of the place and it’s probably not what you think of when you hear the word park, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it. Most of the parks are that way here in Beijing.

Today (8/4/11) on the other hand was not nearly as fun. I knew prior to even going to sleep that today was going to be spent cleaning. My other temporary roommate departed to his new apartment last night. So being alone here for the time being, a cleaning was long overdue. I spent about 4 and a ½ hours cleaning most of the apartment. The only thing I have left to do is clean my room, which will be easy. I’ll take care of that tomorrow. The kitchen was the hardest part. The sink alone was cleaned with 3 or 4 different stages. First, I used some kind of all-purpose kitchen cleaner, followed by disinfectant soap, and then regular soap and water. I repeated the soap and water usage later. On the counter top, I utilized the multi-purpose cleaner and soap and water. I cleaned the rice cooker, the interiors of the refrigerator, a large portion of the walls, and the stove top. The final step was sweeping and mopping the floors in there. I then had to lay out some cockroach traps to get them good and poisoned. Yep, I’ve got cockroaches. Not a lot at this point and they should be gone after this. I don’t really think I’m to blame, but I probably didn’t help. My worst offense was leaving my dishes in the sink to wash the next day. So sue me. Getting the oil from cooking off the walls was good and time consuming. But I must say, I’m proud of my work and it looks good. After my rendezvous with the kitchen, I then swept up the living room. Disgusting. The amount of dirt on the floors was ridiculous. Had I left it there any longer, I probably could have started growing plants straight from the floor boards. It just builds up from leaving the windows open. I had piles of dirt lying around. I didn’t bother mopping that because it’s pointless. Nobody cares. I then cleaned the bathroom. Disinfectant soap was also used there, followed by a bathroom multi-purpose cleaner and some mopping as well. I know you people love reading about my cleaning escapades so I had to include them. I just want to give you a glimpse of what I’m dealing with over here. Being the only one that cares about cleanliness and sanitation is a tough situation. I’m looking forward to having my own place someday. Then the messes or lack of will be my own. But all in all, the cleaning is probably building some character. I like doing the work myself because then I’m assured it’s done the right way. And it feels good and somewhat rewarding when you’re finished. I sat down to some food I ordered and a nice big bottle of beer. Beer always tastes better when you’ve accomplished something in the day. And this is my week of relaxation.

I wanted to share with you some facts and observations of my own about the city of Beijing and perhaps China in general to paint a better picture for you and allow for a greater understanding. I’m sure you know that there are a lot of people in China. I mean a lot. In Beijing alone, I was informed that nobody knows how many people actually reside here. The number of people most likely lies somewhere between 22 and 24 million people. With that being said, there are a lot of jobs that are necessary to keep the majority of people employed. For example, there are machines that do street sweeping here like many cities in the U.S., but there are also manual labor workers that do additional sweeping as well as picking up trash and general maintenance of the city. On one trip to Houhai (If you forgot, it’s an awesome lake here), I noticed huge piles of weeds sitting near the edges of the lake. People had tools to manually cut and remove the weeds. At the time, I had questioned this. I said, “Why don’t they just use machines to do this kind of work?” I was given the answer about people needing jobs. It makes perfect sense and just hadn’t occurred to me. I hadn’t even considered that prior to asking the question. The United States is constantly utilizing machines to do the work that humans are capable of doing in order to cut back spending in the long term and even work more efficiently. I guess that China understands that its people have needs. In that aspect, bravo. I’m sure I’ll think of more things to include later on.

I’ll tell you one last funny situation that I dealt with last night. It’s sort of funny now, but I was not happy at the time. I decided to go buy myself a bottle of wine. I bought a nice, cheap bottle of Great Wall wine; a dry, red wine. When I say cheap, I mean cheap. It was less than $4.00 USD, 21 rmb. I bought a cork screw, and headed on home. Later that evening, I began to prepare dinner. I then realized I had forgotten to thaw the chicken meat I was planning on consuming. Lucky for me, I had witnessed this technique before. I just boiled it for a little while before cooking it. It was one of my better meals, actually. I let it sit, and began the process of opening the wine bottle. I thought it would be fairly easy, I mean I’ve opened wine bottles before. It’s not that challenging. Wrong.  After lodging the cork screw in the cork, I soon came to realize that it was just turning and stripping the hole I had made. The cork was just crumbling. Great. I played with that for a while before searching on the internet how to handle this situation. It was recommended that I try a different angle in the cork and if that still doesn’t work, shove it in the bottle. Well, I tried about 4 or 5 different angles and nothing worked. I then attempted to cut out the cork with a knife. I did get some of it out, but that wasn’t working too well either. I then reached for a different blade and just stuck it in that fricken cork. It started to move down towards the contents of the bottle. Victory seemed near. I continued to press. I didn’t think that one through too much. Because of all the pressure of me pushing the cork in, the wine ended up bursting in my face and all over the kitchen. Awesome. What a lovely, sticky mess. I couldn’t eat until it was cleaned up, especially after all the effort I put forth in there cleaning the other day. I wiped everything, ran a mop over the floor, and rinsed off in the shower. Fortunately, my food was still warm. I sat down and enjoyed that, and poured myself a glass of the wine. Yes, you better believe I was going to drink it after that – cork pieces or not. There were a few tiny pieces of cork floating around in my first glass, but after that it was ok. Terrible experience and the wine wasn’t that good. Lesson learned. You get what you pay for. I paid for cheap, crumbling cork wine. I got it. I did, however, consume the entire bottle and got a little tipsy. Nothing major. It was a pleasant drunkenness.

Hope you enjoy the reading.

-China man

Carry On My Wayward Son

Good weekend. Today is Sunday, 5/29/11. I was out last night and had a good time. Ended up going to a bar called ‘Juicy’. Great name, right? Reminds me of a song so I have to give credit to Notorious B.I.G. here, although I’m fairly certain it’s a cover of an older song. Anyways, it was a decent place. I liked it. It cost 80 rmb for guys, and 30 for girls. You can sign your name to get a free card, which lowers that price to 60 rmb for future usage. Yes, I did that. I am now a Juicy guy. But anyways, drinks were inclusive so I don’t mind. I would have spent between 100 and 200 rmb on drinks if that hadn’t been the case. I mean, I wouldn’t have done that if that were the case, but I’m just saying. Besides that, I got to enjoy some finer drinks as opposed to the usual beer. It was a nice change. No, I didn’t get drunk. I’m just saying. The bar had a rooftop terrace, which is particularly nice this time of year. It’s a good atmosphere to just sit down with some friends and enjoy some drinks. Still a little noisy, but better than indoors. It was cool. I’ll be back there for sure. Update. Not as grand the second time. Perhaps that was due to sitting next to a guy shortly before he began to throw up. Luckily, I avoided any misfire.

I know my bloggage has taken a bit of a back seat. What can I say? Things happen. I’m probably sounding like a broken record because I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. I just have different priorities now. I know. It’s important. Allows you people, friends and family back home, to have a glimpse into my new world. I usually add a list of ideas for a future blog, though. Helps me remember what took place. I also throw dates on if I feel it’s necessary so you have an idea of when things are taking place.

Well I went to an amusement park back on 5/13/11. Ended up going with a few people, and we went during the night time hours. Like in the states, it is cheaper to go at night. Unfortunately there is a big difference. You would think that you are paying less strictly because you have less time to access the rides, but there’s a little more to it than that here in China. The majority of the rides are shut down during the night hours. There’s virtually nothing open, besides a few so so rides here and there. The only decent one was the dominator look alike. In case you’re not familiar with that, it’s the one that either shoots you up or drops down. The only one available here was the one that shoots you up. No big deal. It was nice to just be out and about, walking around in the place, and seeing what could be available. Might be a while before I go there during any day time hours, though. Like Six Flags or any major theme park, I’m told it’s super crowded and impossible to get on rides. Not my idea of a good time. Regardless, had fun there.

I did end up breaking down a little while ago and finally cleaned my bathroom. It was absolutely disgusting. I still have nightmares about it. I just wonder how it ever managed to get to that point. I mean it was really bad when I got here, and the previous wonderful roommate of mine only made it that much better. I didn’t go super crazy on the floor, but I cleaned up the majority of it. I still have yet to bleach the whole place down. That’s my plan for the nearby future anyways. But go figure. The day after I cleaned the bathroom, we had a temporary roommate move in. He ended up being a pretty cool guy, but left in about a week. Maybe less. From there, we moved on to another roommate who’s still living with us waiting for the company to find him a place. He’s also a pretty cool guy so I don’t really mind. I just don’t like the fact that the company uses our place as a hotel. My permanent roommate has been reimbursed for power before, and I will be sure it happens again.

I want to write about yesterday while it’s fresh in my mind. Yesterday was June 5^th. I ended up taking a little day trip and going to a place called Shidu or Shi du. Whichever. It took about 3 hours to get there and about 4 hours to get back, but I still had a great time. Got there and messed around on a bamboo boat for a while. It wasn’t a necessarily a huge area to tool around in, but still amusing and fun. Lots of boats too so you’re constantly crashing into other people. Warning - most don’t know how to steer. There are no paddles or anything of that nature. You just get to use a bamboo stick to navigate and push your way around the area. Fairly basic and easy to use. I was hoping to see somebody fall in, but unfortunately that did not occur. And fortunately, I didn’t do that either.

I ended up hiking up a mountain in the one area there. It was a gorgeous day and fairly hot out, but I love hiking and was excited to experience a little more in China. I haven’t done that sort of thing since I went to Shang Shen almost two months ago. It was really nice to just get out of the city, see some of the beautiful landscapes that China has to offer, and breathe some fresher air. Like most places, not just in China, incredible places like these often get jaded by people looking to make money. The bottom of the mountain was littered with restaurants and small shops that nearly all sold the same or similar items. You have to walk a little ways before you can escape the ways of the world. Unfortunately, once you get away from those things, you’re left dealing with mass amounts of people and the trash they’ve left behind due to a lack of care. Sad. But again, you encounter this in just about any place you go to that shows any trace of natural beauty. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though. The higher you ascend, the less and less people you encounter. I came across dozens of waterfalls, pools of water, and the inevitable streams trickling down the mountain. Amazing. I would have liked to continue the climb, but I was with a tour bus on a time frame. No big deal. I got pretty high up, and it was definitely worth it.

We were supposed to go rafting during the second part of the day, but as fate would have it, there were too many people. Because of this, tickets were no longer being sold. I just ended up walking around and seeing the other activities that could be done there if you felt like paying extra. There was bungee jumping (which I was tempted to do – the location alone was enough to make me want to do it), more bamboo boating along with other types of boating, rock climbing, more hiking, a type of zip-lining, and a few other things. Overall, it was a cool place with plenty to keep you busy. I might end up finding myself there again some day.

For a while there, I was finding that Mondays were the worst day of the week. In many cases, they still are. Tuesday on the other hand was the complete opposite. Tuesdays usually ended up being my best day, at least for some time. I’m not sure if that’s still the case or not. It’s hard to say because all of my school days just kind of blend together into one, and then I’m off enjoying the weekend. Mondays are bad from the start. If you have a job in which the weekends are your days off, it’s always tough coming back and working that first day and starting your week. Your slow, the day’s slow, everyone and everything is slow. Besides that, I don’t always have the best attitude about Mondays. In my head, I’m thinking, “Damnit, another work week. I’m not ready for this.” That right there is not good for anyone, least of all yourself. Even with that being said, I did not have the opportunity to enjoy weekends/two days off in a row most of the time for over 2 years, so this is nice. Now Tuesdays, they’re a different story. So far, I’ve made it through my mundane Mondays. After that, it’s on to terrific Tuesdays. Why so terrific you ask? Well, I usually go in with a better mindset and a better attitude. I give myself a little pep talk in the mornings and convince myself that it’s going to be a good day, and that everything is going to go well. Believe it or not, that little self-talk in the mornings can be the difference between a good day and a bad day. Although, I do forget about that talk sometimes later in the day. Haha. What can you do? Also bear in mind, kids are like sharks. They can smell fear. Once you show an ounce of weakness, they will attack. And they’re relentless.

I’ve had mixed emotions about school lately. Sometimes I’m thoroughly enjoying it, and on others I’m wondering what drove me to this madness. All in all, it’s a great experience. Again, I’m fortunate to have this opportunity. You’re probably wondering how classes are going and how my teaching is coming along. Eh, not sure. Again, mixed reviews at least from my end. I think I’m a decent enough teacher and maybe better than the average teacher, but it’s hard to say without much to base that on. I’m not that goofy, crazy, clownish teacher you may or may not think of. That’s not my style. When it’s just me and the kids and I feel like messing around, I can be pretty goofy, but I’m a little bashful about my goofiness I suppose. Haha. I like to pick the kids up, and poke them in the stomachs (they usually laugh) and things like that. The problem with doing those sorts of things is when you do it to one, you have to do it to all or just learn how to say no. They are kids after all. If I pick a kid up, I get rushed (And I have actually been knocked over) by a bunch of other kids. Everyone wants to be picked up. You’ve got your greedy ones too. They linger and hang around hoping for multiple joy rides.

A while back, Duola (she’s a super cute girl in one of my classes – you can look her up on my Facebook if you want a face with the name) started this new form of high fives in one of my classes. It’s not a high five at all. It’s more like a super low five using feet instead of hands. It started off with a gentle push with the bottom of our feet, but has turned into kids just kicking the bottom of my feet. If I beat them to the touch, I can usually avoid the violent way, though.  Way to go, Duola.

Kids are smart. Smarter than I realize sometimes. I have this guy named Dunny in another class. He’s one of the smartest and he’s just super cool. I think he could be a child model if his parents pursued that. He’s like a mini rock star. Anyways, sometimes after class, I hang around for a few minutes just waiting to head to my next class. We have five minute breaks in between, so don’t worry. Some of the kids will come up to me and say things or jump around on me or both. Dunny is a regular in those cases, and he usually starts talking about something. I can’t understand all of what they’re saying to me, so if I’m interested, I’ll ask the English speaking teacher if she’s available. Dunny was talking to me the other day, and I asked the teacher what he said. In Chinese, he said, “Jeff, one day you’re going to leave and I’m going to miss you.” He said that or some form of that. Regardless, I was both sad and happy to hear that. I was sad because I knew he was right. Not sure when I’ll leave, but yes, someday I will. I was happy because it’s nice to know that I’ve made that much of an impact that he cared enough to tell me that. I was also amazed that he understood that and had the insight for the future. Kids say the darndest things. I got to watch this class a while back perform their little Kung Fu skit. The teacher wanted to show me. It was pretty amusing to watch. The kids sang and did some moves during the song. Parts of it sounded like a song, other parts were more like a chant. It was funny to see how serious some of the kids were during this skit. I mean, they really got into it. Awesome.

I’ve been teaching all my kids in the morning school flags for different countries for the past few weeks. Now, if you know China at all, you know they despise Japan. Even the kids are taught this concept. Don’t’ believe me? I have this one class called Crabapple, although I call them ‘the crabs’. They’re between the ages of 4-6. I’m not sure if there are 6 year olds or not. I think they’re might be, though. Anyways, the first time I showed them Japan, all hell broke out in the class. Their faces lit up and most of the guys went ballistic and began attacking the flag using whatever method they could think of. Kids transformed their hands into guns and proceeded to shoot the flag. I had others start bombing it accompanied with the bomb explosions. Missiles were launched, and some even ran up and gave it a good slap. Haha. They were half joking around with it, but there was obviously some seriousness there. I didn’t have that experience with any other classes.  My roommate had mentioned that one of the teachers told the kids they should not like that country. It’s interesting to say the least. Roots run deep.

Andy from my morning school is also worth mentioning. There’s a picture on my Facebook of me holding his head to take a picture. That basically sums up his behavior in class. Despite that, I like him. He’s really smart without trying too hard when he actually listens. He’s also hilarious. He gets yelled at a lot, but I enjoy some of his antics. Sometimes, he’s just off roaming around the classroom. Other times, he’s just doing his own thing with a teacher or by himself. Maybe looking at a book or coloring or something like that. The other day I played this game that I used to like, but grew out of after a time. It’s fairly basic. I just lay out the cards I’m teaching in a circle on the floor. I call up anywhere from 3-5 kids. They hold hands and spin in a circle. I like to have them close their eyes to make it more of a challenge. That way, they have no idea where they are when they open them. I keep telling them to spin and eventually yell out the card they’re supposed to run over and hit. Crazy kids will collide into each other, fall on the ground, and dive for the cards so it can be quite amusing. Well, this particular time, Andy was off drawing pictures on napkins. He came back twice with a tank and a car for me to add to the circle of cards. Haha. They had nothing to with the subject we were on, but it was pretty funny. Sometimes I run into him when he’s waiting to leave outside the school at the end of the day. He yells my name, comes over to me, and climbs up part of the fence to say hi. Funny guy.

Food. I’ve eaten out at plenty of different restaurants. So good. It’s hard to come across a meal or type of food I don’t enjoy here. Seriously. It’s a challenge. I had this amazing fish that was barbequed. They just split it open and cook it like that. Vegetables lie underneath it and it sits in this incredible sauce with many different blends of spices and seasoning. Delicious. I’m addicted to the chuanrs out here. They’re kebabs for all intent purposes. Most are spicy and have an array of different spices on them. Don’t get me wrong, the meat ones are incredible. I’m eating a lot of lamb out here. They’re called lamb in English, but I’m sure they mostly consist of older sheep and not just young ones. I hope so anyways. Beef and chicken are also popular. Again, the ones with meat are great, but I may love the vegetable ones even more. You can get just about anything you can think of. Some of my favorites are eggplant, mushroom, and lotus. I’m also a huge fan of jiu cai. It’s some form of leek I guess. Ah, so good. I cook it in my apartment. Mine just lacks all the savory spices and additional flavors, but it’s still really good. I would kill for a deck out here accompanied by a grill. Ah, the things I could do. I would also love to have an oven, but this seems to be an item that most people do not possess. Too bad, oh the cakes and cookies I could bake. Before I forget, I ended up going to this Korean place one night. I had fried vegetables and some kind of rice mix with beef. The menu had at least called it beef. Koreans eat dog if you didn’t know, and there was plenty available on the menu. Not very appetizing in my opinion. I have no desire to eat man’s best friend. And I was unaware you could make vegetables so fatty. Take the basic idea of an onion ring and do that to peppers and carrot sticks as well. The unfortunate aftermath of that night hit me around 11:00 at night. I was fine up until that point. Right then and there, I started to experience a terrible stomach pain that lasted till about 1:00 AM. If you don’t know this, I’ve had my appendix removed, so you don’t need to question my ability to judge stomach pain. This particular stomach ache was excruciating. I won’t say it was as bad as the pain was prior to appendix removal, but it was up there. I was lying in bed just moaning in a curled up position with my hand on my stomach for some comfort. I sat up and debated making myself throw up several times. Eventually, I took some charcoal and the pain gradually decreased allowing me to finally get some sleep. I don't attribute this to the charcoal, as it doesn't work that fast, but I'm sure it didn't hurt. I was fine the next day. Weird. Oh, and the person I was with experienced just about the same thing within just about the same time frame.

Speaking of food, I was actually introduced to a small supermarket chain. The one I went into was called Jenny Wang’s, but it’s the same as Jenny Lou’s (or vice versa, I forget).  What an amazing experience. My eyes were bulging out of their sockets. I know it’s only been 4 months, but still. When you see food items and things of that nature that have been absent for that amount of time, it’s quite a sight to behold. Upon each item, the words and sounds emitted from my lips consisted of “OHHH MANNNN”, “OH MY GOSH”, and “What???!! They have that?”, “Wooowwwww”. Ahh, incredible. I even found the elusive barbeque sauce for a reasonable price (none other than Jack Daniels – Score!). I saw pancake mixes, salad dressings, candies, cake batters, and even Pop Tarts. Yes. Pop Tarts. I haven’t returned since and only bought some candy there, but when I need a slice of home, that’s where I’ll be heading.

The weather has been a little different since my last post. It’s gotten pretty hot out here. I haven’t touched AC yet, and I’m not sure I want to.  1. I never used it when growing up because my parents hated it. Way to go Mom and Pops. 2. I kind of hate it because you step outside and now your body has to adjust to the extreme heat and makes it that much worse. 3. My body gets stiff when it’s blowing on for me a long time. 4. It makes me stuffy and it’s easy to get sick. Ok, I think we covered enough there. You get the idea. You would also be surprised to hear (particulary you, Mom) that I have slept without a fan since I’ve been here. I used to love that white noise in the background, and I’m sure I still do. I need to purchase one soon before I just melt in my sleep. It’s not that bad yet, but it’s getting there. I’m still wearing pants outside. It’s super hot at times, and believe me – I’m sweating. I’m just trying to hold off on shorts for as long as possible, because I know that once I make that switch; it’s over. I’ve only wore them twice so far. When I see Chinese people wearing shorts on a consistent basis, that’s when I’ll make that switch. That may or may not happen. It’s been raining a decent amount lately as well. Funny enough, one day I had been talking about how I had not seen any lightening or heard any thunder yet in China. The next day, I got to experience both and have seen/heard both a couple times since then. And I don’t know what it is here, but I don’t remember being so wiped out in the sun back in the states. Here, the heat kills my energy. I feel like a zombie in the heat because I’m just so sluggish sometimes. I used to never take naps, but I have the desire to nap everyday with this heat. That doesn’t mean I do, but I’m just saying. The desire is there.

I started tutoring. Yep. Finally. I say ‘finally’ like I’ve lived here for years. But anyways, it’s nice. It’s nice walking away with some extra cash in my pocket. How did I end up acquiring some people to tutor you ask? Don’t fret! I’ll tell you. From time to time, my morning school goes on trips here and there as you may or may not recall. Well, prior to this last time, I have always gone with one of my roommate’s classes instead of my own. Not a huge deal, but I did want to accompany one of my own classes and have some fun with them outside the classroom. I was also looking to possibly talk to some of the parents. Luckily, my roommate talked to the principal and told her I wanted to go with one of my classes so I got to do so the last time. It ended up being a bigger deal than I expected because I then had to choose the class I wanted to go with, which was a challenge. As I understood it, every class wanted me to go with them. I don’t know if the students knew about this or just the teachers. Regardless, I’m an indecisive person so I had a hard time picking one of them. I finally made my choice, and I guess it was the right one. We just had a little park excursion for the morning and on this particular trip, not a lot of parents came. Even so, I managed to talk to two of them. I talked to the one longer and as planned, I casually slipped in that I had a desire to teach the kids more outside of the classroom. The mother was surprised and interested in this so we exchanged phone numbers. Long story short, it worked out. We emailed back and forth a couple times, and I told her that my charging fee was negotiable and to just tell me what she thought was fair. The average rate for private tutoring is 150rmb/hour or session, but if you go through a company, you can pay up to 300/hour or session. I didn’t want to overcharge and she lives in my apartment  complex so I was already happy about that. She offered my 150/hour twice a week. Tuesdays consists of 2 kids in her home, and on Saturdays I tutor 2-4 kids (depending on who shows up). I’ve had 3 sessions thus far, and we have gone to parks on both Saturday sessions with her driving me there. The only catch to the Saturday session is that I have to meet her downstairs at 8:40 in the morning. A little early for a Saturday morning, but whatever. Just keeps me from staying out too late. I can deal. As expected, the first was the hardest. Now I have an idea of how much I can introduce and what not. I’m getting the hang of it. We review and learn some new words/phrases during the first half hour, then take a five minute break, followed by some kind of activity. These activities have included drawing on paper, and the second time at park, I brought my Frisbee so we played that. The two girls loved it. It’s something fun that the girls can be interested in, which makes learning that much easier. All the kids I’m tutoring at the moment are girls in my classes. 3 are in the same class and 1 is in a different class than the rest. Yep, two of my favorites are included in that. I’m tutoring Daisy and Julia. They’re both brilliant. I set everything up initially with Julia’s Mom, but it just so happens that Julia is best friends with Daisy. Julia is so smart. She catches on quickly and since her mother speaks good English, she can practice the phrases and words that much more during the week. She’s a funny little girl. Daisy is the ring leader. She’s like the energizer bunny, she just keeps going. I swear, she never stops. She loves to run and encourages Julia to do the same. Julia’s mom even told me that Julia can now run faster and farther thanks to Daisy. During our trip to a park this past Saturday (6/18/11), Diasy stopped at one point and sung us a song. She was pretty good. I’m serious. Julia is a little more laid back, but not really shy. She’s just a little more mellow, but gets plenty of encouragement from Daisy. They’re both so funny. They fight sometimes. Hanging out as much as they do can have that affect. Julia had told me (in Chinese) she wanted a spider after seeing a spider-web earlier. Well, I ended up seeing one walking on the path we were on. I pointed it out and she squished it. Daisy was not happy about this, and then proceeded to tell the whole story of Charlotte’s Web, also in Chinese. Daisy also got upset later to the point where she was crying when Julia was tired and did not want to chase her. Daisy and Julia as well had no desire to leave the park, so we stayed there later. In total, I was gone for about 3 hours. I got paid 200 instead of 150. Sweet. I told them that it wasn’t necessary, but they told me not to worry about it. That was very nice of them so I definitely appreciated it. The extra money that I’m making now is just about covering all of my living and going out expenses. Not all, but close. Besides that, I’m happy to be tutoring the kids I’m tutoring. I have a chance to really do something good for these kids, and I want to make sure I’m earning the money that I’m making. That’s not a cheap. To put that in perspective, I make about 275 a day for daily teaching. I’m making more than an additional 1200 a month now for 8 hours of work. I know a guy that works in this supermarket. The guy makes about 2500 a month and only gets 1 day off. He works really long days too. So yeah, it’s a lot.

I’ve been here in China now for a little over four months. Not that long I know, but sometimes it feels like it. Again, I don’t always acknowledge that I’m living here. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but it needs to be said again. It’s so easy to get into a routine and just forget about where you are and what you’re doing. It’s crazy when the realization hits you.  It can hit you anytime. I’ve sat down in a class and had this realization. The thought just enters my mind. I just all of a sudden realize that I’m teaching kids in China. What an experience. It hits me where ever, whenever without any warning. I’ve been walking down an empty street late at night and had this hit me. It’s just a ‘Wow’ at the thought of the whole thing.

At this point I just want to get this published, so I’ll correct errors later. Hope you enjoy it. It might be awhile before the next one. Hey, at least I’m honest.

-Jeff