Shanghai, The X-Files, and F-ing Delayed Flights

I took a trip during our 4 day holiday to Shanghai to see Philippe. I am very used to the drill now; weasel my way out of classes on the day of the flight, search for taxis that seem to never come, miss the bus to the airport, take a ridiculously expensive cab ride to the airport, get in two car accidents, etc. Shanghai reminds me so much of Chicago its scary. On the cab ride to Phil’s apartment I spaced out and thought I was in Chicago for a while, until I saw the huge signs for the Olympics, where are basically every 10 feet in any Chinese city. I don’t know what the hell this country will have going for it after the Olympics.

For the first time in maybe 10 years I watched the X-files. I was overcome with a joy I cannot really explain, except that it reminded me of my childhood and how I haven’t really changed. I still find the stories hilarious, the acting less than great, and Mulder strangely attractive. I guess if anything I side more with Scully now in her scientific and rational approach to cases, which is stupid really, because we all know Mulder was always right. But come on, some of his claims are just ridiculous.

My flight back home was at 10:30pm, the latest one to Wuhan. Of course its delayed when I get there until at least 12:45am. This comes as little surprise, as most flights I have taken here have been delayed (one time Phil’s flight to Wuhan was delayed 5 hours because they “lost” the plane). I have a little panic attack because I am already exhausted and don’t really want to lay down on the waiting chairs in the airport for 2 hours. Chinese announcements are ringing all around me, nothing in English. I try to see what people who have the same ticket as I do are doing; one minute they are sitting, and then after a blaring announcement they all groan and pick up their bags and start walking towards the door. I learn that we are being taken to a hotel to sleep for a few hours. We pile into a van and drive for at least a half an hour. This is disconcerting to an already anxious me. We get to a hotel and I share a room with a Chinese girl who speaks a little English. She was mostly interested in loudly texting her boyfriend as I tried to fall asleep.

At 3:30am we are phoned and told that our plane had arrived, and we were bused back to the airport. I am barely conscious until we land in Wuhan at 5:30am. Our luggage does not appear until another half hour later, and at this point I have given up any hope of getting sleep before having to teach at 9:30. I get a taxi back to my apartment for 80 kwai, which was probably way too much, and lay in my bed for about an hour before going to school.

But ah, I would do it all again.

Love.
Coco

earthquake drills: they’re fun AND they make you think

Today we had an earthquake drill mid-way through 3rd period. I knew it was coming, and I was fully prepared, nay, looking forward to it because it would get me out of a healthy chunk of teaching. I was in my cutest 1st grade class (well thats not true, but 2 of my favorite students are in there, so its a pretty wonderful class) and the alarm starts ringing while I am mid-sentence. Every kid starts screaming and books it out of the classroom into the hall, along with my teaching assistant Nichole.

All the students in the school are in the hallways, running to the stairwells. I grab the hand of the nearest kid in my class and start hopping down the stairs. I get a surreal sense all of the sudden. Everything starts seeming very real, like I am in a real earthquake, and my kids are in real danger. My eyes start tearing up unconsciously. Children all around me are screaming and laughing, and I look mortified. I want to pick up the student I am with and hug them until I can no longer. We run to the track field outside and sit on the ground with our hands over our heads. I get down there on my knees in my skirt, thinking maybe if I do it too, it will really stick in their heads. They point at me and laugh and laugh, and I shush them and remind them to be in the correct position.

If an earthquake ever did hit us, I must say I would be worthless. I guess practicing drills of running the hell out of our school are helpful, but in reality, how quickly do buildings collapse? In the end we are at the mercy of these unpredictable natural disasters. Maybe our buildings can be built more earthquake proof, maybe we can have quicker rescue plans, I’m not sure what is feasible and whats not. My heart goes out to the kids killed Monday, and their families, and everyone involved. I wish there was more I could do.

Oh the love.

Coco

Cheerie-a, Cheerie-e, Cheerie-i, Cheeri-o, Cheerie-you

China, like America, has national holidays during which people don’t have to work. The biggest holiday we have experienced so far has been Spring Festival, which was basically a month of random stores being closed and us not being able to get our water fixed.

However, unlike America, China makes its citizens “make up” the days they take off work for holidays. The upcoming holiday, Labor Day, gives us next Thursday and Friday off. Joyous, a 4 day holiday! But quickly we realize that our weekend is not as sacrosanct as we believed. We have to come in that Sunday to make up for the days we get off.

This is not the first time this has happened, and it never fails; every foreigner in Wuhan gripes about the uselessness of having a holiday if you just have to make up the days you miss. It makes perfect sense to the Chinese. “But you don’t work this day, so you must work on this day to make it up.” But, that day was supposed to be a given holiday! We can’t help but feel cheated when this mere weekend shifting takes place.

Another holiday approaching, Children’s Day, is supposed to be the day that the Chinese boycott KFC. They love boycotting stores that are technically owned but far from being a representative of a country that has “wronged” them. Carrefour, a French department store, has been boycotted due to the protests in France when the Olympic torch was brought through. KFC is being boycotted due to Nancy Pelosi meeting with the Dalai Lama. And thats all I feel safe saying. Uhmmm… I was going to type more but due to the recent news that a foreigner was attacked coming out of Carrefour, I shan’t.

I live in an alternate universe.

Love,

Coco

Abolishing Babies, or, The Coldest April Fools’ Day Joke Ever.

So this Tuesday at school, Lee and I get text messages at the same time from our Chinese friend B-Rock that read:

“Hey C, do u know any good hospital and harden doctor for abolishing babies? Maybe ur workmates know it, so check it out with them, please…”

After replying “…what!?” we recieved another, saying:

“I mean aborticide. do you know any good place for it?”

Well, needless to say, we were a little freaked out. Had B-Rock knocked up a girl? Wait, he was having sex?! An equally stunning thought. Also, how the hell would we know anything about abortion places in China? A few minutes later however, we received a text wishing us a Happy April 1st with a smiley face. Damn B-Rock and his knowledge of foolish American culture. Sigh.

On the subject of abolishing babies, or rather, not having to, I ventured out today finally in search of the elusive pill. I found it wasn’t so elusive. In China one can get the pill over the counter. Actually, they were sitting right on the counter, like any other impulse buy, like a Hershey bar or some Listerine mouth strips. At first, I asked for what I thought was birth control, but it was actually the morning after pill, in a little box next to the birth control pills. I opened up the box and looked at it, this little life changing pill. You little devil, I thought; you are the cause of so much controversy in the states, and here you are in my hand, tempting me to have casual, unprotected sex. Back you go.

I was then shown the entire range, from the 8 kwai thrifty-person’s birth control, to the top of the line 50 kwai “goodest” ones. I went with goodest. Simple. No doctors fees, examinations, waiting for pills to be made, etc. It was suspiciously easy. It made me think of my experiences with the pill in America, and how I wished it could be simpler.

Undoubtedly, what America lacks in its birth control availability, it makes up in those abstract things we all take for granted like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, democracy, etc. It’s still not a tough choice if one could live in either China or America. It is for me though, apparently. I wish it were a choice Chinese people could make, but alas, their visa process for America or Europe is so ridiculously difficult it hurts the brain to even try. The Chinese government doesn’t want to start opening the door for the Chinese to leave because in all reality, why would they ever come back? China tries to fool the Chinese that their country is so immense that there is no need to go anywhere else; everything you would ever want is here, every kind of landscape, oceans, lakes, etc. But oh, China. There is so much that is not Chinese in this world. To see it, to see it all… is a dangerous thing indeed.

And that is all for now.

Love,

Coco

Chinese: Hard Language to Learn or Hardest Language to Learn?

I would probably not have the authority to answer that question truthfully, but from my limited experience (SPANISH) I would have to say that Chinese is maybe the mother of all complex and difficult languages ever. It is in the upper tier of “holy fuck, my mind can’t even comprehend what is coming out of your moth right now” languages. Maybe I am being over dramatic; after 6 months, I am getting more comfortable with the language, but there are still times where I am not convinced people are saying actual words.

And the top it all off, there is the people’s common language, or putonghua, which is the national official dialect, but then from city to city, the local dialect is completely different. So I can learn how to say something in Wuhan, and say it in Shanghai, and it would be meaningless. The solution of course is to just speak putonghua, but you can’t pick that up so much from people around you, because they are all speaking Wuhanhua, which is maybe the ugliest hua out there.

For all my bitching, I have to give us at least a little credit. We had a conversation with a taxi driver about where we are from, how long we have been here, how long we will stay, what we do here, how much money we make, whether or not we miss our families, and little things like that. We are getting better with food orders, learning how to get our favorites without using a little piece of paper. We managed to have a discussion with the headmaster of our school over lunch, her using her minimal English and us our minimal Chinese. There is usually a lot of smiling, laughing, and long pauses of searching for words.

I have to give it to the Chinese, they have limitless patience when it comes to foreigners and language. In America, if someone got in a taxi and couldn’t tell the driver where he wanted to go exactly, it would probably be a problem. I think there is the assumption in America that if you don’t know English, you are probably not too bright. I now have a deep sympathy for such people, as I have been in frustrating situtations that have made me feel pretty useless and stupid. But really, the Chinese will sit there and use the little English they know to understand what you want, they will take a cell phone from you if you need someone else to tell them in Chinese what you need. There are of course people who don’t treat us as well, but they are outliers I would say. They compliment our pitiful Chinese, and then, in perfect English say “My English is very poor.” We’re like, you speak better English than we do. Oh, modesty.

Until next time,

zai jian!

“Spring Festival sucks… It’s like 4th of July but gay” or; the anticlimactic return to Wuhan.

Today we arrived in Wuhan after a few days in beautiful Shanghai. Our return to China from Thailand was one of reluctance and angst, as we knew the weather was going to be vicious, the people impatient, and the smell of delicious food rare.

We stayed in a hostel called UCool which looked from the outside like some kind of amusement park or haunted house. It was the first time for me to stay in a hostel, and it was quite the experience. We met a group of British girls as well as 2 ladies from Ireland. The former were only 19 and were amusing to death, and the latter were on holiday from teaching in Korea and instantly charmed the socks off of me. There were more people there but I didn’t talk to them as much. The nights were late and the days were cold, and the sweater that I bought to keep me warm developed an enormous hole in the side, but I refused to ditch it. I looked like a hobo most of the time.

I’d like to go back to Shanghai when everything isn’t all closed due to Chinese New Year, a.k.a. Spring Festival and when its actually nice outside. Chinese New Year is nothing like New Years in America. Everything is closed, and people set off fireworks. It was frustrating to walk around in the cold looking for New York Deli-style sandwiches only to find that it would be closed for the next 5 days. It was entertaining to run through the streets as people lit 20 foot long lines of noisy fireworks alongside you, to watch people light roman candles inside bars inches from your face. But I was just so cold.

The return to the apartment was full of worry, as I had basically known that a pipe somewhere would burst in the cold and flood my already water damaged room. Sure enough, everything is soaked, and our water isn’t working. This is community wide, not just us. Hopefully in the morning it will be back on. My hands are working at 20 percent capacity right now, hard to type this.

But I am strangely so very happy. My vacation was one of the most exciting times of my life. It was pure glory. I can live off that for at least a while.

Teaching soon, don’t know exactly when. I hope it warms up.

Life is possibly the best.

Coco

Why Thailand is Creepy but Awesome.

My initial reaction to Thailand was one of wonder and curiosity. Look, pad thai! Wow, its hot here! Everyone is so nice! So cheap! And quickly this changed after leaving Bangkok and arriving in Koh Phangnon, an island near Koh Samoi, where they filmed that movie “The Beach”. Koh Phangnon is where the monthly MOON PARTY is held, a crazy one night party where thousands of foreigners come to slap on body paint, do mushrooms, drink buckets of whiskey mixed with amphetimines, jump-rope over huge flaming ropes, and dance to the same shitty music they have back home. Koh Phangnon is touristy to the bone, which I am not used to, coming from a city in China where I still get stared at on my way to work. I like that. I like not feeling like I’m at a huge frat party. In a way its just like the movie ‘The Beach” if anyone has ever seen it. Everyone is trying to find that untouched place, without the tourists and McDonalds.

We then ventured to Hua Hin to see my friends who, to my dismay, we could not contact. Thats all I will say on this matter. The city itself was horrendous. Not only for tourists, but old white fat tourists. This is my first encounter also with “girly bars” a term I would come to despise. Girly bars are in fact bars where old white men go to find a prostitute. Hua Hin was street after street of bars with silly names and full to the brim of stupidly dressed slightly attractive women (or men) trying to find a man for the night. Creepville.

Now we are in Chiang Mai after an overnight train to the north. Interesting city. I have yet to say anything of the t-shirts in Thailand. Thailand is a t-shirt fiend’s paradise. Silly things on t-shirts everywhere. The most hilarious thing we have found are different famous people depicted as DJs; DJ Mao, DJ Che, DJ Einstein, DJ Gandhi, etc. Every one we found would reduce us to giggling messes. I bought a DJ Bruce Lee as well as a DJ Hindu God. Also a shirt with communists from China all wearing red stars but instead of holding whatever sheets of paper above their heads they have macbooks, louis viton purses, cell phones. It is one of the most amazing shirts I have ever had. There are also shirts with Banksy designs, a graffiti artist I love. T-shirt heaven.

 Out at bars here, elephants will walk up to you. I met a Thai guy named Bill Clinton. We had a pretty good time last night, managed to not hang out with old whiteys, but alas. Thailand is full of them. I miss my never heard of China city.

Love you all.

friends and cakes and tipsy chinese

Why hello, yall.

Thanks to Lee’s brilliant know-how about firewalls, I can post on blogs once more. Not that I really used to do it that often. I find writing these things tedious at times, cathartic at others, so I guess it will be what it will be.

We leave for Thailand tomorrow morning, I’m pretty much more excited about that than I have been about anything ever, mostly because the weather in Wuhan is what I imagine hell is like for all those people who believe in it. Cold, cloudy, dirty, cough inducing. Thailand on the other hand is 90+ degrees so um, I may die of happiness when we arrive in the airport. That and of course the food. We heard there is a Burger King in Bangkok. Yes, I will travel around the world and still eat at fast food restaurants. If you haven’t traveled to a 3rd world country and had a double cheeseburger, you just won’t understand.

In seriousity, I am excited for the curry and other new things. Avocados? I will keep my fingers crossed. Also some of my friends from Millikin and 2 professors will be in Thailand only 3 hours south of Bangkok, so I will swing down there and see them. That should prove to be quite interesting and undoubtedly hilarious.

After Thailand we will go back to China and go to Shanghai for a few days, which will be pretty cold I would imagine. So I don’t really know how we’re going to deal with that… buy coats in the airport? Walk around wearing everything we bought? Sounds pretty good to me.

Last night was our last night on the town, it was pretty glorious. All of our available friends were there, 2 Americans named Casey and Julie who are really cool, our first Chinese friend Linda who brought cake for her birthday, our friend Ray who is Chinese, B Rock who is Chinese, Vivian Shen, and Huang Wei. Our table was full of cakes and pies for Linda as well as the default glass jug 1/8 full of vodka, 7/8 juice (this still is decried as strong by Chinese people, whereas us Americans drink about 8 glasses of this drink in 5 minutes). I watched in awe as Lee got on a stage with Chinese girls, followed by a few Chinese men, who proceeded to grind on him as all the Chinese girls exited the stage. Soon it was just Lee and guys on the stage, a hilarious sight. We picked out our respective targets, a.k.a. who we would try to talk to by the end of the night. Lee’s girl turned out to be 17, and the tall boy with sunglasses on was “gay” according to my friend Linda. He did a dance for me though, which was downright stunning.

We then went to another club down the street and I met a French guy who is half Indian who was really interesting and talked to him for a long time. Was out until 5, feeling it today. I should clean my apartment but I keep doing other things instead of it, or pack for the trip. That will take about 3 minutes. Soon we will go to our favorite western food place, Hello Pizza, and eat delicious calzones. It is a good day, China.

More soon on Thailand… ahhh!

Love you all,

Coco

To the things I did and didn’t do…

I leave the country August 23rd, which is not really that far away and yet it seems like forever. I have been pouring over mandarin books and podcasts only to realize that there are countless ways to say one expression, and yet none of them stay in my memory for more than 10 minutes.

I’m going to wake up early and jog (read: walk) around, and then work on finishing this bitch of a final project that is a hangover from college. Its my own fault.

Did you know that cryptic means “having a hidden or mysterious meaning,” and nothing at all about death? I like that.

More things soonish,

Coco

What you know about this, son?!

I love everything.

I should be sleeping but this blog thing has me captivated.