Fireworks and McGuyver

(EVENTS IN THIS POST TOOK PLACE Monday, Feb 9)

In the past few days I’ve met a few other fellow teachers here, Jesse and Adam A. My housing situation has its advantages and disadvantages. Most of the other foreign teachers (something like 90% or so) all live in one area up north called 花逢園兒 hua feng yuar. I, however, live down south, which is fine by me. Living down here on my own forces me to go out on my own and practice my Chinese. Of course this situation makes it difficult (or expensive) to hang out with co-workers daily outside of work. Jesse, knowing this fact invited me to attend the huge fireworks displays held all over town with himself and Adam A. Though the celebrations were in multiple places, they knew where and when the good/big ones were.

As the time to go out neared I called. Oddly enough Adam and Jesse were at Jesse’s wife’s mother’s place eating and her mother cooked wayyyy too much food. They invited me and since I’m hardly ever one to deny free food, I graciously accepted. I hopped in the shower, got dressed and headed on over.

I got there and the feast began and boy was it yum. They had two small dogs (NO, NOT TO EAT, Roger, as pets), one cute as anything, the other, mother to the cute one, had a face only a grand-mother, or blind mother, or a non-partial deity could love, Ugh. It was ugly. But we ate, drank, and were merry before bidding our hosts a good night and heading out (a tad late) to the fireworks. Though mini shows were all over, conducted by fireworks wielding citizens, you could tell you were nearing the big fireworks shows as it became harder and harder to walk. Companies got permits from the city to have certain amounts of fireworks; and the bigger the company, the more the BOOM.

We passed one after another in search of THE big show. As we got closer and closer we realized more and more people were walking in the other direction. Proof that we had missed the number one show. We turned around to head back and settle for number two. (For me, this wasn’t a disappointment, I had nothing to compare it to, plus fireworks are one of those events in which usually if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen em all. Check it)

On a bit of a sidenote, I need a new belt. The one I wore out this night was doing a poor job. So poor in fact that while taking video of the event I overheard Adam A. talking to Jesse about my saggage. I asked him what he’d said to be sure and he was actually excited to see that I was sagging. He said, “It’s good, this city needs some sense of fashion… some style… something to mix it up”. You see, 太原 has a few issues. Chief among them is the individuality factor; or rather the lack thereof. The vast majority of haircuts girls and guys resemble the pop stars of China. That is to say big, and/or covering and eye. And for some reason the dress style in stuck between 1985 and 1995. Punk-ish, pre-emo, leather jacket, tight pants for the guys; lopsided belt not going through any holes, long leg warmers with different colors and patterns for the girls. It’s weird. There are time pockets all over this place.

After we finished that show it was too crowded to catch a taxi so we walked around. Now after this night, citizens setting off fireworks could be fined or arrested so EVERYONE was getting rid of em tonight. This made for very entertaining late, late shows. We found one of these shows between two buildings. Now my favorite part about this is the location. Being so close to the building on occasion the fireworks would ACTUALLY bounce OFF the buildings (concrete luckily… what’s that? OF COURSE I got video of that.). And if you’re lucky you could see some misfire and almost hit people on the ground (only almost hit us once, no biggie). It was an entertaining night.

Jesse, Adam, and I, headed up to an international hotel with a coffee shop and relaxed and talked. We spoke on philosophy, Chinese characters, learning methods, teaching methods, gossip on the other teachers, foreign or otherwise. Needless to say, we were out late. Eventually however, it was time to go home. We left the hotel to find cabs waiting downstairs. Another bad thing about living in the south on my own, there’s no one to help me get home, and me not knowing my address or what street I live on was going to make getting home much more difficult. After about 10 minutes of communicating with the driver (I say communicating instead of talking b/c at this hour, my Chinese listening skills weren’t so great, so much of what he said to me was lost in translation). I finally heard something that sounded familiar and told him to drive there.

Somehow I manage to get home and am met with yet another dilemma. I live in a gated community. At this hour, that gate is locked. I know because I tried to move it and got absolutely nowhere. I walked to nearby gates… nothing. At this point it was either sleep outside for the night or think WWMD (What would McGuyver do? (this thought crosses my mind more than you would think). In my head, a scene played out in which McGuyver folded some currency, grabbed a stick, spat on it, wrapped the paper money rubbed some dirt on it and used a bit of McGuyver magic to disable the locking sequence so he could get in only realize he had to disarm the bomb with bullets firing toward… you know what? You don’t need to know what happened in my head. At any rate, at this point I decide I’m gonna climb the fence. It’s not that high, simple enough. Just need to make sure I don’t stab myself on the spires atop each piece of the side fence. As I get onto the brick bottom and hold the fence ready to hoist myself up, a car drives up to the gate and honks it’s horn. This horn triggered the gate to open to which I said “REALLY…” and hopped down and followed the car in.

Boy was I glad that car came though, I haven’t hopped a fence in years and kind of feared for my well-being. Phew.

Lost in Translation

I am the Baddest MoFo to walk the streets of Taiyuan. How did I figure this out? Good question. I present a 3 part answer:
A) Have you seen me?
B) Have you seen your average unassuming Chinese person?
C) Read the following story:

I had my first class today at the TiYu Guar (體育館兒) campus. 張先生 in his thorough yet all together to fast tour of the 5 campuses told me that I could take the 610 bus to get there from my house. It’s a public bus, how difficult could it be really? So I set out an hour early to get there with time to explore and re-read the lesson plan for the class. I knew the bus stop wasn’t too far from my house, only, I couldn’t remember which direction to turn. (as it turns out it’s two turns. Hindsight…) I asked a man on the corner in which direction the athletic district in town was (體育館兒 = athletics area) and he pointed me in a direction and off I went, rather happily. I got to the corner I should have turned at to catch the bus and continued to walk straight. Slowly but surely, my surroundings became less and less familiar. I looked at my phone to check the time and I had 30 minutes to class. At this point, I had a few options. I could wander around more, I could call 張先生 or another person from the school, or I could ask someone on the street to direct me. Option 2 I quickly realized wasn’t much of an option. I’d look like an idiot AND I’d have NO CLUE how to explain exactly where I was. Street signs aren’t very prevalent and describing my environment really wouldn’t help. I quickly opted for decision 3. I asked a man 請問，你知道那個體育舘兒是在那裏啊？ (Excuse me, do you know where the athletic area is, man?)

He replied, “HELLOOOO”. Boy was I relieved. ENGLISH. So I asked him 哦，你會講英語嗎？ (Oh, Can you speak English?). To which he replied, IN CHINESE “No, I don’t speak English, I speak Chinese” Now if you know me you can probably picture my face when I heard that (If you can't see it, think VAST disappointment mixed with Michelle form Full House's "How Rude" face).

He was impressed that I could speak Chinese though (this is going to happen A LOT) So impressed that he wanted to talk to me about EVERYTHING he could besides what I needed to know. At one point he asked me my opinions on Obama (Obama count: 1) Although, having not heard an Asian yet say the name OBAMA, I thought he was trying to pronounce, Alabama. At which point I was a tad offended b/c I'd thought he assumed I was from ABALAMA (yes spelled that way for Doug) because I was Black. But once I explained that I was from upstate NY and he confused as to why I told him that info once again spoke of PRESIDENT Obama, I replied, "better than Bush I think".

He asked where I was from, about my family, how I'd studied Chinese, why I was here by myself, How I was adjusting, My thoughts on the food, he just wouldn’t shutup. And the more he talked the larger the crowd around us became. Eventually, I had to reissue my primary question a bit more assertively this time. He looked a bit taken aback for an instant, and recovered. He gave me some surprisingly simple instructions. I followed them to a tee and it brought me to a main road (解放北路) (North Beifang road). It was then that I saw the double decker bus I should have been on. I almost hopped on the bus before I realized that I was about a block and a half away from the campus, so I walked for the cultural experience and to say that I'd walked to school at least once. I got to class with a whopping 2 minutes to spare and all my face saved. Did I review the class lesson? No, but it was fine, the lesson was on colors and question words or something. The kids were so excited I was there, black, their teacher, and funny, they ate it all up.

MORAL: Have a bit of confidence in your voice in China or you’ll never get what you want.

OBAMA Count: 1

Next Entry: Fireworks, Yay.

The "calm" before the storm

Today 張先生 had to bring me to the doctor’s office to finish up my registration as a new citizen or something. I’m not quite sure. My Chinese is still shaky and I wasn’t really listening to him when he was talking on account of my paying more attention to the road than he was as we barely avoided the broad side of a double decker bus. One thing I will say, there’s surprisingly little road rage for such reckless driving. I know quite a few Americans who might lose their minds trying to navigate through. Americans tend to be self-righteous and boisterous if to no one else but themselves when they know they are in the right. Chinese are much more forgiving in that sense.

We got to the Doctor’s office and 張先生 started doing his thing. So I began to wander. I began to realize something rather strange. The hospital seemed almost as if it were for show. There were posters yes, but the posters were from 2005 and outdated. There was a sign prohibiting smoking in the building, as you would expect to see in pretty much ANY and Every hospital but as soon as I turned around, I saw a man in a group of 4 simply smoking a cigarette. And not just ANY man, no, a DOCTOR huffin and puffin away. EVERYONE in this country smokes regardless of age (except women) (unless they’re “bad girls”). Kind of impossible to avoid. One would think a hospital a safe haven, NO such thing. Eventually I was led upstairs where they would draw my blood and other interesting yet useful (for them) tests.

One such test was and EKG… or maybe and EEG, I don’t know or remember which being that I have zero clue how to say that in Chinese. But they had me lie on a table, draw my jeans up to expose the ankles, sleeves up for wrists and shirt up for chest. Now one thing I should say first, I had this BRILLIANT Idea before I left because I wanted an excuse to bring fewer articles of clothing (that didn’t work) of not bringing any underwear. It was about time for some fresh new boxer briefs anyway. They feel so nice when new, hugging in all the right places. BUT as such, the single pair that I had kept with me, had since worn out their stay as far as freshness is concerned. SO, ME, COMMANDO + ME, NOT HAVING ATE YET + ME, LYING ON MY BACK, SHIRT UP = VERY awkward situation for Lars and the 3 younger female doctors. I was going to my happy place to deal with this as they talked to each other, the one operating the machine in prime viewing position. I heard giggling but didn’t pick up any words. Ironically, they don’t speak Chinese in my Happy Place.

After that was done, along with a few more tests I was brought home to prepare for the luncheon welcoming new teachers. Luckily, the restaurant was around the corner from my house so I got to watch the first 3 quarters of the Lakers Celtics game (L.A. won).

This restaurant was GORGEOUS, guys. Huge table, glass lazy susan, CLEAN, a GREAT pic. Of course being that everyone had been in the country much longer than I, I was the only one NOT working on CPT Type A time. I was shown to the room and had my choice of about 18 chairs. Of course that meant I had to try out as many as possible. Every time a server/waiter left the room, I would switch seats to see the room and table from a different angle. The waiter, who kept coming back to room for who knows what reason, kept staring at me, I would imagine either very confusedly or the face that says Silly foreigner… to be honest it was probably a bit of both. I eventually found the “juuuuust right” seat before others walked in at pretty much the same time (that CPT Type A time is funny like that, I must find out how it works).

We ate and had a grand time. The other new teacher: A black guy, named Lawrence, who went to Amherst… (I don’t even know how it happened…) was kind of a boring acting/looking fellow. But…. I honestly don’t know what redeeming quality to give him, so let’s just pretend I gave him one, K? There were noodle shows (skilled cooks, cutting different kinds of noodles rather impressively. Look for videos soon.) and new foods tried (RABBIT IS SOOOOOOOOO GOOD) everyone was happy.

After everyone but me and the ladies had a smoke, I walked with a fellow teacher Jesse, to the Supermarket nearby. JESSE, is very important to my story here. He’s been here about 4 years or so, from Colorado. Has been studyin Chinese since coming here and is DEFINITELY more fluent and fluid than I and can be VERY useful in my studies. He ended up marrying a Chinese woman and loves her and her family dearly. He’s planning on coming back to the U.S. in less than a year to further his wife’s education. He definitely knows the ins and outs of the system though so much better to have him on my side. More on him later, I’m sure.
I have my first class tonight (they move fast huh?) after which I will observe two other classes (makes a ton of sense, no?) If anything exciting happens, I’ll let you know.

My what a Beautiful Day

It was a beautiful brand new day in my new apartment, and I’d slept surprisingly well on such a hard bed. It was nearing 10: the earliest I was told I would be picked up. One thing about the Chinese, in general, they aren’t the best at being on time. They’ve got CPT, but not CPT (Colored People Time) but rather CPT (Chinese People Time). To differentiate between the two I’ve separated them into two types: CPT Type A (Asians) and CPT Type B (Blacks). Now CPT Type A is different from the Type B variant in a few ways. While Black people know about this affliction and do little to solve it as a people, Chinese people know about this disease and have tried to learn to live with it. As such, rarely will they give you an exact time to meet. It’s usually between 10 and 11 or around 3/3:30. Only semi-frustrating. The good thing is if you aren’t ready at say 10:15 when they told you between 10 and 11, they won’t be mad or disappointed but rather simply wait for you to ready yourself and then you’ll get started. Well, this morning I was ready at 9:59, just in case. 10:40 seemed an eternity away. Zhang (張西益)(the driver of the previous night ) was set with the task of driving me around and showing me what’s what. So off we went.

Driving was an interesting experience to say the least. Won’t be owning a car while here I’ll tell you that. It’s almost as if everyone (including pedestrians) decided to not follow the rules of the road equally. Those lane markers, just suggestions, left hand u-turns from the far right turn lane with a red light: perfectly acceptable if the intersection is big enough. Who looks over their shoulder, we’ve all got mirrors?? And oh that horn sound? Yea that means I’m a car and coming towards you but a half step out of the way without turning to acknowledge my horn is A-OK by me! WOW, what an interesting lil system they’ve got going. The more we drove, driver sans seat belt, the more I eventually realized about my surrounding. The fog from last night hadn’t lifted, and there was dirt like EVERYWHERE. Like things were just kinda dusty and dirty. Hmmmmmm, I thought to myself, that’s odd. Maybe I’m just seeing things. And I let it be.

We went to the Police Office to let the government know that I had indeed arrived. (….) and 張先生 (Mr. Zhang) Straightened everything out. I was then shuttled to each of the 5 campuses at which I would be teaching and how to get there. This took all of about 2 hours. I picked up a phone (China Mobile +86 159 034 66533) and some Chinese Herb medicine that I was told to drink with hot water. So, when in Rome… Gave the hot water some flavor, so it wasn’t too bad. One weird thing I was told, the people of 太原 believe that there is a fire inside each of them and drinking cold water could help put that out. So they drink boiled water like all the time. Takes some getting used to. I also found out why they see a fire in all of them. 太原 is or was (haven’t figured that out yet) is a coal-mining district (煤 mei) and that fog I’ve been seeing everywhere… smog… how nice.

Cough…Cough…

NIGHT 1

Well, I’m here in Taiyuan (太原) and am trying to get settled. Right off the bat I can see that this is CLEARLY nothing like Taiwan (台灣) . We’ll get to the differences soon enough. I got in much later than anticipated because of a bad winter storm for my connecting flight from Beijing (北京) to 太原 so the next flight didn’t come for 3 additional hours. (I don’t know what it is about me and planes in recent days. Maybe they don’t like me (for details as to why I think that feel free to ask)) After finding my luggage and my escorts (one of which was the Vice-Head of the Institute I would work for) I was driven home.

On the way home, despite the time of night, no one used their lights other than to warn other drivers that they were moving too slow and were to be overtaken and the blinker must have been a recent invention because it was of no use yet. It looked pretty foggy as we were driving and I attributed it to the balminess of the night. 台彎 had plenty of rice paddies when driving through the country to get to the city. 太原 on the other hand, had no country. 太原 ‘s location: a basin. We were surrounded by mountains (or so I was told) but high up and thusly, we were cold. Yes, it was winter, Yes I’m from upstate New York, aka land of OUTER New York nothingness. Yes, I went to College in the mountains of Western Mass where snow knows neither boundaries nor time constraints. Yes, I went to prep school in New Hampshire aka where? Oh yea Upper new England- cold there too. But I was born in Hawai’i dang it, and am of Nigerian blood! I NEED WARMTH. Being in that Basin also meant that our air circulation wasn’t so great, this means much more later. I was also told that 太原 is one of the oldest Cities in China. There is a lot of history surrounding it. Great. Don’t really know why I would care, but I nodded my head in the backseat as the Vice-Head of the Institute continued to school me.

EVENTUALLY, we made it to my house. A bit chilly but nice and open, two bedroom a washer, internet, and the stiffest beds I’ve slept on in a long time. I’m getting used to it. For a virtual tour click here. After about an hour of setting up the internet (ok I’m addicted but I had to let people know I was ok) I figured it to be time to sleep… and that’s JUST what I did.

Day 0

As I sat on the first plane of the first flight to Beijing (hour 6 or 7… or 82 they ran together pretty easily) my mind raced and I was suddenly hit with the urge to write down some of these thoughts. I grabbed the air sickness bag and began. The altitude decreasing the pressure in the cabin had caused my leaky faucet of a nose to drip drip drip with only tiny pieces of tissue to clean up and nothing to stop the cause. Doubts that don’t normally affect me continued to whisper incessantly in my ear: “Am I making the right decision?”, “Was this a mistake?”, “Am I scared?”.

For the first time in a long time besides thinking of my family I couldn’t help but think of my heart that I left in San Francisco (well, Alameda, but close enough). Realizing that it wasn’t just myself and my family being affected by my choice made it painfully obvious how many people I’d actually miss and worry about: My Williams crew ’07, ’08, ’09, Baby Streeters, My UGS 488, My Exie people. Crazy. So I needed to help them and myself make bonds that much stronger and release tension.

I had given up on writing for one reason or another, maybe it was too primitive in today’s age of handheld computers and tech advances, maybe because I can’t keep a journal for the life of me, or maybe because I’m afraid I might actually see everything; all my thoughts, good, bad, my confidence, my apprehensions, what drives me, as well as why I’m prone to bouts of uncaring laziness. Perhaps I’m not as much of an adult as I’d previously thought, or maybe in today’s society I’m as grown up as anyone else. Either way with such a change in my life it is my belief that though I am never alone thanks to my family and friends, I should give them, that is to say, you, another piece of me.