If you have ever wondered what you would look like in a claymation cartoon or movie, all you have to do is go to any large market in China and say the word. That’s what Phil and I did and look what happened. They are pretty freaky, but remarkably good.

Phil is so suave.

We had seen something like this in Hangzhou, but to save money and space in our suitcases, we decided to pass them up at the time. The kind we saw in Hangzhou were made of clay too, but didn’t come in color. When we saw the guy making these at the Silk Street Market in Beijing for cheaper than the variety in Hangzhou we couldn’t pass them up. I think that Phil looks more like his than I do of mine, but they are still very cool. For the two of them we paid 160 yuan and it took the guy about 25 minutes to recreate us in clay. Neat, huh?

Gabe will never be as beautiful as she was on the day she was made.

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Well, it appears that China has decided to revoke my freedom again.

A few days ago Phil and I were trying to update our blog and make it pretty by adding new features when the ever familiar and loathed message – The connection has timed out - popped up on the screen when I deviated from the page I had been on for a while. I thought perhaps that the internet was acting a bit funny for a second, but when I tried reloading my blog again, the same thing occurred. My next thought was, “What are the odds that China blogged blogspot at the exact time that I was using it.” So I waited a while and tried again. Same message. Hrm, strange. I tried using a random proxy and poof – my blog reappeared. What I feared seemed to have actually happened. My blogged was now blocked/banned in China again after being unblocked since Thanksgiving. I thought I’d give it a day or so, but it seems it’s back to using www.pkblogs.com to access my blog if I want to read anything written by anyone else.

The picture up top is my favorite yogurt here in China, and not only because of the funny little story that the top container of four tells. I thought it was pretty funny though, and that is why I took a picture of it. Poor little Raspberry. Or is it a Strawberry? Being jumped by a pair of crazy grapes sure has to suck. Heh.

As for news on our situation in China: We are still in Beijing. We will either leave on Tuesday or Wednesday for Shenyang by plane and then go on to Xiamen a day or two after that by plane aw well. I am so looking forward to going. Richard says our apartment is beautiful, but I’ll have to wait to see it to believe him. Maybe he’s rented us a beach front apartment or something. Oh, ha, I know, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it is at least as nice as our apartment in Shenyang. It was small, but cozy, bright, and clean. And that is all I want of our new apartment in Xiamen.

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I want to preface this post by saying this story starts bad, but ends well – at least as well as a story can in China. Okay, continue.

We had been told that we might be able to leave today for Shenyang, but when I called Richard this morning he said that our paper work wouldn’t be done until next Tuesday. I sighed at that, but continued to listen. Not two seconds later, he decided to reach into is big bag of that he carries over his shoulder and hand out another dose of bad news. Richard is like an evil version of Santa, but instead of just working one night of the year, he puts in a full 365 days.

After talking with the Xiamen school, Richard found out that the school has enough teachers for the amount of students enrolled and wouldn’t be needing us like he thought. On top of this information, he wanted us to go get our stuff in Shenyang and come back to Beijing where he would somehow find work for us. He said he would call us later because he was in a business meeting.

I lost it. I’ve tried really hard to stay positive these last 70 some odd days, but I couldn’t keep it up any longer. I laid back down in bed, covered up my head and cried. Beijing is the last place in all of China that we would want to work/live. This city has become our center of hatred, for everything bad that has happened has stemmed from this city and the WECL school. Maybe if our transfer to Shenyang had gone smoothly, we wouldn’t feel this way. Some people love this city. It just isn’t our cup of tea.

When the phone rang a few minutes later, I made Phil answer it. I was still crying and didn’t want to deal with Richard anymore. It was a short conversation. Phil told Richard he wanted to meet with him and discuss this madness. He agreed to a 2 o’clock meeting in the WECL office. I spent the time provided to calm down. The last thing I wanted to do was meet with Richard and start bawling my eyes out like a two year or go ballistic on his ass. If he had told this news to our faces I might have done just that.

At two o’clock, Richard strolled into the office and we sat down for a chat. Richard continued to explain the problem. There were too many teachers in Xiamen and not enough students. Like Shenyang, Xiamen’s WECL school is new and they haven’t had time to get a full load of students. Richard said that there were other places in Beijing, another University, where we could teach until they got more students in Xiamen, but all that meant was that there would never be enough students in Xiamen and we would be stuck in Beijijng for the rest of our contract. He said that our work load would be small, and that it would be easy to get to the University by subway or bus, but that didn’t make us any happier. He tried very hard to paint the ratty, 2 quai picture he pulled out of the dumpster into something it could never be to convince us Beijing was the way to go, but we didn’t budge. I think at this point he realized he’d lost. Maybe some where in his soul he understood our frustration and knew that he couldn’t push us much further without making us completely insane, so he looked at us and said, “What do you want?”

This question was a shock to me. I don’t think anyone in charge of me has asked me what I’ve wanted since I’ve come to China. I’ve always had to follow what other people have told me to do even if it sucked hardcore. So, given the chance to give our opinion, Phil and I took it like it was a piece of candy and ran with it.

I looked at him and said, “Richard, I’m stressed out, frustrated and sick and tired of bouncing all over China. I want to go anywhere, anywhere in China, except for Beijing, and live in a place that I can call home. I want a roof over my head, a job and a paycheck.”

A lot more was said of course, a lot more, but in the end, we won – if you can even call it a victory. Even though they don’t really need us in Xiamen, that is where we will be going. We may have only a few hours of work, if any, but we’ll have a home, a roof over our head, a job, and a paycheck no matter if we teach or not.

So, what began as a sucky day that made me cry like the little girl that I secretly am – everything seems to be okay for now. But nothing is permanent, and I am not about to get my hopes up because tomorrow is another day and anything and everything changes on a whim.

Maybe things are finally starting to look up. I can hope I guess. Hoping never hurt anyone.

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