It more or less means don’t kiss me.  It caught my attention because, well, look at the picture, and you’ll know why.  Strange, strange city or country or both, I tell ya.

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In the past, I have received some very nice emails from students thanking me for teaching them, but the following thank you letter probably takes the cake, the icing, and the candles.  It made my  eyes water.  The student sent it to me and asked me to correct it, but I have left it in it’s original form.  It seems to be more powerful that way.  If you are an emotional person, I highly suggest you grab a tissue before you continue reading.

Got your tissue?  Okay, keep reading.

Dear Ms. Gabriell Olexa:

You teach us English that is greatly appreciated !

As your name,Gabriell–the woman’God, you scatters love, friendship and knowledge of English in our Qing Shui Wan community. When you have known that some people in the community extremely eager and try very hard leaning English. You , Who have always enjoyed helping people,voluntary teach us English for friendship. You ready carefully each lesson,you provide us with free tutoring materials; you give us the vivid class teaching,only three months ,our English have already greatly improved, especially in listening and speaking ability!You pleases very much to be a part of our class, you always share our progress and happy ! you say “It is easy to find friend in this world, but very difficult to find good ones” .You take us as your best friends!

According Chinese concept ,you have already become our loved ones ,you are our best friend!

All of us love you !

Grape myrtle is a kind of tree with purple beautiful flowers, your Chinese name Just is Ziwei (Grape myrtle ) yet ! Purple color (Zi se ) is a noble ,elegant color as well as purple indicate the fairy’s arrived (Zi qi dong lai ,紫气东来)，the purple color is your most pretty color ,you are just the most beautify purple fairy in our heart.

In the Chinese traditional thinking ,we will work harder to learn English, in order to repay you,our teacher’s eduction of grace. We also wish  to share love ,friendship and knowledge of English with our neighbour in Qing Shui Wan Community.

We also say thak to your husband who always support you teach us English .

Our best regards to you and your husband !

(sing all of our names)

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One thing that has always amazed me in China, is the Chinese ability to squat just about anywhere and for long periods of time like it’s no big deal.  If I squat for anymore than five minutes, I have a hard time getting back up.  My legs lock up and I walk around, hunched over like a 80 year old woman.  Hence, why I’ve never been a big fan of squatter toilets.  When I see old people squatting on the street, I am even more amazed.  I don’t understand how they do it.  I do know one thing for sure, the Chinese would make great catchers in a baseball game.  Maybe the MLB should start scouting here.

The squat toilets really aren’t that bad.  You get used to them after awhile, and in time your legs get stronger.   I once read on this one guy’s blog that after squatting for a year, he had absolutely no pain in his legs when skiing.  And I think I read or was once told that squatting instead of sitting was better for you.  I don’t know if it is true or not.

Phil actually prefers them.  He says he wants to have one in our home one day.  He also says he wants his own personal urinal.  He says this because our apartment in Fuyang, Zhejiang, had one.   I would like to know where he plans on putting all these toilets.  At the rate we are going, we won’t even be able to afford a house to put them in.  And if Phil gets his  three toilets, then I be allowed to get an ayi.  Ayi is Chinese for maid.  I don’t have one, but I often day dream about it.  Basically, right now, I am the ayi.  It sucks less than having a job, so I can’t complain that much.

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It only took two days and about 8 different attempts to upload it, but here she is.  It’s nothing super awesome, but if you’ve never been to Shanghai, it will give you an idea of what it looks like  – at least from a taxi window.  I’ve thought about putting one of the songs Youtube allows you to use because the wind is a bit annoying, but our internet sucks.  I’m lucky I was able to upload a 10 minute video at all.   In the States, it would be no problem.

I started the video just after we came out of the tunnel that runs under the river and takes you to and from Pudong.  Watching the video back, I’m surprised I didn’t hear more horns honking.  Almost every where I go in China, I hear horns.  If it wasn’t for the construction work going on outside my window, I would probably hear a blaring horn right now.  I guess because the traffic was moving so smoothly, there wasn’t much need for them, but that hasn’t ever stopped them before.  One day, I am going to go stand on a street corner(that sounds bad) and record all the horns I hear in a minute.  Sometimes, a driver will hold his horn down until the car in front of him moves and sometimes the car doesn’t move for awhile.  It can be quiet annoying. I sometime scream, “That’s enough!” in hopes that they’ll stop, but it never works.

If you guys or gals let me know if you like it or not, I can start taking more videos from taxi windows.  I could make a series out of it and call it China by Taxi or something like that.  Phil uploaded a similar video in 2007, and for some reason, people have gone crazy in the comment section.  It’s mostly people just ranting about China related stuff, but I find it somewhat hilarious.  The video, in 4 years, has had over 76,000 views – which is nothing compared to some of the  other videos on Youtube.  I don’t know why so many people have found a two minute video of buildings through a window so exciting.

I’ll post Phil’s video, too, because I don’t think I’ve ever posted it here.  You can decide for yourself why so many people have found it entertaining.

And here is my video.

And before I go, here is a cool picture of the Oriental Pearl Tower.  It was a rainy day and the clouds were really low.  It would not have been a good day to ride the elevator up to the observation deck.  Well, maybe it would have been cool to stand in a cloud.

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I thought I would share a video with you that my friend, Jin Wang, posted on Youtube.  He’s a very talented singer.

Phil and I met Jin when we lived in Fuyang, Zhejiang, China in 2006.  He was a student at the high school Phil taught at, but he wasn’t one of Phil’s students.

Jin really wanted to go college in the United States, and as soon as he could, that is exactly what he did.  He is currently attending Troy University in Alabama.  I am not entirely sure of the details, but I think he won a singing contest at Troy University.

Phil and I haven’t seen Jin in a year, but he will be coming back to China this summer to visit his family.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to spend several days with him when he comes.

I hope you enjoy the video.  Be nice to Jin, and leave some comments on the video.

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You see the strangest things when you walk around Shanghai.

On his way to work one day, Phil took an alternate route and stumbled upon a row of windows, each of which were spray painted with an eye.  He wanted me to see it, so he showed it to me as we hunted down a restaurant one Saturday afternoon.  There were actually a few more windows, but I got tired of holding my camera.   As you can see, in the video, the artist got a little lazy toward the end.   I sorta wish the artist had put a little more effort into it – you know – different colors, shapes and sizes.  It was still impressive, though.  If anything, he/she was determined to get every last shop window.

I feel bad for whoever has to clean each of the windows.

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Here is my last video from my trip a few weeks ago.  On one of the three days that we were there, we hopped in van and were driven to another city, Yi Xing, which is about an hour away from Chang Xing.  Yi Xing is located in the Jiangsu province.

When we got there, I expected us to go to the ticket counter to buy tickets, but instead we just walked right in.  I am not sure if they already had tickets or it was because they weree retired.  People who are retired or a certain age can enter for free.  When we got to the gates, there was some exchange between my friends and the woman standing guard.  I could tell the woman was talking about me, but I don’t know exactly what she was saying and I didn’t ask.   Since I am not retired and I have not even passed the 30 mark(it is just around the corner, though – eek!), I am pretty sure the woman was saying that I needed a ticket.  The woman and my friends yelled back and forth for a minute and then we walked in.  I guess she was satisfied that I didn’t need a ticket.  Maybe she was told I was helping them out by teaching them English and that I should be allowed to come in for free.  I guess I will never know.

We were met by a guide and she walked us around, explaining what things were – in Chinese of course.  The importance of everything was lost on me.  She walked us around pretty quickly, so I had to move fast with my picture taking.  Yue Hua kept wondering off to take pictures of pretty things, and while everyone walked on without her, I stayed behind so she wouldn’t lose us.  There were a lot of people there that day, so because I stayed back, we both nearly lost our group.

The guide then walked us over to a cave entrance, and I had to be sure to hold on to Yue Hua’s arm.  The steps were mighty slippery.  I could just imagine her or one of the other people in my group tumbling to the bottom of the stairs.  I love going to caves in the summer time because they are so much cooler.  Yeah, they smell a little funny, but the cool, damp air is refreshing!  Walking through, someone told me that the cave was natural and had been around for a long, long time.  I was also told that the cave had been used in over 20 Chinese movies.  It wasn’t Carlsbad Caverns or anything, but it was nice.

The guide took us down another level where there were seats on either side of an open area.  It looked to me like they put on performances here.  I thought we were about to leave until I heard some music start to play.  I am not sure if our timing was just right or if there were finally enough people in the cave to put on the show.  My friends grabbed my arm and pushed me in front of some other Chinese people.  They wanted to make sure that I was able to see alright.  I wanted to tell them that I was taller than almost everyone there and that seeing wouldn’t be a problem, but I just kept my mouth shut – front row seats can be awesome.  Or they can lead to very strange experiences – I’ll link you to a video at the bottom to show you what I mean.  It has nothing to do with this day, though.

A few moments later, the action began. Two men came out, both dressed rather amusingly, and starting lip singing to a Chinese song I’ve never heard before.  You should at least watch the video until one of the guys pulls out a gun.  It’s pretty funny.  And remember, neither one of the guys are actually singing.  When I was watching them, I was impressed that they really looked like they were and a lot of their motions were dead on with the music.  I’m just guessing, but I don’t think it was their first time. 

I posted about Phil’s experience at the Taiwanese Folk Village in Xiamen way back in July of 2008, but I figured I would post it here again.  I doubt I have the same reader base as I did back then.  So, just in case I have some newbies on board, it’s for you!  You can read the post about it here.

Phil was right about getting called up on stage, but had we sat in the back, I would have never gotten this video.  The quality sucks because Xiamen’s humid air crept into my camera and destroyed it.  You have no idea how happy I am that they didn’t drag me up there with him.

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I have yet to post any of the pictures from my trip to Chang Xing, but I have a few more videos I would like to share.

On the last day we were there, a group of us went to what I think was a temple or a garden or something like that.  I think it was a temple or a garden because I never actually went inside the gates.  My friends said that the tickets were 60 yuan.  I guess they thought that was too much because they decided to walk through a field that led to a path up the mountain behind the temple/garden thing instead.  The mountain, or maybe I should call it a large hill, was completely covered in bamboo.  The trail that we took was rather tame, but in a few spots, it helped to grab onto one of the bamboo trunks as you walked up.  I probably could have walked to the top in a hour or so, but my friends, being a little older than myself, took their nice sweet time.  I’m not complaining or anything.  I would much rather walk up a mountain slowly and enjoy it, than rush to the top and fall over dead.  Due to time constraints though, we never made it to the top of the mountain/large hill.

While we were walking up, everyone took the right fork in the path that led further up the mountain/large hill except Yue Hua, who took the lower left fork.  It seemed like the path my friends should have taken, so I was surprised when everyone but Yue Hua took the more challenging route.  Yue Hua had found something she wanted to take a picture of.  Like me, she loves taking pictures.  It doesn’t matter if it is a animal, bug, or a pretty leaf.  And she always points it out so that I can take a picture of it, too.

Now, before I tell you what Yue Hua did, let me tell you what we talked about the day before.

As we paddled down a man made river in a blow up boat, Yue Hua said to me, “People tell me that I am too old to do a lot of things like this.  I tell them, let me try.”

These words echoed in my mind as I stood up on the ridge looking down on her as she attempted to climb up to us.  Of course, she could have easily have walked back down to the fork in the road, but she wanted to try.  And try she did, but the side of the mountain proved a little too difficult for the 71 year old woman.  When I am 71 years old, I hope that I am as young at heart and as determined as she is.  I admire her a lot.

Here is the video of her attempting to the climb up to where we were standing.

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The other weekend, I went with the people I teach on Friday mornings for two hours to a city called Chang Xing, located in the Zhejiang province.  It is about three hours away from Shanghai by bus.  Before we went, I was only told that were staying at a farm and going to sleep in the owner’s home.  When they said we were staying at a farm, I pictured big hogs, clucking chickens, cows that needed milking, and maybe a field of corn or some other vegetable.  Of course, I was picturing an American farm or a farm you would see in an American movie.  You would think by now, after living nearly 3 years in China, that I would paint Chinese images in my brain.  I mean, I’ve seen enough of it to get an idea of what to expect.  I guess I am just too American for my own good sometimes.  I imagined a lot of things before we got to Chang Xing, but I did not think I would be sleeping in the middle of bamboo forest and fields of tea bushes.    The owner’s home turned out to be a 4 story home and had about 4 bedrooms on each floor.  It wasn’t luxury or anything, but it was better than sleeping in hay with the hogs that I had briefly thought I would be sharing a bunk with.  Thankfully, I was spared the hogs, but I did get to experience another extremely hard bed.  I’ll never get used to them.  Never.

After breakfast one morning, a group of us went out to sit in the shade.  We sang You are my Sunshine several times and then Mr. Yang decided to share a story with us.  He actually told the story twice.  As he started to say it the second time, I asked him to stop so I could catch it on video.  He stopped, but he didn’t start back at the beginning.  He just stopped and then started where he left off.  I guess he didn’t fully understand me.  So, I missed the first sentence.  I remember what he said, though.

His story starts off like this – “There was an old man, and he told his son, ‘I think I am going to die son”.  The rest of it, if you turn your volume up, you should be able to hear.

I wanted very badly to say, “Jesus came back from the dead, what does that tell us about the afterlife?”, but I remind quiet.  I knew they wouldn’t understand my little joke.

I guess the morale of the story is that you shouldn’t fear death and that the afterlife isn’t that bad of a place after all.  I hope you enjoy Mr. Yang, and his little story.

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You are lucky if you get to experience one 15 minute of fame moment in your life.  If you get two, then the gods must be shinning down on you.  And if you get three, well, then you must be famous and it comes with the territory.  I guess the gods were shinning down on us in Linyi, because we were asked to participate in a second promotional commercial.  I am sure it helped that we made friends with my boss’s buddy, The General.  He liked us and thought we would do a good job showing off a new apartment complex in town.  I did find it interesting that he didn’t want us to tell my boss that he asked us to do it.  Since we couldn’t communicate very well, it was hard to figure out why exactly he didn’t want us to talk about it, but we think he was trying to say that if our boss knew then we wouldn’t get paid as much because our boss would take a cut.  This made me wonder what sort of cut my boss took when we volunteered for the hotel commercial.  We weren’t paid at all for that day, but we were paid in food and a free night at the hotel – which is just as good if you ask me.  Since our boss didn’t know about our second 15 minute of fame, we were both paid 500 yuan.  We only worked 4 hours, and it wasn’t hard work.  We just had to smile a lot and pretend we were a married couple checking out the apartment complex like we wanted to live there.  I think 500 yuan was very fair.

The day we filmed the commercial is a very special day for me because it is the day that Phil proposed. Some back story is needed.

Because our initial shoot at the hotel wasn’t perfect, we were asked to come back and do a few of the scenes over again.  It wasn’t because we didn’t do a good job.  Apparently, they didn’t like the fake flowers they used in one scene, how they served Phil first in another,  and finally, the way we were greeted at the entrance of the hotel or the lack thereof.  Since we had to go back and work another day, they offered another night at the hotel.  My birthday was coming up, so they said they would throw in a cake for me, too.  We asked for our stay at the hotel be on a different day than our shoot, so we wouldn’t have to get up early like last time and go to work.  We weren’t able to enjoy much of our last time at the hotel because we worked all day, I had a headache, and we didn’t make it to bed until well  after midnight.  We had to be awake and downstairs by 8 in order to get back to the University on time.

Well, anyway, it was at this make-up shoot that we were invited to participate in the second promotional commercial.  When they first pitched the idea to us, we were a bit skeptical because they weren’t doing a very good job explaining it to us.  We didn’t even know that it was another commercial like thing until we showed up for it.  We thought we were going to have to pretend we were French, again, and get trashed on red wine.  That’s another story all together.  They told us it would only take a few hours the next day(after our make-up shoot), and then we could come back to the hotel and rest.

After our make-up shoot, we came home and I took a shower.  I took off my fake engagement ring like I always do, and laid it on the bedside table.  When I came out, I put all my rings and watch on, or so I thought, and hopped into bed.  The next morning we got up, hurriedly got dressed, and ran downstairs to meet our driver.

As we were walking out, Phil says to me, “Did I do something to make you mad?”

“No,” I said.  “Why?”

“Where is you ring?”

I looked down, expecting to see my ring where I always have it, but like Phil said, it wasn’t there.  I started to freak out.  We had a few minutes to spare, so I ran back into the room and started searching for it.  I looked everywhere.  I even had Phil look for it.  I was definitely freaking out at this point. I hate it when I lose things, even fake engagement rings.

“Did you take it?”  I asked.

“No,” Phil said.  “Don’t worry, we’ll find it later.”  Looking back on it, Phil seemed a little too okay with the fact that my ring just vanished out of no where.  I even at one point thought that in my sleep I took it off and threw it across the room or something.  It wouldn’t be the first time I did something like that.  Running out of time, I just had to deal with the fact that I would have to wait to find it.  All day I touched my hand and worried about it.

I think they did a better job with my makeup this time.

While we were at the apartment complex and waiting to film our next scene, my dad calls to say hi.  It seemed normal.  I told him how things were going and then we went back to smiling and pretending we were shopping for a place to live.

Four hours later, we had a great lunch, and then we were taken back to our place so we could get ready and go to the hotel.  I looked again for my ring, but I wasn’t able to find it.  At this point, I was pretty sure it was gone.  I told Phil that he would just have to buy me a new one, and this time a real one, and then we left for the hotel.

We got to the hotel and settled in.  While Phil ran down to try and find a store that sold some snacks, I enjoyed a wonderful bath.  The water wasn’t exactly clear, but it felt good.  When Phil got back, we flipped on The Social Network and watched it for awhile until we started getting hungry.  At this point we noticed that our room was slowly getting warmer.  We had the AC on, but every few minutes the illuminated number would go up by one.  Phil said I should call room service, but I didn’t want to.  I jokingly said I would call room service when he put a ring on my finger.  We eyed the room service menu for some good food, but decided to go down to the Italian restaurant that we had been meaning to eat at for a long time.

Right before we left there was a knock at door.  Like promised, my birthday cake was delivered.  We shoved it in the tiny in-room refrigerator, and then took off for yummy Italian food.

I’m not usually a big fan of Chinese cake, but this one was pretty good.

With the unexpected 1000 yuan lining our pockets, we decided to splurge a little bit.  Phil got a few shots of Tequila.  We picked out a few more things off the menu than we normally would to start us off, and then completed our meal with one awesome pizza.    As we were eating the pizza, our waiter, the same guy who brought my birthday cake to the room, brought over a complimentary Tiramisu with Happy Birthday written in chocolate on the plate.  I thought it was very nice.

The people at the hotel were so nice.  The staff was truly awesome in every way.

Before I could take a bite, Phil says to me, “I talked to the front desk about your ring.”

I perked up.  The reason he said this is because Phil told me that maybe I lost it at the hotel the day before and I just didn’t notice it.  But I swore that I took it off before my shower the night before, and that was the last time I remembered it.

“Did they find it?”

“No.”  I sunk in my chair.  “But they did find something.”  My mind went through all the possible things that they could have found that belonged to me, but I couldn’t think of what it could be.  I watched as Phil reached into his jacket pocked and pulled out a little red box.  “They found my heart,” he said, and dropped to one knee.  “Gabrielle, will you marry me?”

I don’t know how long I stared at him, my mouth hanging open.  My eyes teared up a little.  After waiting 8 years, I never thought this day would come.  I remember thinking at the time that I better say yes quick, or Phil might think I was going to say no.  I finally go my mouth to work.   “Of course, I will!”

I stared at my hand for nearly a week straight.  It shines so bright, even in a dim room.

Phil probably won’t admit to this, but he got a little teary eyed, too.

The few people that were in the restaurant, mainly just the staff, all started clapping, and Phil and I hugged.  I sat back down, my hands shaking a little and said, “I don’t think I can eat anymore.”  I was too happy to eat anything.

Phil then told me the story of my fake engagement ring.   When I was in the shower, he took it and pocketed it.  He was a little amazed that I didn’t notice it was missing when I put all my other rings and watch on.  I guess I just thought I put it on because that is what I always do after a shower.  If it had been my watch, I think I would have noticed.  Or maybe not.  I don’t know. The reason my dad called was to see if Phil had asked yet.  I was glad to find out that Phil did the proper thing and asked permission.  And as it turned out, I had to call room service to see if they could fix the AC problem.

So in the video below, I am not pretending to be married, I was just practicing.    Enjoy!

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