This story is a wee bit out-dated, but it’s still funny.

I’m really surprised my parents didn’t disown me and write me out of their wills. Thankfully, they are pretty easy going people and forgave their rotten daughter. 🙂 What exactly did I do? I think the picture of the April Fool should be a pretty good indicator.

I love playing jokes on people. It’s part of my nature. My Dad says I must have inherited it from him and possibly his bad humor too(heh, JK Dad), but if that is the case, you would think one jokester would be able to smell the other jokester out before the joke got pulled. In most cases, I think my Dad would have been able too, if I had been standing in front of him. I can’t keep a straight face for nothing. This is one reason why I can never play poker. People can see my bluff from a mile away.

Being in China though, telling practical jokes is a whole different ball game. I’m 7,000 miles away, and there is no way neither my Mom or my Dad could tell simply by my face that I was telling tall tales. The only thing I had to do was make a crazy story seem somewhat believable and let their imaginations do the rest of the work. So, I plopped down in front of my computer, went into my email account and started crafting that which would be my April Fool’s joke of 2007.

It started out fairly simply, but then I would think of something cool to add to it. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had composed an impressive story that could possible be true if you were crazy enough to believe it. Hehe. I didn’t really think they would fall for it. I thought that at least one of them would see through my elaborate lie. But, no. Apparently, my little story wasn’t quiet crazy enough. They both fell for it.

Hook. Liner. And. Sinker.

Mom and Dad,

I just wanted to email you and let you know how much we love Xiamen. It is wonderful here. The weather is fantastic, although warm, but it reminds me of home. This is probably one of the cleanest cities I have been to since arriving in China besides Hong Kong, of course. The people are very nice and everything is very convenient. Also, I wanted to tell you some really good news that happened yesterday. Phil went to Dell and applied for a job. He found his dream job listed on their site and decided that he couldn’t pass it up. So he went and applied in person. Before he could even walk out the door, the President of Dell came running after him and told him to wait. Phil then went into his office and the President started offering him expensive wine and pricey cigarettes, while telling him how much he loved his application. The President of Dell said he couldn’t let someone with his experience walk out of his office without first offering him a job. The job he was offering had already been given away earlier that day, but the President of Dell said his was a douche bag and that he liked Phil much better. To make a long story short, too late, the President of Dell had the douche bag fired, and had Phil sign a 5 year contract to work for Dell in Xiamen. They are paying him a lot too. A WHOLE LOT! We’re going to be rich! They even offered to pay for our housing and for a driver to get Phil to and from work everyday. Since Phil is making so much money, I can quit working for WECL and start writing all those books I’ve been working on for years. It’s going to be great! So, if you really miss me, and really want to see me, you are going to have to hop on a plane and come see me. Oh, and Dell said they would pay for that too.

And now for the bad news. Yes, there is always bad news with the good news unfortunately. Keep reading.

This has been a horrible, awful, no good, evil . . . . . .

APRIL FOOL’S JOKE!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

You can’t tell me you really believed it!

But the real good news is that we are indeed very happy and the city is super clean. And Xiamen does reminds us of home. I miss and love you both and hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive your daughter. I only did it out of Love!

It was a good one though, wasn’t it?

PS Oh, and I’m pregnant.

PPS APRIL FOOLS!

PPPS The President of Dell says hi . . . Oh, right, we’ve actually never met the guy. I forgot.I’ve got to watch myself now. I just know that my dad is plotting his revenge as I type – and he has a good long year to get me back. My mom though, she’s just sad Dell isn’t really paying her flight over. Heh.

So, there we were, sitting in Beijing’s soft seat waiting room hoping that we would be able to interpret what the loud speaker was saying in Chinese so that we wouldn’t miss our train to Shenyang. Every once in a while the word Beijing would flutter into our ears followed by a string of words we couldn’t understand and then Shenyang would register. The train station was packed and busy with people running from here to there and there to here. Somehow or another there were a few people, like the girl in the above picture, camped out and sleeping on the seats provided. All was insane as usual.

I heard a Chinese saying yesterday that is rather similar to one of our western ones, and it made me laugh. In America, when things get hairy and out of control, we commonly say, “It’s a zoo in(out) there.” This statement might refer to a busy shopping day, like Black Friday, or a simple trip to Wal-Mart to buy some groceries – which may or may not be so easy depending on when you go. Any time during normal waking hours is usually a bad time to go. And recently, vampire hours have made maneuvering Wal-Mart a task. 🙂 I don’t exactly know why we chose the word zoo to describe how crazy things can get, but I’m sure it has something to do with how mischievous animals can be and how quick they can destroy a room if you aren’t there to stop them. Monkeys are espeically talented at doing said thing.

In China, it’s not zoos that people refer to, but instead train stations. If you have ever been to China or had to wait in a train station at any point of the year, but more importantly during major holidays, you can understand why completely. So, when things get a little out of hand here, and oh, they do, the Chinese say, “It’s a train station in(out) there.” Same idea. Same meaning. They just compare it to something different: Themselves. I find this especially interesting. In America, we pick on the lower evolved species that can’t defend itself, but the Chinese call themselves out. They have no problem admitting to the insanity they cause in train stations and bus stations alike when they all try to get somewhere at the same time. That’s no joke either. A sea of Chinese men and women will bombard the ticket taker as if the train is about to leave at any second, but the truth is that two seconds ago it was announced over the loud speakers that it was all the clear to board. They always seem to be in such a rush, and I can never figure out why. The insanity may be the worst in the actually train station, but things are just as crazy in mnay other places in China as well. I don’t get as stressed out as I used to over it. Now I just smile, and squeeze along with the rest of them like I’m one of the crowd.

Ah, “It’s a train station in(out) there”.

I’m turning Chinese.

THE HORROR, THE HORROR!!!!

Run for your lives! Save yourself!

Oh, dear GOD! What is that?!

That’s a tough question really, but if you use your imagination, I’m sure you can think of something creative. My idea was that they were all foreign teachers that just found out they were living and working illegally in China. In all the confusion and mass hysteria of trying to leave the country, they were rounded up by the Chinese Alien Control Cowboy and were being thrown one by one into a pot of boiling water to be made into Laowai Tea. Hmm, sounds tasty, huh? Laowai is Chinese for foreigner or outsider, by the way, if you didn’t know.

Well, on a more serious note, that crazy poster I am posing next to was one of the posters that the former Shenyang WECL English School had hanging in the hallway. Former you say? Yep. Former. When we left to go to Beijing to get our health exam, Shenyang WECL was alive and kicking and trying desperately to find us some students to teach. A week later we returned to find every piece of paper, sign, and poster(including the poster up top) that was related to the school stripped off the wall and thrown into the storage room to collect dust. Apparently, in our absence, they decided that Shenyang WECL English School wasn’t doing so hot and that they should pursue other interests until they could get their act together. What did they decide to do? Well, they thought turning the 8th floor of the high rise we were teaching on into a floor of cozy apartments. No joke. The plans for how they would look were lined up on the wall by the front door. And to make things more interesting, when I went into the room where our office had been, all of the desks, including all the other furniture they had brought in were missing.

“Umm,” I said to Chris, our friend and assistant, “Where did our stuff go?”

“Oh, they moved it into the other room. Your desk is mine now.”

And sure enough it was, along with the computers they had let us use.

“When did they decide to scrap WECL and build apartments Chris?”

“About two days after you left.”

Wow. I knew things in China were changing quickly, but that’s unbelievable! They didn’t even wait until we moved out to switch shop. Another crazy thing was the all of the staff for the school was still there. They just were no longer concerned with who we were and what we were doing there. Apparently, they were now working with whomever decided to reconstruct the 8th floor into apartments. When their job title changed, so did their responsibility. Thankfully, Chris was there to help us get everything situated for our move to Xiamen. He was a great guy, and I’m sad that we weren’t able to stay in Shenyang and get to know him more. I miss him.

I’ll make this short and sweet.

Since I was unable to really sleep on our journey from Beijing to Shenyang, I was wide awake to take this picture. I wish my camera would work better under extreme circumstances – IE taking a picture of the bright sun through a window in a train that is traveling 120 KM per hour – but what can you do. I don’t think it came out too bad considering. At least you can tell what it was I was taking a picture of. The crazy part is that I took about ten pictures before I got this one. All the rest of them were blurry or too bright.

I miss the sun.

I haven’t seen it since the day after we arrived in Xiamen. It’s been rainy and craptastic ever since. It seems the sun is a seldom visitor in the south of China. Xiamen seems to be a lot like Fuyang in that regard. Even though it was cold, windy and dusty in Beijing, at least there was a big ball of fire on most days hanging above me in the vast blue sky. Heh. I guess I can’t be happy all the time. : ) The sun has to come out eventually,though. I’ve seen too many pictures of Xiamen to believe that it is perpetually overcast here. At least, I hope not.

As mentioned before, in multiple posts, we had to take a train from Beijing to get to our supposed final destination of Shenyang. Instead of getting a soft seat like we did to go from Hangzhou to Beijing(which I will never do again), we were provided with soft sleepers. The above picture is of the car we resided in for the 8 hour journey.

For the most part, it wasn’t that bad. The beds were soft enough to get comfortable in, but because of the constant shaking of the train, I had a horrible time getting some shut eye. Phil had a similar problem, but Christine was out cold as soon as she closed her eyes. Not long after the train pushed off, Phil tried taking a 360 of the room, but only this portion of it turned out. It shows the majority of the room anyway. The room was itzy bitzy(don’t let the picture fool you) and was barely big enough to put all of our luggage in it. Thankfully, Richard decided to take a plane to Shenyang, or else we wouldn’t have had a bed to lay everything on. Phil and I took the top bunks and Christine and all of our luggage took the bottom two.

Each bed came equipped with sheets, a pillow and a little reading light. To get to the top bunks though, one needed to be super agile. There were no stairs leading up to them. Instead, there was a little foot hold and a handle to pull yourself up. It’s much easier getting up than getting down – at least that is how it was for me. But, as I have seen since being in China – even the elderly Chinese are pretty darn flexible. I saw an old lady sitting flat footed, like it was natural. I don’t think I can name one elderly person back home that can do that. I think it is all the training they do throughout their lives to use the toilet here. I will never understand how they do it or want to do it.

And that is the low down on the sleeper car that we stayed in. I’ll be posting about our experiences so far in Xiamen soon. I just want to go ahead and post the things that have happened recently before I forget them. I have a few more pictures that I have saved on blogger to get to before I move on to Xiamen. Plus, I haven’t really had many picture opportunities since coming to Xiamen. The weather did a 180 the day after we got here. It’s been overcast and rainy every day since. We are in the rainy season, so I guess it is something I need to get used to. I just hope we are spared a typhoon. I don’t want to have to deal with one of those.

Well, that didn’t last very long.

Once again, my blog is blocked. I wish they would just decide one way or another – to block or not to block – and stop toying with me. I guess it is something that I should get used to if I decide to continue living in China.

But for now, I guess the waiting game begins again. If I want to view fellow blogspot blogs, I will have to find proxies that work well. I usually use www.pkblogs.com, but for some reason it is not working and hasn’t been for several days now. If anyone knows why, I would really appreciate it if you passed the word on to me. I can’t find any information about it online. Every time I go to pkblogs site, I get some weird message saying – No input file specified. I have no idea what that means and if the problem is State side or because of China.

Oh, well, at least I can still post. It just takes the fun out of reading when I have to jump through hoops to be a part of the blogasphere. At least people back home can take part in my life here in China. Ah, freedom, I never knew how sweet you were until I came here and the great firewall stood in my way.

So, we finally have Internet in our own home now and don’t have to worry about going to a wang ba(internet cafe) at strange hours in the night anymore to post on the blog or to surf the Internet. Even though Internet cafes are cheap, five yuan here and there adds up to a lot if you go every night like we did. For a 2M ADSL connection, it cost us 100 yuan for them to come out and give us user name and password(Phil was the one who hooked everything up), 167 yuan for the first month, and 118 yuan every month after that. The Internet may not be blazing fast, but it works, and now I can call home when I want to and don’t have to worry about people eavesdropping on my conversation besides Phil, and he doesn’t listen to me anyway whether I’m talking on the phone or to his face – so that won’t matter too much – hehe.

And to continue on with the good news, I found out randomly today that China has decided to return my freedom of speech – for at least the time being. I don’t expect it to stay unblocked forever, but it’s nice not having to use proxies to get to my blog. That’s sorta how I found out that my blog was working again. I had tried using PKblogs to get to it like I normally do, but for some reason, it was acting all flaky and kept giving me an error. So, to test my luck, I just typed in my url and wallah – my blog loaded.

And if you haven’t noticed, a lot of my blog’s decoration had dissapeared. That is because I’ve upgraded to a new template on blogger, and when I did, a lot of what Phil had worked on went out the window. He is currently trying to get everything back to normal. Hopefully, it won’t take too long.

Now the only thing that needs to be done to make me happy is a normal working schedule!

That’s another story all together, and I don’t feel like going into that right now.

I’m just going to blog like crazy until China decides to pull the plug on me again.

And for the heck of it, here is a crazy picture I found.

I thought I would post this just to make some of you laugh.

I know that in America we have brands that are made to look like other ones, but this completely caught me off guard. Everything on the box looks exactly as it does on the original, but the only real difference is its name. Instead of Colgate, my preferred brand of toothpaste, it’s Colqore. The same goes for the Crene. It’s supposed to be Crest. The brand in the middle is a knock off of brand as well, but I am unsure of it’s true name. I’ve seen it a few times here in China. It may be Black Man International or something to that effect. And where did we find these, you ask? Well, just right down the street from Er Wai in Beijing, at the new Chinese “thrift store” universally known as the 2 Kuai Store. And no, I didn’t buy any. It may work just as well as my Colgate Whitening, but I treasure my teeth a little more than to risk it. The printing on the box was really poor too. I have no idea where they had it printed up. Anyway, I just thought it was funny.

Ah. No more planes, buses, trains or automobiles. I never thought I would despise traveling so much or enjoy the pleasures of home like I do now. It’s so nice to know that my home will be nice and stable for the next three months(at least) and that it won’t have wings, tires, shake, or have the possibility of crashing. We’ve only been here four days now and I’ve already dug my feet into the ground and started growing roots. It’s either going to take all of the men, women, and children of China ripping me up and dragging me out or a fierce typhoon to make me leave Xiamen.For those of you who have just arrived or missed some of the posts that talked about our crazy trip that bounced us all over China, let me bring you up to speed. For those who know all about it, take a look at the map above and get a good idea of just how far we’ve gone is such a little amount of time. I know think I can say that I have been to more places in China, than I can say I’ve been in my own country. There is something wrong about that, I think.

So, if you take a look at the map above, you will see a whole bunch of black lines going from one corner of China, one city at a time, to the other corner of China. Now you can understand my hatred for traveling. I think anyone would have a sour look upon their face if they had just gone through what we have. I’m just a little sad that I didn’t make it any further west. I mean, if you are going to bounce us around China, you could have at least bounced us in all of the cardinal directions! :)Alright, hopefully, this final explanation of everywhere we’ve been will not become any bigger than it has. Every time I’ve thought its come to an end, something else has happened. This time though, I think the insanity has finally settled to the bottom of the ocean and won’t be tempted to show it’s evil face again.

From the top:

Fuyang to Hangzhou – by bus – 1 hour
Hangzhou to Beijing – by train – 14 hours – soft seat
Beijing to Shenzhen – by plane – 4 hours
Shenzhen to Hong Kong – by “train” – 1 hour
Hong Kong to Shenzhen – by “train” – 1 hour
Shenzhen to Hangzhou – by plane – 2 hours
Hangzhou to Tunxi – by bus – 2.5 hours
Tunxi to Huang Shan – by bus – 1.5 hours
Huang Shan to Tunxi – by bus – 1.5 hours
Tunxi to Hangzhou – by bus – 2.5 hours
Hangzhou to Beijing – by plane – 2 hours
1st attempt Beijing to Shenyang – by plane – 2 hours of sitting – Freak snow storm
2nd attempt Beijing to Shenyang – by plane – Flight canceled
3rd attempt Beijing to Shenyang – by plane – 14 hours of sitting for a one hour flight
4th attempt Beijing to Shenyang – by train – soft sleeper – 8 hours
Shenyang to Beijing – by train – soft seat – 9.5 hours
Beijing to Shenyang – by plane – 1 hour
Shenyang to Xiamen – by plane – 5.5 hours (delay and stop-over)

That’s about 70 hours of traveling and is probably pretty accurate, but I wouldn’t doubt it if it was actually more. I’m probably missing a bus ride or something in there somewhere. The worst part about it is that the only places we had actually planned on going after our contract was up in January was Huang Shan, Beijing, and of course Shenyang. It is true that we got to see a lot of China, but almost everywhere we went, we were trying to get important things done so that we could stay in China for the following semester. Because of that, we missed a lot of cool things in the cities that we were able to go. Maybe I will win the lottery or something, and be able to go back and enjoy them all at a much more leisurely pace. Heh, that would be nice.

And after all of that, there isn’t much more to say on that subject. I guess that chapter of my life is over and it is time to move on to the next one. As crazy as this chapter was, I sure got some crazy stories out of it – that’s for sure. And even though the experience at the time frustrated the living hell out of me, I know that I will have a good laugh when I’m 60 and sipping sweet tea on my front porch. . . .”Hey, Phil, do you remember the time we got bounced all over China.”

I have a feeling that Xiamen is going to be good to us.