Ah, vacation.

I’ve had plenty of vacation time here in China, more weeks than I can shake a stick at, but none of them have really been spent relaxing or enjoying myself. Almost every time the two of us get a little break from teaching, one of us usually comes down with a week long bug or something(or someone) evil intervenes forcing us to abandon our elaborate plans. The prime example of this was when we planned a trip around China with one of Phil’s students, Holy, during the Chinese New Year, but then our school held some of documents hostage. This in turn forced us to leave the country in order to get new visas and then the real craziness of being bounced all over China began. There are a lot of posts about it in January, February, March and even a few entries in April 2007.

Thankfully, nothing crazy went down during the first week of our summer vacation. I am glad to report that everything went pretty much as planned, except for the time that Phil almost got ran over by a semi or when we both almost got eaten by a really pissed off dog. Other than that and a few persistent mosquitoes, I think it was one of the best vacations that I have been on, in China or back home in America. So, I guess if I am going to tell it straight, I should probably start at the very beginning. I hope you like to read because I can write as much as I can talk- hence my nickname Gabby Girl. However, if you get bored by my rambling, you can just scroll down the page and look at some of the pictures that I took. These pictures are mainly from the first and second days in Guilin and Yangshuo but there are a few from the third.

We took the late flight out of Xiamen International Airport(11:10 pm) because it was 130 RMB cheaper(each) even though it would put us in Guilin early in the morning(12:30 am). Living on a teacher’s salary, Phil and I will do anything to save money. Since we are still young chickens, staying up till one or so isn’t a hard thing to accomplish. Ask me to do the same thing in about 40 years or so and I might not be so eager to save. 🙂 The tickets were one way and cost us each 730 RMB($96.00). It doesn’t sound like a lot if you are making American dollars, but it can seem like a a lot when it is nearly 1/5 of your monthly salary. Plus, it only covers getting there. Phil and I had saved up enough so it wasn’t that much of a big deal. The sad part is that the train from Xiamen to Nanning to Guilin was just as expensive even though it took three freaking days longer. That still doesn’t make a lot of since.

Like most of our experiences with planes in China(save that particular journey from Beijing to Shenyang that took 4 tries), our plane took off right on schedule. Some people weren’t even seated yet, but they closed the hatch and started backing up anyway. It’s like they are on some timetable and they have to follow it to a T regardless if someone had time to check the plane over or not. I swear, I’ll probably die on a Chinese plane. On this particular plane, the left engine sounded rather flaky. There were several moments where I had to close my eyes and say a prayer, but then the flight attendant came and gave me a bag of peanuts and a glass of Coke to help ease my anxiety. Soon I forgot all about the rumbling coming from over my left shoulder. Other than that, our flight was fine. And as you can tell, since you are reading this now, I didn’t die. 🙂

Once we disembarked we headed for the CAAC bus. I don’t know what CAAC stands for, but it’s an airport bus that costs each person 20 RMB to be taken into the city of Guilin. The airport is about 20 KM outside of Guilin. It has several stops, the first being just down the street from where the bus and train station are located. Taking the CAAC bus was by far the cheaper option. If we had wanted to get to our hostel fast for any reason, we could have gotten in any of the taxis waiting by the front door. We didn’t because it would have cost 90 RMB(as long as the taxi driver didn’t take the long route) to get to our hostel. Since I had heard so many negative things about Guilin and how everyone tries to rip you off, I wanted to avoid the possibility all together. The cool thing about the bus is that the woman who took our money spoke English and knew exactly where we needed to get off. When it was our stop, she even stepped off and pointed us in the direction of our hostel as about a dozen Chinese taxi drivers bombarded us with one of the few English words besides hello that they knew.

“Taxi?!” They all screamed at once. I think one even grabbed my arm and tried to nudge me in the direction of his waiting taxi. I really felt like I was being attacked by hungry vultures.

“Bu yao, xie xie,” Phil and I said several times very politely as we pushed our way through them. I thought they would have listened and tried to pester some other poor soul, but no, there was no one else to pester. They started following us down the street still screaming TAXI at us as though we were deaf or something. There was even this one particular guy who had gotten in his taxi and started shadowing us up the street hoping that we would give into his calls. This annoyed me, so I turned around to tell him to go bug off in the only language I knew how. As soon as I turned around he thought this was me accepting his invitation, but he was wrong. For some reason he even jumped out of his taxi. Why? I don’t know, unless he thought we needed help with our backpacks – which we didn’t. “No,” I said. “We don’t need a taxi. We are going to walk.” I put two fingers on the palm of my hand, made them “walk”, and the pointed in the direction that we were going. He found this hysterical and started laughing at me. Maybe he thought I was insane to want to walk at night in Guilin to a place I wasn’t exactly sure where it was. Whatever his reason, he turned around and got back his taxi. He stared at us a second longer and laughed at us again as he drove into the darkness.

As we tried to find our way to Flowers Youth Hostel all sorts of taxi drivers bled out of the darkness. It was rather creepy, really. For the most part the streets were empty. The only signs of life were the legit taxis trying very hard to convince us that we needed to be driven to our destination(1 KM away) and the non-legit taxis(motor bikes) tapping their seats with gruesome smiles on their faces. We also saw this woman sitting in a old, rickety booth on the corner of alley way. The booth had bars and was illuminated in red. I have no idea what she was selling, but I know for sure it wasn’t lemonade.

Finally, after much confusion of which way to go and who to believe when we asked which way our hostel was, we found it across the street from the train station, down an alley way hidden completely from view. If it hadn’t been a guy sitting in an empty fruit cart(which I thought was trying to get us to go to a different hotel at first), we would have never have seen the sign obstructed by the buildings in front of it. When we turned the corner in the dimly lit building this is what greeted us on the wall.

Doesn’t it look like we should be entering a horror movie with the way it is written on the wall. It almost looks as though it was written in blood. Eek! Low budget hostels call for low budget signs, I guess.

Beside the hostel’s “sign” on the wall, we saw this. It looked equally inviting.

What kind of tourism reception is this exactly? I don’t know if it is the light, the letters, the dirt on the wall or some combination of the three, but the L in bicycle looks like it is floating off the wall. You can almost see what looks to be like it its shadow. Beware of the letter L!

We climbed the stairs to the second floor, but when we got there we didn’t see any more creepy signs or arrows to follow. Sometimes hostels really know how to hide. Luckily, I heard some voices drifting down a partially lit corridor that could possibly show me the way, so I decided to investigate. Through the window I could see a Chinese woman lounging on a couch and another woman mopping the floor. The two of them were too engrossed in their conversation to notice the two laowais standing in the doorway.”Ni hao,” I said, hoping to catch their attention but not scare the bejesus out of them at the same time. During my year of teaching I’ve noticed that Chinese people scare particularly easy. Sometimes a simple BOO will send them reeling. Because I am super evil, I try to find all sorts of ways to scare my students. It keeps them on their toes. But anyway, I digress.

The woman holding the mop nearly fainted. She threw her hand over her heart. I’m sure she said something along the lines of, “You scared me to death, woman!” I apologized and gave her several minutes to collect herself. After she caught her breath and her heart rate had gone down, she realized that the two foreigners standing in front of her were not selling tooth brushes, but needed a room. She asked if we had a reservation and we said yeah, but she couldn’t find any of our paper work. Thankfully, they still had a few rooms available. Hostelworld , the internet service we use to book hostels in China, works most of them time, but occasionally gives us hiccups.

“You want to see the rooms first?” She asked?

“Sure.” She handed us two keys. One was for a room on the first floor, and the other was for a room on the fourth. We decided to go to the fourth floor first and see what the room had to offer. After stumbling through the dark and the maze of stairs we finally got to room 421.

There was no handle. Well, there was, but not the kind you see on normal doors. I don’t even know how to describe it to you really. It was like a nob, but much smaller. You could barely get your fingers around it to turn it and it seemed as though it was about to fall off/out.

“Well, this looks promising,” I chuckled, as Phil finally got the key in and opened the door. He found the light switch beside the door and flipped it.

In unison we gasped, “Oh. My. God.”

The walls were yellow, brown, white, and even black. No, this was not some creative painter at work. The walls were covered in mold. We didn’t stay long enough to inspect further. I was too shocked to even take a picture of it, which I now wish I had. Words do not do it justice. It was truly scary. We quickly killed the lights and locked the door.

“And that is why there were no pictures of the room,” Phil said in reference to hostelworld as we walked down the stairs to the first floor. “Now I can totally understand why.” The only pictures of the hostel on hostelworld were of the lobby, which in comparison to the room we had just seen, was freaking awesome!

We stood before room 117 with the key dangling from the lock. This door actually had a handle, so that was a step in the right direction. Perhaps what was on the other side of the door would prove better too. When Phil opened the door and hit the light switch nothing happened. The room stayed dark. I was just about to utter some obscenities when WALLAH, the light above our head came to life. I guess it had to warm up or something.What we saw wasn’t perfect, but it was doable. The walls were a little moldy, but only in a few places – sorta like our apartment was before we cleaned it. The room, the walls, and the furniture all screamed mental institution, but then I reminded myself it was just for one night and that I could deal with that. Without any argument, we decided to take room 117 instead. I was a bit apprehensive in putting my head on the pillow and pulling my the covers up to my chin, but within 10 minutes or so – because that is about how quickly I fell asleep.

We woke up early the next morning to the smell of bacon. For half a second I thought I was back home and that my mom was making me breakfast, but then I remembered that I was in China and that my mother was some 7000 miles away. Even though we had only slept for a few hours, we somehow convinced ourselves to roll out of bed. It was now time to go and find the bus to Yangshuo.

It was actually incredibly easy and for the record, it was the bus that found us. We were walking toward the bus station when one of those big touristy buses pulled down the road we were walking on. We almost didn’t pay it any notice, but then a woman jumped out and started screaming YANGSHUO in our faces. We weren’t sure if it was legit or not, but she seemed insistent that the bus we take us to intended destination. I looked at Phil and he looked at me. We both shrugged our shoulders and said, “Why the hell not?”

From this point on, our vacation was reasonably easy. The bus we got on did indeed go to Yangshuo, but before we could even really start going there, the woman in charge of the money had to ask everyone we passed if they wanted to go to Yangshuo. The woman was very good at convincing people who probably really had no need or want to go to Yangshuo to get on the bus and go anyway. Many people who seemed to be doing nothing in particular hoped on for shits and giggles. It was rather interesting to watch. Although, listening to her scream YANGSHUO from the bus door every three and a half minutes got old rather quick. 🙂

The ride to Yangshuo was very beautiful and it gave us a peek of what we would be seeing once we got there. Most of the bus ride was through the countryside of Guangxi. We got to see a lot rural farm areas and a whore of water buffalo. I think the trip from Guilin to Yangshuo took just a little more than an hour, but it was enjoyable.

And finally, after all those months of waiting, saving and planning – we were there. Now we just need to find our hotel.

Here is Phil looking out the window at the mountains.

I had been told that it should cost 5 RMB to get to the hotel, but when I started showing the local transportation the address to the hotel in Chinese, I knew that was not going to be the case. More than one person quoted us 30 RMB, and I was not about to shell that out when I knew it could be had cheaper. Phil insisted that we walk, but that was kinda hard considering we didn’t exactly know how to get there. We walked quite a ways and had many people say they would take us for thirty before we found a guy that would take us for a total of 10 RMB. That seemed more than fair, so we took his offer.The local transportation in Yangshuo consists mainly of these three.

1. Tourist Shuttle Buses
2. Motor bikes with carts built onto the back
3. Motor bikes

The tourist shuttle buses are the legal ones, but they don’t take you directly where you want to go. They have set routes. So, if you want to go off the beaten path – these will not help you in the slightest. I don’t know how much they are because I never rode in one while I was in Yangshuo. If I had to guess I would say between 10 – 30 RMB.

The motor bikes with the carts built onto the back remind me of horse carriages. This type of transportation maybe more convenient, but they are illegal as well. If you don’t see these at particular times it is because the cops came and scared them off for a while. Most of these people wanted to charge us 30 RMB to take us about a mile and a half to our hotel, but on many occasions we got them down to 10. Although illegal, for the driver – not you, this is the most convenient and safest way to travel unless you have a bicycle or you love to walk.

The motor bikes are illegal too. Locals just aren’t allowed to transport foreigners. They want the money to go to the city instead of the hands of the locals. Every time that we took one from the hotel to any destination within the city it cost us 10 RMB total. I wouldn’t recommend this mode of transportation unless you have a helmet and you know for a fact that your driver knows what he or she is doing.

To get to the hotel we took the horse carriage like thing. He didn’t actually take us all the way to our hotel, but he at least took us to the dirt road that led to it. Thankfully there were more than enough signs to point us in the right direction. The owners of the place really didn’t want you getting lost. About every 10 feet or so there was another sign with arrows directing the way.

The place that we stayed, Riverside Retreat, was absolutely amazing. It is a little bit out of town, maybe a brisk 15 minute walk, but the views and the staff are worth it. The rates are very reasonable too. For a room with a queen size bed, a spectacular view and a balcony, we paid 180 RMB a night. I would definitely stay there again if I went to Yangshuo again. It was clean, quiet and comfortable. We really couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Here is a picture of the room we stayed in. The bed was extra comfy.

This picture was taken from our balcony. I wish I could have gotten the sky to look better, but at the time I hadn’t yet figured my new camera out – and truthfully, I am still working on that. Heh. That in Yangshuo in the distance.

We had the western breakfast that the hotel offered after we got settled into our room. For a plate full of eggs, bacon, and two pieces of toast with jelly, it cost us 15 RMB each. They cooked the eggs and the bacon particularly well. It was very tasty.After taking an afternoon nap, we awoke to explore the city. The city of Yangshuo is nice. It’s relatively small, but has an overwhelming western feel to it. That is mostly felt near and on West Street. It is yet another pedestrian street full of trinkets and goodies as well as bars and restaurants. The people are nice here, if not a little pushy. Like most westernized parts of China things can be a little on the pricey side. If you don’t want to get ripped off, you have to bargain really hard.

I didn’t come to Yangshuo because of the western feel it radiates though. I came for the views that I couldn’t see else where in China or the world – so they say. I came for the beauty that it offers. One thing is for sure though,Yangshuo did not disappoint. It met my expectations and more. I’ll stop my jibber jabbering though so that you can enjoy some of the pictures I took of the surrounding area. I’ll continue with the story of our vacation in Yangshuo in a day or two.

This was taken standing on Yangshuo Bridge. The mountains are incredible.

This was also taken on Yangshuo Bridge, but on the other side.

I have a thing about bridges I guess. This too was taken on a bridge.
A different one though.

I found these two women washing their clothes and chatting the afternoon away.

I’m not sure if he is a fisherman or a trash collector.

This dragonfly let me get really close with my camera. Thank you Mr. Dragonfly. Thank you super macro shot.

There are about a million water buffalo in Yangshuo. It was almost hot enough for me join this guy in Li River, but I didn’t know what he would thought about the idea.

Sorry if this post suddenly seemed to fall flat. It’s now 3:25 am, and I’m horribly exhausted. I just wanted to make sure I finished it. School starts back in a day and I wasn’t sure when I would have enough time to really go into detail.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the 2007 China Blog Awards, let me give you the low down.Over at Chinalyst, there is a competition of sorts taking place. It’s basically a venue created for people to vote for their favorite China blogs. Well, as you can imagine, being a China blogger, I am one of the many in the running for the pretty award you see to your left.

I’m not going to beg or anything(oh, please, please, vote for me) but I thought I would at least bring it to your attention so as to give you the opportunity to voice your opinion. 🙂

Voting is fairly simple. All you need to do is click on any of the blue links you see in this post or the picture with the pretty award, scroll down until you see my blog’s long title strewn across your screen and click on the little plus sign below it. And wallah, your done!

After you give my blog some love, you can peruse the many other China blogs that perhaps you haven’t stumbled upon yet. There are a lot of good ones out there. Maybe you will find some more blogs that you feel like voting for – there are several different categories. Mine is under personal blogs, if you didn’t know.

Thanks a bunch.

I’m such a bad American.

Somehow or another, I completely forgot about the Fourth of July. I probably would have forgotten about it all together had I not hopped on the computer at out hotel/hostel in Yangshuo to email my folks back home. After quickly composing the “I’m fine and it’s beautiful here” email to them, I scanned through the ones that I had received since leaving Xiamen on the first of July. Strangely, this was the first and only time in the span of six days that I surfed the world wide web. I think it’s a personal best, really, considering my awful addiction to the the great WWW. I guess Yangshuo kept me pretty busy because I didn’t really think much of it until I got back to Xiamen this afternoon. I’ve more or less been on my computer ever since. Heh. 🙂

So yeah, the whole idea that the Fourth of the July had actually come and gone a whole day earlier didn’t even register until I read these words at the bottom of my Dad’s email. “Hoping you have a safe and patriotic Independence Day!” I had to stop and think about what it said for a second.

“Independence Day?” I thought to myself. “The Fourth of July?” I looked down at the date on my watch. A little 5 stared back at me. “Is it really the fifth of July?” I then looked at the date on the right hand corner of the computer. “Holy crap, it is the fifth!”

I guess the lack of American flags, firework stands and constant TV ads to remind me made me completely forget that it was that time of year. That is how it is for most holidays here in China. Unless it’s Christmas, all the other holidays you grew up celebrating sort of fade into the background. To keep the traditions going in this home so far away from home, I have to try my best to remember when the holidays are even if I am not surrounded by all the decorations and other hoopla related to them. Lucky for me, I’m in China, the land that invented fireworks. If I really want to, I can go down and buy a warehouse full of fireworks and celebrate with all the hoopla I want until I am blue in the face. And since I can do that, I think I just might.

Who cares if it is a few days late. It’s the thought that counts.
I’ll start posting my 4.2 GB of pictures tomorrow that I collected on my trip to Yangshuo, but for now I am going to bed.

Well, as of 11:20 am this afternoon, my summer vacation has begun. Tonight, at 11:10 pm, I’m boarding a plane at the Xiamen International Airport, and getting the hell out of here! 🙂 Yippy Skippy, as Miss Piggy would say.

Phil and I are going first to Guilin and staying at the Guilin Flowers International Hostel for a night. I have no idea if it is a good or bad hostel, but it is near the first stop of the CAAC – the bus that goes from the airport toward the actual city of Guilin. I just need a place to put my head, so I don’t really care.

When we wake up, we aren’t going to try and deal with the city. We are going straight to the bus station and going to Yangshuo, the supposed Backpacker’s mecca. We’ve been wanting to go for quite some time, but we’ve been either poor or entirely too busy with other China related stuff.

Speaking of poor – I am officially poor again. Well, not poor like we were after being bounced all around China a few months before, but poorer none the less. We are poor because we just went out and bought a super freaking awesome camera, so that I can take super freaking awesome pictures from now on.

We bought the Canon Powershot S5 IS at the Suning across town for about $490.00 – or 3760 RMB, but the camera came with a bag, 2G card, and a rather large tripod. And for what the camera does, it was a pretty good deal. Although, after playing with it for a few hours last night, I was ready to toss it out the window because it has one too many settings and I have no idea what any of them do yet. Today though, I feel I have a better understanding. Finding the manual in English on the internet helped too. Everything in print in the box was in freaking Chinese. I know, I know. I’m in China, but couldn’t they have included a section or something in English for the possible Laowai that might buy the camera?! Oh, well, it doesn’t really matter much anymore. Everything is all good. I mean, I still have to read the manual and play around with it, but I think I will be very happy. Having really nice pictures and videos will be a super plus too. My 5 year old Kodak was on her last leg – it was time for her to be replaced. I’ll put some sample shots later. They are super awesome.

Well, I guess that I should jet. I’ve still got to pack and what not. We’ll be gone until the 11th, so don’t be expecting any regular posts during that time – not that I have been regular lately anyway, but that is beside the point.

Oh, and Yahoo is unblocked again. I guess someone flipped that switch again.

What a load of crap.

Maybe it’s a glitch. Maybe someone fixed the broken light switch located in the hallway of my apartment in Fuyang, China. I never did figure out what that switch turned on or off.

But that is just me thinking positive.

After having my mom check to see if Yahoo was up in running state side, she confirmed what I already feared – China has gone and really done it. They’ve blocked Yahoo here in China.

This is totally not cool. Even though I don’t use Yahoo for email anymore, I still frequent it to check what’s going on in the world. I was a smart cookie and switched to Google when that nasty earthquake killed the internet access between America and China, but that is beyond the point.
The point is – I hope they can see this because I’m doing it as hard as I can.

Well, after fighting the Great Fire Wall of China for the greater part of the last year, I’ve given up. Yep, I’m throwing in the towel and jumping overboard. Like many before me, I’ve decided that it is just easier owning my own space. Because China hates Blogger, and blocks it on and off(more on), I’ve decided to give my blog a new home where people both far and away can view it without having to jump through hoops of fire. Tushes should not be burnt in the process of reading about my daily life in China. That just isn’t right.

That is the main reason why I haven’t been posting lately. I’ve been busy trying to figure out the best place to host my blog. It’s unbelievable how many many hosting services are blocked in China. On top of trying to find one that wasn’t blocked, I’ve had to look for one that actually gave me a half decent service for a price that I could afford. That process was actually harder than it should be. I’ll write all about that later.

After weeks of scouring the Internet, the search is over. Thank God. I finally have a nice, new home for my little blog. Phil is still working out the details so that it looks pretty on it’s debut. He’s adding a lot of cool features and making it really user friendly. When everything is ironed out and ready to be published, I’ll come back here and give you all the link. It should be ready in the next few days.

The service that I decided to go with offers IP banning and it made me start thinking . . . is it possible to get the IP address of the computer(s)Nanny uses so that she can’t come to my site and block it. 🙂 How cool would that be?

I’ll try to get a few cool pictures up this week before Phil and I run off to Guilin and Yangshuo for a week and half. If you have any suggestions about the area – I would love to hear them! Keep checking back though so you can update your links.

Every so often I get bored and decide to take pictures of myself. I know, I know – how vain of me! Here are the results of my latest session with boredom. They aren’t exciting or anything, but they made me think of the time when I showed this little Chinese kid my eyes in Hangzhou.

Back when we lived in Fuyang, we were invited to go to a food festival by one of Phil’s students. After stuffing ourselves with all sorts a weird, but fantastic food, we were informed that we were going to finish the night by going to a nice restaurant across town. There was no way I was going to be able to eat anything, but Phil and I agreed and promised to eat as much(or as little) as was possible. We thought we were going to be joined by the student’s parents, but neither stayed in the room very long. They were too busy running around the restaurant socializing. They just wanted to give their son ample time to practice his English. In that, they succeeded.

Sometime into the feast(Phil was somehow able to down a rather large portion) another boy entered the room. He was first introduced as the student’s brother, but we later discovered he was just a family friend. I guess he was invited to practice his English with the foreigners. He was shy at first, but before long we had him using what English he knew. We even taught him a few new words and phrases. Somehow or another we got on the conversation of how westerners look different than Chinese.

The boy that had entered the room had never before seen a foreigner’s eyes, so I offered to show him what mine looked like. I stood up and walked to the other side of the table where he was sitting, bent over so that I was at eye level with him, and opened my eyes as wide as I could. It was almost hysterical. The boy jumped out of his chair, nearly knocking it over, as if he had seen a ghost or something. I don’t know exactly what he saw in the depths of my eyes, but he wouldn’t sit back down until I was safely seated in my chair. I couldn’t help but giggle. He acted very similarly when Phil leaned over to show him his blue eyes. I guess he thought all the people in the world had dark eyes up until that moment in time. That would probably freak me out too.

I particularly like how you can see the reflection of the bars of our balcony.

Perhaps this is what the boy saw instead! I’d be pretty freaked out too.

Yesterday Phil and I decided to do our weekly shopping at the Wal-Mart located inside of the SM shopping mall. We’d only been there once before very briefly looking for a modem(which they didn’t have), so we wanted to go back and see what kind of selections that they had in comparison to the other stores in town. We usually shop at Carrefour because it is the closest store to us, but occasionally we will go to the other Wal-Mart(it’s closer than the SM mall), Trust Mart or the very far away Metro(1 hour by bus). Carrefour is probably the most convenient, less crowded of the bunch and has most of what we need, but is often sold out of or doesn’t have what exactly it is we are looking for. This is the case for the other stores too though. All of the stores have the basics, but each one seems to have only one or two of the things that we really like to buy. This of course, makes us store hop until we have everything that we need. If all the stores could just combine – shopping would be a breeze. The SM Wal-Mart wasn’t much different. Like the other stores, it had all the basics plus a few other items that are hard to come by elsewhere. It was however a little different. Different enough to lure me back in a few weeks or sooner depending on how soon I need a refill. Cereal isn’t hard to come by in Xiamen. Even in Fuyang, I was able to get my hands on brands I was familiar with. All the major chain stores usually have one or another brand to choose from in their imported section. Depending on what country they come from effects how much money you are going to have to shell out for them. American brands are always the most expensive, but they sometimes have Korean(I think they are Korean) versions sitting beside them for a much smaller box at a much lower price. The Korean versions to me taste the same, but the choices are much more limited. If I want something familiar – it is either Cheerios or Trix – everything else is the real thing, in a much bigger box, and much more expensive. The real thing being American Cheerios, Rice Crispies, Frosted Mini Wheats, Raisin Brand and a few others. The price on these range from 40 – 50 RMB($5 -6). To you that my not sound like a lot, but in order to save money to travel and to enjoy other luxuries in China, we have to watch the money we spend. If it costs 40- 50 RMB and we are going to eat it – it better either A) last a very long time or B) be damn good. Cereal only lasts so long and it isn’t quite to damn good level yet. Cheese on the other hand is . . . and we only splurge on that every once in a blue moon. So, you can imagine my surprise and disbelief when I spied a HUGE box of Honey Comb sitting amongst the usual suspects with a price tag of 19.90 RMB. My first guess was that it either A) was the box was in the wrong place or B) had expired a year ago. Neither turned out to be the case. I had a lady ring it up to make sure it was indeed 19.90 and then double checked the expiry date. I was so happy to see Best Before August 2007 starring me in the face. I almost chucked two boxes in the buggy, but remembered that there are other more important things that we want to do in China than eat Honey Comb for breakfast.

Nothing reminds me of home like Honey Comb in the morning.

“Don’t ask a question if you already know the answer.”

Ah, I have heard that statement many of times, but yet I don’t follow it.

Today in class we were going over an exercise that was talking about Japanese food. I thought hey, what the heck, while on the subject I’ll ask how they feel about Japan. Other students have asked me if I liked Japan, Korea(they never mentioned north or south) and what I thought about 9/11. I mean, if they can ask – why can’t I? So, I did.

“Do you guys like Japan.”

Usually, I have to explain myself, but this time they understood completely.

“NO! I hate Japan!” Emma said ecstatically. She really said it in bold italics, too.

Although I half expected it, I was taken aback just a little. Maybe it had to do with the bold italics thing. “Ok, Monica, what about you? Do you like Japan?”

“NO! I hate Japan too!”

At this point in the conversation I thought, well, I’ve already taken the plunge, I might as well take a swim while I’m at it.

“Why?” Ah, as a teacher you have to love this question.

“Because . . . because . . . a long time ago,” Emma started, but her tongue couldn’t spit out what she wanted to say in English. I could see the emotion behind her eyes and could all most hear the Chinese version of what she wanted to say bouncing in between her ears. “Because,” she said, lifting up her hands. She balled one into a fist and left the other one flat and open. I knew what was coming. It was pretty obvious. How else is one supposed to express hate and war without being able to verbalize it? And then it happened. She started pummeling her open hand with her fist. “Because,” she said, “Because.”

They were both quiet for a minute. They were frustrated that they couldn’t tell me why exactly, but I told them that that was OK and that I understood.

“Do you like Japan?” Emma asked.

Well, I don’t believe in lying so I told them the truth. “Yes.” Both of their eyes squinted together and their lips got very tight. If you know what look I’m talking about, which I’m sure some of you do, then you should be able to picture that image rather well. It was the look of mixed anger and disappointment, that I, their teacher, could in any way shape or form like their supposed enemy. It only lasted a second though.

It was as though they thought they had made me angry or something. I’m not sure what their logic was, but after giving me that horrid look, Emma perked up with a big smile on her face and said, “We like America. America is good.”

She gave me the thumbs up to demonstrate how good good was.

You are sitting in a blue plastic chair at a desk in a room that you know all too well. On your desk is a pencil with .5 mm lead. It’s the kind you hate because it breaks too easily if you press down too hard. Written on the blue plastic neck of the pencil in black ink is your least favorite number in the world. Two. Specifically, #2.

The room is quiet, except for the steady ticking of the clock positioned on the wall behind you. Every now and again there is a nervous roll of a pencil across a desk from someone sitting behind you. You’d roll your pencil too, but you don’t want to draw any attention from the woman standing behind the podium at the front of the room. It doesn’t even seem like she’s even paying attention, but you know that it’s all an act. Her eyes are trained to see anything and everything that might be deemed suspicious. Years of practice have taught you to remain still and quiet.

The woman, if you haven’t guessed yet, is your teacher and today is test day.

You’ve known about it for a week now and you studied for it, but your anxiety is still running a little high. Tests, well, they just make you squirm. And you’ve heard rumors about this test. A friend of a friend of a friend who knew this one person who dated this one person who took this test a few years back said that it completely made him self destruct. With rumors like that floating around, you have all the right to be just a tad bit nervous. It can’t be that hard, right? It’s just an English exam after all. What is there to be afraid of?

As the clock behind you flips to 9:30 am, the woman behind the desk lays the test face down on your desk. She’s gives you that look that says, “If you cheat, I will personally eat your soul.” You nod in understanding and flip it over.

Before you is the test that you’ve been losing sleep over all weekend.
The test is only one page. One line. One question.

The question is . . .

Why?

“You have until the end of class to finish your test. Good luck.”

*****
Humor me and answer that question for me.

I gave this question as a extra credit to my students on their test today, and they really did self destruct. They had no idea how to answer it.

And finally, a random picture from my collection. This picture comes from the selection I stole from Tim when we met up in Hong Kong.