This is a bit on the late side of things, but hey, late is better than never. These pictures of course come from the time we spent in Shanghai during the National Holiday – aka The Golden Week. Since pictures say a thousand words – I’ll keep this nice and short.

A common thing you’ll see in China is the way garbage is carted away. If it isn’t the little garbage truck that sings “Happy Birthday” over and over again it’s the cart/bike you see stacked as high as possible with trash. When I took this picture, the guy peddling it down the street was aware that I was about burn his image into my memory card for all eternity, so I had wait until he was blocked by the cardboard box. People make me nervous when they know I’m taking their picture and I’m sure that feeling is vice versa. On average, I see about ten of these a day. I always think they are going to topple over because they have so much stuff on them.

It doesn’t matter where you go in Shanghai – this is the scene you will encounter on every street corner. Shanghai is something like 8 times bigger than New York City. If I ever make my way there, NYC will look like a small but busy ant hill.

Nanjing Road, and all of its madness, is a long pedestrian road in Shanghai. Once was really enough for me because it’s just one big, expensive name brand store after another and more people bombarding you than you can shake a stick at. It was a sea of black heads all around me. I’m just glad that I was taller than most of them so I could see what was to come. If you look closely you can see the KFC sign on the right.

It was a little like being in Vegas. This is just one of the buildings on Nanjing Road. At night, the entire road is lit up and it’s very beautiful. At about 10 or so at night they turn off all of the lights to save energy. I wonder if they do the same in Vegas. I had some pictures of the Bund(another touristy place in Shangahai) as well, but they came out all fuzzy and blurry. My camera doesn’t like taking night photos. This one didn’t turn out so bad, though.

And this here is how the Chinese keep out people they don’t want coming onto their property. I ran into a lot of things jumping fences when I was meter reader, but I never came across glass shards. I’ve actually seen this quite a bit in China. Hey, if it works, use it.

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You read that right. I did indeed munch on a poor defenseless little dog. Did it taste like chicken? No, not exactly. It was more of a mix between roast beef and turkey, but a little more tough. It wasn’t as nearly as bad as I thought it might be. When I took more than my one intended bite, Phil asked me what in the world I was doing. I ate the dog because I could not go back home and say I passed up on the opportunity. I mean, really, how often are you offered dog on a plate back home and know that is dog that is being offered to you? My point exactly. If I went home without trying that particular Chinese custom, I would have been very upset with myself. Also, after being a meter reader, part of my soul was craving it. If you are or know someone who is a meter reader, than you know what I mean. I’ve seen dog before, but I just couldn’t bare to eat it, let alone order it with a clear conscious, but last Thursday, Phil and I got invited by Lilly, one of his co-workers at school, to go to some festival out in the country. Phil had been wanting to go to the country side, and to me it just sounded fun.

We were picked up at 5:00 pm on the dot by 3 Chinese men that could not speak a lick of English. The car they were driving was black and all of the windows were tinted. We got in the car only because it was the exact time Lilly said she would pick us up, but she was not in the car. We silently prayed in the back seat that we hadn’t just been picked up by the Fuyang Mafia and were being driven to our doom. After several minutes, we stopped and picked up Lilly. Yes, that now meant that this small 4 door sedan like car now had 4 Chinese people and two Americans. We weren’t entirely sure how we were all going to fit in the car, so I jumped up on Phil’s lap. We were both in the back seat. Lilly told us we couldn’t do that and that we would ALL have to sit on the back seat together. Four butts don’t fit easily in a 4 door sedan like car unless you all happen to be between the ages of five and eleven. Some how I squeezed down between Lilly and Phil. Poor Phil’s leg was being crushed, and I am sure that my hips were killing Lilly. I asked how far away the festival was, and she said something like 50 minutes. Thank God it was more like 15 minutes or else Phil’s leg might have fallen asleep forever.

We got lost a few times, but the driver finally found his way. We were pretty much in the middle of no where, so if Lilly had brought us to be sacrificed or something, we were pretty much screwed. Lilly lead us to this one building that looked like a mix between a restaurant and an apartment. The two main front rooms both had a big round table in them. Big round tables are the norm for when a lot of Chinese people get together to eat and be merry. They usually have a glass top that turns so that you can have a taste of everything without leaning across the table, but these had no glass tops. The 5 of us and 5 others joined us in the far most left room. Almost as soon as we sat down, the beer, wine and hard liquor started to pour. Phil had eaten anything all day, but decided to partake anyway because they would have hassled him until he had anyway. Me, I don’t drink(at least not that often), so they focused all of their attention of Phil. He was pretty much gone in the first 20 minutes or so I’d say, even though it hadn’t hit him yet. That will happen to you though if you Gan Bei(bottoms up) about 4 shots of the hardest vodka in the entire universe, followed by another 4 or 5 Gan Bei’s of Cheerday beer.

Soon the food was brought out to us. For awhile there, it seemed to be never ending. It was just one plate of food after another. They ran out of room in some places and so they just started stacking. We didn’t know where to start or what anything was, so we just started to pick up pieces with our chopsticks. Every fourth bite or so someone would toast someone and we would have to put our chopsitcks and drink whatever was in our bowl/cup. I was lucky. I only had to drink sprite the entire evening. Phil on the other hand – well, you know what he had to deal with.

That was pretty much the entire evening. Not much English was thrown around the table due to the fact no one but Lilly could talk to us. We tried to speak what we could in Chinese, but we were mostly just smiles and thank yous for the next few hours. There came a point in the evening where the Chinese people started filling Phil’s bowl to the very tippy tippy top. At first we thought they were just trying to plaster Phil(and they did), but it turns out that they were filling his bowl for him and ME because I wasn’t drinking wine, beer, or any other hard alcohol. That was the main reason Phil got as drunk as he did. He was drinking for the both of us.

It was a fun evening, and I’m glad that we got invited. After about 30 different pictures with them, my cheeks hurt from smiling. Everyone wanted a picture with the Americans.

And that was our trip to the country side. I hope we get invited again. Hopefully, they won’t serve us dog again though. Once was enough for me. 🙂

As much as China can stress me out sometimes, it also makes me laugh really hard. I have two prime examples. One is a little funny and the other just plain freaky.

After a long day of teaching, I went to Phil’s school to wait until English Corner began. English Corner is a time when the serious students can come and talk to us and practice their English. It is a great concept and all, but it just doesn’t work too well. There are a hundred good reasons why it doesn’t, but I’ll get into that another day. After EC was over, Phil and I went outside to talk to Holy about the trip we are going to try to take with him during the Spring festival. Because we won’t be staying in Fuyang for our second semester(long story and I promise I will post about it soon)it is now becoming more difficult to organize our trip. It’s frustrating, but because we promised him, we are going to do everything we can to make it happen. As we were talking this is what happened that made me laugh so hard. Let me preface this by saying that Holy is 17 years old and speaks English very well. The fact that we can talk, understand, and joke with one another in the same language even though he is Chinese and we American shows how good he actually is.

Looking out over the wonderful and very polluted Fuchun River I asked Holy,”Is there anything on the other side of the bridge?” It is the one place we keep saying we are going to go but never make it.

“What do you mean? Something interesting? Something to see?”

“Yeah.”

Holy paused for just a second, and then said. “Maybe in 20 years.”

Now after typing this I can see how you may not be laughing very hard, but at the time, and even after hearing it, I still find it funny. It was probably one of the first jokes that I have heard a Chinese person say that I both understood and found funny at the same time. It totally made my day. I needed a good laugh after dealing with little devils all day.

Now for the freaky creepy moment of the day.

I won’t talk too much about this. I’m a little tired tonight and talking about it still freaks me out. On the way home from Chinese Class, Phil and I ran into a guy that I think lives in the apartment building adjacent to us. Every time he sees me or Phil, he yells ni hao(hello in Chinese) and runs over to us. In the past he has asked me to eat with him and wanted to know who I was waiting on. He’s always come off as a nice young guy, but doesn’t speak any English. I’m sure that I misinterpret a lot of what he says and that is the only reason I haven’t told the head of the school about him yet. Keep reading and you’ll understand why. Phil and I think that he was he either A) asking to pay 100 yuan to sleep with me, 100 yuan to sleep with Phil, or 100 yuan to sleep with us both. We concluded this because he showed us his wallet, did the sleeping motion with his hands, pointed to me, pointed to Phil, and even tapped Phil on the bottom. We were all really confused. We also picked up on something about tomorrow which we could only think meant that the 100 yuan would pay for services rendered until tomorrow. I’ll be avoiding that guy for some time now – at least until I can have some figure out what in the world he was saying and asking us to do.

Ah, you gotta love China. Gotta love the beast.

Phil and I were invited by one of Phil’s students to go to a festival in Hangzhou several weeks ago. Because we had nothing else better to do on a Saturday, we decided to tag along. Before we went, we had no idea what to expect. We didn’t know what kind of festival it was or what it was celebrating. It could have been a “Slaughter an American Foreign Teacher Festival” for all we knew. And it almost was that for a split second, but thankfully we were able to avoid death in China for at least one more day. As you can see, it was a food festival that we were invited to enjoy. And here you can see Phil doing what he does best – stuffing his face full of meat from an unknown animal. Whatever it was it was good, but I think that I would rather not know what it is that I swallowed. If you can imagine an animal, I saw a picture of it and its meat crammed onto a stick much like the one in the picture with Phil.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, those weird things in the picture to your left are starfish, scorpions, roaches, and my very favorite – tarantulas. I’ll get to that later.

We were picked up by Paul’s father and his supposed Uncle, who I think was actually his “driver”. He actually almost called him that, but caught himself. I’m pretty sure that his family has money and that they could afford one. The car was fancy and black with dark tinted windows and nice comfortable leather seats. It was the first car that wasn’t a taxi that we had been in since someone from Babel Language Center took us to Fuyang. Paul’s father, who spoke no English at all, had booked a hotel room for us for the night in Hangzhou. It was really nice gesture and we would have liked to have stayed, but we had to be back in Fuyang on Sunday morning in order to have lunch with another one of Phil’s students and his parents. Can’t you tell Phil is popular among his students? None of my students would ever invite me anywhere unless someone was threatening their lives or something. Maybe they are starting to like me a little though. I had two students ask for my autograph. Heh, I must be famous.

But anyway . . . They drove us the long way to Hangzhou. Not that I minded. We got to see some spectacular views of West Lake at sunset. I would have paid money to have stopped the car at one point to get a picture of It. We even saw some people in their wedding attire taking pictures. They will probably be the most beautiful pictures they’ll ever take together. If you could have seen it – you would have said the same. We finally, after about an hour and a half scenic tour of Hangzhou, arrived at the festival.

It was several degrees cooler than it was when we left Fuyang, but the hoards of people and all of the food stands letting steam roll over the crowd was about to become our personal heater. We didn’t really know where to start. Paul had money in hand(somehow we got away without spending a dime the entire time) and asked what we wanted. We pointed to a random stand with some kind of meat on a stick and said we would give that one a go.

And that is when I heard the bottle break. I looked up and there was this Chinese guy shaking the biggest shattered beer bottle I’ve ever seen at this Chinese cook. The freaky thing about the fight is that it was happening not ten feet from me. In disbelief, I got Phil’s attention and made him look. And that it when the bottle got thrown. How the guy who was throwing the bottle missed his intended target, I don’t know, but it whizzed over the top of the other guys head. The fight unfolded quiet quickly. Before long, pots and pans were being hurled at the poor Chinese cook. He looked so dumbfounded – like he didn’t know why they were so angry at him. Then there were more bottles thrown and one actually smashed into the cook’s temple. Blood started to pour down his face. More things were being thrown. Lights above the stand were being smashed. A group of interested people began to gather. All the while Phil, Paul, and I were just standing there wide eyed. We finally snapped out of our amazement and began to walk away from the fray. A random girl jumped into the big mess and tried to break up the fight, but that didn’t really work. There were some more bottles thrown, a lot more screams, the rest of the lights broken, and then the fight dismissed. The ones that started the fight ran off and in just a few minutes all was almost back to normal except for the poor cook whose head was streaming with blood. Needless to say, we didn’t eat at that stand.

The three of us walked around for about an hour. Paul kept asking what we wanted to try and kept buying more than we could eat even though it was all pretty tasty. There was so much food we didn’t try. It was like one big fair in America – except that the food section of it never seemed to end. I took the picture of the guy to above because apparently his job for the evening was to dance with the sign and advertise one of the stands. He was making some weird faces and dancing pretty wild, so I had to get a picture of it. You really had to be there to appreciate him fully.

After we finished stuffing our faces Paul told us that we would be going across town to a restaurant to have dinner. I don’t know why we went to a food festival to eat just so we could go out to dinner, but that is the Chinese way, I guess. The place we went to was nice. We were lead to our own private room – as is normal for people who travel in large groups. I can’t even remember what kind of food they brought out. I just know that it never seemed to end. A lot of it was too Chinese for me to eat – ie the crab in this picture. They don’t eat the legs, but they do eat what ever is inside his body, and whatever that orange and yellow stuff was – I don’t know and don’t care to learn. The little I tasted didn’t taste very good. It tasted a lot like many dishes I have eaten and describe simply as the “Taste of China”. If you are living in or have been to China, I am sure that you can relate to that comment. They wanted to keep feeding us long after the fact that we were full. Paul’s father kept toasting Phil(ganbei) which involves downing your entire glass of beer or wine or whatever else it is you are drinking. I thought that Phil was going to get himself drunk, but the ganebeis finally stopped and he was able to get a hold of his head.

After dinner, Paul had his driver, I mean, Uncle drive us to his house. What a nice place he had. He gave us a tour of his two story penthouse like apartment that consisted of three bedrooms and three baths. His kitchen even had a oven. I would do anything to have an oven. And, you should have seen the walk in closet this boy had. I know some women who would be supremely jealous of him- ie – ME! After I nearly killed myself falling down his stairs, it was time to go home. His driver, I mean, Uncle . . . heh – drove us all the way back to Hangzhou so that we would be able to have lunch with Holy’s parents. It was of the most interesting Saturdays that we have had since we got to China. I hope that I have many more just like this – minus the brutal fight that is.

When Phil and I get our lovely 3 week PAID vacation for the Chinese New Year in late January and early February, Xi’an will probably be one of our destinations of choice. We are trying to organize a trip that takes us in a slow, northen direction until we reach the artic cold of Harbin to see the annual Ice festival. We haven’t mapped out everything yet, and can’t until we know where we will be next semester. I will post about that problem soon, but I first want to show you something funny that made the news not too long ago.

For those of you who don’t know, Xi’an is a very popular tourist destination because of the Terra Cotta Warriors you can find there. Apparently, each warrior is an individual(so far as I have heard) and none of their faces are repeated. For the longest time, I thought the Terra-Cotta Warrior were the size of She-Ra action figures or maybe as tall as a Barbie doll. I don’t think I ever thought they were life size. Maybe I thought this because every picture I have ever seen has been an aerial view of the pit they all stand in or a super up close one like the picture above. So, I was quiet surprised to come across this article a few weeks ago. When I started reading it, I thought maybe it was a joke. I kept thinking, “How in the world could someone not see this guy? He could step on one for crying out loud!” Slowly I understood it, and felt really, really dumb. I can’t help that I am slow! But at least now I won’t show up in Xi’an looking for Terra Cotta Warriors who’s heads might have come up to my ankle. I can imagine what my face would have looked like when I actually got there and saw 5 feet tall creatures. Pablo(Ma Lin) must have been authentic looking as hell to blend in the way he did. I’m quiet surprised he got off only with a stern talking to and didn’t get carted off to a Chinese prison.

I don’t know how permanent it is, or if a Chinese official hit the wrong button on his computer, but after several weeks of my blog residing on what seemed to be a Forbidden Planet, the days of reading phrases like “The connection has been reset” and “The page cannot be displayed” are NO more. Please sing with me and do a little jig – China ain’t blocking me no more – do da do da!!!

I know this doesn’t really matter for me so much because I was able to access my blog despite China’s attempt to sensor me, but now anyone in China who might stumble upon my blog CAN. I guess the investigation of Blogger has come to an end(for the time being) and they don’t find me or my fellow Bloggers all that troublesome after all. Of course, tomorrow is a new day, and the Chinese might change their minds. And they probably will.

As for Thanksgiving, I haven’t seen a turkey anywhere. There are plenty of chickens and ducks to be had(with their heads and necks still attached) – and we might actually have to buy one if we want to have any sort of American Thanksgiving here in China. Without the simple existence of an oven though, it makes it a bit more difficult to make a variety of foods other than boiled or fried. The one thing I really want and know I won’t find is a Honey Baked Ham. My tongue wants to roll out of my mouth like a cartoon character just thinking about one. Hmm Mmm good. Eat some for me will you? Or better yet – send me one. I’d love you forever and ever! If any part of your soul wishes do such a thing and you really want to make my day – contact me and I will pass on my mailing address. Heh. Hey, it could happen.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to all. And thank you China for taking me off that awful planet. It was a dull and musty place. And if you could avoid sending me there in the future, I would be a very happy expat in your lovely country. And even happier if you could put some Honey Baked Ham in the Da Ran Fa by 5:00pm tonight. Thanks! 😉

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I know I posted our visit to the Ancient Paper Making Village some time ago, but I wanted to share the rest of the pictures that I took that day. Now that we are using this slide show thingy, I can post them a lot easier than before. You can’t see them as up close and personal as before unless you actually click on the slide show and go to Sky Album, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. I’m sure that I will include single pictures here and there in future postings, but only if I feel they are deserving. Heh.

If you like, you may go here or here to read the original post about the paper making village visit. I don’t see any point for reposting what happened that day. It was pretty much a we went, we saw, and we left. Paper is paper after all. I will try to get back to regular posting soon. After a week long PAID vacation, teaching is taking more out of me than usual. Hopefully, the weather will get better and Phil will get well so that Phil and I can run off and see what the surrounding areas of Fuyang have to offer before we have to leave prematurely. More on that later.

”

Here’s a nice pano of Fu Chun Tao Yuan. It’s a lake next to a huge cavern. I’ll let Gabe post the cavern pics and what not. Gabe took the pics for this pano. For 120 RMB you get a tour through the cave, get two pictures taken, ride a small train through a cave, play on an old old playground, and go on a bamboo boat ride. I’m gonna make this post short and sweet…

The old old playground is made for adults, too. I’ve found the Chinese adults play just as hard as the kids.

Bamboo is great for a lot of things, but boats??? Well, it worked, kinda  . . . My shoes will dry eventually.

Finally, what do you call being able to slightly converse with an older Chinese woman with a thick Fuyang accent, explain that we’re stuck in the country side looking for a bus, her understand, and wave down a strange looking van/bus immediately to take us back home???

A) God
B) Luck

Both answers are correct.

This information comes from a frequent visitor of mine named Erick. Because China hates me, I couldn’t go to his blog, even through a proxy for a good while, but now that I am not being blocked anymore I can easily visit his blog as well. So take THAT you big, mean evil Golden Shield YOU! So, thank you Erick for giving me a good laugh. A laugh a day keeps the Commies away! Heh. Heh. Sorry, I had to do it. Those wondering about the good laugh can either go here to read it or just let your eyes follow down the page.

We went walking around Fuyang about a week ago just to see what we could find. We strolled through some open markets and walked around some random shops and we found what one in China comes to expect . . . random, mostly useless and cheaply made stuff – at least for the most part that is. Every once in a while, we’d come across something interesting and make a mental reminder to come back for it.

In certain sections of town, it is just a long line of stores full to the brim of scrap metal, random pieces of computers, random opened TV’s with the parts strewn everywhere and so on. Just think of the most crappy Yard or Garage Sale you have ever been to and that is what many streets in Fuyang are like. Seeing this stuff made me realize why all the things back home marked “Made in China” suck so bad. See, the Chinese don’t make crappy things just for us. They make crappy things in general because they don’t feel like spending the extra money to make it a little nicer. Or maybe it is something else, but regardless, you have to be very careful as to what you buy because it may be used, broken, or on a timer as to when it will become useless. Back home there are only certain “Made in China” things you have to be wary of. Here, you have to worry about everything from shoes to anything electronic – including batteries. I have a friend, and fellow blogger, who wrote a funny segment about it. You can find it here. I thought it was funny, but most of the things I read on his blog make me laugh – and that is a good thing Trey, I promise.

But all those things aside, I finally found some postcards after days of going from one store to another asking if anyone had them. It’s a chore looking for things in China when you don’t speak Chinese. Usually I find the Chinese word for what I want in my dictionary that I carry around with me, and point to the word when I get in their shop. If they have it, they take me right to it. If they don’t, I hear the word “mao” which translates into “sorry, no dice”. So, then I say to them – “Zai nar” which translates into “where the hell can I find it then”. Then the pointing begins followed by a slew of Chinese words I don’t understand. I say thank you and head off to the next store to repeat what I just said again.

The postcards were in the very last place I looked because I didn’t think they would have it after I peered in the window. This place was dusty, old, and full of boxes. It looked nothing like it would have back home. I mean, it did have a counter, and people were standing behind it waiting to do their job – but the place looked like it was 20 years old and had never seen a duster. But I figured, what the hell, I want to find postcards, and that means I have to ask everyone – even if it is the shadiest Post Office I have ever seen. Yes, this place was a post office. A China Post to be exact. I walked in and started my shindig. I pulled out my dictionary and pointed the to the word postcard. She looked at me like my hair had just got fire. I kept pointing to it hoping that something would go CLICK in her post office mind. It didn’t. So I flipped to the word buy and pointed to it. She looked at it and started chittering to the girl at the next register. The girl chittered back, but nothing happened. So I pointed to the word buy, flipped back to the word postcard and did that a few more times hoping that those two simple words would somehow make a light bulb go off in her head. More chittering. Then some more. And then some running. The girl at the other register took off behind closed doors and was gone for some time. I guess she had to ransack the place to find them. A few minutes later she came running back out holding 4 bundles, yes, bundles of postcards. I hoped at that moment that she didn’t think I was going to buy all of them. She plopped them down on the counter and chittered some words that I couldn’t understand. I pointed to the postcards and said four(si). I got that famous blank stare for a second and then the great bright light lit behind her eyes. She counted out four, told me how much they were(which was very cheap), and I finally had my postcards. I was a happy woman. It is amazing how something so simple can totally make your day. I skipped all the way home.

Oh, and by the way, the reason there are pigs on all of the postcards is because 2007 is the year of the pig.

***Please do note that none of pinyin has any of the proper accents over them. Shoot me.