While we are on the subject of pets, I want to mention two certain someones I have failed to ever talk about on this little blog of mine. Why has it taken me this long? I don’t know. In the beginning I guess I was too upset. After that I guess I just had other things to talk about and eventually their pictures just got lost in the sea of all the others somewhere on my C drive. I think that is where they are stashed. So, here is there long over due featurette – the short story of my beloved Gloria and Eduardo.

For our National Week vacation in 2006, we decided to go to Shanghai since it was so close and on our to-do-list. I have several posts that mention our week there. You can go here, here, here, or even here to read about them. Even before I got to Shanghai, there was one thing I wanted to do because of something I had seen on ETV right before leaving. On the episode, they talked about all the things you could do in and around Shanghai and also mentioned some of the old traditions still popular.

And that was how I found out that it was possible to buy crickets as pets or as prize fighters. Yes, prize fighters. And yes, when I say crickets, I’m talking about the insect that chirps us through summer and the little guys that you see hopping through your front yard as you try to mow down the mile high grass you let grow far beyond what it should. Well, these are more of the green variety(not the common black ones that we are familiar with), but you understand.

I guess one could compare this act of aggression to dog fighting, except neither one of the cricket dies in the act of fighting. The weakest just gives up and cowers in the corner. This is what the TV show told me anyhow. Somehow or another, this sport became very popular and the crickets also became a symbol of luck for the Chinese.

Now wait, don’t go getting your ahead of yourself. I didn’t want to go buy a cricket to fight. I would never ever want to do that. But, you see, I’ve owned just about every kind of animal you can buy at a local pet shop, but I’ve never been able to buy a cricket, so I had to use this opportunity to add another weird creature to the big ol‘ long list of pets I’ve had during my interesting life. And that is exactly what I did.

After a day or so of being in Shanghai, I met up with fellow blogger, Louise, and she showed me around Shanghai and took me to some cool places that I other wise would have never found. After a fabulous lunch in expat central, where I had my first BLT in what at the time felt like ages, she took me to a pet market where they indeed had crickets as well as half a dozen other creatures for sell.

It wasn’t long until I found what I was looking for. Several vendors had stands set up with individual crickets in clear jars. It was pretty cool to hear so many crickets, with so many different songs, at one time. But man, they were noisy.

You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult picking out a cricket, but it was. I investigated each jar at several of the vendors to make sure I got the best, most healthy cricket. In the end though, it was the cricket that one of the vendors took out of a roll of newspaper and tossed on the table that I decided to buy. After Louise used the Chinese that she knew, which is so much more than mine, I agreed to pay the 30 yuan for the silent green cricket sitting ever so still on the counter. I had hoped that the vendor would have let us bargain, but she/he, I can’t remember now, wouldn’t budge. I paid the 30 yuan anyway and took off with my new cricket in hand.

The only thing my new cricket needed was a name. We talked about it for several minutes. Louise said that she(we decided that it was a she) it needed to be named after a good female artist since she was a natural singer after all. It was Louise who thought of it. And that is how my little cricket got the name Gloria. Louise got me a taxi and off she went in the other direction.

The entire way back to the Koala Youth Hostel where Phil and I were staying, Gloria didn’t make a sound. I figured she was just scared and that she would sing when she was ready. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Phil was still at the hostel because he was sick. I was going to give him Gloria as a part gag gift and a get well even though I knew it would be me taking care of her. When I got there I had Phil try to guess what I had bought him. When he asked if it was a live and I said yes, he looked all worried and said, “You didn’t buy me a cat did you?” He’s allergic.

“No, silly, I bought you a cricket!” I said pulling out Gloria from behind my back.

“A what?”

“A cricket. Meet Gloria.”

And that is when I decided to do something stupid. I decided to take Gloria out of her little jar.

“OWWWW!” I screamed.

“What?” Phil asked.

“She bit me!”

I had no idea that crickets could bite and actually hurt, but man, I found out really quick. Crickets have strong little jaws. It didn’t break the skin or anything. But OW! It hurt! Poor little Gloria got flung across the room. Phil and I spent the next hour holding her and trying to get her used to us so that she wouldn’t try to bite me again. We even fed her. Crickets eat beans that look a lot like Lima beans and come in long fuzzy pods. She must have been starving because she woofed down her bean in no time flat.

Gloria sitting on my arm.

Only once or twice did Gloria try to jump away. Beside that, she sat very still in the palm of my hand. A few times she tried crawling up to my shoulder. It was if she didn’t know how to jump. I guess if I had lived in a rolled up piece of paper all my life, I wouldn’t know how to either. She was a tame cricket. The only tame cricket I had ever seen.

For the next 24 or 48 hours(I can’t recall how long it was now), Gloria didn’t make a sound. I was beginning to think that I had bought a broken cricket. So, to make sure she wasn’t completely broken, I convinced Phil that I wanted to buy her a friend and see if she just needed a companion.

Lucky for us, Phil’s friend and old roommate from college was in Shanghai the same week we were and was able to take us back to the pet market before we had to leave. And that is when we bought our second cricket, Eduardo. I actually got him for cheaper, for some reason, maybe perhaps because he came with his own little jar or maybe he was older or a different type of cricket. Who knows. I think I paid either 10 or 20 yuan for him. It’s been too long to remember exactly. I knew for a fact that he knew how to chirp. I heard him.

It wasn’t more than a few hours of putting the two of them together that the chirping began. It went on and on and on and on and didn’t seem like it would ever stop. Buying two crickets to talk to one another was probably the stupidest thing I could of thought of doing. The rest of the time in Shanghai and for the rest of their short lives- we didn’t get a lot of sleep. I can remember screaming “Shut up” a lot during their lives. It’s amazing how loud they could be.

Taking them back on the train was particularly funny. Before we had got on, I had told Gloria and Edwardo that they had to be quiet as if they could understand me. I didn’t want to get kicked of the train because of bringing crickets on board. To make sure they didn’t chirp I rattled the cages a little bit every once in a while. They were pretty quiet there for the first thirty minutes or so and then they started.

“Shhhh,” I whispered into their cages. “Please be quiet.”

Ah, but it didn’t matter. The other Chinese passengers had heard and now they wanted to see what the laowai had with her. I reluctantly pulled them out of the bag I was carrying them in and placed their little cages on the table. The Chinese ewwwed and awwwed. Some asked how much I paid for them and where I got them. They thought it was really cool, so I no longer feared my crickets being taken away from me.

For the next three months, all was great. I fed Gloria and Eduardo their beans, gave them little treats I had picked up in Shanghai, and gave them fresh water every day. When we would have parties, I would take out Gloria and make her the smash hit of the party. She would sit in the small of my fist and make her rounds like a good cricket. Everyone thought I was crazy to have a cricket as pet, but they all wanted to hold her just the same.

Toward the end of the three months, I could tell they were getting old. They weren’t chirping as loud or as long. Their songs weren’t as vibrant as when I first got them. I knew that they wouldn’t be with me much longer.

One morning, late in December, Phil and I got up a little early because we wanted to go to Longmen Village, an old Chinese city built in the Ming dynasty. The night before, there was a party held at our place – I forget the occasion. It was probably someones birthday or something like that. I had done my normal thing and carried Gloria around introducing her to all the guests. All seemed normal at the time. But when I got up that morning and went into her room, I could tell something was wrong. She was laying a little on her side and there was a little blood on the paper towel lining the bottom of her cage. When I picked her up I knew immediately that she was dying. She bit me. Not nearly as hard as the first time three months ago, but enough to get my attention. She was scared and confused. She didn’t know who I was.

I spent the next two hours letting her sit on my hand and I’ll admit it, I cried. I know that she was just a cricket, but I still felt helpless that I couldn’t help her fell better. So, I let her sit out in the sun with two little beans beside her and put on a collection of music for her to listen to. I made sure that it would continue playing no matter how late we got back from Longmen Village.

When we got back, she was lifeless. She was dead. I cried some more.

A day later, Eduardo died too. I like to think that he died of a broken heart.

With both of their bodies in a box, we carried them over to a pretty park with lots of trees behind the high school. It was a pretty park, and mostly quiet due to few people walking through it. The park was hilly, if not a little mountainous for Fuyang, so we found the highest peak, Phil dug the hole, and then we put both of them in together.

I said farewell to Gloria and Eduardo and cried all the way back home.

I never thought I would be able to say this, but I was the proud owner of the sweetest, cutest, crickets, a person could ever have. I often think of them when I’m falling asleep at night and can here their cousins chirp me to sleep. I’ll probably never think or see crickets the same way again. Go ahead and think me crazy if you wish, but I can’t help loving all animals and insects. It’s just who I am.

I miss them.

Alas, you’ve found the hall of Chinese panoramas…
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***Click on the image once, then click again and drag it around.

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.

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.

Ah, a home.

Things that make us super happy.

1. Xiamen is beautiful.
2. The weather is great. (Feels like I am back home.)
3. Our apartment is wonderful. It is probably the best one we have had since coming to China.
4. The school is clean, new, and only a hop jump and a skip away from our front door.
5. The staff is very welcoming and kind.
6. We actually have students to teach, even if there are only 4 or so.
7. Did I mention that Xiamen is beautiful?

I think we are really going to like this place, at least right up until the typhoon comes and washes us away. Heh. : )

I’ve got tons of things to post, and I will get them up soon. Promise. I just have work to do now. Imagine that. It’s been awhile since I’ve been a teacher. I haven’t worked since January 15th or so. It’s going to take time getting used to the whole “I am a teacher” bit again, but I do know that I will enjoy this much better than Fuyang’s Yong Xing Middle School. That is for damn sure.

Here are some more pictures of our little excursion down to Hong Kong.

Smoke Scene.

Now before I go any further, I want to say that the smoke in the above picture is not my smoke. The picture is not even mine. It all belongs to Tim, our fellow American friend, who taught with us in Fuyang and is now teaching in Jinhua. He didn’t mean for this effect to happen. He just happened to puffing away when he snapped the picture. When the smoke got in the way of the flash it was illuminated. I think it gave the picture artistic flare. The buildings in the background are of course just a few of the many giants Hong Kong has hovering over the bustling population.

Remind you of game? Think of red and black checker board full of holes and sits up right.

Here is another picture belonging to Tim. He always takes the coolest pictures; makes me jealous. My camera is hit and miss. Sometimes is takes a good picture and some time it doesn’t. My camera has a hard time dealing with light. A lot of the time my pictures come out to dark or too bright. I can’t seem to win in anything it seems. Picture taking or children games. Does this particular building make you think of an old game that maybe you used to play? As soon as we came across it in Hong Kong, the first thing that came into my mind was that checker game that came out a long time ago called Connect Four. It would have been really awesome if I could have climbed on top of that building and played a game with someone. Those checkers would have been freaking HUGE! But regardless of how big they would have been, I would have still lost. I don’t think I have ever won a game of Connect Four. After playing and losing a dozen games against the computer in the past few minutes, I know that this is still the case. Heh.

It’s Connect Four. Like the lottery in South Carolina – I can’t seem to win.

I tried taking pictures of the lit up buildings as I walked past them because some of them were pretty amazing. If my camera liked taking night pictures better and could deal with all of the flickering “Vegas” lights, more than this one would have come out. Like most of my China pictures, my little Kodak camera just doesn’t do the lights justice. I don’t think any camera or picture could. There is always so much more to the picture than it shows you. I just wish my memory could always stay as fresh as the day I experience something. I hate how memories fade.

Everyone needs a pet dragon. Wouldn’t you agree?

Once again, this is not my picture. It belongs to Tim. This has been one of the few dragon heads that I have seen since coming to China. I haven’t seen any of the dancing dragons that you see plastered all over the TV as a symbol of Asian culture. I wonder what part of China I have to go to see one? Maybe there is a festival where they have them. We found this dragon in the middle of Hong Kong Park. When we first came across it, there were a lot of people crowding around it and we couldn’t figure out why. Then we saw the drum sitting out beside the dragon. Everyone was waiting there turn in a unorganized line to beat on a few times. I waited my turn behind a little girl.

Random lit up street in Hong Kong.

I think the above picture is pretty much self-explanatory. It’s a street, it’s dark, and all of the lights are on. I took the picture because I liked all the neon and the Chinese characters. And I guess that’s that. We are still waiting to get Internet in our apartment. When we do, I’ll start posting about Shenyang. These just happened to be the only pictures I uploaded before we left Beijing – the city that would never let us go. I think I may rename the capital of China, Black Hole, for it sure as heck acted like one for several days. Sometimes I think I am still dreaming and that I will wake up to find myself still sleeping in my Er Wai(Beijing International Studies University) bed. Although, if this is a dream, this is one realistic dream.

This picture may have been taken a long time ago(back during the days of Fuyang), but I think it shows exactly how I feel after all the crap that has happened in trying to get to Shenyang.Phil calls it “Power Gabe”.

I call it “I’m going to eat your soul.”

Either way, I now think you have a full understanding of my frustration.

All I’ve got to say is that my students better be extra nice to me or else I’m going to turn into that teacher from Fairly Odd Parents and start handing out F’s in pure pleasure. I wish I could find a better picture of Mr. Crocker, but I think this demonstrates his insanity and what could be mine.

This particular post was supposed to be put on here a long time ago, but for some reason it got saved as a draft and stayed like that for a few months. The picture above was taken from the top of the never ending staircase that we had to climb on a daily basis. Read on.

Compared to that of the normal middle class Chinese household, I live in the lap of luxury. It’s not my home back in the States that I am referring to(that’s quiet another lap of luxury all together), but instead, the apartment I live in now, here in China. Even though my apartment is fairly simple by American standards, it far surpasses what you can expect to find of the homes in and around Fuyang.

I only really come to realize this when I visit the homes of friends or students. It’s only then that I truly understand what I have and what others don’t because for the most part I’m in my own little comfort zone. I’m either in my nice warm apartment, relaxing and watching movies at school, or staying in nice hostels as Phil and I travel. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of how things were before I came over. Even then I had a grasp of how poor the poor really were, but being here and seeing it is different than one can really expect.

There are many well-to-do families in Fuyang and Hangzhou – I’ve seen their homes too – but a great many of the families have only a shell of what I live in. I’ve got hard wood floors. In some homes, a slab of pavement decorated with a rug may be the only thing in most homes. I’ve got a nice hot shower/sauna while many others just have a spout sticking out of the wall – if they’re lucky. Some just get a basin and wash cloth.

The basin in the above picture is exactly that and a little more. All of the people that live in the building across the way from us wash their clothes and dishes there. They even use it to bath. Yes, out in the open for everyone to see. They aren’t naked or anything. They wear as little as possible, wet their wash cloth and wash as best they can. And they do it with out complaint.

That’s enough preaching for one day though. I guess you just have to come here to understand.

We’ve made it to Hangzhou in one piece, but it wasn’t easy. Of course, nothing in China is easy. And I mean nothing.

Our trip began by carrying 6 pieces of rather heavy luggage down six flights of stairs. We each took a piece down one flight at a time. Even though it was cold enough to see my breath, by the time we were done I was hot enough to take off all of my winter clothes. After catching our breathes at the foot of the stairs and waving goodbye to our lovely abode, we began dragging all of our suitcases to the front gates of the school. We ran into some Chinese folk on the way. In Chinese, they asked us where we were going. I think they were a bit surprised by how much crap we had with us. We left our stuff at the gate so that we could go give our key and gym pass(which we never used – hence why I am a fatty now) to Mr. Zhou. He wasn’t there and the entire English office was asleep. We had to poke Peter, Mr. Zhou’s man servant, and give him our stuff. He looked completely out of it and I think that he may have forgotten how to speak English there for a moment.

Once that was done, we pulled our suitcases up the only hill in Fuyang and down the other side. We didn’t have to wait long for a taxi. It was a bit of a chore getting all of our stuff in the taxi, but we somehow managed. Two in the trunk. Two in the back seat. And our backpacks on our lap. We’ve both gotten pretty good at saying how to get to the bus station that takes us to Hangzhou, so that wasn’t a problem. There is almost always a bus there. It is a popular route, so we more or less jumped right on. At first Phil thought that he had left all of his money at home, and that gave me a heart attack, but he found it. Thankfully.

The hard part began when we actually got to Hangzhou.

It didn’t take us too long to find a taxi. We flagged one down and he asked where we were going. I showed him the address, but he didn’t seem to know where it was. He called a few people, but still didn’t seem to know. I tried telling him that I knew where it was and that I could direct him. He understood a little of what I said, but it didn’t look like we were getting anywhere. Phil tried putting two of our suitcases in the trunk, but only one would fit. The taxi driver already had something back there. So, we then tried putting it in the back seat. That didn’t make him happy. Phil threw one of mine back there anyway and shut the door. For some reason, the guy didn’t want to take us both even though we could have fit everything in like we did in our last taxi. I let the taxi driver look at the card one last time and gave it to Phil. It seemed that we were going to have to separate to get to where we needed to be. I got in the front seat, closed the door, and off we were. A part of me thought that the taxi driver was trying to kidnap me and had been playing dumb the entire time just to get me alone. Thankfully, that was not the case. He did manage to get me to the PSB. When I got all of my stuff out of the taxi, I made sure to look at my watch. If Phil wasn’t there in the next 15 mintues – I was going to flip out. It wasn’t too long before another taxi showed up and Phil appeared. Whew.

I grabbed the receipts that we had gotten a week before and ran up to the second floor of the PSB while Phil watched the luggage. I got in line at one place, but was soon directed to another line. I went to that line, and was told something in Chinese I didn’t understand. The girl in line next to me said that she told me to wait for a minute. So I did. A few minutes passed, but nothing happened. I waved my receipts again to get someones attention, and was told to take a seat – that someone would call my name. My first thought was, ” These people don’t even know my name!!” I sat down anyway. A few minutes passed, and then a few more, and finally I couldn’t take the fact that 50 other Chinese people had gotten in line and received their documents. I marched back up to the counter and demanded that I get our passports. The lady didn’t say a whole bunch, but when she got done stapling some weird papers together – she ripped the papers out of my hand and stalked off. Not even 5 seconds later she had both passports in hand, told me how much they cost, I paid and out the door I went. It was so frustrating that it took that long to get something that simple.

We had to get another taxi to get to our hostel for the night. I flagged down maybe 5 or 6 taxis and they each told me “no” they wouldn’t take me. There was no way we could roll our stuff there. By this point, I just wanted to scream. It was cold, drizzling, and I was hungry. More taxis went by, and none would agree to take us. Phil flagged one down, and even though the guy was confused on where we wanted to go – he let us put all of our stuff in his taxi. We made it to the hostel, as you can tell since you are reading this. We were so happy that we tipped the taxi driver and said thank you about 100 times.

If only that was the end of the story, but it isn’t. We got a room on the 3rd floor and there was no elevator. We were lucky, though. There was this little Chinese girl that insisted on helping us take it up stairs. We told her we could do it, but she still insisted. With all of our powers combined, we got everything to our room. I gave the gril10 RMB even though she probably deserved more. I just didn’t have any other small bills on me. She said thank you, and off she went.

For dinner we went to Pizza Hut and had dessert at TCBY. It was yummy. Ever so yummy. After that we came home(hostel) and crashed.

The real humdinger will be later today when we go to the train station. As long as they let us take all of our stuff on board, it shouldn’t be a problem. But like I said before. Nothing in China is easy. Nothing. At least if all goes semi-well, I will have 13 hours to calm down before we hit the next leg of our journey . . . Beijing.

– G