Safety + Chinglish = ha ha ha

Ancient Eco-friendly Chinese Courtyard

Cooking with Fire

Night Street Vendor

If you wake up on the floor of a random bathroom, and you see a trashcan with a strainer attached to it, odds are you are in China.

I don’t feel like writing, so I’ll just post pictures instead.  Here’s to making it 365 days in a row.

Bring Your Baby Bike to Work Day

I should have mine revoked.  I absolutely suck at this.  I used to be so good at it, too.  What has happened to me?  Ugg, I don’t know.

Phil’s parents are visiting for the first time.  It’s been interesting to say the least.   The weather has been sorta sucky.  Cold and rainy.  The fireworks on Sunday should be impressive.  It will be an experience for them for sure.  I don’t know why, but I feel that the fireworks this year will be even more insane because it is the year of the dragon.  I guess we will find out.

One of these days, I will renew my blog license.  I just don’t know when it will be.  I’ve lost my blog voice.  All of the interesting things I see don’t motivate me like they used to.  Maybe that means I need to move on and find a new muse.  If only I knew where to go.

Life, it’s so complicated.

In other news, I am working on getting my novella published.  I can promise you that if and when that happens, I will write all about it.  Also, I am working on my first sci-fi piece.   I’ve enjoyed writing it, but I find it more difficult.  There is an art to sci-fi, and I am still trying to figure that out.

Well, back to my world.  Take care.

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

Got your tissue?  Okay, keep reading.

Dear Ms. Gabriell Olexa:

You teach us English that is greatly appreciated !

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

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

All of us love you !

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

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

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

Our best regards to you and your husband !

(sing all of our names)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_P-Mzxjh6M[/youtube]

And here is my video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DVqs4jrOvk[/youtube]

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