Dragon Boat Day

Posted on May 31, 2006 by Meg

(Written on 6/1 but Dragon Boat Day is 5/31 so I’m backdating this)

Once there was a Chinese poet called Qu Yuan (??). Depending on who you ask, Qu Yuan either jumped or fell into a river and drowned, and the Chinese celebrate today as the anniversary of his death. (Maybe he wasn’t a very good poet?) Today is also Dragon Boat Day, a holiday involves which involves racing dragon boats and pushing poets off the boats. Ok, I may have made that part up. I think the races are actually to commemorate Qu Yuan.

I can’t seem to find two people who tell the story the same way, but everyone agrees this is a very important day. I’m actually pretty sad that my headmistress hasn’t included the foreigner teachers in celebrating Chinese holidays, but I’m not sure if that would be intruding. I think I’m biased because Stivison family holidays usually involve at least one friend from far away, like a British exchange student, the entire international student population of Wesleyan University…

Like all Chinese holidays, this one involves eating a lot. Today’s food is zong zi, which is a rice ball wrapped in a leaf. The rice can be filled with red bean, pork, sugar, fruit, fish or anything else you can think up. Instead of eating them, you can also thrown them into a river for the drowned poet.

Also, you’re supposed try to stand an egg on it’s end at exactly noon. If you can do this, you will have a very good year. And you should put a special kind of herb on your front door to protect your home from bad spirits. (I didn’t try either one, didn’t I already ruin my chanced by crying on New Year’s Day? And don’t I already have a good year from fireworks on Lantern Festival?)

Lily and her husband Bag invited me to have dinner with them, so we gorged ourselves at the nighttime food court as an appetizer for our zong zi. I love the night market, you can get such awesome food there! In fact, I think I’m starting to really love cheap Chinese food, it’s only the classy stuff that’s foul. Anything considered a delicacy is totally wasted on me. I had a really good time with Lily and Bag, eating good food, getting the elusive cold beer and just enjoying a summer evening by the beach.

This morning when I left the house, I saw that my neighbors had tucked some leaves into my door to protect me from bad spirits.

Related: Dragon Boat Day two years later in Beijing

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Asking for it

Posted on May 30, 2006 by Meg

Yesterday, I got the worst haircut ever. Really. I’ve cut my hair myself and it came out better than this. I dyed my hair purple and no stage, as it faded back to brown, was as bad as this. I

I asked for a trim and I was really proud of my Chinese when I explained that I wanted layers but the shortest layer must be long enough enough to reach a ponytail. Ok, so I had to do a lot of gesturing for this, with excessive use of ji ge and ni ge. But the hairdresser understood, and she did it!

And then at the end, faster than lightning, she reached over and chopped off my bangs. I don’t want bangs, I didn’t ask for bangs, and even if I wanted bangs, I wouldn’t want goofy feathered bangs. Yantai women love feathered bangs, supershort in front and then little wispy things on the sides.

Meg: I didn’t ask for this!

Hairdresser: Of course not, you don’t have to ask!

So now I look like I got gum stuck in my hair and had to cut it out. Actually, I’ll be wearing a headscarf until it grows back.

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China Blogs

Posted on May 28, 2006 by Meg

John at Sinosplice brilliantly explains one of the fundamental differences between Chinese and lao wei, and gets himself punched. John first won my love with reasons why life in China is like an RPG.

TalkTalkChina, the home of bitter ex-pats (who secretly love China), is talking about the lao wei funk. The lao wei funk is when you don’t want to go home, but you’ve had one too many near-death experiences involving a pedicab, one too many rounds of bargaining down from the stupid-foreigner prices, one too many “HELLO! YOU BUY! HELLO!” There’s even a picture. (edit: TalkTalkChina is gone now.)

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Chinese Harry Potter Again

Posted on May 26, 2006 by Meg

Living in China is making me more and more sympathetic to Harry Potter. He’s just trying to live a normal life and everyone at Hogwarts keeps pointing and shouting “The Choosen One!” or “The Boy Who Lived!”

Except Cho Chang, she shouts “Lao wei!” instead.

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Regarding Franz Ferdinand:

Posted on May 26, 2006 by Meg

Would someone please tell me if “Austro-Hungarian Empire”, “Bosnian assassins”, and “the beginning of World War One” are also bands before my students get any more impromptu history lessons?

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Our Foreigner

Posted on May 25, 2006 by Meg

So the other day I was at the little streetmarket in the alley near my apartment, and I saw crazy little melons I couldn’t recognize. I asked the seller what they are, but my language skills are at a weird place where I can ask “what is this?” but I can’t really understand the answer. I did pick up “very good” and “not cook” so I figured I’d buy one and see how it tasted. The man told meit would cost 18 kwai for one. That’s $2.16 for those who don’t do the conversion instantly. And for those who do, can you give me a quick mental formula for the kilo-to-pounds conversion?

It goes without saying that whenever I’m outside there is a small crowd following me around to discuss my clothes and purchases. Before I could tell the vendor that $2 for a melon is way too high, a women from the lao wei-following crowd jumped in with a paragraph of rapid Chinese. I couldn’t make out much of what she said, because she spoke quickly and with a local accent. And because my Chinese is awful. I did catch “bu” (don’t, not, isn’t, un, no) and “wo men de wai guo ren” (our other-country person), and then the vendor turned to me and offered me a melon for 2 kwai!

I think she was saying “Don’t cheat our foreigner!” but she could just as easily have said “Don’t bother, our foreigner never has any money.”

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Long-Distance Call

Posted on May 24, 2006 by Meg

Last night I realized that pictures of my kids are crowding out my pictures from home. It seemed symbolic and sad that class photos and favorite students are starting to cover my pictures of Stick. Actually, most of my bad-China moments happen when I realize that everyone I love is asleep right now.

I called Stick today as I was waiting to meet my student. “I only have a moment before Helen of Yantai arrives,” I told him. “I just had to tell you that I love you and want to marry you and play MORPGs with you forever. Ok?”

“Is someone honking at you?” Stick asked, probably imagining that my declaration of eternal love was coming from a Chinese intersection.

“Oh yeah. I’m outside my office. It’s just a taxi. Ok, three taxis. And four other cars. And here’s a bus.” I explain this Yantai phenomenon to him and he laughs.

“I’m talking to Meg,” he calls over to his roommate, “And all the cars are honking at her because she’s white!”

“Not because I’m white, specifically. Because I’m not Chinese. Listen, they’re shouting lao wei out the window, too. Can you hear it?”

“They’re actually shouting at you? Right now?” Stick asks, in that happy stage of American disbelief.

“Now and every other time I leave the house.”

“That’s so cool!”

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Ji, what were you thinking?

Posted on May 21, 2006 by Meg

Last week my boss Ji took my class of Demon Children when I went out with Fresca. The Demon Children, and not the homesickness or lack of hot water, brought me closest to going back to the states. I am not qualified to teach nor am I particularly interested in teaching the under-12 crowd, but while my contract promises me work teaching my desired 13-18 range, it doesn’t actually forbid teaching a bizarre assortment of 4 to 11 years olds, whose English level bears no relation to their age. Tim knows all of his colors that start with R and end with ED. Rebecca wants to know if she can play with my daughter when I have one, or if she’ll be old enough to babysit.

Paul repeats everything I say with prefect pronunciation and almost no understanding. I have to say almost because after hearing each classroom instruction repeated back to me, with zero comprehension, I tried to get him to say “I am the very model of a modern major general” but he must have caught on somehow.

But Apple is probably the bane of my Chinese existence. Her hobbies are climbing on the desks, howling, and taking her clothes off. All three at once, if I’m not quick enough. I’ve asked to have her removed from the class, but her father has something to do with business licensing, and this is China. We usually make it through attendance before she attempts bodily harm on one of her classmates and I send her to the office to be someone else’s problem. I feel a little bad for the receptionist, but not bad enough to keep Apple in class.

When I explained to Ji that the little monsters were driving me insane, she told me how easy the small classes are, that I am not trying hard enough, and she offered to teach one lesson and let me observe. Let the record show that the student-inflicted bruises did NOT happen on my watch.

Since then, Ji and I have an armed truce. On occasion, she will ask me how we are progressing though the textbook or she’ll ask what the homework is. When that happens, I remind her of her verbal promise to hire a new teacher and her contractual obligation to provide a bilingual assistant. I make a vocab coloring sheet each week. I praise and encourage the kids who complete it, while I keep the others harmlessly shredding their handouts. If they remember the new words next week, great, but I’m content if they don’t color on their clothes or stick crayons up their noses. [Ok, so a small marker incident happened when I was meant to be teaching, but in my defense, destroying one’s outfit is fast and silent.]

Anyway, these are the monsters Ji got stuck with last week. The words she taught them were, and I quote:

clock
mango
cell phone
flower
pineapple
mirror
eggplant
sweet potato

What? Where did she come up with those? Were they playing I, Spy on Waikiki?

I never laugh at girl students, no matter what they say. It makes them think I’m mocking their English and then they’ll never speak in class again. But in class today, after some surprisingly good behavior, Rebecca was elected class spokeswoman, and after a long nervous lead-in, and she told me they would be very, very good, and could I please not punish them again by sending Ji back again? I practically choked myself trying not to let a giggle out. It was so cute, I almost felt guilty for considering them demons sent from a hell-dimension to drive me insane.

Almost.

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Still Not Over The Staring Thing

Posted on May 21, 2006 by Meg

As Jeff and Fresca both said, mere words cannot describe the constant staring in Kafaqu, but I’m going to try anyway. (Sorry to bore the old China hands.) I can understand it on some level, a foriegn girl playing games in your local net cafe might grab some attention. But what’s with the grocery store stares? Surely it’s not a surprise that Westerners also need to eat.

I’d probably never eat at KFC at home, but sometimes I really want to eat french fries that taste like french fries, and ice cream that’s not flavored with red bean. So I ordered, in understandable if imperfect Chinese, and took my food upstairs to the seating area.

Ok, patrons, you’ve all chosen to eatin a KFC. It’s not that surprising that an American would be eating in the only place which serves Western food. At least swallow your burger before staring opened mouthed, ok? And don’t any of you want to resume your conversations? Oh well, I like to enforce a no-talking-while-Meg-is-eating-Western-food rule, and clearly the entire restaurant wanted to abide by this rule.

Hey Mom, remember that advice you gave me in middle school? I remember a whole speech about how it may feel like everyone is looking at me, but really, they’re all too focused on themselves to really be staring at me? Yeah, I know you remember, I made you repeat it often times. It’s not true, as a point of fact.

By the time I got to my ice cream, the autographs had started. I never know what to write when a preteen girl pushes her glitter pen and English book into my hands and mumbles a request. Best wishes from the American who was trying to eat dinner. I can only assume that the girls know that I’ll be internationally famous soon and they plan to sell their signed textbooks on E-Bay to pay for college. Or they plan to take their books to school tomorrow and show their friends the signature of the lao wei who really does chew and swallow, just like real people.

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Fresca Goes Back To Massachusetts

Posted on May 18, 2006 by Meg

Fresca left yesterday and I’m very sad. I miss her already, especially because without Fresca wandering around naked and singing “If you’re happy and you know it, kick your friend!”, I have developed a lot of antisocial tendencies.

I drink coffee and read every morning, annotating my Chinese history book with crossreferences to Roman customs and notes about life in Yantai. And I write, which I thought was a solitary activity, but actually improves by reading passages aloud. Without Fresca, if I should happen to swear at the complexity of a particular Chinese character, no one will ask if I’ve hurt myself walking into the glass table again.

I’m afraid this is exactly how those guys in Goodbye, Mr. Chips and To Serve Them All My Days started, and soon I’ll trade in my instant coffee for tea from a little caddy. In fact I said this out loud as I drank juice from the bottle because I’m becoming totally antisocial. Perhaps those British academians don’t fall asleep to Harry Potter quite as often as I do, but that’s because they don’t have Fresca to wake them up and send them to bed.

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