An American in America

September 1^st, 2011.

It’s been exactly six weeks since I got home.  This last week was a bit strange for me; my facebook feed filled with farewells from friends (I like alliteration today, apparently) headed back to China. They’re starting their second year now. I could be too, if I wanted to, but instead I’m here.

‘Here,’ at the moment, is my parents’ house, and ‘here’ will likely remain my parents’ house until January or so. When I got home, my plans for this fall were unclear. My friend and I had planned to live in Virginia together, but unfortunately the housing didn’t work out, which left me with a choice to make. I looked into heading up to DC, and I thought about spending this whole year in Berkeley, but ultimately I realized that what I really wanted, more than anything, was family time. For the last six years, I’ve seen my parents and sisters about once a semester, and after I begin grad school, there’s no telling where I’ll be or how often I’ll be able to get home. So I’m here now, and, for the most part, glad of it.

Of course, I’m still processing China. Not a day, or an hour, I think, goes by without me thinking about my students, my TFC friends, my old Heqing stomping grounds. I wonder what Pengtun is like now and how much it will have changed by the time I see it again. And yes, sometimes I wish I was still there. But mostly I don’t. Mostly I just find myself grateful for the time I spent and for the time I’m spending here.

Here is singing in a choir again, meeting my Dad for coffee, going to the gym with my Mom, going shopping with my sister, cooking for everyone. Here is bike rides, like the ones in China but longer and far less beautiful but somehow still deeply satisfying. Here is scrapbooking a year’s incredible experience, studying econ so I can take the foreign service test, keeping up with Mandarin. Here is still unemployed (for now), but here is a research project at the museum, volunteering as a Hebrew School teacher and musician at the synagogue, helping with an interfaith youth group my sister’s a part of.

It would be pretty great if I could say that all my pre-Yunnan inhibitions and social awkwardness were vanquished by a year where I was always out of my comfort zone and got used to it, but alas, I fear that my constant exposure to risk in China made me crave even more comfort than usual. I think that’ll change though. Ultimately, I think that, although I am an American in America, I’m also an American in flux. I don’t have both feet on the ground quite yet. And, for now at least, I’m ok with waiting. I’m ok with taking time to figure things out. Yunnan taught me nothing if not patience.

So, this is it. The last entry. However, I do intend to start posting on my food blog soon. So, for anyone who’s interested: Em Bakes. I’ve been cooking up a storm down here in Georgia. Stay tuned, folks. And thanks for listening. Your constant support, through email and skype and comments and facebook and everywhere, meant the world to me.

Over and out. 

Home Again

I live in paradise.

No, really, I do.

So many little things make life so very lovely. I can take showers any time I want to, and they’re always hot. If I wake up in the middle of the night and find myself thirsty, I can go get cold, clean water (and ice!) from the fridge in the kitchen. Actually, I’m guzzling water these days, because hydrating is so much simpler and going to the bathroom no longer necessitates getting dressed, walking outside for 2-4 minutes, and chancing the possibility of sharing with a dozen tweens. Indeed, there is a bathroom right next to my bedroom.

When I’m not marveling over the wonders of hygiene I’m marveling over the wonders of food. Y’know what’s good? Cheese. And cookies. And chocolate chips. And frozen yogurt. And milk. And non-instant coffee. And non-Chinese bread. And…

I’ll admit that I miss the mountains. In Pengtun I lived in a beautiful neighborhood but not the most beautiful house. Here it’s the opposite. I have hardwood floors and walls that aren’t white. I find myself surrounded by the wonderfully familiar—the desk dresser in my room that I’ve had since I was a child (Seriously. There are Wishbone stickers on them), embarrassing pictures in the hallway of my sisters and me as little girls, coffee tables and dining tables and sofas and chairs that I know so well.

Aside from the mountains, and the lack of fresh tofu (I bought some earlier this week, in its typical plastic packaging, and found it so comparatively spongy and tasteless—still perfectly serviceable but no longer yummy before being cooked) I don’t miss China yet. I will, I know, but a week ago I hadn’t even arrived in Chicago, so I’m still in utopia.

My last few days in China were mostly quite nice. Two of my students came to the bus station to see me off, and Yiming and I traveled together to Kunming. We got in at 6 AM, and, as neither of us had places we had to be, opted for breakfast at KFC, because there’s a decent bathroom there and they’re often open 24 hours. We sat and talked for quite awhile, Pengtun already in the past tense for us both, neither of us really wanting our fellowship to truly end. But we parted ways. I got on my first plane in quite awhile and whisked my way up to Beijing, then eventually grabbed a train to Tianjin. The reentry into urban life was jarring, but, at the same time, I found myself far better equipped to handle this jaunt through Beijing than the one I endured my first night back in China last July. I had a better idea where I was going and was far more capable of asking directions.



My friends’ wedding in Tianjin was super fun. I got to meet both the bride’s and groom’s families and explore a city I’d never been to before. I was so happy to be able to spend time with my friends, whom I know only from Georgia, in their home. Plus, we stayed in an amazing hotel. Seriously, I jumped for joy when I got to my room.

After two days in Tianjin, I had two in Beijing. I traded my 5-star experience for my typical hostel, which was unfortunately not nearly so charming as many of the hostels I enjoyed in Yunnan and southeast Asia. Still, it was a really great location, a short walk from Tiananmen, and I spent most of my time just strolling around, exploring neighborhoods both near and far from the hostel. The new subway lines are amazing—you can get to so many places so very quickly and easily. When I studied abroad, subway service was far more limited. Since I’d already lived in Beijing during study abroad, I didn’t feel a need to go back to the city’s main tourist attractions, but I took a morning to go out to the Olympic Village, even forking over 25 RMB to enter the Bird’s Nest. It’s an awfully cool stadium.



The other highlight of my trip was a dinner out with a good friend from study abroad whom I’d not seen in over three years. The experience reminded me of just how lucky I am to have so many friends in so many places around the world.

Before I knew it, I was on a plane in Beijing, then wandering through O’Hare—staring awkwardly every time I saw a non-Asian person—and munching a bran muffin from Starbucks. The sound of English in my ears threw me off even as I relished in its simplicity. I called my parents from my American cell phone, which felt strange to hold after the cheap Chinese cell I’d used for the past year.

The flight to Atlanta seemed like nothing after the 14-hour stretch over the Pacific, and I was doing so very well in speaking only English to everybody. But then, when we were disembarking the plane, an older Asian gentleman gestured for me to go first. Out popped a “xiexie—thank you. Oh.” I hope he didn’t hear me.

Unexpected Wanderings

(This is a chronologically out of order post that I started writing before my school departure post but didn’t get a chance to finish until just now, sitting at the Beijing airport. But enjoy!)

Around June the 30th, we the teachers of Pengtun Middle School were informed of a 9-day break, from July 3rd-11th, coinciding with the administration of the high school entry exam for the ninth graders and some sort of test for the eighth graders.

Had it been earlier in the year, I would have chilled, gone somewhere for a few days, and chilled/prepped some more. However, the combination of just how soon I’m moving back to the States and just how much I’m trying to keep myself busy instead of staring at my computer led to me going happily for broke.

So it was that, after taking Saturday to relax and grade, I bussed out on Sunday with a couple changes of clothes, showering supplies, school stuff, my journal, and a novel.

First stop was Dali, where I wandered up the now-familiar stone sidewalk from the parking lot on the DaLi Lu up into the touristy clutches of the old town. It was strange. I hadn’t been to Dali since mid-May, at which point there were tourists but not that that many. Early July was a very different story, and more than just feeling a little surprised I felt a little uncomfortable. I didn’t know how best to interact with all the white faces, which set of manners to use. Hearing American English from sources other than Colin, Mark, Arianne, and Hallie threw me off.

Luckily, the German Bakery remained the German Bakery, and I plopped down at a table with a slice of raspberry cake crowned with real whipped cream and fresh berries. It was a quick trip. Less than a couple of hours after arriving I dashed off again, this time into the city of Xiaguan, Dali’s modern counterpart.

I met up with Mark, Arianne, and Arianne’s mother (who’s visiting China for a couple of months), and we got rooms in a hotel near the bus station in preparation for the morning’s journey.

The first leg of our journey, from Xiaguan to Yunxian, was a bus ride we’d actually taken once before, going the other direction, on our way back from the English Teachers’ conference in Lincang. I thought then that I’d never be in Yunxian again, but so it went. The awesome thing about Yunxian is that it is possessed of a most excellent handcut noodles shop, and, as our bus got in around noon, we got to indulge.

It’s a small world in rural China, because as we sat chewing our delicious lunch, who should walk in but Laura, on her way down to Lincang. After sharing pleased hugs, she joined our table, and we walked together to the bus station, where we got to see Kristen and Sean before all three of them jumped onto their bus. I’m super grateful for the random rendezvous, because I didn’t think I was going to get to see those two ladies again before heading back to the states.
The ride from Yunxian to Gengma was a pretty one, southern Yunnan revealing itself in flowing, rich greens—sprawling plant-life filling almost every non-sky inch of space beyond the road. The mountains rose, it seemed, taller than they are up here, although Heqing itself is at a higher elevation than Lincang.

Gengma itself, unfortunately, didn’t exactly impress.

There’s this thing with Chinese cities of a certain size—namely that they’re all organized in a very, very similar fashion. It’s the sidewalks that really get me; they’re all paved in exactly the same way. Yellow dotted tiles, guides for the blind, run down the center of every single sidewalk. Gengma was pretty to walk about, with palm trees and very warm weather, but it was the fields I found, when I wandered to the very back of the town and kept going, that made me happiest. I traipsed, largely ignoring the confused glances of the farmers, although I did get into one conversation with a local who told me that Pu’er Tea (which can be really expensive and generally considered good quality) was not at all good and that I should only drink the stuff from Gengma. We did, in fact, buy a whole lot of really nice smelling, really cheap tea.


Cangyuan, where we went the following afternoon, was not too much more exciting. Because it’s only six or so miles from the Burmese border, we expected a city steeped in Burmese style food and culture. Instead, we found a mostly Chinese place with a few Burmese accents. Certainly there were little things that were different from my part of Yunnan, but on the whole it was in every way a Chinese city. So we wandered, wilting in the heat but pleased by the mountains surrounding, eventually finding ourselves in a grocery store where we purchased ridiculous Chinese sweets with the intention of making ourselves a 4th of July “cake” later. This did not happen but was nonetheless fun.

In the morning, we hiked. Hiked, in this instance, ought to be taken as as loose an interpretation of the word as may be, for by “hike” what I actually mean is bushwack, and by “bushwack” what I actually mean is a pleasant enough trudging through a farmer’s hillside corn fields, followed by not at all pleasant crawling up a muddy slope towards a pine forest. It was really pretty, to be sure, and we enjoyed wandering through the woods.
However, when it was time to get back down to the road again, we basically ended up sliding down a severe slope and ending up covered in mud. It was very exciting indeed. A couple locals strolling alone stopped to watch and pronounced us incredibly badass (as the term 厉害 would perhaps be best translated).

The next day, Mark and Arianne went back to school, but Arianne’s mother, Jean, and I went on up to Shangrila (thus named by the Chinese), a Tibetan area of Yunnan. I hadn’t really experienced any Tibetan culture since my brief but powerful trip to Lhasa in 2007, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. In fact, I was a bit nervous that, because this is more or less a designated tourist spot, the government would have made it a little Tibetan theme park.However, while there were certainly kitchy touches, on the whole it was easy to see a core of organic Tibetan culture. Monks walked the streets, there was a large, active monastery, and the villages just outside the town were entirely different from those in Heqing and reminded me really strongly of the ones I’d seen in Tibet itself. While it was a short trip, it was so relaxing, and I’m really glad I was able to go. I also bought a small yak wool blanket for myself, woven with Tibetan motifs, that makes me really happy.


By the time I got back to school, almost a week after I’d left, I felt incredibly alive and rejuvenated and more than ready to jump into my last week of class.



(I think the sleepy baby yaks helped)

Moral Ambiguity

Sometimes I think about what would happen if you put last July’s Emily Cohen and me into the same room. I’m the same person, if hopefully a little more mature and a little wiser and with a few more life skills, but there are things about me that have most definitely changed. There are stances I’ve taken and things that I’ve done that last summer’s me would never have considered. Some are rather ridiculous, like the fact that I, Emily Cohen, now wear eye-liner and lip gloss almost daily (nobody is more shocked than I, I assure you) so that my kids will think of me as a little older and thus take me more seriously. I also bake, knowingly, with bleached flour. Some are stupid and dangerous, like biking on mountain roads without a helmet (sorry, mom!), because bike helmets just don’t really exist in China, and perhaps not washing all my veggies as meticulously as I might. And some continue to make me wrestle, resigned but not content.

I remember so clearly during the very first week training reading an essay by one of Pengtun’s former fellows about corporal punishment in the classroom. He wrote eloquently about his personal moral struggle with how to handle behavior problems in a system that prizes physical over all other forms of discipline. He decided that he would bring students to the lead teacher and to the principal, where they would almost certainly be hit. Reading the essay, I remember understanding his logic and respecting his decision but firmly convinced that I would never, under any circumstances, make a similar call.

I have. I have on not just one or two but on a number of occasions. I’ve brought kids to the lead teacher. I’ve brought kids to the principal. I have grabbed kids by their upper arms and collars to make them stand up. I have collected lighters and knives by using pressure points. I’m not proud of any of this, but I’ve learned this year that there are times when, to a certain degree, it can be necessary to bend one’s personal ethics in order to better mold to and positively impact one’s environment. I know, I know, that sounds really bad, and where are the boundaries? Does allowing my kids to be hit this year mean that I’ll make the same decision regarding my own children in 10 years, or that if I end up teaching in the States I’ll wish I was allowed to strike my students?

I don’t think so. I remember conversations at the Minneapolis public school where I worked where teachers lamented phone calls to parents, because they knew that reports of bad behavior at school would result in hitting at home. Nonetheless, at school, there was no hitting. At school, there were other punishments, a system that maxed out with expulsion rather than slapping. There were also reward systems, a relatively new concept for my students. This year, I’ve implemented an extensive rewards system that’s been largely effective for my good kids but hasn’t succeeded in curbing bad behavior. For that, as it was with the teachers at my old school, I’ve needed punishments.

Since September, I’ve tried a plethora of American-style discipline techniques, ranging from seat changing to lectures to holding students back after class to texting parents to extra homework to sharing treats with only well-behaved students to kicking students out of the classroom into the cold in the middle of winter (I lived in Minnesota for five years. Yunnan cold is not cold). Some have been vetoed by the administration of my school, others by the lead teacher, leaving me with few options and even fewer that I’m capable of enforcing without help. Calling on this help risks corporal punishment for my impish students; not calling on it risks an utterly chaotic classroom for my engaged and dedicated students. I’ve come to the difficult decision that the latter is worse.

These kids have been hit by their teachers since they were in first grade—swats on the legs and top of the head for not paying attention, strikes on the hands for incomplete homework, being dragged by the ear or hair from classroom to office for bad behavior. Hitting is technically illegal, and hence it isn’t regulated. Although I’ve never witnessed this, I’ve heard stories of students slapped across the face, thrown to the floor, hit so hard they dropped out of school. My poorly-behaved students do not take my ‘lighter’ punishments seriously. If I were their only teacher I would probably have more success, but the 1-4 hours of the school day that are left in my care aren’t enough to mitigate the other 10-13 spent with hitting teachers.

I will never hit my students. I’m actually, according to CEI, not allowed to hit my students. I will, however, continue to bring my kids to teachers who take reports of bad behavior as cause for physical punishment. I have moral qualms with this, but I have deeper moral qualms with the notion of a few badly-behaved children keeping the other 40 from being a part of a classroom conducive to study. My students are products of their school environment, an environment that, unlike school environments in most of the United States, includes hitting. I don’t like it, but like so many other parts of rural education in China, I’ll work with it.

On Meat

I am a vegetarian, and, in the states, a fairly strict one. I engage some amount of “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it comes to broths in restaurants and at friends’ houses, and will sometimes pick around meat if it’s in big, avoidable chunks, but when I cook for myself it’s all veggie, all the time. In China I’m quite a bit looser. Although I still won’t eat straight up meat unless I think I’m in a position where refusing to do so would be quite rude, I’ll eat out of very meat-heavy dishes and order things with meat in them. My reasons for being a vegetarian range from health to environmental to ethical to just plain having lost the desire to swallow a steak, but I’ll say this: If I were only a vegetarian because of the way animals are treated, and, eventually, slaughtered back home, I’d be eating chicken in China .

A couple weeks ago, Malijun and I arrived early at a restaurant where we were going to have lunch with the rest of our team and some local teachers. After ordering enough to feed a small army (as is often the custom when we eat with anyone outside of our 4-person group), we headed to our table. A few minutes later, the owner’s small son (I’d guess he’s 7 or 8) wandered by, looking rather bored and holding a very alive and rustling chicken by its foot. The chicken, it would seem, outwitted the child, because a moment later we saw him chasing a running fowl. Eventually, feet beat out talons. I didn’t see the chicken’s throat slit, but by the time the owner was partway through draining its very fresh blood onto the cement floor of the courtyard, I had tuned back in. The chicken twitched a good bit, even after the owner dropped it to the floor and went to fetch a bucket of boiling water.

I found myself simultaneously repulsed and entranced as the owner dunked the still-twitching carcass into the bucket, sloshing it around like a rag, feathers growing heavy and grey. He plunked it down and plucked it—gloveless, as he had been since the beginning—a damp pile of fluff growing beside him. With a sharp knife, to took off the head and feet. Malijun, watching beside me, had long ago decided just how disgusting this whole thing was, but I found myself amazed. I wasn’t happy the chicken had just died, but the notion that this animal, alive five minutes earlier, would be gracing a plate five minutes later, made me just so very happy. This was exactly the way, I exclaimed to a rather grossed out co-worker, that meat should be consumed! But then, in China, or at least in rural China, that simply is the way meat is consumed. And it makes so much sense.

I’m a vegetarian. The idea of eating chicken grosses me out. But, if it didn’t, I’d be all over this stuff. Fish…perhaps not as much, as the preferred method of fish killing in these parts would seem to be throwing it from the tank to the ground and stomping on it. This sometimes results in fish flopping about for some time while cooks try to stomp properly. It can take 5 or 6 or 10 attempts. Oh…rural China.

Fire, Water, and Food Poisoning

Fire
Mark said if he had my students he’d quit. I know my kids aren’t as bad as some of the ones in Lincang, but they’ve been getting worse lately. Last weekend Nate tried to shove his way into my room to get a cell phone I’d taken from him, yesterday Miguel reached into my bag to try and take back a jacket I’d grabbed, and on Monday there were flames in my classroom, courtesy of Harry. I’m not sure what he set on fire, but I screamed at him about it for quite some time.

I see metaphorical fire a lot these days. These kiddies really know how to push my buttons, and when I’m trying to do things, like, y’know, get them ready for what is sure to be a very difficult final, I don’t appreciate needing to take so much time for classroom discipline.

Last week, I almost caught my blanket on fire. It was touching my space heater, and I didn’t realize until it started to smell like something burning, and I realized it had a nice big brown spot on it. Oops.

Water
I got a new bucket. It’s a beautiful thing, lightweight and with a sturdy handle, large enough to hold a lot of liquid without being so big I struggle like a small child trying to fill a sandcastle moat when I lug it from the taps to my room upstairs.

With this bucket, I only have to fetch water once a day or even once every other day. My big water bucket, the one that lives in my room and holds at least 5 gallons, has been fuller than usual of late (although not tonight, as the water taps seem to have been shut off). The first time I used my new bucket, I was able to fill my big bucket almost to the brim, and I felt giddy—rich. I never thought I’d feel that way about a bucket of water, but when my big bucket’s full I feel at complete liberty to do laundry, wash my dishes with as much water as I’d like, wash my hair and face, and make tons of tea. When it’s not so full, I’m far more careful.

There’s almost always some form of water available, and, when boiled, everything’s safe, but the other day when I got water from one of the taps that links up directly to the lake (instead of one of the two that come from the spring), it was tan and included chunks of stuff. So, safe perhaps, but when I’m not on a camping trip I don’t really wanna drink it. A couple months ago I wouldn’t have. Now I just boil it and do anyway, looking forward to the return of spring water to my life.

From the time I was small I’ve known that water is a finite resource, but I never saw it quite so clearly until now, when it doesn’t come from a faucet in my room, when every time I need it I have to go get it from somewhere. Granted, I’m not going to a well or anything like that—there are still taps where I can draw it—but it’s not quite as eternally present, and it’s not nearly as convenient.

I never drink cold beverages here. Maybe once every two weeks I end up buying a bottle of water, but the rest of the time it’s tea, tea, and more tea (and occasionally hot chocolate, thanks to my American packages). I also drink a lot less than I do at home, something I’m working to rectify. I’ve realized that I’m getting dehydrated, but I also don’t at all appreciate going to the bathroom in the cold.


Food Poisoning

“你要牛奶吗？” (Do you want milk?) Malijun asked in an upbeat tone.

I stared at her, and, not even bothering to use Chinese, replied, “Oh God no.”

It’d been a rough 12 hours. The day before that exchange I noticed during my afternoon workout that whenever I had to be on my stomach I felt kinda gross, but I thought it was just because I’d had a snack not too long previously and should have waited longer before exercising. However, I didn’t eat anything after about 4:00, and at 9:30 I was feeling tired enough that I went to bed. An hour and a half later, I was puking my guts out for the first time in recent memory.

After a very rough night on both ends, I got up the following morning hoping to feel well enough to teach, but I barely made it from my bed to my couch (all of three steps) before collapsing onto it. I knew I needed to go tell my banzhuren (lead teacher) that I wouldn’t be able to do my 9 o’clock class, but the prospect of changing into jeans was just too daunting. I stuck my feet into my flats and prayed that one of the other three CEIers would be around and could walk over to the academic building for me. Malijun came to the rescue, and I went back to bed.

Several hours later I stepped out of my room into the winter sun, feeling much better indeed. I still hadn’t eaten anything, but I’d been sipping on lukewarm tea, napping on and off. Malijun, who happened to be outside as well, said I looked like me again, which I took to be a good sign. I told her I was feeling much better than I had been earlier, even though I didn’t feel ready to eat yet. That’s when she offered the milk, which is apparently considered a good “sick” food in China and which made me want to vomit again. I told her that in the States you usually drink lukewarm beverages, especially clear sodas like sprite and ginger ale (the latter, alas, a great rarity in Heqing), when you feel stomach gross. It was an enlightening conversation for us both, I think, made more so when she offered me an orange. Again, not something I wanted to try to digest. Cultural differences really do amaze.

Twas the Season: Christmas Week (and New Year’s) in Yunnan

Well, I’ve passed through my first Christmas away from home and my first New Year out of the country. Monday began our week and three days of review, which will be followed by finals, followed by a bus ride to Kunming and a plane ride to Bangkok. Chinese semesters are long (we started class August 29th, I believe), and it hasn’t sunk in that I only have a week with my kids before not seeing them for over a month, but I’m really looking forward to the break.

Story Time:

Christmas Apples (or, Give your Teachers Elaborately Wrapped Fruit Week)
Yunnan celebrates Christmas in its own way. Jesus has nothing to do with it, but there’s a general feeling that late December is a time to be happy and give gifts. Two weeks ago, on a venture into town, I saw a four or five-foot-tall Santa Claus figurine, in front of which were laid out many apples, ribbons, and plastic wrapping paper of various prints. This was my introduction to “Christmas Apples,” three of which showed up on my desk over the following week. Apparently, these apples are not meant to be eaten, but I thought they were tasty. Well, I thought the one I ate was tasty. Two of them are still in their wrappings, serving as coffee table centerpieces. Gift giving centers far more around Chinese New Year than it does on Christmas here, so it was sweet of my kids to share with me.

A Very Dali Christmas
Early on Christmas Eve morning, the five Heqing American fellows set off for Dali, intending to renew our visas on the way. Unfortunately, it turned out the procedure for getting visas had changed, and thus we spent an hour or so hanging around the lobby of the Dali police bureau, watching as about 30-40 Nepalese folks (we eventually caught a look at one of their passports) tried to get their visas straightened out. It was really quite exciting. Also chilly. Marble floors are not much more conducive to warmth than my concrete one. After settling into our hostel (The Hump-- the same one where we had the Thanksgiving meal), we set off for an afternoon of yummy food and coffee, chatting, and waiting for the rest of the kids to arrive. While the Heqing crowd, including our lovely Chinese fellows, had been planning on Christmas in Dali since November, it was lovely indeed to find out that we’d be joined by a large number of the Lincang folks!

Later in the afternoon, as a bunch of us sat in the hostel’s courtyard, a man in a Santa suit came running in and exclaimed that it was time for the gingerbread decorating contest. Obviously, we didn’t take much convincing, and so we made our way up the stairs to a table laden with pre-assembled but homemade gingerbread houses, icing of various colors, and fun toppings. So we spooned icing all over roofs and walls, as more and more CEI fellows trickled in. Eventually the Heqingers split off for dinner and Secret Santa gift exchanges, followed by impromptu caroling.

Then it was time to go out. Little did we realize we’d be entering a spray foam Warzone.

So there’s this stuff in China called “Flying Snow” and the best way I can think to describe it is projectile, foamy shaving cream. It comes in aerosol cans, but it squirts out like silly string and can get a lot of distance. We saw people selling it in the street upon our arrival, but none of us thought much of it until the battle erupted after dark. Nobody was safe, and no part of anybody was safe. The unspoken embargo on shooting things at one’s face and in one’s eyes usually honored during most activities of this sort was rather…not in place, nor was the notion of “unarmed combatants” being granted safe passage. It was chaos and made every one of us want to spend as little time outside as possible.

Christmas itself was lovely, beginning with French Toast at one of the cafes in town and continuing with some nice strolling and shopping, a 3 minute phone call from my parents, bike riding through villages, a buffet dinner at the hostel with rebaked potatoes and HUMMUS (among other treats), hot chocolate with Bailey’s, and a hilarious white elephant gift exchange. Each fellow was allowed to spend 15 kuai (about $2.50) and gifts included a snickers bar from the states, a slingshot, a crossbow complete with rubber-tipped arrows, a half eaten package of peeps, and....a live trout—quickly named Sullivan, and then, well, barbequed. I did not partake.

Sunday was marked by more delicious food (this time courtesy of the German bakery), a Walmart run mostly in order to stock up on peanut butter and grab some free weights, and a pleasant enough trip home. It wasn’t American Christmas, but, still, no complaints.

Pig Killings
It’s杀猪season in Heqing. In other words, this is the time of year when lots of nice plump pigs meet their doom and are made into sausage and organ sauce and all number of other…delectable…entities. Apparently, the tradition is to have dried pig’s meat for Chinese New Year’s, which necessitates killing the pigs right around now. Of course, when families kill their swine, there must be parties. Last Tuesday I was coerced into attending my first. When Yiming and I arrived at elementary school, the principal informed us that there was to be a pig killing right after class and that we were both invited. I wasn’t really sure what to expect and was a bit nervous that an about-to-no-longer-be-alive pig would greet me, but as it turned out the pig was 24 hours dead and the party was much like most others I’ve attended here: meat-heavy dishes, drinking men, and chatting. So far I’ve not been invited to any more pig killings, but some fellows have attended quite a number, so who knows?

Walking back from the Pig Killing to school, Yiming and I took the route by the lake and rice paddies (now largely a mix of shallow pools and grazing ground). I hadn’t been out that way for awhile and was really struck by its beauty. Even in what’s probably the least green part of the year, there’s so much to admire. Skies are incredibly blue, seemingly untouched by China’s pollution. The mountains capture sunlight dawn to dusk, time told by the earth’s tone shifting from black to brown to gold and black once more. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I feel so privileged to experience and live this place so many will never see.

New Years Eve, American Style (sorta)
Over the last month or so, we Heqing fellows have been trying to hang out more on the weekends. We’re all close enough to one another that we really have no excuse (aside from straight up laziness). Thus, last Friday, Hallie and Arianne came up here for a New Year’s Eve party of sorts. I’d made peppermint brownies—among my more successful rice cooker endeavors—and we hung out and chatted with YiMing and Malijun while I put together snack foods Western and not in the form of scallion pancakes and chocolate chip pancakes (with Ghirardelli double chocolate chips courtesy of Hallie’s mom. Most excellent). As eleven o’clock neared, Malijun and Yiming both announced their intention to sleep, but we would have none of it.

“In America it’s a tradition to stay up until midnight,” we explained, and, with enough badgering, we got the two to stick it out.

A few minutes before midnight, all six of us stole from our rooms to the school gate and into the street. We could hear echoes and see flashes from fireworks in Heqing, but mostly it was quiet and still—a moonless night that painted stars all the brighter.

Together, we lay on our backs by the statue in front of the lake, chilly but not cold cement tingling beneath us. After five years in Minneapolis, and three within range of New York City lights before that, I’d almost forgotten what it is to have stars—many of them—be a constant part of the night. Here, you see not only the brightest spots in the sky but under layers, stretching back into depths of darkest blue.

It was a calm New Year’s. No champagne, no poppers, not even any screaming or cheering. Just sky gazing side by side, catching a glimpse of a shooting star once or twice, marveling at the world.

In Thanks

I am very easily excited and very easily annoyed. I squeak a lot and I gripe a lot. I especially gripe a lot here. It’s all too easy for me to forget just how hard I worked to get this job and how not only nervous but how super excited I was to cross the Pacific.

But today is Thanksgiving. I’m eating my dinner of mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, and quasi-stuffing made with celery, onions, and mushrooms picked up from the market earlier this week and bread I “baked” this afternoon. Today marks four years (more or less) since I became a vegetarian. Thank you, Annika and Dakota.

Cliché as it is, and to force myself to think positive instead of griping, I’m going to write, in no particular order, about some of what I find myself thankful for these days. Prepare for some sappy sincerity.

Emily’s Thanks
I’m thankful for my room. Cold as it gets, and as uninviting as concrete floors are, it’s really nice to have a place to retreat to—a place where I know I can be myself instead of the American teacher. Plus, my room has a couch, and a desk, and a place for me to cook, so it isn’t only a bedroom. I’d add a bathroom, a better view, and a carpet if I had my way, but as things stand I still feel quite lucky to have the space I do.

I’m thankful for my co-workers—especially Mark. Life here is a challenge, and the four of us might not be the best of friends, but if I’m having a bad day, I can hash it out with Mark, and if I’m confused about what was just said in a faculty meeting, Ma LiJun and YiMing are always willing to help out. Although Ma LiJun hasn’t really opened up much in the four months I’ve known her, I’m getting to know YiMing better, and I’d call Mark a friend.

I’m thankful for the market in Heqing. I hit up this place about once a week, and it’s awesome. Fruits and veggies, fresh tofu and rice noodles, eggs and obscene amounts of ginger and garlic…. You can get almost anything, and almost everything’s cheap. I love walking through the aisles, picking out food, going back to the vendors I’ve become something of a regular with.

I’m thankful for job security and financial security. So yeah, I earn a salary that makes my AmeriCorps stipend look quite hefty, but that money goes far here, and I don’t have to pay rent. I’ll probably have to dig into my American account for my New Year travels, but when it comes to the day-to-day stuff I really just don’t have to worry about anything. Also, barring some kind of disaster, my job’s not going anywhere. There are still a whole lotta people back home (and here in China) who can’t say that.

I’m thankful for Dali. I’ve headed down there about once a month since arriving in Heqing, and it’s always a breath of fresh air. Western food, shops, other non-Yunnanese people…. When Mark and I went down over the weekend, we openly acknowledged that we were basically taking a three-hour bus trip just to go to a coffee shop. That kinda café/coffee shoppy vibe that’s so common in so many American spots (even Fountain City in Columbus, GA) just isn’t to be found in Heqing. I swear, when I get back to the States, I’m gonna shuttle between kitchens and coffee shops for like a month. If you don’t know where I am, just go to the nearest kitchen or coffee shop and that’s where I’ll be. When I switch planes in O’Hare or wherever—Starbucks. Right away. Scoff if you like, but I’m tellin’ you…. In the meantime, Thank God for Dali.

I’m thankful for my computer and the internet. Superficial though a computer might seem, this thing is my lifeline. It connects me to skype and gmail and my blog, the NY Times (and its crossword puzzles) and Minnesota Public Radio. It lets me know what’s happening with all the people and places I care about back home. I’m not trying to be at all funny when I say that I don’t know how people used to do it. I really don’t know how people managed to travel abroad and be away from loved ones before email. Skype is an awesome bonus, and I love it, but email’s pretty much a non-negotiable. Beyond the net, this is the place where I have all of my pictures, music, and writing. Not to mention my kids’ grades.

Speaking of my kids, I’m thankful for them. That’s not to say they don’t drive me absolutely nuts (see previous post), but ultimately, they’re my reason for being here. They’re the ones who are changing my worldview and keeping me humble. Often, I feel most energized in the classroom. Of course, often, I feel most exhausted in the classroom too, but so it goes.

This getting super sappy now, but I gotta write it, so bear with me. I’m thankful to be an American. Yes, start up the patriotic music and wave those flags, but it’s true. I suppose it would be much more accurate to say that I’m thankful to be a middle class, college-educated American. Being here has hammered in for me in a way that nothing else in my life has just how lucky I am. Rural China is very different even from Beijing and other major Chinese cities. There are so, so many things that aren’t part of my existance here that I took completely for granted back home. Here are just a few. Last year, my housemates and I kept the heat around 62°F and thought we were roughing it. This year, there is no indoor heating. I’ll have a space heater for my room, but in the classroom, if it’s freezing outside, it’s gonna be freezing inside. (If you think I’m exaggerating, you might be interested to know that the two long walls of my rectangular room are all windows.) I’ve already talked about the bathroom situation. Also, diversity. America definitely has its race/religion/sexuality/class issues, but at least they’re, in many cases, acknowledged. Here, people are unabashedly ignorant of other kinds of folks. I’ve written before that it’s impossible for me, as a Caucasian women, to be anonymous. That was even true in parts of Beijing, although of course to a lesser degree than it's true here. While there are certainly places in the States where diversity doesn’t happen, it’s mostly a part of life. Now, I know the US has its downsides, and I’m not trying to sugarcoat those, but overall it’s a darn good place to live compared to much of the rest of the world. I knew that before. I really know it now.

I’m thankful I’m homesick, or, more accurately, I’m thankful that I have so much to miss—that my life in the States is so full of people and places and things that I love and don’t like being separated from. I have some amazing family and friends and I’ve lived in some wonderful places. When I start feeling too sorry for myself, I think about the many, many refugees in the Twin Cities and how they might never be able to return to the familiar homes and cultures they’ve left, and how, even if it were possible, they might not want to.

Along the same lines, I’m so thankful for everyone’s support. The emails I’ve gotten and the skype/gmail chats I’m had are what keep me smiling during my roughest times.

Finally, I’m thankful for you. Yes, you, whoever you are, whether you know me or not. As I’ve said, I get lonely here, and my blog is one of my best ways of connecting with people outside rural China. It means so much to me that people read it and come along with me for this crazy ride.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

"Who Needs a Master Key When You Have a Good Snap Kick?" and Other Stories

Here is what I’m wearing right now:

Sweatpants, a T-shirt, a knock-off North Face fleece, heavy socks, excellently absurd slippers with blue cows on them, a relatively thick hat, and freshly-knit wrist warmers (made with my first ever bought-in-China yarn).

Did I mention that living in a concrete box can get kinda cold?

We’ve come to the point in the year where, outside, sunny weather quite often means pleasant conditions and cloudy weather quite often means misery. Unfortunately, even with the curtains open, not much warmth trickles indoors. Hence my evening attire being what it is. Don’t worry; there are still layers to be added, but having been Minnesota-trained for the last five winters, I know better than to throw them all on at once the moment it gets chilly. I haven’t turned on my space heater yet (I’m aiming for post-Thanksgiving), and I have fleece PJs awaiting me.

So it’s been a good long while since my last post, mostly because my weekends have been busier than usual, and weekends are usually when I get my blogging in. But this weekend is apparently five days long and will be followed by a marathon nine days of class. Excited I am not, because we found out about our vacation a grand hour before it started, and hence there wasn’t exactly time to plan for travel. We’re probably heading to Dali for a couple days. Most of the other places of note within three hours of us are too chilly ‘til the spring, and we don’t fancy a long trip to somewhere like Kunming, because we had two ten hour bus trips last weekend (more on that in a moment). I shudder to think of how I will feel on Friday December 3^rd, after going from the night before Thanksgiving (weeks always begin with the evening class) without a day off. But what can you do?

Anyway, here are some stories of good, bad, and just plain random times in rural Yunnan.

Gate Crashers

One Saturday morning, Hallie and Arianne thought it’d be nice to ride their bikes up to the spring near our school and hang out. Mark and I, being only twenty or so minutes away, walked over to meet them. Upon arrival, Mark and I looked around for our American friends and were instead greeted by a chorus of “Good Morning, Ms. Emily!” from a gaggle of girls.

“Are those mine or yours?” I asked Mark, puzzled. He didn’t know whose students they were either, and as we drew closer it turned out the answer was neither. These were eighth graders from the area’s top middle school, and they knew who we were because they had already thrust birth

day cake and lollipops onto Hallie and Arianne. Before we had time to utter more than a “Oh, you don’t have to give us cake!” the two of us received the same treats.

The next hour or so was mostly consumed by slightly successful attempted conversation with the girls, followed by a hugely successful silly string fight (during which Arianne was pretty well walloped), followed by the washing of hair, in the spring, to remove said silly string.

Reunion

Last weekend, the reason we had two 10-hour bus trips in three days was because of this year’s first Professional Development Conference. All fifty-whatever CEI fellows congregated for about a day and a half of discussions and trainings aimed to help us work better in and out of the classroom. Since all but three of the CEI schools are in Lincang, rather than Heqing, we Heqingers got to/had to make the trek back down. That part wasn’t so bad. We got two mini van-sized cars to take us all and spent most of the time chatting and sleeping and occasionally playing word games. The conference itself was more useful than I thought it would be. There was some annoying bureaucracy involved, as always, but some of the discussions about class planning and classroom management and integration into school life were genuinely helpful.

More importantly, it was awesome to connect with everyone again after almost three months apart. Our situations are alike in that we’re all dealing with challenged populations, and the American fellows all have some sort of language barrier, but of course every school and every team of fellows is different, and the casual chats/rants about individual schools were great. I was also able to start probing into people’s plans for our month off in January and might—fingers crossed—be putting some things into motion. Details to come when I’ve got ‘em.

On the somber side, being with everyone really hammered in for me how much I wish I was closer to other folks. I like this place, but the 6-10 hour distance from other places stinks. Case in point: if I weren’t 6-10 hours away from everyone, guess where I’d go visit this weekend?

Who Needs a Master Key When You Have a Good Snap Kick?

This story is actually super old news, but I forgot to write about it and it’s way too good to not share.

Sometime in October, I left my room with a key-shaped lump in my pocket, pulled my door closed, went to the bathroom, and traipsed back up to my room only to find that the lump was, in fact, a wadded up post-it. Oops.

Not really sure what to do, I was lucky to immediately run across the teacher who lives next door to me coming up the stairs. She got the maintenance guy. Prepping my very best “不好意思” (I’m sorry/Oh, I’m so embarrassed) face, I got ready to thank him profusely for walking up here to unlock my door. Thus, I was puzzled when, rather than taking out a master key, or a set of keys, he started examining my (very much closed and locked) window. At this point, I was beginning to suspect that there was, in fact, no master key, and that the only two keys to my room were both inside. How this could possibly be the case made no sense to me, as in the city you can find key copying people on many a street corner, and copies cost 2-3 kuai a piece.

Anyway, at that point another teacher arrived, and Ma LiJun came out to help me translate. Her services were swiftly rendered unnecessary as the other teacher’s foot engaged in the cross-cultural language of kicking—kick

ing out my lock, that is. The maintenance guy then spent an hour replacing and installing a new one. Of course, they had all the parts necessary to replace a whole lock. The next time I went into the city, I got copies made, so I now have my own “master key” in the form of four keys—one to carry around, one spare in my room, and two in Mark and Ma LiJun’s rooms. And I still have an awesome footprint on my door.

My Kids are Crazy!

This is less an anecdote than an ongoing saga, but these last few weeks have been particularly notable behavior-wise. Heqing students are, generally speaking, closer to sane than some of their Lincang-ian counterparts. I have never had a student set a desk or his/her own hair on fire in the classroom, and I’ve never caught a student coming to class drunk. At other CEI schools, this has in fact happened. But the Pengtun kids are, on the whole, the least cooperative of the three Heqing schools, and hence we’ve got our own issues. Mostly, these issues arise in the form of talking—lots and lots of talking. Then there’s cheating—lots and lots of cheating. On their Unit 5 test a week ago, I caught no fewer than ten students talking or cheating. Not fun.

The problem is that these kids are very much used to being hit, and I will neither hit them myself nor send them to be disciplined by teachers who will hit them. Thus, my own discipline system needs to replace the fear of being hit with a wooden stick with the fear (or hope of) something else. I’ve tried to make this work through carrots like free time and candy and games, and metaphorical sticks like holding the class back for ten minutes just before lunch so they’re last in line, giving out extra homework, and making particularly naughty kids stand just outside the classroom in 40°F weather for an hour and attend class through the window. Unfortunately, nothing’s come to work properly just yet, and now some of my least cooperative students have a new trick: crawling out of the window as soon as class ends. Mark’s having a similar issue, so we’re planning on switching off being “window guard” for the other.

Anyway, I’ve talked discipline tips with other CEI fellows and my parents, but if anybody else has tips on how to handle the velociraptors (as one of last year’s fellows so aptly titled them) I would love to know.

Mandatory Fun

“Tonight at five we’ll go out for dinner with all the teachers. Does that work?” The smiling elementary school principal stands before YiMing and me; it only takes one glance for us CEI fellows to know we’re on the same page. We went out with the elementary teachers two weeks ago. It wasn’t as awkward as it might have been, but Tuesday evenings are the first time I have to chill after a very busy 24 hours, and I don’t want to give it up again.

“Oh, please excuse me, but I have a Chinese lesson this afternoon.” I don’t mention the time (3-4), hoping this will suffice as an excuse.

“Oh, then how about six?” Still smiling, the principal overlooks our clearly uncomfortable expressions. It’s YiMing’s turn, and he launches into a short apology/explanation of how busy we both are. No luck. The principal replies with the decent point that we’ll have to take time to cook and eat dinner for ourselves if we don’t go out with her and the other teachers. This is true enough, but what Peng Xiaozhang doesn’t get is that, for me, cooking is stress relief; dinner in Chinese with Chinese elementary school teachers I’ve just met is not so much.

It’s time for YiMing and me to switch to the secret language: English. Looking at my notebook as though checking my class time, I ask YiMing, “Do we really have to go? I’m already having lunch with Mark and our mentor teachers. If it’s important for social reasons, we can, but do you think we need to?”

Not too happily, YiMing says that we probably do need to show up for at least a little while. Mandatory fun. Again. So, wanting this over earlier rather than later, I ‘discover’ that my lesson is actually from 3-4, making a five o’clock dinner date just dandy.

Fast forward to five, and there we are. There’s a table with teachers, but it’s hard to tell, aside from the principal, who works for Pengtun Elementary School and who’s from other places. It was this way last time too, and I’m honestly not sure if I’ve seen any of these folks before. Still, everybody’s friendly, and there’s quickly tea to be had and bowls to be filled. The principal knows that I’m a vegetarian, which alleviates some of the inevitable awkwardness, at least until she holds up a ladleful of chicken bits and says “Don’t be afraid. Eat a little chicken.”

YiMing, forever courteous, jumps to my defense. We both exclaim (very politely and with, on my part, many many smiles) that I’m not afraid of meat. It’s just not my custom to eat it. That covers things until somebody tries to put a fish in my bowl, at which point I must explain that my aversion to meat extends to sea life—or lake life, as the case happens to be. I live in a locavore’s paradise, and I appreciate that a great deal when it comes to produce and tofu, but it doesn’t mean I’m any happier about eating things that used to walk or crawl or swim.

Not to be deterred by dietary restrictions, the teachers continue to serve us. There are little potato sticks, tofu (which did not look like tofu to me--not sure how it was cooked) and green onions, tomato and egg, mushrooms, some veggie I don't recognize but am pretty sure I've had before, and a bunch of unidentifiable meaty things. I get full pretty quickly, and, perhaps because I’m a girl or perhaps because I’m an American, the locals eventually stop dumping things into bowl. YiMing, a skinny, Chinese man, is not so fortunate. Long after the teachers have mostly given up on hoisting more food upon me (trying everything from “You should try this; it’s delicious” to “Oh, you’re going to lose weight”—a lie, by the way, as I’ve gained weight here) they continue to fill YiMing’s bowl to the brim. He eats what he can. What else can he do? This is traditional Chinese hospitality. They mean well, they want us to feel welcome, and if instead of welcome we feel like stressed out oompa loompas that’s just too bad.

Conversation moves well enough. I tune out some of it, following what I can, until the topic inevitably turns to me. Namely, praising me. They compliment my Chinese and my supposed youthful looks, they tell me that my fifth grade students all like me and think I’m beautiful, etc. It’s very kind, but I still haven’t quite worked out the art of responding to such things, as even “thank you” can be considered conceited after awhile. Still, I try to reply in kind. Eventually, YiMing opens the escape hatch.

“Oh Emily, your extra class,” he reminds me. There’s no such class, of course, but not for nothing did I take acting classes for half my life. Looking at my watch, I apologize profusely, and, repeatedly but sweetly declining offers of an escort for the three-minute walk home, steal away to the comfort of my room and the lesson planning that awaits me.

October Fading

This morning, I spent two hours 监考ing (proctoring) as my students sat for their English mid-term. This is the reason I haven’t really posted for the last two weeks, that I’ve not replied to as many emails as I ought to have, that I’ve been even more of a sugar fiend than usual. Two weeks ago was when we found out about this thing. We knew there'd be a mid-term, but we didn't know when. Thus, instead of teaching class at a normal pace, Mark and I spent two weeks absolutely scrambling to cram four lessons into a very, very short time. It was tense and annoying and meant extra classes (sometimes twice a day). My exam papers are currently sitting on my desk, awaiting my red pen, and I’m scared to even begin to look. The crowning jewel of this whole situation? Wednesday night, as I was running an extra class before our two-hour evening study, Mark walked into my classroom and informed me that he’d just been told the mid-term only covered lessons 1-4—not, as we’d thought, 1-6. At least it was before class, so I could plan an on-the-spot review session instead of shoveling more of lesson six down my students’ throats.

I’ve proctored my students’ 40-45 minute tests a few times since the beginning of the year, but this is the first time I’ve been in an all-day testing zone since last year. Elizabeth Hall International Elementary takes state testing very, very seriously. It’s a Title I school, and there’s always concern about not making AYP. Last spring, I spent four mornings sitting in the hallway outside the 3^rd-5^th grade hallway, listening to the eerie sound of silence (believe me, if you spent any time in this school you’d understand) and reading a book. I’d traded my normal tutor/mentor hat for that of monitor, assisting any teacher who opened his or her classroom door with a question or request. On the last of these four mornings, I noticed that I had a missed call and voicemail from a number that was in a really weird format. Figuring it wouldn’t hurt, I listened to the message, and uttered a miniscule squeak as I heard my CEI admissions offer. My co-worker, another hall monitor who’d been downstairs for a minute, came back up, and I hissed “I got it!” at him. Then I proceeded to bounce in my seat until such time as it was permissible to go back into the office and squeak for real.

Anyway, things have continued to be much better around here than they were before. Although I know it could always come back, I’d say that I’m officially out of my funk, which is a relief. I’ve still got life issues (like the sugar thing…. I’m pretty sure I’ve gained some weight and so I need to seriously cut back) and classroom issues (like constant chatter and my three kids who haven’t turned in homework since I can remember) and homesick issues (man, Minnesota autumn, how I miss you), but ultimately I feel more settled here and more content.

Now I have a few stories to share:

Learning How to Take a Compliment

So, this Monday all the seventh graders had to take an English test. I did not write this test, nor was I able to see a copy prior to the administering of the test, so I really didn’t know what to expect. After the test was over, the seventh grade English teachers all sat down to grade. There were several excellent questions, but this one definitely takes the cake. Mark and I were cracking up (probably not very nice, since the other teachers were there, but seriously….)

“Your watch is very nice.” A) No, it isn’t. B) Yes. C) Thank you.

No, no, China. Thank you. And thank you local teachers for not running the questions by, y’know, the native speakers in your midst.

Giving Locals a Taste of Their Own Medicine

I’m normally very nice about people staring at me and saying hello, but a couple weeks ago I was in the city, having embarked upon a wild goose chase to collect my parents’ package from the states. I had to find two post offices and try to explain my situation, and ultimately it wasn’t at either of them. (It’s arrived since—more on that in a bit.) As I was walking back across town to catch the bus home, I saw a group of what looked to be high school students clumped on the sidewalk ahead of me. As expected, they stared and giggled and a few pointed. I expected the customary “Hello” followed by even more giggles, but instead what I got was “Oh, 老外！老外！”

Laowai, or “old outsider,” is a very common term for foreigners in China, and I hear it a lot. Usually I don’t pay it much notice beyond, perhaps, a small smile, but these kids kept saying it over and over, whispering at first among themselves and then repeating more loudly as I grew closer. Finally I’d had it, and I replied. “老外？啊，中国人！怎么办？！？”(“Foreigner? Oh, Chinese people! What am I going to do?”) They just kinda stared in shock after that, and I continued along my way.

Now, like I said, I normally don’t get annoyed with locals’ fascination with me, but I guess I get annoyed when people assume I don’t understand anything that’s being said. I might not be able to follow a whole conversation, especially when said conversation is conducted in a dialogue other than Mandarin (an extremely common occurrence, here in the Bai region), but I understand key words. If I didn’t have at least some knowledge of how to speak Chinese, there’s really no way I could survive here. I’d be fine in Beijing or Shanghai, or even in Dali or Lijiang, probably, but you can’t live three kilometers from Heqing and expect to be able to do things like eat and get in and out of town without a half-decent Chinese level.

A Taste of Home

The elusive aforementioned package, when it eventually arrived, came not to the post office but to the school itself. This was very exciting, because it meant I didn’t have to carry it from town back home. Packages from the States are freakin’ expensive. My parents filled one of those large flat rate boxes, and it was fifty-five bucks. Needless to say, I don’t expect too many to come my way. Not wanting this to be a Christmas Morning-like experience of bunches of new stuff all at once followed by the “Oh, there’s nothing left under the tree” moment, I decided to make this package last. Hence, I’ve been taking out one goodie a day, and, since most of said goodies are relatively small, I’ve been able to do this for over two weeks. I have three things left, and I’m pretty sure they’re oregano, a book, and a box of tea. But we shall see.

So far I’ve taken out a book, a cami, a sweater, a pair of socks, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, TWO containers of dried basil, cocoa powder (powdered gold, more like), stain stick, pictures I forgot to pack when I left, a CD from a dear friend that I can’t listen to ‘til December because it’s Christmas music, a card from my Mom that now lives on the ledge beside my bed, two boxes of Yogi tea, and some Shabbat candles along with my candlesticks. I got a little teary when I pulled those out. I’d missed my candlesticks, but I didn’t think to ask for them when I made my list. They live under my coffee table now, except on Friday nights (like this one), when they live on top of my coffee table and, burning brightly, remind me of people and places that I love.

I also got my first written correspondence—a postcard from the Grand Canyon, via Richmond, VA. It lives on my bedside table and makes me very happy indeed. Now that I know where both the Heqing post offices are, I need to write about a half dozen letters. Email’s awesome, and I honestly don’t know how I’d deal without it, but seeing people’s handwriting is awfully amazing.

A Halloween Huodong (Activity)

So every month the Heqing fellows get a 600 kuai budget for a fellow-organized activity. A different school’s in charge each month, and this one’s ours. Due to the fact that this gathering will be occurring tomorrow, we decided to go with a Halloween-like theme. I am quite excited indeed. Fellows from the other two schools will arrive in the mid-Afternoon and we’ll go on a walk or something around the area. Then we’re going to eat dinner, and then we’re going to have some excellent hangout time. This hangout time will include much chocolate cake, made by me tomorrow morning. This is great, because it lets me bake without feeling guilty for a) eating way too much, or b) spending money on baking supplies and then giving away everything I bake to other people. Right now, I’ve got like 60-70 kuai’s worth of Dove bars sitting in my kitchen. I’m going to try a chocolate layer cake with some sort of chocolate icing/glaze, made with neither butter nor powdered sugar. We'll see how it goes I’m also going to do an apple crisp demonstration/class after dinner tomorrow, so that other fellows might learn how to make this very easy stove-top dish in the comfort of their own homes. And YiMing, who’s currently in Dali, is buying candy so we can sorta go trick-or-treating. It should be fun for Chinese and American fellows alike. Now I just need a costume….

Social Times

YiMing’s birthday was on the 21^st. He’s 27 now, making him almost four years older than me and ten years and a day older than my youngest sister. We took him out for dinner, and then later that night I made a cinnamon apple cake and we threw him a quasi-surprise party. This party resulted in all four Pengtun fellows sitting in Ma LiJun’s room, attacking my cake with a spoon, since we didn’t have proper plates, drinking relatively icky red wine that Ma LiJun enjoys, and just…chilling. The next night, we did the same thing (minus the cake and wine and plus tea). The second night, Yi Ming and Mark played chess while Ma LiJun looked at a book and I knit, all four of us chatting a bit, when suddenly we heard giggles and turned to see students peaking in through the slightly ajar door. Clearly they wanted to know all about the scandalous Friday night activities of these four young teachers, but somehow I doubt they came away with much of a story. Anyway, I wouldn’t go so far as to call our hangout a breakthrough, since it’s not like we’ve done this a thousand times since, but it was definitely a start, and I’m grateful.

Saturday Night on my Couch

It’s 9:01 PM, and I’m scrounging around for something—anything, really—to do. Today was our “Friday,” and thus my day began with a test for my kids and a bunch of grading for me. They did much, much better on this one than the last one; I wish I could believe it was all because of my teaching and their studying, but I suspect there’s cheating involved. I only caught one today, after all, and I normally get three or four. Anyway, that, and a meeting I marginally understood concerning teaching English at the elementary school, comprised my morning. For lunch, I had four more of my students to my room. This was the second group I tried, and, man, they were worse than the first. Getting them to talk was painfully awkward in every imaginable way. Longest forty-five minutes ever. I’m still glad I’m doing this, just so my kids can see me out of the classroom and look at random pictures of my family and stuff, but I need to get them to respond to my questions with more than the bare minimum.

The afternoon was also mostly class prep. Grading tests for me means doing a fair amount of data analysis. I always want to know how my kids are doing, as individuals and as a class, compared to their last test. Plus I’m trying to get their overall grades to date figured out, which means accounting for missing assignments and whatnot. Excel and I are becoming pals.

Anyway, since my four students left after lunch, the most exciting thing I’ve done is make chocolate chunk zucchini bread for dinner. Now, don’t get me wrong—chocolate chunk zucchini bread is exciting, especially when it comes out of the rice cooker in one relatively-attractive-looking round instead of in delicious but messy chunks—but it just feels like something’s missing here. I spend a whole lotta time alone, and I am getting lonelier day by day.

I really am an introvert/extrovert cusp. It’s easy for me to be overwhelmed by social situations, but I also notice their absence in a major way. During the STP, I sometimes found myself wanting nothing more than to have a few hours to myself, but now I’ve been pushed to the opposite extreme. I spend most of my time here alone. I teach with my kids, of course, and I attend faculty meetings on Mondays. I usually speak with my CEI coworkers at least once a day, and we go out for dinner a couple times a week. Mark and I have nice post-night class conversations on a regular basis. My coworkers really are very good coworkers. They’re all three of them responsible, smart people. However, we’re still working on the “friend” side of things. And that’s the problem.

I need friends. Going from Minneapolis, where I lived with two of my best friends from college (one being my boyfriend) and had a number of others within close reach, to rural China is, well, a bit of a shock to my social system. I assumed, naively I suppose, that a magical bond would form between me and my three fellow CEI folks and that we would find ourselves hanging out and tackling this world together. However, my coworkers keep to themselves quite a bit. I don’t blame them—to each his own—but it means that I don’t feel entirely comfortable going and knocking on their doors every time I’m bored. We have had a lot of fun times together, and I am trying to entice them into group activities that don’t just involve food, but it’s definitely a process.

So what about getting closer to the local teachers? Well, two issues there. One, of course, is language. When it comes to my Chinese, I get awfully frustrated awfully easily, and spending extended periods of time attempting to communicate with somebody I can’t understand at all is just not my idea of fun. In fact, it usually makes me want to cry. I’m quite friendly with the teachers, but our relationships at this point largely consist of such heartfelt conversations as “Are you going to teach?” “Yes, I am. Did you just teach?” “Yes, I did.” Add a shower of smiles and nodding and you get the idea. I expect that as the year continues, and I start to break through the cipher that is the Heqing accent, I will have better conversations, but for now it’s slow-going. Even when communication is no longer as grave an issue, however, I anticipate trouble connecting. The fact is, I’m an American. I’m the first American girl most of them have probably spent any amount of significant time with, and, as such, I am the stereotype and the oddball at once. I’m on the lookout for ways in which we can relate and connect, and talking about our students and about teaching strategies is a nice opener, but that won’t cut it in the long term.

So I’m alone a lot, and I’m lonely a lot. I knew to expect some loneliness when I came out here, but expecting and experiencing are two entirely different things. I have more time than I can comfortably fill with my hobbies of journaling, blogging, and cooking (and my not hobbies but still time-sinks of “The West Wing” and Chinese-dubbed Disney movies). I’m trying to make myself study Chinese more, but a lot of the time I’m so sick of language struggles out there that I don’t want to make them the center of my attention in here. Yes, I realize I need to get over that if I’m ever going to improve, but what can I say? My will power isn’t the best these days. I’m looking for a new hobby—something unconnected to Chinese, and preferably the computer—that I can turn to when I need to combat unhappy, alone feelings. I do a lot of nonfiction writing, but fiction writing has been mostly eluding me since my arrival, so that’s one thing I’m working to pick back up. Beyond that, I’m open to suggestions. Also, mail! Packages would, naturally, be amazing, but from what I understand they’re also relatively expensive. Letters, however, are not! Here is my address:

欧阳旭／Emily Cohen,

中国云南省大理州鹤庆县

彭屯中学／草海中学 （671500)

P.R. China

I promise replies to any and all communication received, however long it might take to get here and back again.

Hopefully, these lonely feelings are just part of my overall “slump” that I will, again, hopefully, be coming out of before long. I’m just shy of three months in China now—about a month and half of which have been here—so a “leveling out” period can’t be too much farther away. Right? Encouragement/advice, anyone?