Day 291: Farewell, China!

Well, it’s here – our last day in China. How did this happen? Simultaneously, it feels like we’ve been here for a lifetime and that we arrived just a couple of days ago. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that by tomorrow evening, we’ll be back in the States, among friends and family and will stay there for the foreseeable future. But before we say our final farewells to China, we’ve done a little more exploring the past couple of days.

Yesterday was the smoggiest day of the year so far in Hong Kong (with a whopping AQI in the 100s compared to Baoding’s 400s…) so, naturally, we went to the mountains to go sightseeing (not the best planning on our part). We woke up early, headed to the subway, and (after bypassing Disneyland) we ended up on Lantau Island, in a cable car, and headed towards the giant Buddha.

From the cable car:

Below, is the Dragon’s Back Hike:

Climbing the steps:

High five!

View of Lantau Island on the way back:

It was a very hot day and the smog disrupted some of the beauty, but we had a good time walking around and seeing the giant Buddha and looking out over the mountains.

Today we tried to make the most of our China time by wandering through the city for a couple of hours, eating in the #2 best restaurant in Hong Kong (with the friendliest staff in the world, in our opinion), and visiting the Ladies’ Market (in the neighborhood with the highest population density in the world).

Cool building we passed by in our wanderings:

Dumplings:

Ladies’ Market:

We’ll be checking out early in the morning and taking the subway to the airport, so I’ll make a post after we arrive and make note of all the culture shock we’re going through. It’s sure to be a whole other adventure just getting used to life in the States.

This year has been the most life-changing year of my life and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. I’m so glad and so grateful that we took the chance and decided to spend a year living and teaching in China. We’ve seen so many amazing places, eaten so much good food, and learned so much (about the world and ourselves) that it’s impossible to wrap up the entire year in a few words. I’m so proud of the experiences we’ve had and the people we have become.

Thank you very much for following along and supporting and joining in on our adventure with us!

Best wishes,

Alyssa

 

Day 288: A Whole New (Hong Kong) World

Alright, the bug has bitten me too – I’m quickly falling in love with Hong Kong. Everywhere you go there is something to do or see or hear. It really is amazing here.

Wednesday we woke up, grabbed some food (I found a muffin!) and coffee and set out on our day’s wanderings. Most of the day was just spent wandering around on Hong Kong Island taking in the sites and sounds.

A wet market we stumbled into while wandering:

In the evening, we went to Times Square (a giant, really expensive shopping mall) and saw Maleficent (very good). Outside of the mall was a Tiananmen Square tribute that served to remind us just how much we’re not in Mainland China anymore.

This is the Apple store across the street from Times Square:

Though our day was great, I had a sad realization – my Chinese speaking days are over. No more feeling accomplished because I ordered my food in Chinese and no more surprising my students when I respond to their questions. Now, I’m back in the world where I don’t feel accomplished for just saying everyday phrases and courtesies. When I go to the grocery store and can pay for my food without any linguistic barriers, no one is going to pat me on the back and say “great job! You really understood what that cashier was saying to you!” But hey, it was a ton of (often times embarrassing) fun and I’m proud of what I did accomplish throughout the year and at least I went out with a linguistic bang when I had a conversation with our bread people letting them know when we were leaving, that we wouldn’t be back, and we’ll miss them.

I also realized no more special friend prices and no more rides around town on kuai long. I’ve been out of Mainland China for three days now and I’m already missing all of it. But on the up side, we’re enjoying no one staring at us or calling out “laowai”, the shower has water pressure, it took only five minutes to completely update my phone and laptop (compared to the 24+ hours it took in Baoding), and we’ve rediscovered beauty in the world again (compared to smoggy Baoding). We spent an hour yesterday just staring at the clouds rolling over the harbor and we keep stopping to stare at the sky and marvel at how big and blue it is. I’m excited to do more of that when we get to our home in the States.

Thursday, we woke up and (after a pancake breakfast!) went on a jaunt through the city to Victoria Park and along Causeway Bay. Though it was in the 90s and quite humid, we had a really wonderful time strolling around and taking in the scenery. When we were a block from our hostel, on our way back, without any warning the sky just opened up and started pouring. I’ve never seen a rainstorm start and stop so suddenly. We also went to Ikea (my first time) and had a really fun time wandering around and looking at all the Hong Kong living space sized room set-ups. The Ikea set-ups kind of made me want to live in Hong Kong just so I could decorate my tiny space like that.

Since Hong Kong boasts over 11,000 restaurants, we decided just to take a stroll and see what popped out at us to try for lunch. Without realizing it until we’d sat down and ordered, we picked a Northern China restaurant a couple of blocks from our hostel. Though it was just a little hole in the wall restaurant, it tasted like home (our Northern China home) and was exquisite. It was so good and satisfying we might have to go there again despite the plethora of culinary options.

In the evening we made our way over to Kowloon Island to explore the Avenue of Stars and see the Hong Kong skyline (supposedly the best in the world tied with the NYC skyline). It certainly didn’t let us down.

As we continued to wander around on Kowloon, we stumbled upon a German restaurant we just couldn’t pass up. It was the perfect way to end a really good day – sitting waterfront, looking at the Hong Kong skyline, while we drank German beer and had a true German feast. It’s tempting to go back there again too.

Today we had a late start so we are going to save our big touring sites for the evening when we go to Victoria Peak and then go neon sign watching on the largest escalator system in the world!

Thank you for reading and until next time,

Alyssa

 

Day 286: Welcome to Hong Kong

Hello!

After a really long day yesterday, we’ve arrived in Hong Kong and have found ourselves in a completely different world. Since we finished packing Monday night, when we woke up yesterday morning, all we had to do was have our final coffee in Baoding, fold the sheets, and drag our luggage down the four flights of stairs one last time. The school sent a car to pick us up and take us to the train station and with that, along with the company of Li Laoshi, we were on our way. We had no problems getting our tickets or into the train station (other than they stopped us to look at the pocket knife Duncan had in the bag we intend to check at the airport – but they didn’t take it) and soon enough we were in our first class (super comfy) seats on a fast train down the East coast of the country, one final time. We were thrilled to discover that we got complimentary snacks and Cokes as soon as we boarded the train but other than that, the ten-hour ride was uneventful (but very comfortable and quiet). We passed the time by reading, talking, sleeping, and (most interestingly) observing the changing scenery the farther South we traveled. Once again, I was reminded of how gorgeous South China can be, especially compared to the North (and Baoding).

Traveling the length of the country through the countryside was a fitting (and very enjoyable) way for us to say goodbye to Mainland China.

The problems started when we got off the train and began the long traverse to our hostel. We arrived in Shenzhen at 6:16 but didn’t make it to our hostel until 9:30. What with several money exchanges, multiple checkpoints through customs (twice we had to get out of line to fill out papers we didn’t know we were supposed to have when we got in the line), ten million escalators, metal bars at every entrance and exit spaced about two feet apart (making lugging our six bags of our life in China stuff quite frustrating), and four subway line transfers that resulted in one stubbed toe, one scraped knee, and (today) very sore shoulders, necks, arms, and backs we were pretty grumpy when we got to the hostel. Once we did find the hostel we climbed four flights of stairs to check-in only to discover that they don’t (even though they said they would) accept RMB and we had to use my credit card to check-in (and hope that it didn’t get declined since we’re in a new country). The card went through and we got checked in but then we had move all our luggage back down the four flights of stairs, across the street, and up five more flights of stairs to get into the tiniest room I’ve ever been in (that’s not a closet). Hong Kong is known for having ridiculously tiny housing for ridiculously high prices and considering how much we paid for our “room” at the hostel, I totally believe it. We may be at the second highest rated hostel in Hong Kong but on top of the tiny rooms it also can’t boast a restaurant or a bar – something we were looking forward to after our ten-hour ride on the train and difficult trek through the subway (called the Mass Transit Railway – MTR – in Hong Kong). By the time we’d settled into the hostel and were ready to head out, it was 10pm so the restaurants we’d eyed on the way in were closed. This ended up being just fine because we went to the 24-hour McDonald’s across the street and found “real” Western food – chicken nuggets, French fries, sweet and sour sauce, and an iced coffee have never tasted so good!

Fed, clean, settled, and caffeinated we were much happier and went on a mini-wander around our block to see what Hong Kong was all about and we’ve concluded that Hong Kong and Mainland China are truly different places. We feel like we are more in the west (I think it feels just like NYC) than any part of the world we’ve been in for the past ten months. And the things we are noticing (culture shock) are so fascinating and kind of hilarious to us. First off, Hong Kong is definitely an international city. In a five-minute walk down the block we heard Mandarin, Cantonese, English, French, Spanish, and Arabic. Everything is written in English and in Chinese (traditional characters) and (a big deal for us) everything we’ve done (ordering food, exchanging money, going through customs) has been done in spoken English. We were so taken aback by the process of ordering our food in English that Duncan and I both (separately) misunderstood what the people behind the counter were saying to us because we were expecting Chinese instead of English (Duncan kept thinking the guy behind the counter was saying “what’s that” so he kept repeating his order and I responded with “Alyssa” when the lady asked me if I wanted whipped cream and I thought she asked me for my name on the order). Another thing that has really shocked us is the nudity in advertising – it seems like there are naked women everywhere! We’ve also been shocked by the Internet (fastest Internet in the world and no more firewall of China!), flushing toilet paper (instead of throwing it away), people wearing baseball hats, and “civilized” behaviour. People wait for lights to change, no one is hawking loogies, people say “sorry” and “excuse me” when they bump into you, they clean up after themselves in restaurants, there’s no honking (and people drive on the “wrong” side of the road), there’s no burning plastic, and people smell like perfume and cologne. The hardest thing we have to deal with right now is the fact that almost everyone speaks English so when we talk to each other, other people are likely to understand us. We’ve developed a bad habit of just talking to each other about anything and everything around us (since it’s pretty likely that people wouldn’t understand us in Baoding) and we’re making a conscious effort to end that here in Hong Kong.

Overall, I think it was a good idea for us to come to Hong Kong before arriving in the US because it will serve as a culture-shock transition period. I’m really enjoying taking note of all the similarities and differences between our life in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and the US.

We found clouds!

The hustle and bustle of a 24-hour, international city:

Hong Kong is more vertical and horizontal:

View from our hostel room (I see the ocean!):

The rest of today will be spent wandering around and getting our bearings and tomorrow we will begin exploring and touring. As a side note, today is the 25^th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident, and international media has said that there are massive protests going on all over Hong Kong. We have not seen nor heard anything about protests since we’ve been here and the only thing we know about is a candlelight vigil scheduled for tonight. We are staying safe and all is well!

Thanks for following along and until next time,

Alyssa

 

Day 257: Goodbye Beijing

Hey everyone,

We’re back from our May Day trip to Beijing and now in the final month of our contract.

Last Tuesday night we were able to have another (final) dinner with Johnson and Samantha and we had a really amazing time. We met up at QLH and took taxis to a Chinese tapas restaurant that was delicious and then we went to an “indie” coffee shop that smelled like Asheville but was decorated with Cultural Revolution era artifacts. It turned out that we went to the coffee shop on its one-year anniversary so on top of our orders of coffee, we all got a free glass of wine – definitely my kind of place!

Wednesday, we headed out and began our grand adventure to Beijing. The girls were thrilled to have the opportunity to explore a part of China outside of Baoding and were as impressed with the high-speed rail as I continue to be. Once in Beijing, they got to experience the subway as we made our way to the hostel, hutongs (alleys), and, as always, tremendous amounts of walking.
The hostel was almost directly behind the Lama Temple, a really gorgeous part of Beijing, and as the girls went off to explore the temple itself, Duncan and I wandered through the hutongs and streets in that district.

Yoda in our hostel:

Also while in Beijing, we visited the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square:

 

We went to an acrobatics show:

And on the way there, drove past Tiananmen:

We did a ton of shopping (along with all these people):

And when we almost got caught in a terrific thunderstorm, we got hand-carved stone stamps made by this guy:

We even went to the Olympic Village:

We had a really wonderful time in Beijing, and loved getting to share everything we’ve seen and done with our new friends.

Sunday, we said a final farewell to Beijing and left Beijingxi Railway Station, and made our final return to Baoding where we will be for the next 27 days.

 

Yesterday, we had another good day of classes and Haley, Caitlin, and I all got our own Baoding Bilingual School uniforms:

And I found these gems on the sixth grade floor hallway:

Today, the school asked Duncan and I to oblige them by doing a photo-shoot for them to advertise us to future middle school students. Apparently, some teachers saw me dancing in the parking lot a couple of months ago, and now they want pictures of that too.

 

Thank you for reading and until next time,

Alyssa

 

Day 250: Teacher, I love you!

Nimenhao da jia! (Hey everyone!)

The happy days just keep on coming!

We taught through the weekend in preparation for May Day holiday and the classes were great. Saturday, we met up with Samantha and Johnson for the first time in two months and had a wonderful dinner out together while we caught up. Plus, the weather has been so gorgeous recently we haven’t had to wear masks the past couple of weeks. The sun is shining, the wind feels amazing, the birds are chirping delightfully, and the trees are releasing these giant white puff-balls that are coating the ground in a layer of white and filling the air with what we’ve come to call “Springtime Snow”.

Since Haley has been leading my classes recently, I’ve been sitting in the back observing and reflecting. When it’s all said and done, I really couldn’t be happier about this year in China, especially in regards to teaching. The winter was harsh and there have been many ups and downs, but what I take away from this experience, now that it’s almost over, is overwhelmingly positive and I’m grateful for all of it.

Today was the first time I sat in on my seventh grade classes and I have to say it was a blast to be a half-way participant in the class and to be amidst the students rather than up at the front teaching, for once. Students that typically aren’t very engaged with English were trying to communicate with me either by talking or by passing me notes with questions (which was so much fun for the students to have Alyssa Laoshi participating in note passing – but it was more beneficial for them than they realize since it was all in English) and some even got a rare dose of positive attention from their classmates when they answered Haley’s questions right (after I secretly whispered the correct answer to them – again, it was more beneficial than they realized because even though I was helping them, they were getting to experience what being the smart kid in the class is like and be encouraged further because of it, which, for these particular students, never happens even in their Chinese classes). I talked about earrings and piercings with a group of girls in one class and I spent another class discussing the fact that Haley is not my teacher from America even though she is a teacher at this school and that she is my friend, even though she has “scary eyes” (for some reason, many of my students think her eyes are scary – I think it’s because they’re not used to seeing eye make-up on their teachers and because her eyes are a deep blue). I even got into a debate with my students about whether or not my eyes are blue or grey (apparently, I don’t know what color my eyes are).
My last class before lunch though (a class in which I have a personal relationship with almost every student), was the really heartwarming one. After I spent the majority of the class sitting in the back so as not to be a distraction and to help with classroom management, I moved into an empty desk towards the front of the room and spent a while talking to the students around me. This group of kids, in particular, has always had some of the best English in the school, but today they impressed me even more than they usually do in our mini-conversations.

Students: Will you be our teacher again?
Me: Yes.
Students: Will you teach with the new teacher? (Meaning, both of us up at the board at the same time.)
Me: Maybe.
Students: We don’t love the new teacher as much as we love you.
Me: Why not?
A boy named Scot (leans real close to my face looking very serious): Teacher, I love you.
Me (laughing): Well, thank you. I love you all too.
Students: When do you go home?
Me: I got home to America in June.
Students: When will you return to China?
Me: I don’t know.

[This is when the panic began setting in…]

Students: Will you teach us in September?
Me: No.
Students: Will you teach us in October?
Me: No.
Students: Will you teach us next year?
Me: No. I’m going to America.
Students: WHY!? No, teacher!
Me: My family is in the US.
Students: Do you want to see your family?
Me: Yes, I do.
Students: How will you go to America? (This is a surprisingly common question and they do, indeed, mean transportation.)
Me: By airplane
Students: Do you like us?
Me: Yes, of course.
Students: Will you come back to China after you go to America?
Me: Some day.
Students: When?
Me: I don’t know.
Students: Will you come back to the Bilingual School to see us and teach us?
Me: Maybe.
Students: Teacher! I’ll miss you!
Me: I will miss you too!
Students: Will you remember us?
Me: Of course I will.
Students: Teacher I LOVE YOU! Teacher, I will be sad!

They seemed not to understand when I clarified for them that I will teach them again before I leave, because as I walked out of the room the kids kept saying “good bye, teacher!” and one girl gave me a card attempting to say, have a good trip:

Recent gifts from students:

A postcard that wishes me a happy flight (in broken English), anime me, and three post cards – one of which is meant to say “forever” friend not “never” friend. 😛

When I reflect on the past year of teaching, I can see just how much confidence I have gained in the classroom compared to the first few weeks of classes. I can see things that I should have done different as part of my classroom routine, and I feel like I’m beginning to grasp the best way to handle these students kindly but without letting them walk all over me. But I think my greatest accomplishment this year as a teacher has been the relationships I’ve developed with my students. I’m going to be very sad to leave them and say goodbye, especially when the reality is that I will probably never see nor hear from these kids again. But I was very excited to share with some students today that I want to keep in touch with them through QQ and email and that it will be possible even when I’m in the US.

Feeling so confident about teaching and proud of our time here, especially at the school, has even tempted part of me to want to stay here for another sixth months just to take advantage of the confidence and experience I’ve gained along with making practical use of the reflecting I’ve been able to do about what works, what doesn’t work, and what I should have done more of in the classrooms. My pride for my Chinese language ability, our traveling, and our other success during this China-life adventure, makes extending our time here even more tempting with the possibilities of even more growth.
But, in truth, we will be back in the States in 41 days and I am even more excited about that! It will be great to see friends and family and to relive the entire year as we share our pictures and stories.

Look at these goofballs:

Tonight we are having our last dinner with Samantha and Johnson (probably) before we go back to the States and tomorrow the four of us (Duncan, Haley, Caitlin, and I) are going to Beijing for the week. Duncan and I are really looking forward to playing the role of tour guides in this city we’ve come to know pretty well (who would have ever thought I would ever be able to say Beijing was once “my old stomping grounds”?) and to have some time out of Baoding. We’ve been really happy with everything recently, but it will be nice to go on a trip anyway. This is likely going to be our last touring trip in China before we head out of Baoding permanently and on to Hong Kong, Macau, and then home.

Look for another post in the next few days (probably including the Forbidden City and the other big sites of Beijing) as we replicate our first big China touring trip. The first time we over National Day holiday with our old American friends and now, as our last time, it will be over May Day holiday with our new American friends. I can’t wait!

Thank you for reading and until next time,

Alyssa

 

Day 220: Western Qing Tombs

Hello!

Reluctant to wake up early over the weekend, we nevertheless did so that we could go on a grand mini-adventure! Greeted by a choking wall of white smog that made it difficult to even see the next door building, Enkui and his wife picked us up early yesterday morning and we headed to the Western Qing tombs about an hour outside of Baoding.

It was quite an interesting adventure because of how different it was from the seven months we’ve been here. First of all, we were traveling by private car and got to take the highways (all toll roads), we experienced filling up at a gas station (where the attendants fill up your tank and gas is measured in liters per 100 kilometers), and we had Chinese caretakers that ushered us around the tourist site. We were essentially Chinese tourists  (rather than laowai) for a day. And it was great!

As a UNESCO World Heritage site, the mausoleum complex is remarkably big and really can only be explored by car and with the help of a local guide.  In all there are 78 royal member buried on the grounds comprised of four emperors of the Qing dynasty and their respective royal households including family members and concubines. We didn’t see all there was to see but after several hours of exploring and wandering, I’d begun to lost count of how many tombs we did see. One of the most striking things to me is that there are farmers and other villagers living basically in the complex. The tourist sites (such as the tombs and the temple) are all guarded and you can only get in with a ticket, but immediately outside the walls there are families living in old servants buildings and their own homes. Even the building the emperor used to change his clothes in at the entrance of the mausoleum grounds is now home to a farmer (a fact I found astounding since I got fussed at for walking on the middle path of the road where historically only the emperor was allowed to walk).

You can definitely see the resemblance to the Forbidden City in Beijing:

Look at the remaining original paint! Also notice the three languages on this stele – traditional Mandarin, Manchurian, and Mongolian:
 

Inside one of the emperor’s tombs (the only opened tomb). I felt like an archaeologist in this. Definitely in both of our top three best things about the day:

A tomb surrounded by a remarkable echo wall. It was so much fun listening to our friends whisper hello to each other from across the courtyard thanks to these phenomenal acoustics:

The day was filled with speaking in Chinglish, laughing, and hanging out with our friends and it was absolutely magnificent. Even though we originally hadn’t wanted to get up and go, I’m so glad that we did. It was an excellent way to spend a Saturday and welcome in the spring.

Today, we woke up and the smog was all gone. The weather has actually the best we’ve seen this year and we celebrated by going outside in short sleeve shirts without jackets, eating pizza and ice cream, getting coffee, wandering around a park and then going shopping in a new grocery store where we found peanut butter, fruit and M&Ms!

It’s hard to believe we’re already halfway through this semester and we’ll be on a flight headed back home in only 71 days. But as the weather gets nicer and nicer, we get more excited about what’s left to come during this grand adventure in the Orient.

Thank you for reading and until next time,

Alyssa

 

Day 206: Laowai at the Longmen Grottoes

Nimenhao!

We’ve returned after our trip to Luoyang and – I never thought I’d say this – we are happy to be back in Baoding.

We arrived in Luoyang on Friday with high expectations after a four-hour bullet train ride only to have them crushed pretty much as soon as we stepped off the train. First, there was no hostel ride at the train station to take us to the hostel (a free service advertised on their website and on Hostelworld and despite two emails requesting a pick-up) and so with both of our phones with dying batteries, no clue on how to say or write the hostel’s name or address in Chinese (we discovered there’s very little English in Luoyang), and relying on the bus information we read online (we didn’t know whether it would be correct or not), we found the bus stop and waited in the pushing crowds. Then, to make things worse, while we were waiting in line to get on the bus we thought was correct, an old lady (it’s always them!) repeatedly hit Duncan’s bag, tried to push him out of the way, and called us “stupid white ghosts” (which is a really terrible cuss word in Chinese meant to be as derogatory as possible towards white foreigners). So within the first fifteen minutes of our time in Luoyang we had discovered that we were in a completely different world than anything we had expected.

Turns out we did get on the right bus and we were dropped off right in front of our hostel after only a fifteen minute bus ride (thought it was a bus ride that was either in pedal-to the floor acceleration or foot on the floor braking). The hostel, clean and certainly suitable, was the most “Chinese” hostel we’ve stayed in. Though advertised as an international youth hostel, it’s clearly a place most frequently visited by Chinese tourists and not laowai. The girls behind the desk didn’t speak the greatest English which, though normally wouldn’t be an issue for us at all, was frustrating when she let us know that they had over-booked our room and we weren’t going to have the double room we paid for. After a bit of linguistic charades, we finally made it to our new room (a very comfortable double twin bed room) and decided to get some dinner in the hostel. We spent the rest of the evening adjusting our expectations and hanging out in the common loft area and figured out our plans for Saturday.

Saturday morning we woke up, had a good (American) breakfast and hopped on a bus to get to the famous Longmen Grottoes. We knew we needed bus 81 (which stopped right outside our hostel door) but since I assumed that the hostel people saying “cross the street” meant cross the bike lane rather than the actual street, we ended up on bus 81 going the opposite direction from the Longmen Grottoes. After taking it to its terminal station on one end of town, we realized “hey, this isn’t the grottoes! This is a train station!” and hopped on the correct bus and took it to the other terminal station. This ended up being just fine though because we got to see the city (not a city conducive for exploring by foot like we’re used to) and the weather was absolutely beautiful with blue skies, no smog, and a refreshing breeze.

We did make it to the Grottoes after not too long and instantly loved it. The Longmen Grottoes is a UNESCO World Heritage site where there are more than 100,000 stone carvings of the Buddha and his disciples within 1400 caves dating back as early as 493 A.D. Many of the statues were decapitated or otherwise destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in an attempt to get “rid of Old China” but they are still stunning nonetheless. Almost all of the bigger statues (some up to 57 feet high) are in good condition and provided an amazing example of ancient Chinese history, art, and culture. Probably one of my favorite parts of the Grottoes, however, was the thousands of teeny tiny buddhas covering entire walls and doorways. The most fascinating thing to me, though, was probably the fact that you can still see traces of some of the original paint. Just like the Greek and Roman historical sites (I’m thinking of the Parthenon, in particular) it’s hard to imagine statues we are accustomed to seeing in 50 shades of beige instead in reds and yellows as they were originally painted.

Buddha-filled holes in the hill:

Walls with tiny buddhas and original paint:

Teeny tiny buddhas:

Panorama of the giant statues:

While we were there, it was confirmed, once again, that Luoyang is not used to foreigners and so Duncan and I were asked pretty much every 100 meters if we could take a picture with someone (as usual, boys wanted pictures with Duncan and girls wanted pictures with me). At one point, there was a group of eleven girls queued up to take a picture with me and I just gathered them round for a group picture and had Duncan act as the photographer so that we could get the process over with faster. People asking for pictures has happened all over the place in China but never with as much concentration as we experienced at the Longmen Grottoes.
Though certainly very strange and something that takes a bit of getting used to at first, if people ask we typically don’t mind (though I do wonder what they are going to do with the picture of me later). But the friendliness and excitement of meeting a foreigner didn’t last long as people started trying to “sneak” pictures. This included standing right next to me (regardless of whether I was looking in the direction of the camera or not), taking pictures of us with the camera shutter noise and flash on (as if we don’t notice), and, for one girl, literally running in front of us turning and taking a picture of us as we walked and frowned at her and then running back behind us to where her friend was giggling (I considered chucking her phone in the river at that point since we would have obliged had she just asked).

After wandering the grottoes (and finding ice cream cones), we headed back to the hostel for some relaxing (by that point we wished we were invisible because the picture taking had gotten in the way of our site seeing and we’d experienced some blatantly racist reactions). But even at the hostel there was no escape. A college student from Xi’an, even after talking to me in English for a while, decided she was going to start “sneaking” pictures of me and when I held my hand in front of my face and shook my head she said “oh, but you’re so beautiful” (as if that’s an excuse for not asking) and I just said “please don’t” and we went upstairs to our room for a while. Later, once we decided it was safe to return downstairs again (and we were wanting the internet), we were sitting on the couch when another lady with a giant fancy camera lens came in and was just staring us down across the room. Even after we both shook our heads no and tried to wave her off, she kept staring at us and taking dozens of pictures. Finally, I yelled at her to stop (much like punishing a misbehaving dog) even though we were in the middle of the common room and made a motion to get up towards her. She waved at us and left soon after that (of course after pretending it was the wall she really wanted a picture of). It may sound harmless enough, but after repeatedly dealing with the rudeness of people I just want to scream “I AM NOT AN ADORABLE ANIMAL OR PLAYTHING!” If people want a picture with me I will comply if they ask, but the sneaking, giggling, and blatant treatment as if I am sub-human because I am not Han Chinese is exhausting and infuriating. Once again I am reminded that it would be awful to be a celebrity and to have no escape from paparazzi or crazy people invading your personal privacy.

Overall, our trip to the Longmen Grottoes (our purpose for visiting Luoyang) was good and I’m glad we did it even despite the frustrations of Luoyang people. Now that we’re back in Baoding and the weather is clearly becoming spring, we have been reminded that we do appreciate and enjoy this place we’ve been calling home for the past six months even if it is filled with trash and smog. We’re looking forward to the rest of our time here even more now that winter is finally coming to a close.

The next trip we make will probably be in a couple of weeks to the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, Shanxi Province. This week I hope to buy our train tickets to Hong Kong for our final big adventure before we leave the country and to get caught up on pictures and other housekeeping (online and in-home). We have a normal week of teaching ahead of us (except I don’t teach Tuesday this week) and I’m planning on reviewing this semester’s lessons before beginning more new material.

Thank you for reading and until next time,

Alyssa

 

Day 167: An American in China

Well, we’re now in Beijing and we were greeted with the best circumstances I can think of: blue skies. Monday morning we woke up (in a smoggy Baoding), hopped on the G train, and within the hour found ourselves, once more, in one of the largest cities in the world and the capital of the country we are currently calling home. With nothing planned but the seven nights we’re staying here, we set out to find our hostel (different than the one we stayed in a couple of weeks ago), settled in, grabbed some food, and spent the afternoon wandering through the hutong alley where our hostel lives. While wandering we also found a main road through town that leads directly to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Though paved and lined with trolley tracks, it’s easy to see the historical importance of that pathway.

Tuesday we slept in, grabbed our American breakfast and coffees, and headed out on an unplanned exploration of Beijing. Our hostel (365 Inn) is within walking distance of Tiananmen Square so we soon found ourselves strolling past the Mao Museum, the China History Museum, and, of course, the Forbidden City. We opted not to go into any of the surrounding buildings (there were too many people) and instead made our way over to one of the only main tourist things in Beijing we haven’t done yet – Beihai Park.

Including our pleasant walk through the park (uneventful except for the easy breathing and sunlight touching our faces for what feels like the first time in forever), we wandered around Beijing for almost six hours. After the park we found ourselves amidst the hutong alleys near the drum tower and back at the hamburger restaurant (Burger Counter) for dinner. We took the subway back and spent the evening resting peacefully in our room watching the fireworks directly outside our window.

If there’s one thing the Chinese know how to do right it’s celebrate with fireworks. Monday night we had a preview of Tuesday night’s show when we watched people in the street below our window play with sparklers and handheld fireworks but yesterday (starting at dusk and going well into the night) we heard the whistles, booms, and crackles of exploding fireworks as the green, red, and gold lights graced the tops of the roofs in the alley. Like on Spring Festival Eve, the pops and booms were constant and any direction we looked, we could see the flashes of light and smell the sulfuric smoke. I don’t know what it is about these (somewhat) controlled explosions, but I adore the light shows we’ve been seeing every night for the past week. Fireworks just will never seem the same after all of these!

Today, Wednesday, has been about as uneventful and lazy as a day could be. We did some wandering and window-shopping in the morning and then, once it became colder and overcast, we settled into our room and spent the afternoon reading and otherwise relaxing.

The book I’m currently reading, “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, has made me think more about how Chinese people might perceive us as Americans in China. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around because it wasn’t in my lifetime, but as recently as during my parents’ generation, China was a country closed off and isolated from the world at large. Combine that with politically propagated anti-American sentiment that lasted with ferocity until the late 1980’s (and undoubtedly continues in some places) and it’s no wonder members of the older generation gawk at foreigners and feel compelled to label us out loud with shouts, gasps, and pointed fingers. Within their lifetime they have been told by authority figures and expected to believe with equal assuredness (sometimes with their personal livelihood and well-being on the line) that Americans are the enemy (“you capitalist pig-dogs!”) and that Americans are good and should be welcomed into the country (specifically for their native English language abilities as teachers). The latter belief is still fairly recent and when I think about all of this, I immediately become more accepting and forgiving of the old woman staring me down in the middle of the street and telling everyone around us that I am a foreigner. Clearly (hopefully), she’s not so stupid as to really think other people don’t notice that I am not Chinese, but instead she is probably vocalizing a surprised and confused thought process on how to judge me as an American in China (a young, female at that) given the polar-opposite beliefs about Americans that have at different times in her life been dominant.

Though I can try to reasonably explain and empathize with the older generations’ reaction to me as a foreigner, I cannot (and probably will not) understand why Chinese people my own age react even more dramatically to seeing me (and other foreigners). They have grown up in an increasingly globalized world with “Western” culture becoming progressively their own and they are required to learn English throughout school. My generation of Chinese people is unlikely to be able to truthfully come up to me and say “you’re the first foreigner I’ve ever met” (this happened in the grocery store in Baoding to us the other day) and some of them (i.e. Johnson) know more about American pop culture than I have ever been aware of. Why they would ever be so startled to see a foreigner in China that they would blindly stop in the middle of a busy road to stare is absolutely beyond me.
Perhaps it is because of the homogeneity of China or the uniquely Han (majority Chinese ethnicity) ability to make non-Hans feel exceptionally alienated even under the best of intentions (more on this later), but either way, it’s infuriating and I would be so grateful for it to stop. (Note: There’s a difference between ogling and being excited and it’s very easy for us to tell which one is happening. For example, a girl that trips on the escalator because she was so busy staring open mouthed at us is different than the group of young men who were so excited to meet us and practice English with us in QLH on Sunday that they bought us coffee and kept saying “Welcome to China! Welcome to Baoding! We hope you have a great time in China! We’re glad you’re here!” We welcome the latter reaction – coffee not required – because it restores our faith in humanity through positive interactions with others and allows us to actually interact with Chinese people in a way that reminds us that we’re happy we’re here.)

The fireworks are slowly getting started again (it’s just 5pm) and the rest of the evening is bound to be as uneventful as the day. Tomorrow we are going to go in search of a movie theater with international movies, a massage place, and the pond we went ice skating on a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully, the weather will keep warming up and the smog will hold off until we can buy some more masks.

Thank you for reading and until next time,

Alyssa

 

Day 159: No Food for Spring Festival

Nimen hao!

We’re back in Baoding after a relatively uneventful train ride from Baoding (we did try hard sleepers for the first time and they were great) and a quiet move back in to the school. Since the students are on their winter holiday and all the foreign students had to go back to their homes, we’re the only people on campus until mid-February (the guards were quite confused to see us). It’s nice knowing that we’ve found one of the only quiet places to be while still inside a Chinese city, but we are still begrudgingly putting up with the plastic smell, the layer of dust on everything, and the constant lack of weather. The smog hasn’t been too bad the past couple of days (we even saw blue sky yesterday) but we’ve encountered a new problem…

Spring Festival (essentially Chinese Christmas) begins tomorrow which means that the country is basically shut down for ten days straight while everyone leaves the cities and returns to their families (often in the countryside). This makes travel nearly impossible (the reason we had to stay in Beijing for extra nights until we could get a train ticket to Baoding), finding a place to stay more difficult than usual and (more concerning to us facing ten days in Baoding alone) turns finding food into a hunting/scavenger hunt adventure (most businesses are already closed – we have no idea what will be closed within the next ten days). If worst comes to worst, we may be living on peanut butter sandwiches for the next week and a half (I don’t think it will be that bad).

We were informed yesterday that classes start back up mid-February so if we can find a method of transportation, we may travel out of Baoding for one more mini-trip before teaching starts up again. After all our laundry is clean, we’ll see where we can go.

Yesterday, boss man at QLH bought us tea and attempted to communicate with us in broken English and very slow Chinese. There was lots of laughing, phone translating, and hand gestures but it reminded me of how much fun attempting to communicate can be – perfect motivation for my language-learning goal!

We discovered there is a place in Baoding where ice-skating may be possible (we haven’t tried it yet) and within the next couple of weeks I may venture to get my haircut. Today, our goal is to buy a portable DVD player (my laptop disk drive is broken and we don’t have a TV) to watch our new DVDs and to stave off the despairing boredom that is inevitable to quiet time in Baoding.

Tomorrow we have some dumpling parties planned (yes, more than one!) and I am super excited to finally begin learning how to make real Chinese food.

Until then, thank you for reading!

Alyssa

I unintentionally summed up the very coolest look according to stereotypical Chinese assumptions – blonde hair, pale, cute furry animal somewhere on me, (fairly) nicely dressed, and the Chinese symbol for “very cool” (the hand gesture).

 

Day 156: Ice Skating in Beijing

An early morning wake up call, no gas (= no food in the hostel), and a run to Starbucks was the beginning of another day of traveling yesterday for us here in China.

But we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare for a trip to Pizza Hut (brunch?) especially considering our plane was thirty minutes late boarding. At first, we were super excited about the Hainan Airlines plane we were on from Chengdu to Beijing because it is the nicest plane I’ve ever been on. It was even nicer and newer than the plane that took us from Chicago to Shanghai. Thrilled with the individual TVs, reclining, seats, and more space than usual, I settled in to watch He’s Just Not That Into You to pass the two and a half hour flight.

It was the most stressful flight I’ve ever been on. The turbulence was sporadic but terrifying. Several times we dropped suddenly enough for people not wearing their seatbelts to come out of their seats and for pretty much the entire flight the plane shook as if it were coming apart. My hands were sweating, my heart was pounding, and every time there was turbulence the flight attendants announced to us that there was turbulence (really? I hadn’t noticed!) and the movie I was watching temporarily turned off and therefore couldn’t be used as a distraction from my thoughts of imminent death.

But the flight eventually stabilized (we, in fact, didn’t die) and we landed at the Beijing airport and were on our way again via another mode of transportation. After the airport “express shuttle” (a mini-subway) we took the real subway (it’s still so awesome!) and found our hostel without any trouble. The people are friendly (maybe too talkative and personal at times), our room is comfortable, and the food and drinks are good.

We went out to the Hutong Alley district we visited during our last trip to Beijing over National Day holiday (week) and found the burger place we were so amazed by the first time. With real (thick) beef patties, mustard, mayo, real Swiss cheese, crispy bacon, and real onion rings we were spilling over with joy to consume legit and amazing hamburgers (I got my favorite – Swiss and mushroom). We spent the rest of the evening hanging out and talking to the people in the hostel (I even encouraged one Chinese girl behind the counter that she is not too old to learn how to dance as an adult – go for it!)

This morning we slept in, grabbed a delicious American breakfast (eggs, toast, sausage, bacon, hash browns) with real espresso, and were delighted to discover that it was a beautiful day (in the neighborhood) here in Beijing. To celebrate, we got massages at a hotel down the street before we wandered through the Hutong alleys again and decided it was a good day to do the one touristy thing we didn’t do the first time we were in Beijing – the Drum and Bell Towers. So we walked our way over there and purely by chance made it to the top of the Drum Tower right as they were performing the drumming. It was lots of fun to watch.

From the top of the Drum Tower we realized just how the nice the weather was today in Beijing – the skies were blue, there was no hint of smog, and we actually saw white wisps of clouds. We also realized there was an ice skating rink (a frozen lake) about two blocks away and, filled with excitement, we made a beeline for it. As usual, a man tried to rip us off for tickets and skates to get in (300 Yuan? I don’t think so!) but, after pointing out to him that we do in fact know how to read the English price sign above his head, we got in for the right amount and were on top of a frozen lake surrounding and surrounded by ancient pagodas. We crammed our feet into some cheap, ill-fitting skates and were on our way, gliding and sliding around, having really the best time! What a great find for our one impromptu day in Beijing! We had a blast skating around watching everyone (with a surprising amount of coordination) slip and slide around. Some were on ice skates, while others were in rented “ice-mobiles” and chairs with skis attached to the bottom. It was beautiful outside, the people were happy, and I got to do something I’ve never done before but wanted to do since I saw it on the TV show Arthur – ice skate on something other than a man-made indoor rink.

We grabbed some dinner at the hostel (I got my first smoked turkey sandwich in about five months) and we spent the rest of the evening just hanging out. I was going to attach some pictures and videos to this post but the Internet in this hostel is really bad (probably too much traffic) and so I’ll post them once we get back to Baoding tomorrow afternoon.

Thank you for reading,
Alyssa