What came first the chicken or the egg?

Um...I had to record this the other day:

Cock, cock, cock, cock,
Oops! I laid an egg.

No context. This is it. Your guess is as good as mine!

BBC Ground Shaker

So, the "official" party line is that the earthquake that recently occurred near Taiwan and has damaged the international internet lines which run under the ocean. So, my access to anything not eChina is severely limited or slow right now. Google is different, I don't exactly know how, but it just is.

The other theory floating on is that the BBC recently had a special about how people in China are getting around the other Great Wall of China (hint: the other wall isn't made of brick, but works to keep out the invading outside virtual forces). This BBC feature was quickly edited out of the feed to China and then the internet suddenly went down.

So, depending on what theory tickles you more, I won't have great access from anywhere between 2 days to 3 weeks.

I have a lot of posting to catch up on, so keep checking back and I hope I will be able to get some more up for you soon.

I was able to get some pictures up to my flickr site before the BBC-quake, so take a look at some of those while I sit, wait, and patiently look at my browser status bar cycle and cycle but not go anywhere.

Note: The posts I will be adding will be post-dated.

Want to Adopt from China? What's your BMI?

BEIJING, Dec. 20 — China is planning to issue new, tighter restrictions on foreign adoptions of Chinese children, which would prohibit adoptions by parents who are unmarried, who are obese or who are older than 50, according to adoption agencies in the United States.

The new regulations, which have not yet been formally announced by the state-run China Center of Adoption Affairs, are to take effect on May 1, 2007, and seem certain to slow the rapid rise in applications by foreign parents to adopt Chinese babies.

"This is absolutely going to affect a percentage of our clientele," said Heather Terry, a spokesperson for the Great Wall of China Adoption Agency in Austin, Texas. "This will probably affect quite a lot of people in 2007."

Ms. Terry said that foreign adoption agencies learned of the new regulations at a Dec. 8 meeting in Beijing with officials from the adoption-affairs center. Chinese officials told the foreign agencies that applications had begun to exceed the number of available babies, and that the new rules were partly intended to address that imbalance.

Ms. Terry added that China also wanted to slow foreign adoptions because "they are opening up domestic adoptions now."

The adoption-affairs center declined requests in recent weeks by The New York Times for an interview on adoption policy. An unnamed official cited by the Associated Press confirmed that the government is considering new guidelines, but declined to discuss any specifics.

Even so, adoption agencies in the United States are already telling prospective parents about the rule changes or posting the guidelines on their websites. "C.C.A.A. has decided to both reduce the number of dossiers accepted by applying stricter standards to potential adoptive families and to increase the number of children available for adoption by improving the situation of children in China's orphanages," Jackie Harrah wrote in a letter posted on the website of Harrah's Adoption International Mission in Spring, Texas.

Adoption agencies were told that China intended to increase the supply of adoptable children by creating a new charity named Blue Skies, which would focus on improving health care for medically fragile infants or premature babies at orphanages. An initial goal of this charity would be to buy incubators for many of the country's orphanages, according to the Harrah's Adoption website.

Ms. Terry said that the most significant rule change is the new ban against single parents. Up to now, Ms. Terry said, China has allowed single parents to make up as many as 8 percent of all referrals; the new rules would eliminate that quota. The age restrictions also have been tightened; China now allows people up to 55 to be considered.

Some of the new rules focus on the fiscal, physical and psychological health of prospective parents. People who are taking medication for anxiety or depression can be disqualified under the new rules. Couples will be disqualified if either person has a body fat measurement exceeding 40 percent (30 percent is generally considered obese). And a prospective adoptive family's net worth must now exceed $80,000.

China will also disqualify families that already have more than four children in the home.

Ms. Terry said that her agency has already started applying the new guidelines. "We're no long accepting singles," she said. "That is the most significant change."

Single parents who are already involved in the application process and can complete and file their paperwork before May 1 can remain eligible for a Chinese child.

Ms. Terry said she believed that Chinese officials were trying to act in the best interests of the adopted children. "All the agencies worldwide have to abide by these guidelines now," she said.

...And to all a good night! Whew!

USTB Christmas party - done!

Whew!

It was fun, but I'm glad it's over!

Sorry this post is coming so late, but it got a little lost on the way to posting.

Anyhow, we threw a Christmas party for the university! So I and super party planner, Naree set out to put together a westernish party for the students. I have posted up some pictures taken at the party and will eventually steal some from Naree.

I cut a ton of paper snowflakes for the party and made a bunch of other decorations for it too. Naree had a great student worker force churn out a bunch of stuff for the party too! It was a good time - had hot chocolate and activity stations. Even sang some carols - including a very festive version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer by Adam and Matt (I have video, but have promised not to post it).

We ran into a few snags, but nothing that we couldn't handle. Like, um, no tape in the multi-functional hall. Yeah, didn't really follow the rule exactly, but did less taping than we were planning to do - wound up taping huge sheets of paper together and taping/hanging those to the walls. Then all of the stuff was taped onto the paper.

So, I was in charge of the cutting tables. So for me that meant, snowflakes and stockings. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure that they grasped the outside edge vs inside the snowflake for cutting. Also, the idea of not cutting all the way through so you have something that will stay together. There was a lot of: Molly, Molly! Look at this! Then they open up the flake to have it fall to the ground in several pieces. Oh well, at least they had fun, but it eventually turned into a Molly, make me a snowflake booth.

Adam was DJ again and also MC - he's good at that stuff and doesn't fear the microphone like I do. Matt headed up the pin the nose on Rudolph station (the Chinese kids are such cheaters! Matt had to hold arms back to prevent the cheating. I have some video that I will post up when the internet is more reliable) and Naree cracked the whip over at the gingerbread - err - saltine cracker houses. The houses turned out cute, but quite different than the ones I remember making. Can you imagine eating a spring onion cracker house, complete with frosting and coffee/mint flavored candy. I saw a kid take a bite of that taste combo. He didn't go in for a second one.

Then the visit from the man of the hour. Santa! Naree's boyfriend, Alby was a great sport about donning the red suit. He came out Ho, ho, ho-ing to the delight of the crowd and filled all of their stockings hung and flung by the chimney with care. And even managed to pose for some pictures - shopping mall style next to one of the Christmas trees. Seriously, SantAlby was awesome!

Okay, so, I guess that is all for now. Pictures up on flickr, talk to you all later!

Fa-Ra-Ra and Sumpity, Sump, Sump

I know that it isn't nice to make fun of my students' pronunciation problems, but I just can't help it! I have been teaching Christmas carols this week and, well, I have been taken down by fits of giggles in almost every class. I can't help it it's funny!

So, y'know in the movie "A Christmas Story" when the Chinese cooks are singing? Well, it was kinda like that. It was funny in the movie, but, like, thousands of times more funny to have a room of 40-60 kids doing it in unison in real life! The hilarity of it all never really got old for me.

The sounds that always seem to cause problems are: "th" and the "l" when it is embedded in a word (like the word "usually" - I spent 20 minutes drilling that one once). First we would go through vocab and then listen to the song, then go at it line by line. Often we would end the song all laughing at some of the pronunciation attempts it was good fun for all of us. You can just imagine the result of "Feliz Navidad"!

So, Christmas cheer definitely swept through my little area in China, but this year the halls were decked with balls of "hawry" and Frosty went Sumpity, sump, sump over the hills of snow!

Thank God It's...CHRISTMAS!!!

Picture it. It's Christmas Day. The school is taking us out to dinner. They have been a little evasive as to where we are going to go. They cancel one of Matt's classes at the last moment so he is able to attend the special dinner. But where are we going?

Now mind you, my only other experience with Chinese dinners with administrators have not been the most enjoyable of experiences because of all of the drinking and drinking games, so you can understand my suspicions, even though this is Beijing. I mean, I still pause, cringe and do a cleansing breath every time the phone rings.

So, anyhow, we all loaded into a bus and take off. We drove past a Domino's Pizza (yeah, there's a Domino's Pizza in Beijing) and eventually we pulled into the Friendship Hotel parking lot. We heard our waiban's cheery, "We're here!" and we looked out to see a welcoming, familiar sign glowing in the darkness. Yup, our Christmas dinner would be at...TGI Friday's!!! Woohoo!!! We are all stunned. I want to cry a little bit, but I was just too shocked to muster up the tears. Friday's. Friday's! Did you hear me? FREAKIN' FRIDAY'S!!! Mmmmmmm....

Needless to say we were all really super excited about this special treat (well at least the Americans were, the British guy and the Japanese pair weren't as excited at this specimen of American chain cuisine). Walking into the restaurant was like leaving China for a little bit - that is if you don't really look at the other patrons or waitstaff.

Ahhh...GOOD FOOD!!! I had the BBQ ribs. Full rack, baby! I couldn't eat all of it so, I shared and had enough to take home a little sampler for lunch the next day. Also, appetizers. Oh, mozzarella sticks, potato skins, buffalo wings.... I don't think that the Chinese people were as impressed with the food, but we did make them order the comically large drinks. It was quite amusing to watch our waiban holding (with both hands) her very large Long Island Iced Tea.

Anyhow, the dinner was great and the atmosphere was definitely merry. It was probably the best present the university could have given us! Thank you USTB!

Xmas Booty

No, this is not in reference to my derriere post holiday celebrations, but a post thanking my students (who will never read my blog - thank God!) for their thoughtfulness over the holidays. They were all really concerned about me having to be far away from my family over the "most important holiday in the whole wide Western world".

On Christmas morning I woke up early and groggily stumbled around the apartment before getting ready for my weekly Yan Qing gig and heard my cell phone text message alert go off. I checked it only to find that my students had sent me oodles and oodles of holiday wishes! The messages continued to pour in through out the day.

At Yan Qing, my English Teaching major class presented me with a wonderful, ginormous chinese knot for a gift and they had prepared a snippet of a Christmas song for me as well! Some of the other students gave me little presents as well, everything from tasty things to eat, to a group of carolers to a very, um, "unique" pair of earrings - they gave me the earrings stating that they knew that I liked jewelry and they didn't think that I had anything like this - I opened the package and was shocked at what I saw! A pair of large, thick hoop earrings with leopard skin print micro-fleece glued to the earrings. Quite right, I don't have anything in my jewelry collect quite like 'em. I'll take a picture sometime.

Anyhow, the outpouring of holiday wishes and gifts was truly heartwarming. My students definitely captured the nature of the holiday with their cheer, happiness, and love. What a nice way to celebrate Christmas and spread the Christmas spirit.

Compliments of YouTube!

I just saw this on one of my friends' blogs and had to share!

Enjoy the delightful creepiness!

The Bacon Battle

Some times I get caught into situations where I don't really know what the right response should be. For example, today I was doing a little shopping at the local Walmart today (exotic, huh?). I was just picking up a little cheese (woot!) and some other goods that I can't get at the local grocery stores. I was very, very lucky and got the last package of Hormel bacon (woot, woot!).

Okay, so here's the situation, I turned around to look at some other products and right when I turned my attention back to my cart I caught an elderly lady taking my precious bacon out of my cart and put it into her basket and walk away. I went up to her and said in Chinese, "Excuse me, that pork meat is mine". Blank look. I pointed at her basket and pantomimed that I saw her take it out of my cart. She brushed me off and continued to walk away from me. Ummm...yeah, that's my bacon, lady! So, I went up to her and took it back and walked away. The result? She followed me and when she caught up she spat out some angry sounding Chinese at me, reclaimed the bacon, and gave me a really dirty look and scurried away.

Uhhh...???

So...???

Uhhh...???

I was a little stunned by what had just happened. A little old lady stole my bacon, yelled at me and then ran away.

Hmmm...

So, I went home bacon less. And confused.

2006 Year of the Dog Indeed!

Wow! One China, one child, one dog?

The dog has had a tough year in China this being the year of the dog and all.


Dog lovers growl as Beijing lauds canine curbs
Chinese officials defend forced removal of pets under 'one-dog' policy

BEIJING - Beijing showed off the achievements of its crackdown on pet dogs on Monday, in the face of criticisms that the city has been cruel in removing pets from owners and arbitrary in its application of the rules.

Since the campaign was launched in October, city officials have gone door-to-door looking for unregistered dogs, owners who contravene a “one-dog policy” and dogs that exceed a 14 inches height limit -- all offences that violate the city’s rules of pet ownership.

“Barking and other disturbances have become a serious problem we have to face,” Yu Hongyuan, an official with the Beijing canine management office, told a news conference.

“To alleviate the problems and make rabies prevention more effective, the municipal government has launched a campaign on becoming a good dog owner,” he said.

City officials unrepentant
At a pound in a Beijing suburb home to 600 dogs, canine victims of the campaign were on display, some barking wildly and others slumped passively in metal cages marked with tags that said “unregistered” or “exceeds height standard” as reasons for their impoundment.

But city officials were unrepentant, saying as dog ownership has surged among Beijing’s nouveau riche, so have complaints of biting and barking.

In the central district of Dongcheng, Wu Zhimin, the head of the local dog-raising administration, showed a thick file of dog registration forms as testament to the campaign’s success, each bearing a mug shot of Fido or Fifi.

The drive to reinforce regulations on dog ownership and register more of the city’s estimated 1 million dogs, has come under fire from animal rights groups and spurred a rare protest last month among the city’s dog lovers.

Animal rights groups say registering dogs and keeping their numbers under control makes sense, especially as the city tries to curb a rabies outbreak that has hit some rural areas, but they object to the heavy-handed way the rules are being implemented.

Groups suggest gradual implementation
“The regulations have been in place since 2003, and the government has to take some responsibility for the fact that they’ve been ignored,” said Jill Robinson, head of Animals Asia, a Hong Kong-based charity.

“There are pet shops all over the place, there are pet markets everywhere that are selling large-size dogs and no one has cracked down,” she said.

Instead of forcibly removing dogs that don’t comply with the rules from their owners, the government should allow them to live out their lives in a ’grandfather’ system and gradually implement the policies, she said.

Cradling “Baby” a white, fluffy pooch dressed in a knitted sweater to guard against Beijing’s winter chill, 47-year-old Sun Guiqin said she had no complaints about the rules.

“One is enough,” she said.

Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

Umm...hey! What's Up?

Hello! Nothing too new or interesting going on. Yesterday I went to recording studio and stopped at a bank to try to close my Guyuan account and get the rest of my money out of the account. I wasn't really sure what to do, but I took a number and waited for a LONG time. Eventually I talked to one of the bank personnel there about my account and, not completely understanding what she was saying, I was escorted into a small room in the back of the bank and told to wait. Alone. By myself.

Soon three men with guns came into the room and closed the door behind them.

Uhhh...

...Hey - what's up (nervous laugh)?

Anyhow, eventually another person came in and let the armed guards pick up the money and hauled the cases out to the armored truck waited outside.

And I wasn't able to close my account or get me money.

Yup.

Another English Gem

Hello everyone! Just a quickie before they do some work on our internet. Matt recently judged an English singing competition - I fled after a few songs (the high notes were a little painful for me). But at the end of the competition they gave him a little present. A nice little mug with English words! So for your enjoyment here is the text on the mug:

Let's sport!
Let' Perspire!
Go! go! go!
Take Exercise!
Cool! Cool! Cool!
We will be lustihood!

Later!

Listen with your ears, not your eyes

Sorry blog readers, but I just have not been feeling much like posting these days. My life in Beijing isn't very exciting. I go teach. I go to the recording studio. Nothing much more than that.

Ummm...one of my night class students defected from my class because of my "Asian pronunciation" and went to Matt's class. He approached Matt about it and mentioned that he thought that there was some sort of thing on the genetic level that makes Asian people unable to pronounce English words properly. HA! I am tired of that thinking. Matt addressed that right away and told him that he was wrong and that he is listening with his eyes, not ears. Makes me feel better, but I still am just tired about the stereotyping. The student has since came back to my class, but it really just frustrates me, not being seen/called a "real American" or that I can't speak English as well as the while people.

In the meanwhile I am the #1 voice for English recordings in this area. All of those poor school children will have to make do with my poor English and my "Asian" pronunciation. Egads!

So, I guess that is all for right now. Hopefully I will have some more interesting things to post sometime. I will leave you with my favorite recorded dialogue line of the week:

Look! The Chinese child laborers are working very hard!

Daily Cravings - Food and Feelings

My food diary - definitely not that dieting kind of diary!

I'm going to just add from the top now, so most recent "cravings" will be on the top, also only postings from 2006.

December 2006 - I have had some other packages and one person to person cheese delivery, but this was when my blog was being blocked. So, now that I have access I would like to thank Matt's parents for another wonderful package! Soooo many good things! But I just have 3 words for y'all - Butterscotch pudding galore! Thank you so much and just in time for the holidays (thanks for the cold medicine too, that will save us some potentially scary trips to the doctor!)

October 2006 - Another package!!! This one from my good friend, Jerry! THANK YOU!!! Okay, so being away from the States in the fall is hard because I miss out on all of the tasty pumpkin and apple delights. So, Mr. Govert sent me a whole package of tasty pumpkin treats just in time for my birthday. But not just pumpkin stuff, a whole lot of goodies such as: ginger snaps, goldfish cracker, sour patch kids and CHEESE! Thank you so much. I owe you when we are back stateside!

October 2006 - I didn't want this to get buried by my travel log. The log is now up, just have to keep scrolling down. I want to give an especially oooey-gooey thank you to a fellow cheese fan! I just got a fabulous chesehead care package from Gfarb and Mike (M-Dawg? Hmmm, have to work on his nick name). No, not a Wisconsin football reference - I'm a Minnesota fan! But whole box of the life blood. Cheese. Thank you both sooo much! Even though we are in Beijing and can now get a lot of western products, they sent us things that I haven't seen here! And things that I really get cravings for, i.e. pasta and cheese in various forms. Now, just for you - to the tune of "No Diggity", remember the roller rink in Beloit? "Thank you for your package, (Sarah Goldfarb), I wanna eat it up. An' I love all the products (cheesy goodness), and I'm drooling now. Way-o, way-o, way-o, way-ohhh...they sure look good! Way-o, way-o, way-o, way-ohhh.... Okay, so not so good my mind is toast right now. But, thank you sooo much, I can't tell you how much appreciate your package and enthusium for one of my favorite food items!

August 2006 - THANK YOU Anjali! Okay, for those of you who don't know her, she is one of the fantastic VIA vols in Nanjing (she also has a really interesting and entertaining blog - see link at right). She went back to the States during the last break and brought back some goodies for us from home - when I saw the Mexican Hot Chocolate, I think I spontaneously shed a tear of joy. I was a foodie at home, but here...well...let's just say that food has taken on a more significant role in my China life. Good thing we sprung for that gym membership!

May 29, 2006 - THANK YOU Ed and Chris! What a caboodle of tasty treats! We have already started to consume all of the treats inside. I actually hugged the box of Cracklin' Oat Bran for a little while longer than what is "normal/appropriate" when it comes to hugging cereal. Hmmm.... We're eyeing a box of mac and cheese for dinner tomorrow and Matt, well, let's say that he is very excited about the possibility of making pancakes. So, thank you, thank you, thank you! Goodbye potatoes!

May 15, 2006 - OHMYGOD! We just got a care package from another couple of Beloit buds! I can't even begin to tell you how much we appreciate it! Matt has made me hide the cherry sours as he can't control himself with those little tart but sweet delights. I can't wait to crack open the hummus! We just kept on pulling out treat after treat after treat from the box. Bri, keep rockin' in the free(er) world and Debz, well, you're just hands down awesome and I don't what I did to get such a great friend, but I count myself very lucky! PS - we already ate the Jambalaya and Red Beans & Rice with one of the sausages. Yummmm!!!!

May 11, 2006 - Today is rainy and cold. Nothing like tomato soup and grilled cheese, or at least the closest we can get to it. Actually, I write this because I am thinking about pizza. After our visit to Yinchuan, I wrote about our good and bad pizza experience. I was just reminiscing about the wonderful tomato and basil pizza I ate. Mmmmmm.... Man, we are going to get soooo fat when we are back! Will have to engage "Project: Iron Rice Bowl" (my diet fad vision) so we don't blimp up too much.

April 25, 2006 - We got a wonderful care package from one of my Beloiter friends. I truly have the most awesome friends! Ahhh...cheese, couscous, soup and oh my! That was just a few of the delights we found within. Also, kudos to Jerry on the crumpled up copy of The Onion for padding! We have already devoured that. Ooooh, so much fun to get that kind of mail! Usually it is just Beloit College annual fund requests - yeah, get back to me when I am making more than $200 a month. We found some good bread on the corner and today (Wed.), we had the bread with Jerry's hot pepper cheese, how delightful! As you may have guessed by the number of posts, I have a few days off as my kids are taking their mid-term exams. Then we begin our vacation - hopefully we will be heading off to the Tengger Desert for some dry, dirty fun! Oh, the big news for me in Guyuan, the grocery store started to sell Skittles. I will try to put up another video post today. Later!

March 31, 2006 - Last week, we, gulp, finished our last box of mac and cheese. Sob! Lately, we have been hitting our cheese products pretty hard. The discipline has just melted away (much like cheese, yum, gooey, melty cheese....) Cheese junkie. I have been asked for more care package ideas, so, I consult the spreadsheet (Matt calls it my sheet of gastronomic greed): Cherry candy (can't get it out here), Mac and Cheese (non-powder as we can't get butter here), Cracklin' Oat Bran cereal, vanilla extract (we just bought an oven and I can bake on a limited basis), bisquick, zebra cakes, and that dried tortellini stuffed with cheese. We thank you all for you very generous packages, we treasure each and every one! They help me diversify my 3 potato a day diet.

February 19, 2006 - We just got two wonderful care packages from Matt's mom! Thank you! Anyhow, some of my dear friends were looking to ship some stuff off to me, but did not know what to send. Here are some ideas: Parmesan cous cous, Twizzlers, Cinnamon Graham Crackers, Nerf Football, Cherry & Grapefruit Jelly Bellies, Post Selects Cranberry & Almond cereal. I have a nerdy spreadsheet going with all of the food Matt and I have been craving. So, if you ever need any ideas...! Our vacation was really good for eatin'! We got in quite a bit of Western food - Mexican even! But now we are back to our 3 staple dishes at our 4 staple restaurants. I can feel the food blahs already coming.

Poetry Contest

I now know where all of the loser poems go from those poetry contests advertised in the back of magazines. They get sold to China for recording.

I barely could get though a poem about colors.

This is the line that left me in fits of giggles 5 times:

The color of the sun is yellow
On the telephone we all say "hello"

The whole poem was like that. Could not keep it together at all.

Oh well.

So, haven't heard from many of you for a long time. What's up?

Umm...yeah, I don't know either

Watch the video

I was just watching the Karaoke scene in Lost in Translation and was inspired to post this gem up! I got it from an unnamed source, but I think many of the China vols out there will be able to guess who gave me this sweet little clip! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The OK Video

Watch the video

You're welcome, Allister!

Mongolian Cultural Show

Watch the video

Okay, I can finally get my video up on my blog! Hooray! So this is the cultural show that we went to in Mongolia. It was awesome. Listen to the throat singing - it just sounds so unreal! You can't believe that the sounds are coming out of the people and nt some sort of machine. Enjoy!

WHOOHOO!!!

I have access to my bog again! Well, at least for the time being, until Ch!n@ decides to shut us all down again.

But unfortunately, now that I have full access, I don't have anything to say.

I have been making up some English listening practice worksheet for my students and have decided that "Every Breath You Take" is one of the creepiest songs ever written. Without the music, just looking at the lyrics, it might as well have been cut out ransom note style and left in that oh-so-obvious, "he broke into my apartment to leave this note" place. Stalker. Total stalker. I bet it was the bass player who wrote it - bass players are kinda the "wander-off, creepy" types - and Sting just saw it "around" and made it into a hit song. Good going! Way to freak out a nation.

Okay, enough on how The Police gave me the willies.

Hmmm...yesterday we all went out to Steak and Eggs for a Thanksgiving dinner. It was good. I didn't eat any of the turkey again this year, but I did get my share of mashed potatoes and stuffing. No pumpkin pie though :( It was uber-busy though! I don't remember when I saw soo many white people crammed into 3,000 square feet. Also, we discovered that the Chinese have appropriated Thanksgiving as a bunch of my students emailed, texted, yelled out, "THANK YOU, TEACHER" to/at me throughout the day. So, I have been told that it is a day where they say "thank you" to people they appreciate. Nice. I guess.

Yan Qing is going a lot better. I have been trying to hang out with the students a little more. I have some student lunches all lined up the coming weeks. Student-Teacher relations are defrosting. But, I still had to kick a kid out of class for howling, and well, he wouldn't stop.

Anyhow, I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, so I will leave you with a very heart felt "gobble-gobble" and THANK YOU (ala my students).

Porn sparks panda baby boom in China - Research — and blue movies — attributed to record-high birth rate in 2006

Uhhhh...enjoy!  Pandas, pandas, pandas!

By Denis D. Gray

Updated: 9:59 p.m. ET Nov. 22, 2006

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - After years of painstaking research, scientists say they have unleashed a baby boom among one of the world's most beloved but endangered animals, China's giant panda.

A bit of panda porn has helped too, they say.

"It works," enthuses Zhang Zhihe, a leading Chinese expert, about showing uninitiated males DVDs of fellow pandas mating.

It is one of many techniques tried over the decades to get captive pandas — notoriously poor breeders — to do it, and do it right. The efforts to understand and simulate conditions for mating and raising cubs have paid off in China, the panda's native habitat. Now comes the next test: getting the magic to work outside China.

The big day will come in January, when Prasertsak Buntragulpoontawee hopes to bring off a successful mating between male Chuang Chuang and partner Lin Hui in this northern Thailand city.

The audio-visual approach "is the same idea as chimpanzees seeing people smoke and then copying it," says the Thai researcher.

Zhang, director of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, attributes this year's record high births not to any single breakthrough but to an accumulation of research on panda biology, nutrition and genetics while "trying to imitate nature better."

The result, by his count: In the first 10 months of this year 31 cubs were born in captivity in China, of which 28 survived. That's up from 12 births in 2005 and just nine in 2000. Of this year's births, 14 came through natural breeding, while artificial insemination or a combination of the two produced the rest.

No cubs were born among the roughly 20 pandas outside China, but sperm from Atlanta Zoo's Yang Yang yielded an offspring for Lun Lun in Chengdu, China, Zhang told a conference here of 140 panda experts.

JoGayle Howard, an animal reproduction specialist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., said the goal of raising the captive breeding population to 300 from the current 220 is rapidly being reached. This would prevent inbreeding, widen the genetic pool and enable more captive animals to re-enter the wild, where the panda population is estimated at 1,600 to 3,000.

Howard said the biggest challenges in panda breeding are an extremely high rate of incompatibility and the very narrow window of opportunity — females are ready to mate for as few as 48 hours a year.

"At first people thought that you just put two animals together and they would figure it out. But it didn't turn out that way," she said. "Now we know how to take care of the panda better. We've really made progress. But we're still learning a lot of even basic things."

Captive animals used to lack proper socialization; with no companions around, when the male and female met for breeding "they just freaked out and fought," Howard said. Now enclosures are bigger and contain more animals.

There's also a push to keep cubs with their mothers longer, for up to two years, to give them more natural sex education.

Scientists have also learned more about sex and aggression. In the wild, Howard explains, females in heat will climb a tree while suitors below fight for her. In captivity, with no male rivals around, pandas often take out their aggression on the female.

Adds Zhang: "In the wild they have their own choices when mating. But when we breed them in captivity it's like taking two human beings and forcing them to mate."

But despite the advances, there are still only about 15 captive male adults which breed naturally. Second best is artificial insemination, and after years of study frozen semen can now be shipped around the world and applied according to a comprehensive genetic database.

Prasertsak is prepared to use both methods as he readies his couple for mating at Chiang Mai Zoo, which has rented the animals from China for research and tourism purposes.

The pressure is on. Last year Lin Hui showed promising symptoms but they turned out to be a pseudo-pregnancy, not unusual among pandas.

Will the blue movies help?

Opinions differ on the visuals, but Zhang and Prasertsak agree on the sound track.

"It's the sounds of breeding that stimulate them," Zhang said. "Pandas are just like human beings. They understand everything."

Brain Tidbits

...because that's all I have right now!

 

Okay, nothing new.  Having problems with my cd burner stuff.  ARGH!!! Computer problems!  I have been busy recording and teaching.  Classes have been going well, at least better than they had been going.  Also, my Yan Qing kids seem to be warming up a little bit so it is becoming a little bit more fun.

Still open to back door ways around good ol' Uncle M@o, so if you have suggestions, let me know!

Also, I have come to the conclusion that sparrows basically look the same where ever you go.  Or, at least, in the places that I have been to.

Besides that, nothing much going on.  We are getting together with some of the other foreigners and having a Thanksgiving dinner here in Beijing out by the Embassy district.  Gobble, gobble (except for me, as I don't like turkey).

I have been spending quite a lot of my free time down at the recording studio and I just recorded my most favorite dialogue EVER!!!  It is too inappropriate to post, but if you're curious, drop me a line.  Typos are funny!  AND this particular one was for a national oral English competition (hee, hee).

Anyhow, sorry that I haven't been posting as much as I normally do.  I totally blame it on having less free time because of my uber fame in the English recording circuit.  Nah, just kidding.

I will try to post more regularly and find a new way to post up video...I'll work on it.

So, to all of you Stateside,  HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

What's that again?

Okay, so today I went down to the Wudaokou area for look around at some of the shops and I went to my favorite import foods store, My Shop.  They were playing some music and such on the cd player.  The cd changed and all of a sudden I knew exactly what came next in the English dialogue!  Wait, it sounded even more familar than that, it was...ME!!!

Strange!

Firsts

Hey all!

Okay, first I want to thank Pat and Dennis for all of the wonderful CHEESE that they brought with them when they came to CHINA!!!  I have already scarfed down about one of the wedges all by myself - mmmmmm!  Creamy and delicious!  Thank you so much!  I can't access my regular blog site to update my food diary, so a special post!  If any of you techies out there knows some sneaky ways around, please let me know!

So, our first official China visitors from the states... #1!  Whoo-hoo!  Okay, so not exclusively our visitors, they would have been coming whether we were here or not, but it was so much fun to see some family friends!  I don't really remember when exactly the last time we saw each other, but something like... 14 years ago?

We met and went out for some Peking duck.  Now, I don't know why, but I really like ducks.  I felt a little bad eating one of the little creatures that gives me so much delight to watch,  but I gotta confess that it was quite tasty!  It helps if it is all formless all sliced up on the plate and not having to look at the quacker all throughout dinner.  One of the nice touches was that the restaurant gave us a card with a little information about the restaurant and the duck count - in the history of the restaurant, what number of duck we are eating in the total that they have served.  It was really fun and we have continued the tradition of the Brown-Corby restaurant shut-down, that is, gabbing until the restaurant goes through all of the signs that they will be shutting down/switching shifts politely until we actually leave.  Love it!  So, our first Peking duck!

Then, of course, the previously mentioned cheese!  Our first cheese hand-delivered with cold pack and all!  How awesome is that?  Thank you again Pat and Dennis!

Seriously, it was so much fun to see them again and I really hope that they have a great time in China!

On a different note, to all of you complainy pants out there, new pictures are finally up on my flickr site The Unsinkable MB

There!  Happy?

Anyhow, after all of the excitement about my visitors, nothing else seems to live up to that, so nothing too spectacular going on.

Uhhhh...I have been getting tons of voice work which makes me really happy!
Uhhhh...My kids over at Yan Qing are not driving me as crazy this week - I will officially give that distinction to my Management kids at USTB at the present time.
Uhhhh...Thinking about Starbucks.
Uhhhh...I have several pairs of shoes that cause my toes to punch holes through my socks.
Uhhhh...I have to mend several pairs of sock because of said shoes.
Uhhhh...No reason for the picture on this post (if it shows up), I just want to see if it works, if it isn't there, it didn't.

Okay, I promise I will write more later.  Talk to you soon!

I'll get you! And your little dog too!

Nothing to report here.  It has been hella windy today!  Some huge (10ft+ sheets) corrugated aluminum sheeting blew off of the roof of our building and cam crashing down.  There were even a couple stuck in the tree!  When I went out to take some pictures, most of the sheeting mess had been cleaned up, but the ones in the tress remained.  There was also a posse of police and green uniformed men, assessing the situation.  They blocked the path so bikes and cars couldn't go through.

What else...

Oh, yesterday Matt and I went with one of his students to the Fragrant Hills (mountain).  We climbed up.  Actually not so much climbed, but slowly shuffled as the crowd shifted.  Hella busy.  It was nice, really windy though.  It is hard to really enjoy some of these sort of things here in China because there are just too many people!  We went part way down on a dirt trail.  I never thought that I would ever be on a semi-steep decline with people still pushing and jockeying for space.  Hella crazy.  Totally suckola!  Didn't see too many red leaves.  I am convinced that the promo pictures have all been photoshopped.  There were some, but nothing like what is on the printed material.  It was good to get out for a little bit because it reminded me how much I like being in my apartment.

Yeah.

Suckola.

Yup, used "suckola".

Also, note the usage of "hella".  I would like to blame that recent addition to my blog vocabulary to South Park.  I have been watching a lot of it lately.  Hella cool.

Anyhow, Matt's student was really friendly and helpful.  And it is fun to spend time with students, even if their English level isn't that high.  He insisted on paying for everything though, which we don't really like.  He even brought a backpack full of beverages that he hauled up and down the mountain!

Oh, about the blog.  I don't think that it is just me.  It looks like a lot of us down in the PRC are having trouble with the new Blogger Beta program.  Hopefully it is just a temporary block.  At least I can post through my email.  I just can't edit, so you will have to live with all of my mistakes (not that I really proof read much before).  Also, if any of you techies know about any good backdoor programs, please let me know!  More pictures will be up on Flickr somewhat soon, so keep checking back!

Okay people.  Unsinkable out.

Hmmmm....

A couple of hmms today.

First, I picked up some new mints at the Wu Mart (AKA the "Mini Wu) on campus.  They are Rio brand, vanilla lychee yogurt flavored mints.  Now, what do you think those will taste like?

The other hmm...is whether I will be able to access my blog from here on out as today I haven't been having much luck.

Wish me luck with both the mints and the blog.  You can decide which is more important.

The post that will probably shut down my blog

... I hope not. Being that I am living in China, and there are some sensitive issues here (the taboo 3 T's and the FG - I'm sure you can guess what they are) my big brother, who is always watching over me on the intenet, mail, phone and apartment for my well-being, sometimes doesn't like me to be exposed to things that might corrupt my mind. So, I have doctored the following article so my brother won't know what I have been reading under the sheets with a flashlight. And to think, he recently gave me permission to view my blog within my current country of residence, and this is what I do to repay him.

Anyhow, the theme I have been using is food product characters. Let's see what China has against baked goodies and breakfast cereal.

************

NEW DEHLI - They waded through snowdrifts of the biggest mountain (range in the world) and climbed ice-covered rocky terrain for 17 days, cold, hungry and exhausted. Then came the shooting.

As 75 Keebler elf refugees were making a secret trek across the border into Nepal, moving in single file across a mountain slope near the 19,000-foot-high Nanpa La Pass, General Mills' border guards opened fire.

One woman - a 25-year-old Keebler Buddhist nun - was killed immediately in the Sept. 30 shooting, group members said. Sonny and the Cuckoo Coco puffs officials, in a statement, have said a second person also died.

"There was no warning of any kind. The bullets were so close I could hear them whizzing past," Thubten Tsering, a Keebler elf told journalists in New Delhi on Monday. "We scattered and ran."

Thubten is among 41 refugees who managed to reach India after the shooting. The refugees said 32 others, including nine children, were taken into custody by the guards and they don't what happened to them.

"We don't know where they are or what happened to them," said Thubten, his chapped cheeks and exhausted face still bearing the scars of the ordeal.

Thousands of Kellog's cereal characters flee General Mill's rule in the big "T" - the Keebler Elves tree house every year. Unable to get passports, many trek over Himalayan passes to reach Nepal and then India, where Tony the Tiger, the spiritual leader of Keebler Buddhists, lives in exile. Reports of arrests and ill-treatment by the General Mills' authorities are common.

Evidence on film
What separates the Sept. 30 shooting is that international mountaineers, on an expedition, saw the gunfire and filmed it.

Footage of the incident, shot by a Romanian cameraman, has led to an international outcry.

The video, released by Romania's Pro TV, shows a distant figure that its narrator says is a General Mills' border guard firing a rifle and a separate scene of a person in a line of figures walking through the snow then falling to the ground. An unidentified man near the camera can be heard saying in English, "They are shooting them like, like dogs."

Sonny and the Cuckoo Coco puffs' government, in a report released two weeks ago by the official Xinhua News Agency, said the border guards fired in self-defense after clashing with about 70 people trying to leave the country illegally. It said one person died in the shooting and another died later. The statement didn't say whether those involved were the Keebler elves.

The activist group International Campaign for Kellogs, in a written statement, said the video proves the Cuckoo Coco puffs troops opened fire on unarmed Keebler elves and not in self-defense.

Frequently used route for escape
The pass is a common escape route for fleeing Keebler elves. Thousands have left for Nepal since communist General Mills forces occupied their Himalayan homeland in 1951. Many make their way to the north Indian town of Dharmsala, the home of Tony the Tiger, the exiled Keebler elves' Buddhist spiritual leader and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Every year more than 2,500 Keebler elf refugees attempt the arduous trek, said Tenzing Norgay of the Keebler elf Center for Human Rights and Democracy, which arranged the news conference Monday.

Asked about his life in a monastery in the "Tree house" where the monks are under the constant watch of Cuckoo Coco puffs security forces and under pressure to denounce Tony the Tiger, Thubten said simply: "It was stifling."

"Being a monk who has taken a vow to live by the faith, we were always under threat from General Mills' political authorities," he said.

Dolma Palkyid, a 15-year-old novice nun, was a close friend of Kelsang Nortso, the nun who was killed.

Discovery dashes hopes
"I had walked ahead and we got separated. Then the shooting took place and we fled. It was four days later that I heard Kelsang was the one who was shot," she said, speaking haltingly and tearfully, through an interpreter.

Once in India, the friends were hoping to join another Buddhist nunnery together, said the teenager, dressed in a traditional ankle-length gown.

The group of Keebler elf refugees had each paid $625 to a guide to arrange the trip. They set off in mid-September, assured that the 10-day trek would deliver them to Nepal.

There have been instances of refugees being shot at by border guards in the past, but this was the first time in recent years that troops killed any, said Tenzing of the human rights group.

"This is the first time that the world has seen evidence of what the Keebler elves are subjected to by Sonny and the Coco puffs," he said.

"Kelsang's death cannot go in vain. We will use this incident and the video footage to bring international pressure on General Mills and press for Keebler elves' freedom."

Too funny not to share!

I know that I have been posting up a lot of news articles lately, but I was just sent this from my Nanjing gal and thought that it was just too good not to share with all of you! Hmmm...now, what can I do with this....

************

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese appear not to have warmed to a "free hugs" campaign aimed at cheering up strangers by hugging them on the street, with some huggers even being hauled away by police for questioning, media said Monday.

The campaign hit the streets of Beijing, Changsha and Xian this weekend, with participants opening their arms to embrace passers-by and brandishing cards saying "free hugs," "care from strangers," "refuse to be apathetic," the Beijing News said.

In the capital, police moved in and took away four huggers briefly for questioning, baffled by their wacky, Western activities on a busy city-center shopping street.

In the ancient capital of Xian, home to the terracotta warriors, no more than 20 people, mostly children, had volunteered for the free hugs in two hours.

"Passers-by showed interest and curiosity, stopped and asked, but most of them walked away after hearing the explanation," Xinhua news agency said, quoting a local newspaper.

"Embracing is a foreign tradition. Chinese are not accustomed to this," a man named Li, a Xi'an citizen, was quoted as saying.

The ancient city of Changsha, capital of Hunan province, fared better, a local affairs Web site reported.

"Though some people refused (to be hugged), I hugged 20 people in one minute," one girl was quoted as saying.

The Free Hugs campaign started in Australia and gained fame with a music video this year.

Nothing.

I have absolutely nothing to say.

Uh...

We threw a Halloween party for the students. It was fun. I wore devil horns and had black lips. I scared our neighbor's daughter. Matt was a pirate. Matt was in charge of the apple bobbing booth. Naree beat him. Gloria (the person who arranges our schedules) beat Adam. I didn't bob because of black lips. Instead, I drew on people's faces with eyeliner pencils. I mulled cider and made about a gallon of caramel. Sticky. I carved a pumpkin. Someone stole it. Someone else gave me a carved eggplant. I liked it. We didn't have enough pumpkins. We carved melons as well as other fruit and vegetables. There will be pictures up when I get around to it.

Yan Qing is getting better. Doing things for shock value works. Nothing gets attention like pictures of people who were lynched and burned alive. Kicking people out of class makes me happy. Telling people not to come to class and having them listen to me makes me even happier. Went through the song "Strange Fruit" line by line. The first time they listened to it they laughed at Ms. Holiday's voice. After the pictures and the lecture they were somber. Some cried.

Recorded some more English dialogues. It is good. The Beijing pollution is catching up with me. That is no good. I will have to go on the steroid this winter. That makes me :-(

Roasting pumpkin seeds right now. The apartment smells like Moroccan spices. Thanks for the spices, Debz!

I changed my blog to the "new" google linked thingy. Can't upload my video now. Will have to wait.

Wait.

Okay. Me done. Now.

BOO!

Did I scare you?

MWHAHAHAHAHA!

One minute to spare, whew!

Where's my damn candy?

Ganbei-ing to the Grave

BEIJING, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Five Chinese power bureau officials have been dismissed or demoted after an auditor died from a series of banquet binges, the Shanghai Daily reported on Tuesday.

The death of Zhang Hongtao, 25, who worked with the Yanshan County Audit Office in northern Hebei province, was blamed on alcohol after banquets provided in April for auditors by the Yanshan Power Supply Co., the newspaper said.

Instead of working, Zhang did little else but eat, drink, play cards and enjoy massages, the official China Daily said.

"Zhang called his family the day before his death, saying that he couldn't pick up his child because the power bureau had invited the auditors and some other supervision officials to another banquet," the newspaper said.

"That night, Zhang consumed a lot of alcohol and became very ill. When the bureau invited the group to dine again the next day, Zhang's lifeless body was found, which Zhang's family said was due to alcohol poisoning."

China bars auditors from banquets, trips, entertainment events or parties hosted by the company they are in the process of auditing.

Last month, a court in the eastern province of Zhejiang ordered a group of eight friends to pay compensation after a guest they made drink too much at a banquet collapsed and died.

MKB - Recording Supastar!

Part 3, 1:

W: Let's go see the elephants, Bill. I like elephants they are cute and clever!
M: No, I don't like elephants. I think they are ugly.
W: Oh, Bill! What would you like to see?
M: I like pandas, I think they are cute and friendly!
W: I love pandas! I think they are cute and shy.
Q: What does Bill like?

Text 2: I like elevators. We owe a lot of our city's success to elevators. It it weren't for elevators, we would not be able to have such tall buildings....

on and on and on for hours!

Yup, you are looking at one of the newest voices on English tapes to be distributed to schools throughout China! Awesome. I guess that this guy has been working with VIA volunteers for the past five years or so, so one day he just called the apartment and asked if I was the new American VIA volunteer.

So, I went down for a voice check and have been called back several times to record those delightful English dialogues riddled with mistakes. I have a good time doing it even if the sessions drag. I guess that he had had trouble getting good female voices because many are too high pitched and not throaty enough. Lucky me and my throaty (increasingly so with the lovely Beijing air) neutral American accent!

I don't know if I will ever be able to get a copy of my recording work, but if I do, rest assured, you will all get copies of my dialogue brilliance!

New Teaching Methodology

My dear friend passed this along to me as a new classroom technique since what I have been doing in Yan Qing hasn't really been working very well. I'll all for experimental teaching, but I don't know about this....

Is it art? Teacher strips in class
POSTED: 0806 GMT (1606 HKT), September 28, 2006

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- A Chinese culture ministry official has denounced a university professor who stripped naked in front of students and teachers during an art class, a Chinese newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Mo Xiaoxin, a 56-year-old assistant professor at a university in Changzhou, in eastern Jiangsu province, shocked students by stripping during a lecture on "body art" to emphasize the "power" of the body and to "challenge taboos," the Beijing News said.

"There are no taboos in the field of research, but to do this directly in the course of teaching is obviously not appropriate," the paper quoted Tian Junting, a culture ministry official, as saying.

The lecture was part of a course within a newly established "human body art and culture" research institute -- China's first -- at Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology, the paper said.

Mo arranged for four other models, including a man and woman in their 70s or 80s, and a younger couple, to strip naked in front of the class while he lectured, the paper said.

During the nearly hour-long class, Mo also invited students to take their clothes off.

"Professor Mo appeared emotionally excited at the time," the paper quoted a student as saying. "As he was talking, he undid his belt and took off his pants, and stood naked in the middle of the lecture podium."

The naked lecture made many of the 30 or so students feel "uneasy," the paper said. "Some kept their eyes trained on the ceiling, some awkwardly bowed their heads and stared at the ground".

Tian, the culture ministry official, said the course was still in a "research phase" and it wasn't yet known whether it had produced "positive or negative effects."

Defending Lady Day

So, 30. Rock on! I didn't tear it up or anything over my birthday, but hopefully will be able to do some things this weekend. I did get to go to a great, new Indian buffet with Matt, Adam and Naree and that was good. I stuffed my face with pakora and had my birthday kheer. So, all good. Didn't really do much anything else though. Saturday was kinda grey and Matt and I were BUSY with class stuff all weekend. So, we postponed birthday activities.

Anyhow, teaching has been going better. My Yan Qing Monday is getting a little better. The combination of kicking kids out of class and making sure they understand that attendance is not required, has cut some of the classes down a little bit to the people who want to be there. Even if it just a few people missing, those are usually the ones who are causing the problems.

So, I have been doing a series of lectures related to racism and the Civil Rights era in the United States. The most recent lecture was on songs of protest - past and present. One of the songs that I shared with them was "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday (if you have not heard this song, please do! It will give you chills). She has a very distinctive voice and I have loved listening to her for many, many years. But not something that my kids were used to hearing, so they laughed. A lot. Yeesh. So, I had to school them. I can't force them to like her music, but I can try to get them to appreciate the artist. Anyhow, who are they to judge, have you heard Beijing Opera?

Now I just have to find some more pictures of people being lynched to drive it home. The shock tactic seems to work well with those kids. But I am happy that they have at least attempted to do the homework that I have given them and even happier that some of them are choosing not to come to class.

Anyhow, not much else going on. I have started my time with Hui Ling. I think that will be good. I don't know if I will be able to do exactly what I would like to do with them, but I'll try. If any of you have any good ideas for craft/art projects that don't involve the use of sharp objects, please let me know!

So, I will be throwing some other random things up soon, so keep checking back in!

Getting Older. Ugh.

I'm still sick, but at least the computer is feeling better. Had to bring it to the emergency room, but now back up and running.

No real reason for this post, but I will turn 30 this weekend. Scary. 30 always seemed so far away. Anyhow, now it is nearing and I plan on drowning myself in raita and kheer at a newly opened Indian restaurant, which will be, conveniently enough, having an Indian lunch buffet on my birthday!

So, this milestone will be celebrated in China, my 21st was in Indonesia, so where should 40 take place? Eeek 40! Not quite ready to wrap my head around that one yet!

Anyhow, 30. 30. 30. Not so bad. I plan to be mid way through a block of cheese and on my second Dr. Pepper around this time in about 3 days. My birthday wishlist for this year? Cheese, Dr. Pepper, a Snapple, and a box of Post Selects cereal. Ah, the simplicity of my birthday wishes, stemming from my base desperation amuses me. I guess I'll throw in a pendant (from an awesome bookstore!) that I have had my eye on just for good measure and so I will have a little keepsake from this milestone.

I guess that about wraps it up for me right now - I have some other random things I will be posting up soon - a little more from Mongolia and some other brain tidbits.

30.

30.

30.

Ah-ah-ah-choo!

Hello everyone. I'm sick. Kinda a little welcome home gift. If you email, I will be a little slow to respond as I am not the only one with a Chinese virus. Yes, my trusty laptop has come down with a nasty one too.

So, if any of my computer geek friends have any advice on how to get my little silver friend up and running again, I would be most grateful!

The problem: I can't access my desktop. All of my antivirus programs are blocked. All of my system functions are blocked can't do anything in safe mode either. Can't roll back my computer, can't do anything! ARRRGH!!! I can still get to my program files, but that is about it. I spent some good time with a support person on the phone, but, alas, no luck. I can't access the internet anymore either.

Any advice?

The Reno of Asia

Gerbils - check
Sand - check
"Recreation" of Invading Mongol Horde - check

Alrighty, so, these post are things that I was writing out long hand during our trip to Mongolia. Enjoy!

So, speeding back from Mongolia on the train and I wish I was still there, but the train is pretty cool so I'm happy about that. It is strangely liberating to not be afraid of the toilet facilities and therefore able to eat and drink however much I want. The time in Mongolia went way too fast and I didn't get to see nearly enough of the country! We were both really tempted to play hooky from school and continue on over to Moscow. But, alas, we are still responsible (more or less).

So, I have a lot to tell, so I'll get to it!

First the beginning...

The train ride up. We got stuck in Beijing traffic the last 200m or so to the train station, but were told we couldn't get out in the intersection. The time we needed to catch the train was whittling down, so finally, seeing that we really needed to go, the cab driver gave a little nod and we bolted from the cab into the jammed intersection. Poor civil planning! All of the traffic going to the train station has to make a U-turn into oncoming traffic. Being that there is not a dedicated turn light, this is nearly impossible. Ah, yet another Chinese feat in half-baked planning!

Anyhow, we were expecting the mad rush and frantic "queuing" like other train experiences, so we booked it to the station waiting area. To our surprise, it was very easy. Shockingly easy. Uncharacteristically Chinese easy! We were right away directed to the first class waiting lounge and international train transit lounge and then only a quick ticket check (no line, no shoving) and we were on the platform! Not only were we on the platform, but we could board the train immediately - no waiting! I do think that the mad rush to the gate is merely to entertain some sort of sadistic party paper stamper in the back office. Anyhow...(stay on track, Molly).

So, on the train we go!

We stowed all our stuff (once we figured out the storage places) and were really pleased with the cabin arrangements - only 4 beds per cabin on a hard class sleeper ticket! Thank you Russia! I never thought that I would have so much praise and adoration for Russian engineering and products, but Хорошо сделанный! The cabin was nice! LOTS of room and a heavy, lockable door. We settled into our bunks and I was suddenly overcome with how quiet it was. So, so, so quiet. No bad pop/shrill flute music or electric piano versions of Celine Dion and Whitney Houston. There was some soft (emphasis on "soft") music in the corridor, but not in the individual cabins. Ahhhh, I found a little slick of heaven on a Russian train.

We had the cabin to ourselves for a few hours. Matt checked out the facilities, came back and informed me of a real-to-life toilet in the WC. Having that mobile toilet was liberating! We could now eat and drink as much as we wanted! When I visited the toilet, I was so happy. I think a "happy Russian toilet" song might have escaped my lips. It even smelled clean! And then, push a lever and, flush! Onto the tracks! Bye waste! With the bathroom facilities checked out, I felt confident to eat, so I did. We both got some food from the dining car - not great, but tasted better and better as we sped farther and farther away from China.

Eventually, a couple of Mongolians joined us in our cabin. They were great cabin mates! Sure they played with their phone, but did so quietly. Eventually we went to sleep. It was nice. Each bunk had its own light so we could determine our own bedtime. It was quiet. There was no one trying every single ring tone on their phone, no one yelling/singing loudly, no one sitting on you, no one using said cell phone as a flashlight to see who you are... Ahhh... solace! I was able to sleep. Sleep well.

We reached Erlian (boarder in China) where the wheels of the train had to be changed because the tracks were of a different gauge. So we got off and went to the little duty free shop - it was madness! People were grabbing and buying up cases of fruit and just throwing elbows left and right. We had about a 2 hour lay over before heading on.

Immigration and customs was really easy (especially as the official came to us - i.e.: no lines). The Chinese officer looked at Matt's passport picture and called him "fat". We all got a good laugh at that! I was a little scared to fork over my passport, but just got the nod, and I was good with that. The official on the Mongolian side gave us each a quick once over and stamped our passports. Hooray! Land of Kahn, ho!

We all went to sleep. I think I must have slept until 9 or 10 AM. No shrill flute music to wake me at 6/7 AM. Thus no swears. This overall was a pretty swear free vacation for me - with an exception for the multiple mental and a couple of vocal "hot-damns". Around brunch our cabin mates started eating the Mongolian man was very friendly and funny. He sliced off some excellent Mongolian sausage for me to try. YUM! He told me that it was Mongol with a big happy face and thumbs up. Oh, sooo tasty! Then he sliced off a little Chinese sausage and made sure to make the distinction with a big frown - he was right, not too good.

So, we coasted on into to Ulaan Baatar - the UB, the capital city of Mongolia. Matt and I realized that we didn't have any Mongolian money for a cab, so we were happy to find a guest house representative who offered us a free shuttle to his guesthouse
which was close to a money changer and ATM. On the shuttle we met some other travelers who told us about a couple of SE Asian countries we were looking to visit this winter.

The UB Guesthouse. Owned and operated by a South Korean man and his Mongolian wife. We decided to just dorm bed it for the night (well, that was decided for us as there were no private rooms available - so dorm bunks it was!) The guesthouse was crowded but cozy. We all got our stuff settled and went to go get some togrog (Mongolian currency). After, we decided to check out a monastery, the Gandantegchinlen (Gandan) Khiid (roughly means, 'the great place of complete joy') which is Mongolia's largest monastery. We were joined by 2 guys, Robert, American student studying Chinese in Beijing and John, Australian who had been traveling for the past 7 months. We got out to the temple to find out that it was closing (of course, we find out after they take our admission). So, we saw one chapel.

We decided to head back to the guesthouse and try to find a place to eat. While walking to the restaurant, many homeless boys approached us for money or food. One even latched onto my arm and wouldn't let go. Many of the children live under ground in the winter as it is the only place warm enough. In our LP (Lonely Planet, for those of you not in the know), it mentions that many of the kids are abandoned or run away from abusive homes. Many of the girls get sucked into prostitution. Initially we thought that by giving them food, that would encourage them to ask for more or latch onto you. Nope. They were just hungry. I gave one my half full 7UP and he took it and ran. Same with some leftover food I had.

Anyhow, we all went to a place called "El Latino" (Cuban food) for dinner. Matt and I weren't too hungry as we had a late lunch at a fabulous Greek Restaurant (feta, mmmmmm!) But we enjoyed the company and native speaker rate of English conversation. So, after dinner, we all headed back to the guesthouse to pack or figure out excursions. On the way back Robert was remarking how he thought that the city looked like Reno. The rest of us, who have never been to Reno, had to go on his word. I wound up chatting with John (the Aussie). We were both pleasantly surprised to find out that we were both in school in Indonesia at around the same time! He was in Yogya and me about 3 hours away in Salatiga. Tried speaking in really rusty Bahasa, squeaky but still functional. His was a lot better than mine, but he admitted that he was just there and was able to embarrass himself (practice). So we swapped stories about the archipelago and talked about our favorite cities. Great fun! He had been traveling around SE Asia and told me a little about Vietnam and Cambodia (really excited about going there over winter - fingers crossed).

Matt and I decided to tour around UB on Monday and take a trip out to Karakorum (Genghis' - "Chinggis" old hood) the next day. We visited some museums and shops - Mongolia was more expensive than we thought it would be (almost US prices). We went to the Winter Palace of Bogd Khaan. We snapped a couple of photos outside before being taken down by the photo taking enforcement squad - err, woman who helps clean the compound. We assumed that the photo fee was just for taking photos inside the buildings but we were wrong and had to shell out $15 USD! to appease the descendants oh Khaan. So we took a lot of retribution photos. With flash. Indoors. Take that (concentrated flash of UV) Bogd Khaan! What a dork revenge, but mwahahahahaha all the same!

Anyhow, we went to a couple of art galleries which were cool and the Victims of Political Persecution Museum which was interesting. We enjoyed looking around town. I enjoyed the consistently clean bathrooms (not smelly, pedestal toilets, toilet paper and sink with hot water and soap)! Later, we reconfigured our packs so we could just take one pack on the road trip.

Okay. Enough for now. How 'bout y'all take a quick break, get some water and I'll continue a little later.

Jerboa-con 2006! Hooray!

Yeah, yeah, Chinggis Khaan (blah, blah, blah), Kublai Khaan (blah, blah, blah), Golden Horde (blah, blah, blah). The real reason for our Mongolian excursion was...

...to see us some gerbils in the wild!

Mongolia has several species of jerboa. For me, I have wanted to see where my childhood pets came from. We were not disappointed. Because of the time limit, we couldn't go down to the Gobi. Oh, well some other time.

I did get to dune romp in the little Gobi, so, that filed the sand void for now. I like the desert. But I'm getting ahead of myself once again.

Gerbil town #1: We stopped off at a place for lunch. I went around to snap a few pictures. When I walked back I saw Matt staring at the ground. Gerbil town spotted! They were so cute! Poking their heads up from their little holes and scampering around. Perfect! I was so happy! As far as I was concerned, I could go home a happy girl. So, we (Matt, Temple and Reuben - fellow teachers in China and I) all had lunch at the little roadside diner. The food was good, but we were all surprised by the food presentation. The plate at this little roadside stop had a very eye appealing arrangement. Rice was molded with decorative ketchup dollop on top, and the vegetable salad was nice and colorful. The noodles were al dente and the meat was tender - not too bad! I finished eating quickly so I could go out on the gerbil watch a little longer before hitting the road once again.

Part way to the little Gobi, our driver met up with some friends of his. This was cool by us, but when they pulled out a bottle of vodka, not so cool anymore. So were all watched to see what he was doing (y'know, watching, but pretending not to really watch). But our driver just dipped his right ring finger in the glass that was offered to him and flicked a little once to the sky, once in the air (to the wind) and once to the ground. Then put the glass to his lips, but didn't take a chug.

Next Stop: Little Gobi. So, I needed a little desert fix so the little Gobi was pretty perfect for that! Kicked off my shoes, rolled up my pants and ran out to the mini dunes with Roy Chapman Andrews on the brain. I didn't discover any dinos or anything, but found plenty of broken glass (shoes back on), plastic bottles, poop and animal bones. So no great adventuring excursions through the Gobi on camel back, but making my way through the mini dunes, tripping on the sand, dodging poop is basically the same thing, right? Didn't stop me from striking some nerdy poses in my Beloit College gear (er, vintage T)! Ah, ol' Roy would have been so proud! Especially with this Beloiter! So, I was kneeling down on the side of a dune to take a picture and I started to tip over. My planted foot was deep in the sand. So, well...I just kinda went with it and log rolled down the side of the dune. Another proud moment was running on the sand and tripping on, well, nothing. Another, squatting in a prickly bush and all of this is a span of less than an hour. Ahhhh, good times!

So, after the dune fun, it was back in the car for bumpy road. The trip out to Karakorum was about 7 hours one way, most of that time was dodging pot holes - I think there was more hole than road. I remember looking out longingly at the dirt trail next to the asphalt. Anyhow, we arrived at our ger at about 5:30/6 PM. Dinner was to be served at 7:15, so we had some time to walk around the old Khaan stomping ground. We all made use of the cleanest pit toilet we had seen in quite awhile and set off! Temple and Reuben set off in one direction toward the flour factory and us in another.

We, of course, went out on the gerbil hunt. We saw many holes, but, alas, no gerbils. A gerbil ghost town. So, we got to work and bad-assed up a one of the gerbil domiciles we happened upon. Yup, grande nerds of the steppe. Then, um, "reenactment" time - I'll post that up later. Feeling satisfied with our lame wrath we unleashed, we headed back to the ger.

Dinner was small but good - buuz (dumplings) with mostly vegetables and just a little meat. Not quite enough for everyone, but quite tasty. Eventually one of the ger owners came and started a nice fire for us and we settled in for the night, swapping China stories. My favorite, "honey, I think I just ordered a prostitute." The stars were amazing at night and I slept pretty well, especially after I covered my head.

In the morning we had biscuit cookies for breakfast and I bought some hand sewn camels from the woman who ran the ger (who had one of the cutest daughters with huge cheeks). The little girl was all smiles and super happy as she toddled around with a box of Toblerone. Hey, I would be pretty too if I had some Toblerone! We left the ger and headed off to see Erdene Zuu Khid (first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia). Sooooo cool! It is in the middle of nowhere - just so neat to look out on nothing and see this huge, walled monastery. I was just drawn to the starkness of the area. We looked around the complex for a little bit and headed out to walk with the Great Khaan. Driving out to a turtle rock marker, I saw what looked like an excavation, but wasn't too sure, it looked like a foundation. We stopped over at penis rock. Guess what it looks like? Legend has it that the rock was placed here in an attempt to stop frisky monks, filled with lust by the shapely slope, from fraternizing with the local women.

Um, after that...we went up to one of the turtle rocks. There are 4 turtle rocks and they mark the boundaries of ancient Karakorum. The turtles act as protectors of the city (turtles are considered symbols of eternity). It was just cool to be standing where, perhaps The Man stood. The man of the millennium. Awesome!

Then, steppe fun was done, so we piled back into the car and headed back to UB. We had fun watching the wildlife and domesticated animals. Lots of cows, sheep and goats. Also, horses, a fox, golden eagles, vultures, camels, and course, gerbils! We only hit one animal scurrying across the road - a little gerbil :( But it was fun to watch then run across.

On the way back we stopped for breaks more at one place there was a most excellent gerbil town with the little cute gerbils that looked like my childhood pets (shout out to Slick, Scooter, Pita and Repita). So cute! One stared at me for a long time and some others kept on popping their little heads up out of their holes - like a miniature whack-a-mole game. I could have watched them for hours! But I had to pull myself away.

Along the ride home, we met up with some other travelers, form a mix of places, but wound up talking with a couple of guys from Israel. Sounds like they had been traveling for awhile (made their way to Mongolia from Russia) so they told us about some of their experiences from the road. They got hassled a little bit in Moscow (police officers wanting to get paid) and were hoping to pick up a little work in China. I think Matt and I are more interested in going to Russia than ever before, but have heard from many people (who we met on this trip) that it is a difficult place to travel for independent travelers, i.e. not on a tour.

*Sigh*

Maybe someday we'll hop the train again and go all the way to Moscow. Someday...

Lap-Dino

So, back to UB - we arrived in the late evening and checked back into the UB Guesthouse. This time we didn't stay at the main guesthouse, but a smaller apartment like place. We went to eat at the Greek place again. Baked feta! Greek Salad! Stuffed grape leaves! Moussaka! Lovely!

After dinner we met our roomies for the rest of our time in Mongolia - Nadia and Antonio. There were so awesome! She was a French Moroccan and he was a Spaniard. They both had been living in London, working for a big company. They got tired of it, so they quit and have been traveling, looking for a new place to live and work. Both of them were so laid back and interesting we had a lot of fun chatting with them!

*Oooh! I just saw 2 camels! I'm have been working on these posts as we make our way through the Gobi Desert. Pretty desolate, but I like it! Gets me thinking about the 1920 Gobi expedition and Andrews' excavation. It's really a crap shoot if you'll find anything. Kind of like, "um...well, shit, I don't know. How about digging here? Just as good as any other place." Anyhow, back to the travel log.*

On our last day in UB we had a lot to do! We talked a little more with the Aussie, who was just back from his trip out to a nature reserve - sounded like they all got a little sick. We wanted to go out to a reserve too, but no time. He highly recommended the Monastery-Museum of Choijin Lama (which was good as I was prepared to bump it if we were slim on time). The first stop though was the Mongolian History Museum.

The MHM was a really nice place - they took a lot of time with the exhibits and signage. I was really impressed with the good English signs. Pretty straight to the point and not a lot of over description. Nice! After the MHM we walked to a restaurant called, "Modern Nomads" - not quite authentic, traditional Mongolian food, but clean, plague free food which was more of what we were going for. Even with a ped toilet, we were hopping a 30 hour train the next morning.... It was good but a lot of food! I had them wrap up my leftovers so I could give it to the street kids later.

BTW (by the way), we did not eat Bodog - authentic Mongolian BBQ. First, the innards get pulled out of the goat or marmot through a slit in the neck. Then, the carcass is stuffed full of scalding rocks and the neck re-closed with wire. Then the animal is thrown on an open fire or blowtorched to burn the fur off the outside while the meat is cooked from the inside. Oh any FYI, the bubonic plague - the great Black Death can be passed by handling marmot skins. Whoohoo! Extreme eating!

Next stop, The Natural History Museum (let's see me some dinosaur)! So, the NHM was basically a creepy taxidermy affair, lots of those not quite right glass(?) eyes staring at you from posed animals that are never really quite right. There was this baby penguin that was, well, um, its neck was craned real strange like. Creeped me out. But had to go through the museums to see the Protoceratops Andrewsi!

Now, I didn't exactly know what to expect as I hadn't researched the dino before going - was leaving that to be surprised. So, I was expecting something large and fierce, further fueling this thought was that the LP mentioned that the museum had a rare preserved example of Andrewsi and a velociraptor locked in mortal combat (probably were buried alive when a sand dune collapsed). Needless to say, I needed to check this bad ass out! We walked through the main dino exhibit hall with all of the large specimens and, hmmm...no Protoceratops Andrewsi. Then, anticipating wanting to get a photo picture of the 80 million year old baddie, I paid the photo fee and took some other pictures while Matt wandered into the next gallery. Matt called out, "hey, Molly! He's in here!" Ooooh, so excited! I can't tell you how excited I was walking in to the next hall - goose bumps!

So I entered the next hall and Matt motioned, "it's over there". I look over to where Matt was pointing and walk up to it and finally was face to face with the Protoceratops Andrewsi! The bad ass dino. Um, the little bad ass dino. Err, the little, vegetarian, bad ass dino. Okay, the little, vegetarian, a little chubby, probably pretty cute bad ass dino. Let's see, so, um, the Andrewsi would kinda be like the ankle biter of the dino world. A sort of "lap-dino", if you will. But, hey, I have to give lil' lap-dino Andrewsi props as it looks like it was kicking the velociraptor's ass! That is before a bunch of sand killed them both. Oh well, go Andrewsi, go!

But the dino skeletons were really neat and pretty complete. I also really enjoyed the paintings. Y'know the paintings at natural history museums that recreate the dino/animal/what have you in their natural environment? Well, Andrewsi looked like a happy little playful tyke, all chubby and content. Definitely for the baddie I was envisioning but cute! And, hey, do you have a dinosaur named after you? I didn't think so.

After hitting the history museums we set out for the monastery-museum of Choijin Lama. It wasn't an active monastery anymore though and hasn't been since the late 1930s. I am really glad that we didn't scratch it 'cuz it was really interesting! The Mongolian's Tibetan Buddhism seemed to focus on the feminine deity - the one with all of the skull and disemboweled and tortured people. Don't know why, but it just seems fitting. All over the chapels were depiction of people being tortured and ripped apart; embroidered entrails terracing the tops of the walls. It was great! Quite different from the other temples we saw in Tibet.

Next, shopping! I think one of my new favorite animals is the camel. I bought a plush herd. We didn't make it out to the open black market though, which we were disappointed about (didn't get to experience the experienced pick pockets) because we had a cultural show to get to!

Usually cultural show are a bit disappointed and cheesy-lame. But this one was awesome! The music was wonderful and the singing was unbelievable - I shot some video and will post it up later. The throat singing was just amazing. Hard to believe that those sounds were coming from a person! The dancing was lively and fun and they even had contortionists! They were, um, flexible. Whoohoo! Kick ass! Seriously, really cool! I could have easily watched for another couple of hours.

So, after the show we went for our last meal in Mongolia. We wound up going to the Sands restaurant - Arabian and South Asian food. Mmmm-mmm-mmm! Then back to the guesthouse to pack up for the train back to Beijing :(

We were ready to go before 7 AM - I walked over to the main guesthouse to get our key deposits back. When I got outside, snow! Mongolian snow on our last day, last hours in the country. How great is that? The people at the guesthouse were very helpful with our departure and the Mongolian owner was even down at the train station just in case there were questions or problems! They were really great to stay with!

Anyhow, sunset over the Gobi, I want to try to get some "through the dirty window pictures". Talk to you later!

Kyung Khaan - The Korean Invader

So, I'm getting ill, feeling fed-up and am real nice and angry...what better time than now to blog, right (especially applicable last night)?

I'm more than fed-up, so...we're leaving the country! Hooray!

Not packing up and moving out quite yet. We're hoppin' on the trans-Siberian and going to Mongolia over the National Day holiday. With my current mindset as it is, the more distance I put between me and the school the better! I need to try to refresh or something. 'Cuz the whole teaching thing...well, I'm just not into it at all right now.

Ahhh...Mongolia! Can't wait! Our train leaves at 7:40 AM and we should be on the train for about 30 hours (hopefully not too many more than that). So, stay tuned for more stories of our adventures from the road and probably another 1,000 pictures or so. When we get back to, sigh, China.

Ahhh...Land of Kahn, Protoceratops Andrewsi (dinosaur named after Roy Chapman Andrews, you go RCA), and gerbils. Awesome! I can't wait!

So, until we meet again Zhong Guo, kiss my grits!

F-you, China, F-you.

Roast beef

Okay, Monday down, um...Thursday left to go?

Yeah, that is the hard life that I am living over here in Zhong Guo. I work 2 days a week. Well, I have a night class on Wednesday, but I basically have the whole day open until 7 PM.

So, today was the Yan Qing day. It didn't start out the best. Our bus driver hit a dog. Inauspicious especially during the year of the dog. But, then again, there were all of those people forced to kill their dogs here just a little while ago.

Anyhow, so after the dog incident, I was last getting off of the bus and I managed to kind of boff it on the stairs. Yeah, me and stairs, can you believe it!?! (Rolling eyes) So, stairs are a challenge for me in and of themselves, but I don't know how I wound up kinda sliding/skidding down the stairs, ultimately winding up in a very awkward position with my left leg kinda up. What happened next you ask? Well, let's just say that the little piggy who was supposed to have roast beef couldn't because he and two of his already hurt friends were stuck in a bus door! Yup. That's right, I got my toes stuck IN the bus AND I couldn't get them out. The bus driver had to shut off the bus, push the open button and then manually pry the doors apart so I could rescue my poor little piggies. Oh, poor piggies! If they weren't broken before, you most certainly are now. Oh well, at least I have some days off and can keep my little toes safe, maybe. My day to day activity has been rather harsh on them lately.

But, my general stance on any medical care has been NO DOCTORS IN CHINA!!! I'll just deal with it on my own.

So, one of my classes went a little better today. They really liked the tongue twister challenge and the slang exchange. But I think that keeping them motivated will be tricky. The momentum seems to die out pretty quickly. But the other class...oh geez! I have never had a kid mouth off to me before until today. I had a girl who volunteered pick the next person, so she did and I asked him to speak. He looked at me and snottily said, "Why?" This was immediately answered with a very terse reply from the teacher (me), he them had the gall to tell me that he didn't want to and didn't think that he should have to do it. Yeah. That didn't fly. Let's just say that it was "handled" and things just didn't really improve from there. MP3 players and cell phones had to be confiscated, ugh! Basically at the end of the class I told the class not to waste my time and the time of the students who were there to learn and if they were not going to participate in class and only cause trouble, I didn't want them there.

Sooo, we'll see how things go after vacation.

Cross you fingers for us - we will hopefully be on our way to Mongolia this weekend!

Things to look forward to: some sort of invading Mongolian horde on horseback type of pictures, Kyung Kahn, Molly in Beloit pretending to be a white male (Roy Chapman Andrews - dude, he has a dinosaur named after him! I mean, a dinosaur, man! C'mon, that's seriously cool.)

...and this little piggy went d@!%, s&!?, f%!?#

Hey, everyone!

First, I want to thank you all for your encouragement over the past weeks during my teaching funk. I can't say that I am out of it yet, but I have the National Day vacation coming up, so at least I will get a break from my oh so heavy workload :) I just don't have the motivation to teach yet. I don't think that is coming through in my teaching, but I am just not enjoying it right now. Things will get better with time, I know, I'm sure they will. But in the meantime, BLAH!

Our apartment is nice enough - a lot smaller than the one on Guyuan, but that one was nicer than most places we have lived in! What we really like about campus is being right next to the cafeteria. The cafeteria is great! It is 4 floors of food (the 4th floor is a restaurant), good for quick food and the taste is pretty good too! Our favorite is the third floor cafeteria. You can get made to order stir-fry as well as small hot pots. It's great! Nice to be able to just walk in, get some decent food quickly and go home.

But, now, my business English class has ended (special short term class). I am happy that I will free up an entire day for me, but I did like that class pretty well. They were all adults from a big steel company located in Shandong. They were very attentive and good sports about the things I wanted them to do in class. But now my teaching schedule will be lighter - I will teach 4 hours on Monday (plus 2.5 hours for transit), nothing on Tuesday, a 2 hour night class on Wednesday, four hours on Thursday and a free Friday. Of course they will probably try to get me to work an extra class in October and I will have volunteer hours at Huiling.

Anyhow, I don't know if I told you that Matt and I joined a health club. They are pretty new in China, so the memberships are a little expensive. But, after a year of basically no exercise, thought that it was a good thing to do. The first day at the gym was a very humbling experience. But on the plus side I am not intimidated at all to use the free weights. Usually, at other gyms that I have joined the weight pits were usually dominated by huge men who could heft a car over their heads. But not here! I was told a couple of times that I should not lift weights because I am a woman and my muscles will get too big and man like. I don't know how many times I have said, "well, I think it is good to be strong." in response. I can't believe how weak I had gotten.

But now, I haven't been back for a while because of klutziness. I hurt my toes. Specifically the two small toes on my left foot. Not just the phalange part, but down into the foot area. And, I have repeatedly hurt them. About everyday since the first injury. How? Because of said klutziness. The initial injury was the worst (kinda got stubbed and tangled with a desk), but the week plus or so of hurt that followed the first injury was not only painful but, eventually extremely funny. I would have the white flash of pain as I re-injured my toes, swear, sometimes collapse to the floor grasping said toes (swearing, of course), and, yes at times, some tears were shed. After about day 5 of repeated injury, it just began to be really funny. Hurt like hell, but funny.

Anyhow, I have a week of vacation coming up, so am looking forward to that - looking to get out of the country for a week (Outer Mongolia or South Korea). It does feel strange to be already planning a vacation after only 2 weeks of work, but for some reason, I really mentally need this one!

So, I hope all of you are doing well! Drop me a line when you get a chance - we have been a little lean on email from the US!

The Red-Headed Step Child

I don't know what happened today. I just woke up really not liking China. Yes, there were some things that happened during the week that weren't the best, but they really didn't feed into why I was filled with angst today.

So, my first week of teaching my full schedule is done and I am glad. The two hour blocks are difficult and I don't really like teaching in those long blocks of time. Yan Qing was...well, hopefully that will get better. I also had my special, short term class with the business professionals this week. Next week will be the last of those classes. Those classes are generally pretty fun and the adults are pretty good sports about them. I also got to me my sophomore classes on Thursday. I will be teaching 2 sections of English for Management Majors. Their English level is pretty high from what I can tell.

When I entered both of the classes, the students thought that I was a student. One of the students even told me that I should not close the door as the teacher was not there yet and would not be able to get into the classroom. When I told him that I was the teacher, I got quite a sound of shock from him. I don't know how these classes will go. They seem like nice enough kids. What I don't like is that they ask me to have the white teachers come and teach them. Yeah. A bit of a blow to the ego. Sometimes I feel that I have to work twice as hard to prove my value as a foreign teacher, to make up for the fact that I am not white. It is just frustrating.

Other than that, I am really not motivated to teach yet. I don't know if it is because of the attitude towards my ethnicity and lack of exotic appeal or just apathy. I just know that I am really dreading boarding that bus on Monday for Yan Qing. I'm just not feeling IT yet.

Beijing is fine. Big, dirty and polluted. But I have access to Mexican food. Did have some good, blue sky days though. To be honest, I just haven't felt like doing a whole heck of a lot lately. Pretty unmotivated right now.

The other day, I was walking home from class, alone. It dawned on me that I was alone. Alone. I didn't have 15 - 11 year olds tagging along chatting away. I didn't give out any hugs or exchange smiles. Didn't have someone dancing and singing just to make all of us laugh. No laughing. No smiling. Just walking. Walking. I miss my kids.

I know that I had some really bad days in Guyuan. No, really, really, really bad days. But, the vast majority of my kids were a delight. I'm really glad that I was able to get to know some of them and spend time with them. It was really special to me. I don't know what it will be like here for me and I'm sure it will get better. But, what I did notice was how much I missed the warmth and spirit of my little kids while walking home and how meaningful that time spent just walking home together was to me. Especially now as I walk alone.