People are blown away by the fact that I can speak Chinese. And it's great because it's an easy segue from Mandarin to missionary work in Taiwan. Yesterday in an English class, I had DK mode turned on high. I had the students laughing and engaged and asking questions. They were asking about my religion and what I did in Taiwan. I basically ended up teaching them the first lesson about the Restoration. It felt so good and they were listening so intently. They even asked for a story from the Bible. I told them about Joseph in Egypt interpreting Pharaoh's dream because he was a prophet and Heavenly Father wanted to help all of his children, not just those who believed in Him.
Another experience was on the bus to Kaiping yesterday. I sat next to one of the university's teachers who came with us. The usual questions came up about how I learned Chinese. We spoke for 30 mins or so about believing in God. She doesn't, but can understand better because of our conversation how important a belief in God is. I think she was a party member by how adamant she was about not believing God.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
My Chinese Girlfriend
Hopefully telling all you about this will make it not such a big deal.
One reason I was excited to come to China was because I would be able to completely cut out a piece of my life that has been the biggest part of my life for the past 9-10 months: girls. For the past 10 months, I have been noticing girls; and whether or not I'm really interested in asking her out, I turn the knob from DK mode to flirting mode. DK mode is the friendly, congenial, bubbly Derrick that you have all come to know and love. All the girls here in my group, however, sort of burned out the flirting mode before I could even click that knob over from DK mode.
Before I came to China, Rick (the teacher in whom I'm daily losing trust) gave my email to one of the brighter of his students. It took me a few days, but I finally found some time in my busy schedule away from taking naps and watching the $.60 movies to give this student a call and meet face to face.
Well, turns out this student, who's a girl by the way, is a stud. She's very intelligent and mature. She makes all these other students look like... not very intelligent or mature people. Not only that, but a buddy of mine in the group from the US has been hanging out with us and another girl, and he DID come here to find a girlfriend. So he's pressing me to be more friendly to my email partner. Luckily, he's also not very intelligent or mature, so I don't listen to him. Also luckily, I'm in frickin' China with 2 weeks left. That's a big safety blanket.
So, Mom, don't worry. I'm not going to bring home a Chinese girlfriend.
One reason I was excited to come to China was because I would be able to completely cut out a piece of my life that has been the biggest part of my life for the past 9-10 months: girls. For the past 10 months, I have been noticing girls; and whether or not I'm really interested in asking her out, I turn the knob from DK mode to flirting mode. DK mode is the friendly, congenial, bubbly Derrick that you have all come to know and love. All the girls here in my group, however, sort of burned out the flirting mode before I could even click that knob over from DK mode.
Before I came to China, Rick (the teacher in whom I'm daily losing trust) gave my email to one of the brighter of his students. It took me a few days, but I finally found some time in my busy schedule away from taking naps and watching the $.60 movies to give this student a call and meet face to face.
Well, turns out this student, who's a girl by the way, is a stud. She's very intelligent and mature. She makes all these other students look like... not very intelligent or mature people. Not only that, but a buddy of mine in the group from the US has been hanging out with us and another girl, and he DID come here to find a girlfriend. So he's pressing me to be more friendly to my email partner. Luckily, he's also not very intelligent or mature, so I don't listen to him. Also luckily, I'm in frickin' China with 2 weeks left. That's a big safety blanket.
So, Mom, don't worry. I'm not going to bring home a Chinese girlfriend.
Pictures from Kaiping
Bamboo forest.
I guess the dude thinks he's Rocky or something.
Windows from the outside.
They're like little castles sprinkled across the countryside.
Sister City
Yesterday we went to Mesa's Sister City of Kaiping. Because it was a visit to a sister city, we basically ended up staying up late, watching chick flicks, doing each other's nails and talking about our respective husband cities. It's nice to get together every once in a while, though. You know, to catch up. We went to a community that was built in the '20s. They built these houses as protection. They came in very useful during WW2, apparently. Afterward, we went to have lunch with the Vice Mayor of the city. She and the foreign affairs officer wanted to speak to me in Chinese. I was the only one who got to meet them. I got their cards and stuff. I'll end up sending them an email, thanking them or something. They had a TV camera there, and they recorded me, another student, and the 2 teachers. It was hot and humid, and I took a wicked nap on the 1.5 hr bus ride home.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
May 25, 2007: Beijing to Jiangmen
This is not going to be a very happy post.
Most of my life I’ve lived in a bubble. I’ve never hung out with any women who I had to pay for (I only paid for her dinner or price of admission, not her presence); I’ve never put any kind of crushed, dried vegetation that was then rolled up in a piece of paper into my mouth, much less proceed to light it and inhale the resulting fumes; I’ve never drunk any kind of previously mentioned vegetation, in a fermented or otherwise form or anything comparable to it, unless you count the other night at dinner when I put a little Coca-Cola in my hot water, making it look closer to the beer that everyone else was drinking. I got a pretty smooth amber-to-stout color out of the recipe. But I only attempted it because I was feeling edgy.
The other students in my group, as they get to know me better, are seeing my bubble more and more clearly. They like to give me a hard time about it. I’m not sure if they are trying to just be funny or if they are serious about their criticisms of my puritan lifestyle. I would guess the preliminary of the two is the object of their comments because oftentimes I’m better at making fun of myself than they are. They appreciate and even compliment my wit in these circumstances. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, the situation will proffer an opportunity to satirize both my naïveté and the shady, sad lifestyle of many of the individuals in the group.
After mixing my Coke and water and drawing the attention of the group, I took a sip. “Oh, I feel happy and worry-free,” I said with all the soberness and innocence I could muster. “I’m supposed to act like a jackass now, right? Quick. Somebody think of something stupid for me to do before this goes away.” So amidst the giggles that my comment solicited, people started throwing out…stupid ideas. “Clear off the table! It’ll hold you while you dance.” “That waiter is just waiting to be told that he’s loved!” “I’ll bet you could do at least 2 full flips off of the roof outside!” “Where’s the karaoke machine?” Later on, the headliner of the hecklers, as he retells the story, states how my reaction is unfortunately very accurate to some peoples’ experiences when drinking.
So, basically, we all make fun of each other.
The last night we were in Beijing, a whole big group of people went to a club. They had a pretty rough time of it, from what I could tell. My roommate went and never came back to our room. A few had to be carried back to their respective dorms because they were ‘too wet to walk.’ Turns out everybody made it back in as many pieces as they left, just the pieces that came back were mangled and not pretty. I really didn’t care that much. Am I terrible because of that? I had given them all a hard enough time the previous 9 days, hoping to help, that I was just too tired to give them more grief/grace, depending on how you want to look at it.
I didn’t care, that is, until we got to the Beijing airport and I had one girl in front of me pushing a laden luggage cart with all of her hung-over might and another one half walking, half being carried by me, having to stop every so often to stuff her head into a garbage can so that she doesn’t start retching all over the hallway. And yes, everyone else was half an airport ahead of us, so we were the last ones to the check in counter. We got there as all right as was possible. After I got my canned co-ed situated, I went straight over to have a talk with Rick, one of the teachers. “Looks like your little ‘remember we’re ambassadors and don’t let it get out of hand’ speech you gave yesterday morning didn’t quite do the trick,” I report.
“What do you mean?” comes the query.
“I just walked all the way through Beijing airport carrying a hurling, hashed female while trying my best to encourage another one to keep going so we don’t miss our flight; and this because they decided to go get tanked out of their took us last night, and no one could help me with them because they were just as smashed!” I didn’t want to get too excited before he gave me some explanation. Rick is a scientist—maybe he wanted to study the effects of traveling tankards. He’s somewhat of a moralist—maybe he wanted them to get so hosed that they would never want to try it again. Ignorant, naïve me could not have been prepared for the answer:
“If you’re in Ireland, you think you can get a good perspective of the culture unless you go to the pub?”
I just stood there speechless. I tried to bring up some nonsense about how I know the culture better than anyone else without ever getting close to the bottle; and I mentioned, silly me, an MCC policy about alcohol consumption. I’m pretty sure the rules limit a student’s sobriety somewhere between stone cold and dry as a bone. I didn’t memorize any book of rules or anything, but I have heard from more than one teacher about a student on a different trip losing a $15,000 scholarship because of one beer. But rules and cultural understanding are beside the point, in my legitimate albeit old-fashioned opinion. Common sense, responsibility, and not making a jackass out of oneself seem a little more significant to me in the long run.
Hopefully my classmates will decide to adopt heretofore-mentioned basic human characteristics. Until then, I’ll stick to my milk and occasional Coke and water.
Most of my life I’ve lived in a bubble. I’ve never hung out with any women who I had to pay for (I only paid for her dinner or price of admission, not her presence); I’ve never put any kind of crushed, dried vegetation that was then rolled up in a piece of paper into my mouth, much less proceed to light it and inhale the resulting fumes; I’ve never drunk any kind of previously mentioned vegetation, in a fermented or otherwise form or anything comparable to it, unless you count the other night at dinner when I put a little Coca-Cola in my hot water, making it look closer to the beer that everyone else was drinking. I got a pretty smooth amber-to-stout color out of the recipe. But I only attempted it because I was feeling edgy.
The other students in my group, as they get to know me better, are seeing my bubble more and more clearly. They like to give me a hard time about it. I’m not sure if they are trying to just be funny or if they are serious about their criticisms of my puritan lifestyle. I would guess the preliminary of the two is the object of their comments because oftentimes I’m better at making fun of myself than they are. They appreciate and even compliment my wit in these circumstances. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, the situation will proffer an opportunity to satirize both my naïveté and the shady, sad lifestyle of many of the individuals in the group.
After mixing my Coke and water and drawing the attention of the group, I took a sip. “Oh, I feel happy and worry-free,” I said with all the soberness and innocence I could muster. “I’m supposed to act like a jackass now, right? Quick. Somebody think of something stupid for me to do before this goes away.” So amidst the giggles that my comment solicited, people started throwing out…stupid ideas. “Clear off the table! It’ll hold you while you dance.” “That waiter is just waiting to be told that he’s loved!” “I’ll bet you could do at least 2 full flips off of the roof outside!” “Where’s the karaoke machine?” Later on, the headliner of the hecklers, as he retells the story, states how my reaction is unfortunately very accurate to some peoples’ experiences when drinking.
So, basically, we all make fun of each other.
The last night we were in Beijing, a whole big group of people went to a club. They had a pretty rough time of it, from what I could tell. My roommate went and never came back to our room. A few had to be carried back to their respective dorms because they were ‘too wet to walk.’ Turns out everybody made it back in as many pieces as they left, just the pieces that came back were mangled and not pretty. I really didn’t care that much. Am I terrible because of that? I had given them all a hard enough time the previous 9 days, hoping to help, that I was just too tired to give them more grief/grace, depending on how you want to look at it.
I didn’t care, that is, until we got to the Beijing airport and I had one girl in front of me pushing a laden luggage cart with all of her hung-over might and another one half walking, half being carried by me, having to stop every so often to stuff her head into a garbage can so that she doesn’t start retching all over the hallway. And yes, everyone else was half an airport ahead of us, so we were the last ones to the check in counter. We got there as all right as was possible. After I got my canned co-ed situated, I went straight over to have a talk with Rick, one of the teachers. “Looks like your little ‘remember we’re ambassadors and don’t let it get out of hand’ speech you gave yesterday morning didn’t quite do the trick,” I report.
“What do you mean?” comes the query.
“I just walked all the way through Beijing airport carrying a hurling, hashed female while trying my best to encourage another one to keep going so we don’t miss our flight; and this because they decided to go get tanked out of their took us last night, and no one could help me with them because they were just as smashed!” I didn’t want to get too excited before he gave me some explanation. Rick is a scientist—maybe he wanted to study the effects of traveling tankards. He’s somewhat of a moralist—maybe he wanted them to get so hosed that they would never want to try it again. Ignorant, naïve me could not have been prepared for the answer:
“If you’re in Ireland, you think you can get a good perspective of the culture unless you go to the pub?”
I just stood there speechless. I tried to bring up some nonsense about how I know the culture better than anyone else without ever getting close to the bottle; and I mentioned, silly me, an MCC policy about alcohol consumption. I’m pretty sure the rules limit a student’s sobriety somewhere between stone cold and dry as a bone. I didn’t memorize any book of rules or anything, but I have heard from more than one teacher about a student on a different trip losing a $15,000 scholarship because of one beer. But rules and cultural understanding are beside the point, in my legitimate albeit old-fashioned opinion. Common sense, responsibility, and not making a jackass out of oneself seem a little more significant to me in the long run.
Hopefully my classmates will decide to adopt heretofore-mentioned basic human characteristics. Until then, I’ll stick to my milk and occasional Coke and water.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
May 25: Last Days in Beijing
The past few days haven’t been so amazing. We’ve spent a lot of time in classes talking with students. It was a lot like other time I told you all about a week ago, but more boringer. I don’t know that some of those students really care about anything at all. They don’t pay attention to their teacher in class; they give me one word answers to my questions; reminds me a lot of some students in the States. I’m not saying that I’m any better than anyone else, or that my goals are any more noble than any others, or that I’m a better student than anyone else; I’m just making an observation. It’s completely fine for some people to memorize facts and puke ‘em back up for the test.
Went to a separate class that was not in English. I wanted to go to an International Economics class, but they cancelled it last minute. So I sat in on an accounting class. The girl I sat next to was neat to talk to. She let me borrow her electronic dictionary and I spent most of the class time looking up the words that I couldn’t understand. That was actually a pretty fun class. During the break, a few of the students in my immediate vicinity and I had a little chit chat. They get so tickled that I can speak Chinese as well as I do, which really isn’t all that well. But I try to put on a show, anyway.
Went to a separate class that was not in English. I wanted to go to an International Economics class, but they cancelled it last minute. So I sat in on an accounting class. The girl I sat next to was neat to talk to. She let me borrow her electronic dictionary and I spent most of the class time looking up the words that I couldn’t understand. That was actually a pretty fun class. During the break, a few of the students in my immediate vicinity and I had a little chit chat. They get so tickled that I can speak Chinese as well as I do, which really isn’t all that well. But I try to put on a show, anyway.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
May 22nd: Buying Stuff
They have a lot of cheap stuff here. I wish I knew better how it works. How do they make and sell this stuff for such a low monetary cost is not something I can tell you. Maybe I should tell you first what I bought, and then tell you about buying it. Hopefully you’ll be more impressed that way. I bought a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses for $4, a Calvin Klein watch for $6, ties for cheap but I won’t tell you because I want to give them to some of you; I got a North Face snow pack for $15, I can buy DVDs for 60 cents a piece. They were selling Armani suits for $70 before I started haggling the price. I don’t need a suit, though. I didn’t buy one. I could’ve had a suit tailor made just for my curvy frame shape for even cheaper.
The great thing about all this name brand stuff is that it’s all genuine! That’s right, everybody. A real Armani suit. I’d put my Ray Bans up against any pair out there, on or off the black market. And they were made in the US. You know how I know all this? Because it is printed right on the property itself. And they wouldn’t print it on the frame if it weren’t true, right? I mean property rights are something that everybody everywhere pays attention to. People in China are bound under the same laws protecting human capital as everyone else. I suppose all these manufacturers just must like Chinese people more than westerners and so they are will to give them a better deal on their products.
The place that we are able to buy all this legitimate stuff is amazing. It’s 4 or 5 stories tall and jam packed with sellers, buyers, and merchandise. They don’t mess around with open walking spaces like an American mall. Benches and ferns mean nothing to them. Why take up space with a piece of art or a map of the complex if you could put stuff to sell there instead? I had a blast haggling the price of stuff! Everyone was blown away that I spoke Chinese, so I got a killer price on everything. I want to go back and offer my services to other foreigners, buying stuff for them with their money. I would keep half of the leftovers, and those using my services would save at least 2 or 3 dollars. Ok, maybe not so worth it.
Before we went to Ye Olde Cheape Stuff Mall, we were in downtown Beijing where the really nice malls were. That’s going to be very attractive come this time next year during the Olympics. One dept. store was selling an elephant tusk for $224,000. Taking pictures of it was forbidden (there’s the word again); but it’s still interesting to think about, how a safari visiting the elephants could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. Too bad wildlife rights aren’t protected as stringently as property rights. $4 Ray Bans. $.60 Hollywood blockbuster. Oh, wait a sec…
The great thing about all this name brand stuff is that it’s all genuine! That’s right, everybody. A real Armani suit. I’d put my Ray Bans up against any pair out there, on or off the black market. And they were made in the US. You know how I know all this? Because it is printed right on the property itself. And they wouldn’t print it on the frame if it weren’t true, right? I mean property rights are something that everybody everywhere pays attention to. People in China are bound under the same laws protecting human capital as everyone else. I suppose all these manufacturers just must like Chinese people more than westerners and so they are will to give them a better deal on their products.
The place that we are able to buy all this legitimate stuff is amazing. It’s 4 or 5 stories tall and jam packed with sellers, buyers, and merchandise. They don’t mess around with open walking spaces like an American mall. Benches and ferns mean nothing to them. Why take up space with a piece of art or a map of the complex if you could put stuff to sell there instead? I had a blast haggling the price of stuff! Everyone was blown away that I spoke Chinese, so I got a killer price on everything. I want to go back and offer my services to other foreigners, buying stuff for them with their money. I would keep half of the leftovers, and those using my services would save at least 2 or 3 dollars. Ok, maybe not so worth it.
Before we went to Ye Olde Cheape Stuff Mall, we were in downtown Beijing where the really nice malls were. That’s going to be very attractive come this time next year during the Olympics. One dept. store was selling an elephant tusk for $224,000. Taking pictures of it was forbidden (there’s the word again); but it’s still interesting to think about, how a safari visiting the elephants could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. Too bad wildlife rights aren’t protected as stringently as property rights. $4 Ray Bans. $.60 Hollywood blockbuster. Oh, wait a sec…
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