What a week! Currently, I am sitting in my living room with the family typing this away, breathing in the awful smell of burning something-stinky-but-I-don't-know-what-it-is. The smoke is drifting in through the open windows, enveloping my nostrils to the point of it hurting, yet my family doesn't seem fazed. They're in a deep conversation over the price of lotus root (which, by the way, is one of my new favorite foods) so I don't want to interrupt and ask about the fire, but I'm leaning forward and making a point to be very obvious in inquiry as to what's going on outside, of the fire that's destroying our pretty view. However, no one seems to notice my concern, either. Soooo, basically, it's just another unexplainable moment in China. :)
This past week was intense, to say the least. We had rigorous language training, had to plan our lessons for Model School (which started today and went wonderfully…more to come later), and had to keep up with our language homework outside of class, on top of partaking in events that my family had planned for me. If you emailed me at all this week and I didn't respond, please don't be offended, I simply haven't had time, but do know that I sooo valued reading them!
Aside from classes and homework, I did manage to have a few wonderful moments this past week. One happened at the market by my house (my favorite place in Chengdu; it's where I go to escape everything else and be reminded of my love and fascination of China). I went in pursuit of bananas (earlier that day I had a terrible case of a charlie-horse in class to the point that I caught myself interrupting class yelling "ow help ow ow ow!" before I realized what a fool I was being and pulled my foot forward . . . anyways, I was told that charlie-horses happen because of a lack of potassium so I was in need of bananners) and the woman I wanted to buy them from ended up just giving them to me as a gift. It was nice and made my day. :) Another good moment was when Terrie's host parents had my family and me over to celebrate Terrie's birthday at their house. While we were at dinner, both host families said "Fei Fei, we like you and we think you were meant to be born in Sichuan because you like spicy food" (Sichuan is the land of hot hot hot hot hot pepper and I love it!). It felt good to be told that I was wanted and liked here; even though it was a simple statement, it meant a lot. :) The third really good moment was when I went to lunch with some friends to the same restaurant I occupy on a regular basis. We always have the same male waiter, and he usually seems (quietly) frustrated with our Chinese because, in the past, he struggled to understand us. This day, however, I put in our order, he complimented my improvement in Chinese, and then brought me out a free glass of my favorite bing kafe (cold coffee-ish/milk-ish sugar drink). I left him a tip (only 1 yuan, but tipping is never done in China) and explained that I was giving it to him because I thought he was a good waiter and a good friend and he BOWED 3 times in gratitude. He now greets me every time he seems me (it's an open air restaurant where the whole front is lacking a wall so it's basically outdoors with a roof on top) with a very eager hello. The final neat moment that I'll mention happened today at lunch, where my friends and I went to a baodzi restaurant (I'm sure you've read about baodzi in the news recently, it's the dumpling dish that had the scandal with chopped up cardboard in Beijing. . . one good thing is that baodzi is strictly monitored now so I feel relatively safe eating it) and were eating away, enjoying our dumpling, when a boy about our age came over and (in English!) said "excuse me, I wonder if you want me to help show you how to eat these better?" we laughed and eagerly accepted, and then he showed us how to dip them in all these different seasonings, which, incidentally, happened to make them all the better. It was cool that he cared, and it made our lunch more pleasant. :)
This weekend was, as all weekends are, awesome. Friday, I went out with friends for some drinks, which was nice and relaxing, and then Saturday was the real kicker. True to my love of Harry Potter, I made it my mission to buy it on the world-wide-release-date. This, however, meant that I had to travel into Chun Xhi Lu, the major city center. Keep in mind that Chengdu has millions of people and is a very large city and, while my Chinese definitely is good enough to get by, have conversations, get directions, express thoughts/feelings/likes/dislikes, etc., it's certainly not perfect. Also, in Chendgu people speak Sichuan dialect, which is not standard Chinese so sometimes it's difficult to understand people (imagine someone learning English in Britain and then moving to Texas, where the dialect is completely foreign). Well, my friend Jonny and I weren't going to let a little thing like language barrier, lack of knowledge of a city, or anything else for that matter get in our way of our beloved Harry Potter. We figured out the busses we needed to take, made our way to the CRAZY city center, and then got lost. Very, very lost. And whenever we asked people directions to the English bookstore, no one knew (because, obviously, they don't shop at the English bookstore) and kept directing us to other bookstores farther and farther from our destination. Jonny and I refused to give up, however, as we saw the Harry Potter light at the end of our tunnel. We walked. And we walked. And we walked. For 4.5 hours. UNTIL we saw a white guy and yelled "WAIGOREN! Ni Hao!" and then ran to him for dear life. We asked if he knew of an English bookstore and if he could give us directions. His response was (in an English accent) "You want Harry Potter I assume. I just bought a copy myself. You want to walk about 500 meters north and you'll see it on your left, you can't miss it." Well, Jonny and I walked. And walked. And walked. And neither of us had any idea how far 500 meters was. So we walked back. And back. And back. And THEN, after passing it 3 times, we saw it! And we each bought Harry Potter. And I ran out of money and banks were closed and I couldn't eat dinner and had to borrow money for the bus ride home. And life was amazing. :)
Sunday, Colleen (another volunteer) and her family came over for the entire day (lunch and dinner) and that was also awesome. Before yesterday, we hadn't really had the chance to get to know each other but we hit it off really well! I taught her how to play Dou Di Zhou (the Chinese card came) so we played that with the families for a few hours (while eating lots and lots and lots and lots of food, of course), and then I took her for a walk and showed her my market, where we saw what was, indefinitely, the concluder to my deciding to be a vegetarian in China. First, let me explain that, while Chinese people keep their houses immaculately clean, the outdoors is AWFUL dirty with no regard for ANYTHING sanitary, including fruits, veggies, and meat. Fruits and veggies always have to be pealed, cooked, or soaked in bleach (they also use human fecal matter for fertilizer to add insult to injury), but at least they can be cleaned. Meat, however, is left outdoors hanging on hooks ALL day in the scorching heat, turns black and blue in spots, and is still purchased and eaten. It's what is served and people don't question the fact that bugs have landed on it, babies (who don't wear diapers here and go to the bathroom wherever, on whatever, or even on whomever) have dropped liquid poo that splattered on it, and they don't consider the awful method in which it was killed. Allow me to explain, based on my observations with Colleen yesterday:
Animals in China, poor defenseless animals, have absolutely no regulations on how they are killed. People go to the market, pick out the live animal they want, and then witness the market vendor kill it in front of them (unless they, by chance, want to kill it at home, but I have yet to see anyone do this). Yesterday, Colleen and I witnessed the slaughtering of chickens and ducks, and this is how it was done: the market man picks up a large knife, slits the bird's throat (but doesn't cut the head off, only make a big slice), and then hold it upside down to drain the blood into a pot (they cook the blood and serve that as a dish, mind you). The bird is still alive, screaming, squirming, and fighting for its life while it's being drained of blood, and then, when the market vendor is satisfied that he's gotten enough blood for his pot, sticks the live, suffering bird into a pot of boiling water to loosen the feathers. This is where the bird most hopes to die, because if he's unfortunate enough to live, he then has to suffer through the market man shredding the feathers off of him and then taking a knife and gnawing it into the skin under the feathers he misses. It. Is. Terrible. I am a vegetarian for (at the very least) the rest of my time in China (except at my host families house because it would be a slap in the face to suddenly say "I don't eat meat" . . . they'd take it personally, but fortunately they very rarely serve meat, and when they do I can generally pick around it). I also learned that Guizhou province, where I'll be living for 2 years after training, is the leading province for dog consumption and has a big dog-killing-and-eating fair of sorts. Flippin' gross.
Okay, onto today, my first day of teaching! I LOVE it! Teaching completely brought me back to life and reminded me why I am in China, why I am in Peace Corps, and just was so refreshing! I love to teach, and the 30 students I have in model school (I teach oral English) all volunteered to be here and generally are eager to learn (oral English during summer school only gives them half a credit so it's students who actually want to be here). They love participating, they like me as a teacher, and they are SO respectful! I gave them an assignment and one particularly bright student (who knows he won't be graded) asked what would happen if the students didn't do it (it wasn't asked in defiance, it was mere curiosity). I simply said "nothing, because I won't fail you if you come to class, but if you don't do the assignments my feelings will be hurt and you will hurt your own studies because the homework is assigned to benefit you." That was enough for him and all of my other students because, in China, the hierarchy of respect goes: god (for the few that believe), government official, teacher, parent. What I, the teacher, say, is what goes even above their moms and dads, and it's soooo apparent with these kids, who also speak very good English. My fear, however, is that I will get so used and attached to these wonderful students that when I go to Guizhou I will be completely in the dark as to how to teach them because, unfortunately, Guizhou is the poorest and least educated province in China. My students there will be (so I'm told) very unmotivated and lacking confidence, very shy, and will know very little English (even though they are English majors). Unfortunately, students who go to Guizhou colleges go there because they don't score high enough on the Gao Kao (like the ACT/SAT) to leave. The students I have now, though, are the complete opposite, so I have to remind myself not to get too used to this! In the meantime, however, it's wonderful!
Sorry, this has been a VERY long post. It's getting to be pretty late here and I'd like to do a bit of Harry Potter reading before bed. :) Let me quick share a funny moment from tonight as a last thought . . . . Today, after class, I went for a run with Colleen on campus (I told my parents I'm going to do this every day so that I can have a little more "me time" and try to combat the grease I am always consuming). After dinner, then, I decided to take a shower, my first shower that wasn't right before bed. The bathroom door here doesn't lock and we always leave it shut so, as you probably already guessed, my poor host mom, unaccustomed to me showering in the early evening, walked in on me naked and showering. She screamed. I don't imagine she's ever seen a naked white girl before. I have been giggling in my head about it all night. She, on the other hand, hasn't been able to look at me. Poor woman. :)
Good night!! Love you all!
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