Kindergarten Highlights

Can you tell I'm procrastinating doing my lesson planning for the week?

Here are some highlights from the kindergarten since being back to work after the Summer holiday. I've posted these on Facebook, but my mom isn't on Facebook, and I know she and some other friends and family might appreciate these...

September 3rd: Today's first day of school was one big cry-fest for my 100+ 3 yr olds. Or more like a giant cry-scream-snot-pee-fest-a-thon. I basically just ran around wiping teary eyes and runny noses and offering hugs. The "wa yao baba!" (i want daddy!) and "bu yao!!!!!" 's (don't want!) are still ringing in my ears.

September 5th: This semester is off to an exciting start... I nearly lost a thumb today. Yep, one of my new students is a biter. But he looks all sweet, innocent and happy smiley until it's too late and he's already biting you. Gonna have to grow eyes on all sides of my head.

September 10th: One of my 5-yr-old students won't speak a word of English to me, but today he came up to me after class and asked me in Chinese what the US Dollar and Chinese RMB exchange rate currently is.

September 14th: Could barely stop laughing long enough to start class today after seeing what one of my 3-yr-olds was wearing... her t-shirt read "HIT THE FXXKIN' ROAD!" Well ok then! At least the shirt on the girl next to her read "Keep Smiling"

September 18th: Favorite t-shirt on a 3 year old today... "A friend in need is a friend. Isn't it?"

Yes indeed.

Robert Loggia

Thanks to my friend Jen's Photoshop skills, my weird dreams can be brought to life. Not that they necessarily should...


I dreamed that I was walking to go meet up with Robert Loggia and when I met him, he handed me a corndog, and he had written "Big Papa" on it with ketchup and mustard. And so I ate it. The End.

Sasquatch

Long story short, I was telling one of my Chinese coworkers about the legendary Sasquatch, and she asked what it was. I didn't have enough Chinese vocabulary to explain it properly, so I drew her this picture. She gave me a look of extreme weirded-outness.


Can you blame her?

Sshhh Secrety Certificates

The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is coming, which means it's time to eat some mooncakes...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooncake
Last week one of my coworkers gave me one of the egg kind (like the ones above), and it was actually pretty good. Cured my sweet tooth without being overly sweet.

Today, one of my coworkers came up to me after class and slyly pulled out an envelope, hunched over it to hide it from plain view, and said, "A student's mom is giving these to you...do you know what these are?"

Uhhh, it's an envelope?

So she opened the envelope, looked side to side to make sure no one was looking and pulled out 2 mooncake certificates and said, "These are mooncake certificates. Don't tell anyone you have these, especially not the principal."



I told her ok, it's our secret, and asked her to thank the student's mom for me.

I feel like I'm involved in something highly illegal. Sshhh.

Haikou Haircut

Poor blog, so neglected. I decided I'd finally take time to write something one day prior to it being a month since my last post. Just so I can say I didn't neglect my blog for an entire month. Ha, take that, blog.

Yesterday I finally finished uploading all of my summer vacation photos. It took exactly a month since returning from vacation, although there were many slackery days since then. Here are links to all the photos tagged Beijing2012 and Cambodia2012. I have yet to classify them further, or caption them. I feel like I need a breather from the constant clicking just to get them uploaded. Captioning will might commence next week.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizorbeth/tags/beijing2012/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elizorbeth/tags/cambodia2012/

Well, it's September and all of my pals in the states are commenting on the beautiful Autumn weather, and making me extremely jealous and nostalgic of my camping trips in the Rocky Mountains last year.

The weather here in Haikou has been more tolerable the last couple of weeks. I'm only sweating 13 hours a day instead of 18.

I don't know where I'm off to next after this year's teaching contract is up, but it's certainly not anywhere in Hainan. I've enjoyed many things about living in China, but the weather in this part of China is a huge downer. It's funny, because most people I talk to who live here (both foreigner and Chinese alike) moved here because of the weather. I do love the sunny skies. I'll give 'em that. The next place I live will have all four seasons.

Today I was feeling shaggy and adventurous, so I went for a haircut…my first haircut in Haikou.

I got a haircut in Beijing at the end of July, and another haircut in Phnom Penh at the end of August, but something still wasn't right. Third time's a charm, right?

I think I'm becoming addicted to Asian haircuts. They usually involve at least a 15-minute head and neck massage, ahhh.

Well, this haircut turned out all right I suppose. At least they mostly fixed the mess I had made of it over the last six months of chopping it myself. And last week I took the scissors to it again. Ladies, you've been-there-done-that and regretted it. I have too. I was running on about 3 hours of sleep that day when I grabbed the dull kitchen scissors and went to the bathroom mirror. I grabbed my hair and pulled it straight up, moved the scissors in for the kill, and then hesitated. I said to myself, "I've had very little sleep and am using poor judgment. I know I will regret this. Stop. Put down the scissors. Step away."

And I did. I put the scissors down and walked out of the bathroom.

Then, after putzing around for about ten minutes, I went back to the bathroom and started hacking away.

I still felt pretty good (proud? victorious?) that I had displayed such self control in leaving the bathroom that first time.

It's like when you have a sweet tooth and you really want cookies, but you know you shouldn't, and so you put the cookies into your basket at the market, walk around with them for a little bit, and then put them back on the shelf before you check out. Yes, victory is yours.

And then you buy and eat the cookies the very next day.

It's better than never having displayed self control, because doesn't it all balance out somehow? 0 + Self-control + lack-of-self-control = 0. It's a wash, even steven. But 0 + lack-of-self-control = -1. You lose.

Oh, anyway, the haircut. Today I didn't even look up any haircut-related vocabulary before I ventured out. I was basically only armed with the words for cut, short and long, and of course the rest of my generic vocabulary.

I stepped into the shop around the corner from my apartment, and about a dozen heads whipped in my direction. Then a gentleman rattled something off that I didn't understand and everyone in the joint started giggling, male and female alike.

I have yet to see another foreigner in my neighborhood, so everything I try to do in these parts turns into quite the spectacle. The people around here just aren't used to dealing with foreigners, and it almost seems as if they can't understand why I can't understand Chinese. I know quite a bit of basic Chinese, especially if they speak a little slowly. Sometimes when I tell them I don't understand something, they break out the pen and paper and start writing it in Chinese characters. Which of course is about a thousand times worse since I know very few characters. (And also, why in the world would I learn how to read Chinese before I learn how to speak it?? But our sense of common sense is senseless in some parts of the world.)

Anyway, after the giggling subsided I started trying to tell one of the stylists what I wanted, which basically went like this… (Note: the word for short is "duǎn" and the word for long is "zhǎng")…

::hands at the back of my head:: "duan duaan duaaannnn" ::moving hands over the top of my head and toward the front:: "zhang zhang zhangzhangzhangzhang"

The giggling turned into major laughter.

But hey, it worked! I got exactly what I wanted.

And it wasn't awkward at all when all dozen or more people were sitting and staring at me throughout the entire haircut. Nope, not awkward at all.

Actually that sort of thing would have felt awkward about 7 or 8 months ago, but it's amazing how quickly you adapt.

Summer vacation books

I read four books while on vacation...

The Hunger Games (thanks, Nicki!)

The Good Earth (thanks, Jen!)

Don Quixote (fully titled "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha") (thanks, Amazon!)

Bou Meng, A Survivor From Khmer Rouge Prison S-21 (thanks, Bou Meng!)

And started another book called When The War Was Over, Cambodia And The Khmer Rouge Revolution (thanks, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum!) I'm not even 30 pages into the full 632 and already captivated by the history.

Oh, China. I can't say I missed you much. Please don't be mad.

Well, I'm back in China.



Can you feel the excitement?

Within a half hour of being back in Haikou, I was already told by two different people that I'm too "black" ... I got quite the tan while in Cambodia for a month. And being any darker than a fish belly is considered undesirable here. I am now the epitome of female hideousness by Chinese standards... Tan, size 9 (size 40) feet, curvy hips, and short hair.

And within that same half hour of arrival, I was asked if I had a husband (a pretty standard question within the first few minutes of meeting someone here), to which I replied "no" to which my taxi driver replied "Why not?" to which I replied "I don't want one" to which he replied "You will find a Chinese husband" to which I replied "I really don't want one." But you know, I said it in a nice way. We both awkwardly laughed it off.

I wasn't in the best of moods traveling back to China today.

I arrived at Phnom Penh airport this morning, and the first thing I saw were perfectly neat lines of people queuing up to their respective airline counters for check-in, and then...

I see the "queue" for my flight to Guangzhou. A blob of Chinese travelers. That's the typical Chinese "queue," which I have grown used to since living in China. But after 4 wonderful weeks in Cambodia, full of smiling people, courteous people, people who know how to form a line, well, it was the reality-shocker that I was leaving this beautiful country and its people to head back to ... situations that try your patience at every turn.

The queueing was just the beginning. I won't whine it to death, but after two short-ish flights and three airport maneuverings, I was quite fed up with the shouting, shoving and butting-in-front-of-me-in-line happenings. And no, it's never pleasant to hear loogie-hocking noises on an airplane.

I'm rarely if ever a confrontational person, but I did yell out a couple of EXCUSE ME?!?!'s in Chinese today. The expressions on their faces told me they understood.

I made it back to my apartment building and was immediately greeted by two of my neighbor ladies (who I have written about previously) who greeted me with squeals of delight, hugs and huge smiles and a bunch of Chinese I didn't understand. I instantly felt better, happier, frustration and negativity out the window, and remembered that the majority of my people interactions here in China are pretty positive. And I remembered that I usually shrug and laugh off the more frustrating cultural differences, because they are fascinating learning and mind-expanding experiences. I try to see even the most annoying of things as "different"... and not "bad" or "wrong" just because it's not my culture.

If I've had my coffee.

Four or so more months left of this year's teaching contract. I'm wondering if I can do another year in China. Is the love of the language and deep desire to become fluent enough of a reason to stay? I wish it was easier to be anonymous here, but because there are very few foreigners in the area of the city where I live, I'm still gawked at whenever I venture out of my apartment, and the looks usually aren't very welcoming. It hasn't bothered me too much, more amusing than anything, but long-term? Hmm. I have a feeling my school will soon inquire whether I want to stay another year, which is why this question keeps popping up lately. I'm finding it difficult to think of a reason to stay in Hainan, but I can see moving to another province if I decide to stay in China. In Beijing this Summer I felt completely anonymous since there are so many foreigners there no one gives a hoot about you. And listening to the Mandarin spoken in Beijing reminded me why I fell in love with the language in the first place. It sounds quite different than the Mandarin spoken way down here. Guess we will soon see what happens!

Now, time to upload hundreds of vacation photos and get to blogging about it. So many wonderful experiences had these past 6 weeks. So many interesting people met. So much awesome food eaten. So much sweat sweated.

Cambodia is freaking hot, but still less humid than Haikou!

Battambang My Homestay

I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay here at Battambang My Homestay guest house. Free bike usage all day, everyday. Homemade delicious Khmer breakfast every morning, prepared by the owner's wife. Lovely gazebos to lounge around in while using their superfast wifi. Fresh fruit and ice cold water delivered to your door every evening before bed. And situated on the outskirts of town where it's very peaceful, and you wake up to the beautiful music coming from the nearby pagoda. (And sometimes you wake up to the very rude rooster ... rudester). Tomorrow I leave for Phnom Penh, but kinda wishing I was staying here in Battambang a bit longer.

Cambodian Bat Cave

Here are a few short videos of a bat cave near Battambang, Cambodia... so many bats!

Back to the land of speaking (and drinking coffee)

Just finished my first 10-day Vipassana meditation course. It was an unforgettable experience, and one of the most challenging and worthwhile of my life. Here is a snapshot of my room (thank goodness for my beloved mosquito net in the Cambodian countryside!)


I'll write more about the entire experience as I take time to fully process it over the coming weeks.