My Daily Brush With Death

Every time I leave my apartment here in the village I am risking my life. If you’re confused, see my previous blogs on the traffic and driving here. My brush with death today came in the form of a scooter/bicycle collision only inches in front of me.

As I walked out of the school gates, I took the usual precautions. Look left. Look right. Look diagonally. Look up. Pray. Repeat. As I saw no traffic, I stepped bravely onto the sidewalk. The Chinese dude on the bike leaving the store next to me obviously didn’t see the scooter either.

BAM! Homeboy on a scooter materializes out of thin air and t-bones the guy on the bike, who goes flying a good couple feet.

I watch in abject horror as the driver of the scooter begins to yell at the biker. Which makes total sense of course; we were all on the sidewalk… Clearly a scooter has the right of way. And not the part of the sidewalk here that people use for parking where the culpable party could be debatable. Sidewalk that you have to go up 3 stairs to walk on. Which means that this guy had to make a concerted effort to get his scooter up there.

Thankfully everyone was okay. But it scared the hell out of me. And I was definitely awake before I had my coffee.

Julie Johnson’s Series of Unfortunate Events.

Okay, so two things don't really qualify as a series, but the events were quite unfortunate.

Event One: The Cafeteria Fake-out.

Lunch in the cafeteria is always a gamble. You peer through a tiny window and point at something that you have no idea what it is and hope for something delicious. Or edible. I pointed to rice, tomatoes and eggs, some other celery like vegetable, and what I thought was pieces of beef in a brown sauce. Wrong. Very wrong. I mean really, really wrong.

As soon as it hit my mouth I knew I had made a serious error. The "meat" was basically cartilage over bone cleverly disguised by the sauce. Upon closer inspection there was still little bits of hair attached to the outside. My best guess as to what I gnawed on for a bit was pig's feet. I managed to spit it out discreetly as I gagged. Let's just say this event will probably put me off the cafeteria for the rest of the week.

Event Two: Groped in Dongzhou Park.

After my afternoon class, I was a bit hungry, as I did not eat much lunch. See event one. I headed for KFC, grabbed a spicy chicken sandwich and a coke, then took my food to the park to enjoy the last of the sunshine and beautiful weather. I ate my sandwich on a bench by the water and soaked up the sun. As usual, people came up to say hello and take pictures with me. No big deal.

 

So finally this older guy comes up to me. He speaks no English. I speak (basically) no Chinese. So after the usual convo – I'm an American English teacher, blah, blah, wo ting bu dong – this guy wasn't giving up trying to talk to me. So finally I stood up to say goodbye and this dude decides he wanted a picture with me. Sure. We get someone walking by to take a picture of us. To pose for the picture he proceeds to wrap his arm around my waist and slide his hand up to rest on my boob. Look closely at the picture - you can clearly see his hand is in dangerous territory.

I decided to write it off as an accident and proceed to try to leave again. Dude starts walking with me and tries to hold my hand. After a couple of firm NO's he got the hint and walked away but not before he threw in a butt squeeze for good measure.

Not the best day I've had here.

Wo Ting Bu Dong.

Just about every weekend I go shopping at the cute little open air market for some bread, fruit, and some crispy duck with spicy chili sauce.

 

There are several people who sell the duck that I like and they are all virtually identical so I shop at the stand that is the friendliest.

The woman that owns the stand that I shop at is hilarious. She is always super happy to see me – it's likely a combination of bragging rights that the laowai shops at her stand and the fact that my Chinese isn't good enough to bargain for the price. She also completely ignores the fact that I can't speak Chinese and rambles on to me anyways. She doesn't seem to care, or doesn't believe, that I totally don't understand.

I was able to answer a few of her questions at first… Where are you from? Wo cong Meiguo lai. What are you doing here? Wo shi ying yue laoshi. Do you want you duck plain or spicy? La de.

 

This apparently led her to believe that I could speak Chinese. Ha. Now every time she sees me she starts nattering on about who knows what. I feel bad because mostly I just respond, "Wo ting bu dong." I don't understand.

Baby You’re a Firework!

I can't begin to count the number of mornings I've been startled out of sleep by fireworks. And I don't mean morning like 3 am morning; I mean like 6 am, it's already daylight morning.

Apparently it makes no difference whether or not it's dark out when the villagers decide to launch spectacular firework displays. Serious fireworks too… No wimpy black cats or sparklers here.

You can't always see them but you can hear them.

Fireworks are the answer to just about any situation. Everyday here is like the 4^th of July. New restaurant opening? Fireworks. Birthday? Fireworks. National Holiday? Lots and lots of fireworks. Just really bored? Fireworks.

These spontaneous firework ambushes are really cool at night. I've taken to having a glass of wine or a diet coke on the roof of my building most nights and watching whatever random firework show is going on.

They do, however, continue to scare the daylights out of me as I walk down the street during the day. I've had to restart my heart numerous times after a deafening explosion startles me off the sidewalk.

Crotchless Pants.

In this blog, I would like to explore the phenomena of crotch-less pants for children. They're all the rage in China. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a visual.

The concept for these beauties revolve around potty training. Let's play pros and cons.

Point one. Crotch-less pants are good for the environment. When you live in a country with well over a billion people, what to do with your trash is a serious concern. These pants theoretically replace diapers for a certain age group. However, this leads to a large quantity of poop and pee on the street. And on the sidewalk. Basically, anywhere outside and a lot of places inside… and no one to clean it up. But hey, if you've got to go, you've got to go.

Side Note: The thing that I really find fascinating, is for a culture so concerned about the spread of germs, hygiene, doesn't seem real high on the list of priorities.

Point two. Crotch-less pants save you money. Diapers are expensive. If you don't have to buy diapers, perhaps you can take an extra trip or two to Starbucks. And Starbucks is delicious. I'm just saying.

Point three. Crotch-less pants make it easier to potty train your kids. Maybe. True, you don't have to worry about pulling your pants up and down, but you've still got to be concerned with aim… It seems a bit too easy to "miss." It probably does help with technique for the squat toilets, so maybe I'm being a bit xenophobic with my aversion to this particular fashion statement.

Point four. With crotch-less pants you're ready to go at a moment's notice. But isn't this just a bit counterproductive? An adult (with a few notable exceptions) wouldn't just whip it out on the sidewalk and answer nature's call… Why would you encourage your kids to? Plus it weirds me out a bit to turn a corner and come face to face with a child's genitalia.

I searched the Internet for some statistics and information regarding potty training using diapers v. crotch-less pants, but I couldn't find anything concrete, so the debate remains open.

The consensus amongst the village foreigners is that diapers are still the way to go. Of course the conversation then segued into a discussion on ass-less chaps. But really, aren't all chaps ass-less?

You Can Fit Anything on a Scooter.

I have just about 2 months of anecdotal proof that you can meet all you your transportation needs with a Vespa.

Need to carry a new door home? Easy. It's all about balance.

Grandma needs to go somewhere with her wheel chair? Clearly the most practical solution is to keep her in the chair and tie it to the back of the scooter with a bit of rope. Hang on Granny.

It's raining? No big deal. Cover yourself with a trash bag and take to the streets.

 

Family of five out for an outing? Dogs? Chickens? Furniture? You are limited only by your imagination.

Now combine this with the fact that there are no apparent road rules and the knowledge that nobody in the village has had a drivers license for more than 5 years. Cars are that new here.

The result. Chaos.

Here's a picture of the evening traffic from my bedroom window. Can you tell which direction traffic is supposed to be heading? I didn't think so.

Learning Chinese. (Well, attempting to at least...)

I've been heavy hitting the Rosetta Stone lately trying to get a solid foundation for my Chinese skills, but it's a tough language. It's not so much the words as is the pronunciations. I can recognize a fair amount of vocabulary in pinyin (and characters!), but actually spitting that out into a word that others can recognize is difficult. So is finding a Chinese person to speak slowly enough for me to understand them.

The major issue for me is training my mouth and ear to discriminate the infinitesimal differences between sounds and tones. For example, the words: shī, shí, shǐ and shì mean different things but sound quite the same to me. Combine that with, speed, dialect differences and accents (Hello Haimen-hua?!), and background noise (China is loud) and you've got yourself a complex and chaotic language situation.

My fellow teacher Sky has agreed to tutor me.

A common conversation during any session might go like this:

Sky: "Try to say rénmen"
Me: "Rénmen"
Sky: No, that's not exactly the sounds I'm making. Try it again. Rénmen"
Me: "Rénmen"
Sky: "Almost, you're getting a little better." (She is just being nice here.)
Me: "I can't hear the difference. What I say sounds exactly like what you are saying in my head"
Sky: "Hmm...maybe you need to practice more."

I admire her patience.

On the flip side, I am now a master of charades. I can mime like nobody's business.

Bizarre Foods with Julie Johnson



So I wish I could write an epic blog telling you about all the strange and interesting things that I have eaten. I've definitely eaten some pretty weird stuff since I've been here. The problem is that most of the food is unidentifiable.

It's freaking weird. I just don't know what it is.

For example today for lunch I had rice, an unidentifiable green vegetable, a giant mystery meatball, stewed tomatoes and eggs, and a bowl of broth. For dinner I had rice, beef parts in a brown sauce, something that was possibly tofu with spicy chilies, a different unidentifiable green vegetable than from lunch, and more stewed tomatoes and eggs.



Typical School Dinner.



Nothing to drink. There's no big glass of water or unlimited refills of Diet Coke here. Maybe at a nice restaurant you'll get a pot of "tea". Tea is in quotes because I've yet to encounter any actual tea leaves. Tea is code for hot water. At school, you just get soup to drink with your meal.



Chicken Feet.



The Chinese don't waste any part of the animal, so even if you order chicken (ji rou) or beef (niu rou), you still could be getting any part of the animal. 

Chicken neck? Sure, why not? Pig tails? Why, yes please, I'll take two.

All meat has bones and fat on it, so you have to be careful to gnaw around the bones and fat and then gracefully spit them back onto your plate. Also things tend to appear drastically different in person than in the pictures on the menu.

Some bizarre things I've eaten that I can identify:

• Chicken feet
• Spicy frog legs
• Cow's head (I had some cheek I think)
• Fried beef that was strangely sweet. It also happened to be covered with frosting and rainbow sprinkles. The picture did not have the sprinkles. I highly suspect that they saw two Americans sit down for dinner and said to themselves, "American's love rainbow sprinkles. Let's toss some on this beef just to mess with them." That or they thought the dish needed color.
• Baked/steamed quail eggs in brown sauce
• Bone Marrow
• Lotus root (delicious!)
• Kumquats
• Steamed pumpkin
• Sugar Cane

I'm pretty proud of myself because there has only been a few moments when I couldn't choke down the bite of food I just tried.

Mostly I think I just don't want to know what I'm eating. I was at a restaurant the other night that "luckily" happened to have English translations along with the pictures. Unfortunately, some of the food that looked best in the pictures had names of organs next to them. I'm going to try not to think about it.

Yes, Mom. You would starve here.



Crispy Duck and Flatbread.



Now that I have you all thoroughly disgusted, there are a few delicious things here that I'm addicted to. Here are the top 5:



1.    Crispy roast duck with spicy chili sauce. You can buy a whole duck for about $3 USD. It is really, really, really good.

2.    Chinese flatbread with green onions and sesame seeds. For 50 cents you can feed an army. It goes great with the duck.

3.    Street food skewers. Chicken, mushrooms, potatoes, beef, pork, duck, vegetables – all delicious and either fried or grilled.



4.    Milk tea. So many delicious options.

Street Food.



5.    Spicy pork and rice thing from this AMAZING Korean restaurant. Actually spicy (not like when they "warn you" things are spicy in the USA) and it comes out in a sizzling bowl and the rice gets all crispy. So good.

 

Only in China...

… do you see a man in an expensive suit get out of a 7 series BMW carrying a live chicken.

… do you see a child riding on the back of a scooter doing homework while their mom weaves in and out of traffic.

… is it normal for your cab driver to pull into oncoming traffic to go around someone driving "slow".

… do random strangers want you to pose with them in their pictures.

… do you get seated in the middle of every restaurant you go to so the other patrons can stare at you as they eat. (This is especially true if there are multiple foreigners.)

… does the term personal space mean absolutely nothing.

… do you hear and see fireworks go off at all hours of the day for no reason whatsoever.

… do you see impeccably dressed women in heels and Chanel shades launch a snot rocket on the street.

… do you get served a tiny glass of hot water at every meal, regardless of the temperature outside.

… do you get excited when the pastry you just bought is actually filled with chocolate instead of red bean paste.

… does a cup of coffee cost more than a case of beer.

… do grown men and women say hello to you, then run away giggling when you say hello back.

… do you use Kleenex for table napkins, toilet paper, cleaning, wrapping food to go, etc.

… do you play eenie meenie miney moe at a restaurant, because they only have a Chinese menu and you've already committed by walking in the door and getting seated.

… do you see nothing wrong with standing on the center stripe in the middle of a 4 lane highway as cars and scooters zoom by at 50 mph.

… can you find just about any food on a stick.

… is being served dog when you go out to eat no longer your greatest culinary fear.

… do you see children with crotch-less pants peeing on the sidewalk.

A Walk in the Park.

Today I discovered a really wonderful park about a mile from my apartment. It's full of ponds and flowering trees and playgrounds full of adorable children swinging and flying kites. There are pagodas and benches to sit and relax. Sounds awesome right?

Kind of.

I sit down on a bench in the sun right next to a little pond full of fish and lily pads to read my kindle… and I'm immediately accosted by groups of people wanting to stare at me or take my picture or say "Hello" (because that's likely the only English word they know).

 I didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused. I finally decided on amused. I'll admit it is kind of ridiculous. I'm the only female foreigner in the village (as far as I know) and there I am in my big sunglasses, jeans, and flip-flops, looking very American, thinking I'm about to have a minute alone to read. During a national holiday. Yeah right. I sat there for about 30 minutes to oblige my fans and then decided on a nice little walk instead.

Oh the life of a celebrity.

Chinese Medicine

Germs spread like wildfire here; classes full of 50 students, people crammed in close quarters, limited hand washing facilities – it's a hotbed of infection. One person gets sick, everyone is sick.

So this past week I've been sick. Not doctor visit sick, just annoying cough sick. I visited the school nurse with the aid of Penny, my "English speaking" contact at the school, where the loaded me up with a round of antibiotics and (I think) cough medicine, no questions asked, no exam.

Those didn't seem to have any effect so I went wandering about town in search of my own cure. I wandered into a pharmacy and looked around awkwardly for a second while the workers stared at me. I coughed and they finally figured out why I seemed to be in there. One of the girls pulled out a box of something from under the counter…

This is straight from the box.

Qiangli Pipalu Lianmi

Ingredients: The prescription is composed of seven Chinese herbal drugs including Folium Eriobtryae, Pericarpium Papaveris, Bulubs Lilii, Rhizoma Cynanchi Stauntonii, Cortex Mori, Radix Platycidonis, and Mentholum etc.

Characters: A brown sticky liquid, clear, with a pleasant odor and sweet in taste. A blatant lie; It smelled and tasted disgusting.

Dosage and Administration: Orally taken .20g each time .3 times a day.

Actions and Indications: It has effects of nourishing YIN and astringing lungs, relieving cough and removing the phlegm. It is applied to cure bronchial cough in clinical.

Sure. Why not? Sounds perfect. I'm not really sure if my YIN needs nourishing, but relieving the cough and removing the phlegm sounds good.

I was feeling desperate and there is no American medicine to be found… I paid around $2.50 for a big bottle of what I have ascertained to be cough medicine. Sweet deal. It tasted disgusting but it helped a bit. Unfortunately it was not the miracle cure I was hoping for. I guess this is the type of thing that you just need to wait out.

A week later, I'm finally starting to feel better and my cough is almost gone. Yay!

How to meet Expats and English Speakers in Rural China

Starbucks is going to be my saving grace this year. It is a glorious refuge of familiarity in a very unfamiliar environment. The prices are about the same as they are in the US, so it's super expensive for China, but the coffee is delicious, wireless internet is free, and it's only a few blocks from my apartment.

It also seems to be a gathering place for expats looking for a taste of home and Chinese people who speak English. On my first trip to Starbucks in China I met 4 out of the 5 "village foreigners", talked to three locals, and was able to order a Grande Caramel Macchiato without having to point or mime. It was a beautiful moment. And all I had to do to meet people was order a coffee and sit down at a table. Every time I go I make new friends.

Foreigners are not really that common in China, so all you have to do to find other foreigners is seek out a Starbucks (or other western restaurant/bar) and sit down for a minute. They will come to you.

On a side note, I feel like in the USA, you always hear how McDonalds is EVERYWHERE. Not true. There is no McDonalds here, but there are about 5 KFC's. Chinese people love them some chicken sandwiches, aka hamburgers—actual hamburgers are nowhere to be found. I've also seen a Pizza Hut, but apparently it's fine dining, so I'll save it for a special occasion.

Mastering the Squat Toilet.

The squat toilet (aka squatty potty), barely even a toilet at all to anyone from the USA, is basically a hole in the ground that you squat over and do your business. The really fancy ones have a flush, just like a western toilet, but if you're in a really rustic place, there's a bucket full of water next to the toilet to help you "flush." If you're lucky you'll have a private stall with a door. You're not always lucky… doors are a luxury, as are separate restrooms for men and women.

If you visit China you'll probably get the opportunity to use one.

This is probably too much information but I try to avoid pooping in squat toilets. However, sometimes you just can't avoid it. Chinese food can have an interesting and unpredictable effect on an American stomach. When nature calls and all that…

Jeff Foxworthy has a joke that goes something like; "The only thing worse than having diarrhea, is trying to have to have it quietly in a public place."

He's obviously never had a bathroom emergency in China.

Thus, I offer the following advice on how to squat like a pro:

1.    Bring your own toilet paper. I now carry little packs of tissues in each of my purses and in the pocket of my coat. Free toilet paper is not often found in the squatty potty.

2.    Squat over the hole with your heels flat on the ground. You want a stable position.

3.    Hold your pants to the front so you don't accidentally poop or pee on them. Be careful if you have stuff in your pockets – things tend to fall out when you squat. Trust me, you're not going to want to reach in after it.

4.    Wipe and throw the paper into the trash can, not the toilet.

5.    Flush. Push the handle, pull the string, pour some water down the hole.

If you complete the experience without falling, touching the floor of the bathroom, peeing on yourself, or any other mishaps, consider yourself successful.

It's the Small Victories that Make the Most Difference.

I had a great personal victory today! I finally figured out how to get all of the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair in the shower!!

The secret to my success?

Take the hand held shower nozzle and place it in a bucket on the floor of the shower. Allow it to fill with water. Do not attempt to use the shower head to shower. It is not effective. Use a plastic drinking glass to rinse my hair by the cupful. Use a lot of shampoo, but very little conditioner. Rinse hair with at least 6 cups full of water.

Great success!!! My hair is shiny and clean feeling  for the first time since I moved in!! Yay! Best shower EVER!!

Walk at Your Own Risk

Not getting hit by a bus here is a fairly serious undertaking. If a bus doesn't get you, a car, a taxi, a bicycle, a wheelbarrow, or a scooter with a family of five riding it might. When I walk anywhere, I honestly have to stay focused enough to not get into a wreck.  The sidewalks are just as dangerous as the streets. Cars and scooters park randomly on the sidewalk and back up or drive forward without warning (and likely without looking to see if anything is in the way).

In fact there might as well not even be sidewalks. Or lanes. Or traffic lights. In China, those things are all just rough guidelines. You can basically drive wherever you want, whenever you want, with no regard for the flow of traffic. Pull into oncoming traffic? Sure. Why not? All you need here is a horn. It's a free-for-all.

People drive around blasting their horns indiscriminately at everything on the road, at all hours of the day. I've interpreted honking to mean anything from, "Here I am! Just letting you know I'm back here!" to "Get out of the way before I run you over."

I thought about wandering about town with my iPod in, but after a bit of consideration, I figure it's a very bad idea. I wouldn't want to get to distracted and run over.

Cribs: China

Here's a little about where I am living. Basically, I'm living in a dorm. I'm on the 6^th floor of a building at the school. There is no elevator (I'm gonna be in great shape by the end of the year!!!) I have my own room with a bed, desk, armoire, television, and private bathroom. There is a shared room for all the foreign teachers that has a washing machine and small kitchen area. Currently there are three other teachers living here—two American guys and one Irish guy, and there are rumors of another 60 year old lady from the USA coming to join us soon.

My room is clean and has heat and air-conditioning (yay!), but the rest of the school doesn't. My TV gets two fuzzy Chinese channels. The bathroom is small and… interesting.

Fun facts about bathrooms in China:

-  Even if the toilet is Western style, you can't flush toilet paper.

-  There's no water pressure on the 6^th floor, so the water drips verrrrrryyyy slooooowwwllllllllyyy out of the showerhead. I have to fill up a plastic cup with water to rinse all the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair.

-  Shower stalls are unheard of… I have a drain in the middle of the floor, and I bought a mop/squeegee to clean up the floor after I shower.

-  Heat lamps help to keep you warm while you shower (in theory)

 

When I first moved in shower in my bathroom wasn't working. For the first three days I had to improvise showers using a plastic bowl thingy and water that I heated in my electric kettle.  Now that it's fixed, it's not much better.

I think I'm going to have to get creative in terms of personal hygiene this year.