Well, hey. It feels like forever since I last wrote something. I've been feeling a bit brighter recently. Remembering that I chose to come back because one of the things I enjoyed was how much more my students would say each week and all we'd get to talk about, getting a little more, and the approaching Spring Festival have probably all helped.

Since the last time I wrote, I've enjoyed the Sheraton Thanksgiving buffet over in Changsha, visited a youth correctional facility, gone to an amusement park, finished all of Jessica Jones and Master of None, heard the investigation on my bank account was completed (charges confirmed to not be mine, as anyone who knows me would probably think it's a little out of character to spend hundreds on shapewear), finished giving out my second formal exam (which went well, no tears or alcohol), and recovered from some nasty cold which had me badly congested. There were times I knew someone had farted in the back of the classroom but couldn't really smell it, I just watched everyone go "ugh!" and make faces as I circulated. I was thrilled when I cleared up enough to smell my site mate's orange.

So I guess I'll step back to Thanksgiving week. On Thursday, I got to enjoy the Thanksgiving buffet at the Sheraton and I took the day off so I just relaxed and wandered a bit. There's a small coffee/tea shop called "Seven Teas" across from the middle school where WorldTeach holds orientation and it's a popular spot to grab something to drink while adjusting to the humidity. I paid the woman who works there a visit and she was happy to speak with me in Chinese for a while and even pulled out some green tea mixed with peanuts from her hometown and sat with me for a while before I left. Dinner was a whole 302 yuan this year, but I was looking forward to something other than steamed eggs, a stir-fried vegetable, and some rice (a standard dinner for me, and pretty cheap since an eggplant can easily feed me for two meals). I wound up staying the whole time from 5:30 until about 10PM with WorldTeach friends and caught a really late train back to Zhuzhou. I don't think I slept until 2AM and then I had to get up again for the school trip which was leaving school sometime before 7. Actually, I had been asked to go the day before (when most of the English teachers were going with the first group of students) but I was a little annoyed about asking for Thanksgiving off and facing the idea that I would have to change my plans at the last minute. I heard I would go with class 1416, but my liaison told me to go with 1411 because they heard I was going with 1416 and got jealous. Then an English teacher appeared on the track where we had lined up before getting on the bus and said her boss told her to look out for me so I could please come with class 1415 instead. My helpers in class 1411 started whimpering so she let me stay but did come back a few more times to see if she could convince me to come with her because her group leader was insisting that I be with an English teacher.

I had a lot of people saying they would help me to understand what was going during the trip since we were going to a correctional facility to hear some young boys talk about what got them into the facility. However, when we got there and were seated in the auditorium (back in Changsha again) both my students assistants looked surprised when I asked them what the boys were saying. Only two came out and spoke, each with a shaved head and a grey uniform on. Both talked about getting into trouble with gangs and killing a boy. One told students to love their families. Another spoke about how the grandparents of the boy he killed came to visit him and see how he was doing in the facility. Then it changed to performances by the boys.

The first was a short skit. A boy gets into an argument with his dad and rips up his homework (I think) and runs out into the streets. He bumps into a group of boys who surround him and start pushing him. It finally builds into one of the group getting stabbed after which red and blue lights flash all over the stage with the sound of sirens playing as the boy makes a run for it but ultimately gets caught. From there, it went into a dance and some singing. ( A song called "Dad I love you", I think.) After that, they cleared off the stage and brought out a keyboard and we were treated to a performance. And it ended with a popular song I've heard on the radio here before we were told to move out a class at a time.

I sorted out some of my feelings and thoughts. When I heard we were going to the correctional facility, I assumed it would be a pretty stripped down thing. A plain room, maybe a mic, just young boys taking turns talking about what they'd done. I wasn't really expecting a warm auditorium, bottled water, dancing and pop songs. My first reaction when they started the skit was that it seemed interesting, unexpected. From there, I couldn't help thinking the pop songs were kind of weird, but maybe it was nice to see them doing things my students do at school even if I couldn't help noticing all the shaven heads, grey uniforms, and similarly stoic faces. I thought this must be a nice break for them since I imagined their lives to be pretty regimented. Maybe it was important to not only talk about what they'd done but to remember other things about, things that made them more human. But on my way out, I saw how many buses full of students were waiting for their turn to come in and see what we had. I began to wonder how many times a day or how many times in a year they do this presentation among other questions.

After the correctional facility, we went out for lunch and headed to an amusement park. It felt like a strange thing to follow the correctional facility. Oh, and since I didn't get much sleep I wasn't feeling great, I ran out of tissues and the other teachers said I needed to wear as many layers as they did or I'd get a cold (but it already seemed to have me). It was fun, it's been a long time since I rode a roller coaster or swings, but I was also afraid some ill-timed sneeze would leave me with a face full of mucus on a cold day. We spent the rest of the day out there before going back to school and the teachers all headed out together to get dinner at the Huatian Hotel, which I guess the school paid for as a kind of gift for the teachers taking charge of the students that day. The other teachers went out of their way to find something Cantonese for me, which I thought was both funny and sweet.  It was a pretty good start to my weekend, but I was really excited to go home and pass out. The cold was pretty bad on that following Tuesday, when I had only morning classes so I went home and played dead after lunch. What was supposed to be a short nap turned into me waking up past 7PM, running out to get dinner, and going back to bed for another 8 hours. I must have really needed rest and water.

Now that my head feels much clearer, I'm looking forward to Spring Festival. I'm looking at going to Vietnam, Shanghai, and possibly Osaka to see an old friend who is also teaching. I wanted to do Xian, but the train tickets going to Xian are already gone. The only ones available are the trains that are leaving. I really wanted to go to Yunnan again,but I have this list and it's taking me towards the East rather than the West side of China. The ice festival in Harbin sounded really cool, but I think I've had enough of cold and wet already and the idea of going all the way up to Heilongjiang isn't super appealing (though it looks pretty). I've been powering through test corrections, watching Netflix, feeding my tea habit (at the moment, I've been drinking a lot of Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong/Lapsang Souchong because they smoke the leaves during processing and it's great on cold rainy days), and reading a ton of books. Huan Hsu's "Porcelain Thief", Sherry Turkle's "Alone Together", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (last 500 pages and pretty much all the major characters are dead now), and "Successful Classroom Management". I've also caught up on the China History Podcast while correcting, which has been great. I'm sorry to say I still haven't put in a ton of time on improving my Chinese but I do notice my conversations are getting a little longer and a little more sophisticated. It's certainly a step up from my first few weeks last year as I tried to remember my high school Chinese and pointed at things while saying "Zhege" ("this") and rubbed my fingers together to ask how much it cost.

Again, I'm sorry for the long space between updates. My original intent with this blog was to do something each week within 500 words or less but I haven't been very good at that. I don't even write in my pen and paper diary as much as I used to though I feel better in general when I take my thoughts and put them in there at the end of the day. Sleep better when my head isn't full of things, all electronics have been shut off for the night, and it's just me writing for myself. You know, write out questions or ideas without worrying about what others might say like I would have to when I post things online, remember mundane things without filling someone's feed and all that. For a while, I guess I forgot that my tendency to reflect is one of my strengths. In the future, I'll do a little better to keep posts coming, especially over Spring Festival. For now, I will leave you with the Christmas tree that's been set up across the street:

​Time for that weekly update again…well, I’m getting ready to give my second exam and I think I made it too easy. We’ll see. I’m still waiting for feedback on October’s assessment and I’m going to do a practice test in early December so that everyone is ready for the final in January. I think next semester, I’m going to do something more informal like a written in-class assignment that they turn in (a letter with recommendations for solving a problem, a short story, etc.). 
I gave my first F to a class and am now preparing my speech/a time to discuss with my students why my job is hard to do without them. I really need to sit down with them and get the ball rolling on what changes need to take place. I also need to get on top of some things that have piled up, like filming myself teaching, getting everything corrected and given back to students and other things that are part of the job.
We have a class trip coming up around the 26th/27th. I’m going to up close to Dong ting Lake (which Hunan gets its name from, since the province is “South of the Lake” although Dongting is inside Hunan). The teacher last year said it was a very moving experience. Among the things students do is a visit to a prison where they listen to young inmates tell their stories. It will be a unique experience for sure.

Otherwise, it’s been quiet. I had a second break-in attempt since coming back to Zhuzhou this year, pushed harder to get my camera repaired after last year’s incident, discovered that it will cost me a sizable amount of money (but thankfully not the 2000RMB I was originally told), put aside 300 yuan for the all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving buffet at the Sheraton in Changsha, and ate the rest of my extra money because China unleashes the snacker in me like nowhere else I’ve been. Recently, I’ve been eating a lot of táng yóu baba (糖油粑粑, a small cake made of glutinous rice and fried with sugar in the oil). The smell of chestnuts is everywhere, which reminds me of Ticino and watching the trees change there.

​I’ve also been eating seasoned grilled lamb skewers I confused the family that runs two carts selling grilled lamb skewers covered in spices. It didn’t sound like the man was speaking Mandarin when I asked how much for a skewer and no one really knew how to approach me. Even, less so after I said I was American. I’d like to go back since I know the meat is fresh (the goat’s head and the legs are usually sitting on the street next to the cart and has made innocent passersby scream every now and then, and I’ve seen a mountain of hair behind the head too). I just need to get over these awkward exchanges since no one really knows how to respond to me. I’m in this ethnic limbo I guess.

So now that I'm back in Zhuzhou I'm dreaming of the next trip. I keep thinking of seeing Xian where they have the terra cotta warriors and the Muslim market. I've heard the yang rou pao mo (?) a kind of lamb and bread soup is really good there. But I've also wanted to see if I could squeeze in Nanjing after having read 2 of 3 of Iris Chang's books (The Chinese in America and The Rape of Nanking) and I've heard that the memorial is very well put together. But the city I live in, Zhuzhou, is also on the border with JiangXi province where Lushan is located. Apparently, it's been home to many writers and Pearl S. Buck spent her summers there. I remember being pleasantly surprised when I read The Good Earth trilogy. I heard a lot of people say it was good and wasn't wholly sure what it was about and what it would say about life in China and after having had a few interactions with well-intentioned people who excitedly told me my name meant chicken in Chinese and tried to get me to speak Chinese (and one case where I remember someone saying he knew what he was talking about because he spent time teaching in Korea), I was feeling a little unsure about what I'd come away with. But it wasn't filled with generalizations about Asia, or some un-nuanced statement about Chinese culture and life, it was written by someone who spent time there and looked much more closely, who probably knew her audience wasn't going to be Chinese but neither did she write in a way that made her work come off as some primer on Chinese culture. It was a trilogy about the changing fortunes of one family across 3 generations and the way they worked to make sense of and succeed in the world around them. She gave a glimpse of how large China was and the events going on in different regions when the family had to migrate to feed themselves.

By the time I finished reading all of it, I realized how unfair I'd been in my wariness of this book. I can't think of anyone who has said it was a badly written book and I thought it was very successful in how it portrayed the concerns and perspectives of its characters. Without naming any events, it was pretty easy to infer roughly what time the events took place and what changes she was referring to. And how not all these changes came at the same time.

So though I realize that going to a place where a lot of writers (Bai Juyi AND Pearl S. Buck. I loved Bai Juyi's poem about Lao Tzu. I'll post it at the bottom.) lived doesn't mean that I'll find some great dedication or building there or anything, but all the same I'm sure it'd make a great visit. The scenery is supposed to be beautiful and full of places to hike around. And I saw something about a bus that goes up to Nanjing so maybe I could put the two into on holiday. That still leaves Xian though, and knowing the pace that I move at when exploring cities I'm pretty sure Xian would keep me occupied for at least a week with all its different sights.

So, I spent a lot of my traveling time missing Zhuzhou, my own bed and shower, and the people I know but now that I'm back resting and doing laundry, I'm dreaming of what next. I might have a week in May but I've heard of no other breaks coming up this term. The spring festival was the big one. I spent more than I meant to, but I guess it was worth it. I am now the proud owner of a young pu erh cake, a chunk of huo tui ham, the occasional craving for a big bowl of Yunnan's guo qiao mixian (crossing the bridge noodles), good memories of Pugaolao Village and its terraces, of day tripping around the Pearl River Delta and of trying things such as oysters with garlic, sugar cane juice, and finding a woman selling what looked like soy sauce chicken just outside the hostel. I really should have found a cooking class at some point but if nothing else, I have the big Chinese knife I received at the beginning of the school year and my own kitchen to practice in. I can do basic things like the pork and green peppers dish that I see at nearly every meal here and I'll have to look closely at the other dishes I enjoy to get a sense of how they are cut and cooked as well (maybe I should ask Pan Ayi/Aunty Pan, who fed us during orientation and who I've missed since leaving Changsha, if I can watch sometime if I don't get in her way). The eggplant slices here may not be so easy to puzzle out its ingredients as pork and peppers was if for no other reason than that pork and peppers was a pretty straightforward name and the presentation is never too fancy. I've also come to like the cauliflower here with crispy bits of pork and red peppers, and the egg soaked tofu with some other things mixed in which I've seen served in a cast iron dish with the egg sticking to the dish. I've found myself picking up on the lines to judge how things were cut at certain angles, though that still doesn't tell me everything. Maybe I'll finally find that "Rice and Friends" cooking class in Dali that is advertised everywhere in Yunnan and at least get some of the basics of Chinese cooking even if I can't have my choice in regional styles (though Yunnan never disappointed me).

Despite how cold and wet it is outside, I am really happy to be home and resting. It gives me a chance to regroup, see a different side of Zhuzhou, and both play with ideas for the next trip and play with my kitchen some more after having stepped outside of what's more readily available here (though we do have at least one Chongqing restaurant in the downtown area). I can't wait to get better at using my knife and to be more consistent in how I cut and how that will change what I cook for myself every week. My goals are to make my pork and peppers slightly less oily  (or do a better job of draining the oil before serving), to make the kind of rich stock and thin slices I need to make my own crossing the bridge noodles, to actually make ma po tofu with huajiao instead of just peppers (when we tried it in Sichuan it wasn't so great, but that may have just been the place where we ate), cook up some hot and sour soup, and eventually do a better job of making a well balanced meal for myself. I guess I am kind of at an advantage here in being able to switch over to Chinese food a little more readily than some who found themselves equipped with a rice cooker, a wok, and a big knife upon entering their kitchen. Remembering how to season a wok without an oven took a bit of work but I got there, and it's served me well on nights I just go out and grab some chicken and bean sprouts for a fast and easy stir fry. I read something about how there are 7 essentials to a Chinese kitchen and opened my cabinet to find that I'd automatically bought 6 of them. I have tea, rice, vinegar, soy sauce, salt, oil and i'm only missing firewood. But my stove runs on gas and I have heating so I guess I'm set. It's also just been cheaper to make a soup or a stir fry than it has been to go out to Carrefour, Vanguard, or WalMart for a stick of butter that will set me back about 30 yuan. I used to want it for toast but now I've even traded my breakfast habits for tea eggs or egg folded in shao bing in the morning. More often tea eggs. I love getting up and holding warm tea eggs on a cold morning before teaching. I tend to move out of my bed earlier too so I can buy them next to the school. I still seem to be buying coffee, but I have  big bag of tie guan yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy) tea that I brew and put into a thermos to both wake me up, help digestion, and keep my hands warm for the first part of the morning. Trading my habits for their Chinese equivalents has proven to be much cheaper than trying to recreate Western food too often. Though since Hunan cuisine is often quite oily (I've talked to people who also say they notice that after being here for a while they reach for sugar a little more often than they would in the states) I guess it's just for the better to try cutting some of it by drinking tea.

Now that I've left Yunnan I keep thinking about the traditional pharmacies I walked past and some of Yunnan's famous medicines (there's a white medicine that uses 100 herbs and another one that mixes into tea) and wondering if I should have invested in a few grams. Though Yunnan white medicine didn't seem to address anything ailing me so that's part of why I skipped out. More often, when I'm feeling poorly the first thing I do is ask if I've eaten much fruit recently and that usually helps me perk up. Some have said that you have to make an effort to eat enough vegetables with all the pork that goes into food here but I've been fine with vegetables, it's reminding myself to finish each meal with an orange and a small bottle of Yakult that I have to make an effort to do. While I don't buy into everything traditional medicine has to say about food, it is really important to maintain a balance and since coming back to wet Hunan I do find myself thinking about more about dishes with Sichuan peppercorn which is said to be great for people living in humid places. And I did find it interesting that while I spent a hot humid summer in Changsha I was reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food that mentioned some research that found very hot places tended to have very hot food. So maybe my changing dietary habits are influenced by the climate I've found myself in too, a natural response to being in a place where moderate temperatures only come for a brief period and you need those peppers to heat your body in winter and cool you down in the summer. Maybe part of the Chinese approach to food is also related to an awareness of its regionalism, that one province and its people will have different conditions and slightly different health needs as a result of those conditions.  When I went out looking for pu erh, I heard that part of the popularity of Yunnan's tea was due to what nutrients it provided to the people who subsisted on primarily meat in places they couldn't grow a lot of vegetation and to people who primarily ate seafood. It seems to me anyway, that Chinese people have long been aware of the needs of their various dietary habits

In general, I do enjoy trying different foods and getting a sense of regional cuisines as I travel around. I know it was part of why I enjoyed going around Italy and here in China with its definite food/health culture that part of me seems to have grown despite the statistics I've looked at (1 in 10 out of home meals cooked with oil pulled from the gutters) and my awful time over the sink in Hong Kong. I guess it's a more accessible way for me to grasp at how big China is and how much it has to offer, as well as the ways people take what's given to them and work to make use of all they can. I know that certain regional cuisines or dishes tend to predominate in the US so it's also been quite satisfying to not only eat but watch cooks or street vendors at work. It's not as if there's a cookbook available for all the things you find out here, and honestly I've had to accept that some foods are just better left in the hands of specialists and trained people. I wouldn't dare to ferment my own stinky tofu though I love going out onto the street and getting freshly fried and covered in peppers, green onion, and cilantro. And roast duck is always delicious, but I don't think I ever experienced Beijing duck until I came here. I kept thinking that it almost looked like what I ate back in California but now I realize what I remember eating back home was probably Cantonese style roast duck. I felt a little lost the first time I came home with a bag of thin pancakes, thick green onion stalks, and two bags of dark savory sauce because I had no experience with eating that way. I used to want to try roasting one on my own but after watching the insane skill it takes to cut a bird into the exact number of pieces that  Beijing duck has to be cut into (about 100 something) I have to concede that getting the right bird, finding the right wood and roasting conditions, cooking it properly and then cutting it properly is outside of my realm. People spend years just learning how to cook a duck right and I couldn't do it justice in my home kitchen. My favorite duck vendor out on the street probably isn't doing it in the true Beijing fashion and I'm still impressed by how fast she slices, drains, skins, cuts, sorts, and bags everything within minutes of me pointing out which duck I want. I'll have to film her cutting off the neck and getting the skin off intact someday. It's just incredible. I wish I had that level of expertise and control with my knife.

I'll close off this lengthy post here. I guess after looking for cheap places to eat while traveling for so long my mind turns to food more readily. I used to think the greeting "Have you eaten?" was primarily about China's food culture but I've since found that it's pretty key to understanding both its food culture and the very practical need to eat in a place where people have struggled to eat enough at times.

So tomorrow is Friday meaning I've been here in Guangdong for nearly a week, although I had a bit of a rough start since I got on the train feeling pretty confident until I realized I didn't have my American debit card on me. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I had washed all my clothes, packed my documents, packed laundry detergent and a clothesline, charged my camera, phone, and nook, swept the whole apartment, mopped the whole apartment, washed my bedding and made it all up so I'd be set when I came back (and also because it's the new year) and forgot that one little thing because I keep it locked away and I never use it for anything other iTunes or ebooks. Fortunately and unfortunately, Zhuzhou is 2 hours and 20 minutes away by fast train. So I was able to book a day trip to my own apartment and spent Wednesday in the surreal other world place known as the fast train and fast train station. After being accustomed to taking all the slow trains and the activity that comes with riding one in hard seat, the large seats, tray tables, non-smoking cars was certainly a change. And while the 8 hour slow train I took to Guangzhou before was 8 hours, it was a nice gradual shift into a warmer climate. I don't think I ever realized how cold Zhuzhou really is until I got off on the platform, pulled my scarf out of my bag and caught the bus into town. It was wet and rainy too. But the operation was a success, I got to the station with plenty of time to spare, and even more after my train was delayed by two hours so I couldn't get the metro and wound having to get a cab at the train station. So it costly and annoying, but it seemed like a better idea to have it on hand and go through all that trouble now than to find myself in Kunming with nothing to fall back on and a 24 hour train ride back to Zhuzhou.

But that was my Wednesday. I arrived here on Monday evening and though my hostel is out of the city center, it is near a metro stop so I can get around pretty well when I want to. It's also nice to go somewhere relatively quiet at the end of the day after pushing through so many people on the metro to get to where I want to be. On Tuesday, I decided to go looking for all the free things I could do and it turned out to be a day of big contrasts which I guess set the tone for the rest of my traveling around the city. I got up and went out to Enning Lu since Changshou Lu, the metro stop that takes you there, is on the same line as the one I take to get to the hostel. The Changshou stop is under a big fancy mall and going outside I found a narrow street crowded with stuff to buy and more interesting to me, oysters with tons of garlic and green onions. They also had oyster shells filled with noodles but they didn't catch my eye quite as fast.

At the end of that street, I walked to my right and went along Enning Lu. I've heard that Bruce Lee's ancestral home is out at the end and that there's not much besides a plaque there to mark the spot. I originally set out to try and find it, and never did but I did find a lot of neat things along the way. I heard a bit of opera as I walked on and then a child's plastic toy chain saw lit up and played the Xiao Ping Guo. Like I said, a day of contrasts.

I later went out to Zhujiang looking for the New Guangdong museum (free admission!) and Canton tower. The architecture was completely different. There were multicolored electric lights everywhere as it got darker and the buildings were huge. Since it was close to the financial district too, there were a lot more English speakers and business men walking around suited up for work. It's where I learned that what it cost for me to stay at a hostel for 7 nights would just cover a scalp massage at the four seasons hotel. No, I have not looked at what must be some crazy price for a night at the four seasons. Whenever I walk into a place like that I never feel right. Hostel dorms or single rooms are more my pace.

Today, Thursday, I decided to go see the Lingnan Painters Museum at the school of Fine Arts. But when I got there, it was empty, locked, and all I saw were some maintenance tools. So I wandered around the campus a bit before deciding to take the metro to YueXiu Park. I heard YueXiu come up many times so I wanted to see what was around there. I found the museum of the Nanyue King shortly after exiting the station and went inside. I'd heard about the king's all jade burial suit and was curious as to how it would look. It was all pretty elaborate, which when you consider that his tomb was a king's tomb makes sense. But his jade suit alone was 2291 jade tiles sewn together. I'm not even talking about all the other jade bi or jade jewelry or jade in boxes around him in his tomb that they found. I found that a good number of the staff working here spoke English as well which surprised and threw off both myself and the staff since I've become used to having to gesture with my limited vocabulary and well, with my appearance. But with the history here, it seems to be less of a surprise to see a Chinese-American person than it is when I reveal myself in Hunan. The area definitely had more Muslim influence. I found a pulled noodle place (a specialty of Xinjiang), and a few signs in Arabic. The orchid garden too has some connection to Islam in China if I remember correctly.

So, I've been having a great time but counting my change and reworking what I have available has been frustrating. I lost a lot of money getting my card and now it seems I lost money by booking ahead on my train to Hong Kong. For whatever reason, the directions say you can only pick up the MTR tickets bought online IN PERSON IN HONG KONG which doesn't really work since my ticket was from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. So I'll be up bright and early looking for another ticket it seems. I'm not proud of my Wednesday escapade, but I guess the bright side of this is that by the time I leave Guangzhou, I'll have gone through every train station in this city. I also found that I've saved myself more money than I initially thought. When I arrived, I paid for a youth hostel card which knocked the cost of my room down and the card (which was 50 yuan) was more than worth the discount. Though I didn't find a youth hostel in Macau, it will also cut down what I'm paying per night at the hostel in Kunming. And in addition to all this, I do get my deposit back at the end when I check out so that will be a little extra to feed myself with. I definitely think I could have been smarter, but overall it hasn't worked out too badly. And now I may as well take advantage of the discount I get in youth hostels across China since I know I have another week long vacation in May. I'll have to see if it's possible to visit Xian and Nanjing in the same trip. If not, I know Xian could keep me busy for a week with the terra cotta warriors, the walls, and other sites it has. So, another tool to my China travel bag to work with.

I'm planning on using the rest of my time here to make day trips outside of the city. So I'll come back and write about how everything works out with getting to Foshan, Zhongshan, and Kaiping (which is in Taishan if I understand correctly).

It's almost time to leave Changsha. Tomorrow is our last night and Monday morning we leave for our sites. Today we left for Orange Island with our Chinese teachers. It was quite a walk and I've never tanned this fast before. I think I even got a sunburn. I can't say for sure because I've only been burned once before, the rest of the time I've been careful about sunscreen or covering up. It was a really wonderful day out. We had a blue sky instead of a hot grey day. It was a real workout and my congestion started to kick up in addition to my constant sweating. I could totally see myself going back though. I liked it a lot.

On another note, I finally got a taste of chou doufu (stinky tofu) which I've been meaning to try for so long. I've heard it smells like garbage but when I got it, it just smelled really vinegary. Then again, my congestion may be preventing me from experiencing it in its full stinky glory. It was good. Maybe not the amazing food I expected given how much high praise I've heard for chou doufu but I spent all day thinking about going back and buying another since I thought the textures and everything were really wonderful. She fried it and covered it with cilantro and other toppings so it was fresh out of the wok when I got it. I have a feeling that I'm going to be a full participant in Hunanese food culture even if I'm not the biggest participant in Changsha's ever active nightlife.

I surprised the woman selling the doufu though. She told me I looked Chinese after she heard me talking to one of the other volunteers in English and I told her I was American but my family was from Guangdong. It's the best explanation I can give with what Chinese I have. I was told I would have different expectations from other foreigners because I'm  part Chinese but so far people seem to understand that I don't speak Chinese and seem receptive to the idea that I've been away from China my whole life.

I meant to put a photo up at the top of the page but I seem to have done something strange where I can't put pictures up there. So I did the next best thing and uploaded a photo of Changsha on a day when the sky wasn't quite as heavy or overcast. I think I've adjusted to the humidity very well. I'm actually not feeling it when I'm out and about despite being a little sweaty. This is near The Little Pearl Restaurant where we've been eating every night so far, though we're sharing a meal there for the last time tomorrow. I have to turn in my first lesson plan for critiquing as well. I'm nervous because I want to do my best but I am happy that I'm in a program that takes the time to train its volunteers in teaching methods, discuss culture shock, and give them a practice run of working in a classroom before sending them on to their locations. I think I'd be pretty nervous about having no support or information at all. I like all the people I've met and many have traveled before or are interested in development. It's a little like being at FUS all over again, though I do feel a little like the one thing people remember about me now is that I went to school in Switzerland. We even had a visit from the Consul General from the consulate based in Wuhan today which really made me feel like I was back.

My limited Chinese is returning and growing everyday. I've been getting a lot of practice at a tea and coffee shop (Seven Teas)  across the street from the middle school where we've been doing all our training and classes. They do not speak English there, but they do have an English menu with Chinese characters and pinyin so I am building my vocabulary one cold drink at a time. As we have Chinese class from 8-9:30 and the rest of our training from 9:45-5PM, it's a welcome break in the middle of the day. Oh, and have I mentioned that the middle school we're all doing orientation at is beautiful? And there's so many things in easy walking distance from us: Martyr's park, bakeries, a city museum, small shops... though just walking around demands a lot of attention. People everywhere, cars, bikes, and motorbikes moving along on the sidewalk have surprised me a few times. It may just be that Saratoga was so quiet, but the other two times I've been to Asia the activity on the streets amazed me. There's so much going on at 6 or 7 AM with dance and exercise groups going on and a few individuals simply doing their exercises alone where the streets have less people.

In short, despite my initial nervousness I am warming up to here though I am sure that when the group disperses and I settle into the school year with another volunteer working at my school I will encounter challenges. I haven't yet had too any of the issues I've heard Chinese American people sometimes report when they come here. Sometimes people expect me to understand more Chinese than I really do and just keep talking to me, but I've met a lot of people too who will speak to me in English if I ask. In time, I suppose.