100 Days Party

My very dear friends Joy and Carl recently got married and had a baby. They had the most darling little baby boy in July. His English name is CJ (Carl Jr.). I know I'm not his blood relative, but whatever, I'm still his aunt and I love him to pieces!

I have learned about a lot of different traditions the Chinese have with newborns through Joy and Carl, but the most recent one is the 100 Day Celebration they held.  I've asked people and done a lot of searching online. Online there isn't much information, but others have told me that one reason is that the first 100 days are the most dangerous for a baby. If they live to be 100 days, they are out of the woods, so to speak. Otherwise, it's just a good time to let friends and family meet the new baby and give gifts or money and drink lots of alcohol.

Joy invited me to come, and originally I wasn't going to go because was in Nanjing on a Sunday night and I had two morning classes the next day. It just would've been hard. But then Joy begged and begged me to come because she would be taking CJ and going to Guizhou to stay with her mom until after the Chinese New Year. It was our last chance to see each other before she left.

I went to talk to my liaison about returning from Nanjing Monday morning. I wanted to make sure I'd be able to make it back in time without being late. Then she just told me to take Monday off, no problem. I was so surprised and so grateful!

I went into Nanjing early on Sunday to go to church first. Then in the afternoon after eating at "the rice place" with Brad and Ashley, I headed over to Joy's for some sister time. That was when the awkward introductions started. A few people came to the apartment to bring some fruit and other gifts and every single one asked Joy who I was. I stand out a little, you know.  Then I had to attempt to pronounce each name and tell them it was nice to meet them. That parts easy, but no matter how much Chinese I speak, names are always so hard. Especially because the Chinese put a lot of emphasis on correct pronunciation of names because they think it's polite.

We walked together to the restaurant and when I walked into the room, there were SO many people. It freaked me out a little as the only foreigner in the room, so I turned around and walked out. I know. Real brave. It's just that I draw a lot of attention in a room like that, and it can be nerve racking sometimes. I waited for Joy before going back in and she had me sit in between her and her friend whose English is really good.  Then, the eating and drinking began. For probably the 800 millionth time, I politely refused the wine when it was offered and took the orange juice instead. I expertly avoided the pig intestines and awkwardly joined in some toasts until Joy told me I didn't have to anymore. Then I awkwardly sat in my chair while everyone else toasted Joy and Carl. Then, Carl said, "Sarah, please enjoy yourself." I said, "Thank you." Then everyone started laughing at me. I was so confused! Apparently that meant Carl wanted to toast me, but I had no idea. So then I chinked glasses with him while everyone laughed. Surprisingly I wasn't embarrassed. I guess you get used to being laughed at here. Haha!

I also realize I know nothing about drinking culture in America because they were asking me what we say in America when we are drinking with our friends and I couldn't even tell them. Though I did tell them what Greek people say...

Each person at the party gave Carl a red envelope with money inside it. Each one would have between 100 and 200 yuan and goes towards helping the baby in one way or another.

I left a little early to go back to the apartment with Joy and CJ while Carl stayed. When Carl finally did come back, he was drunk. Really drunk. Swaying on his feet drunk. And it was hilarious. He's quite affectionate when he's drunk and he kept giving me hugs and saying thank you. Sadie pointed out that it's pretty impressive that he could manage to speak another language whilst so drunk. He said, "Sarah, thank you for my children's 100 day party."

Joy also showed me a video of CJ when they take him to get a "shower." What it really is is a place a lot of people take their babies to have a bath. They strap this sort of ring floaty around the baby's neck to keep his face out of the water and he swims around. CJ obviously really likes it and Joy kept saying, "He is so free." It is so interesting how different we do things.  Here's a video of another baby swimming. The water looks kind of gross and I assure you that CJ wasn't in gross water. His was clean. The lady talking is kind of annoying, but she's talking to the baby. She's saying he's 36 days old and he doesn't cry a lot. Also that he's very handsome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I4Lp1Oz_3c

The next day, I had lunch with Carl and Joy one last time before saying goodbye. China is wonderful, but always full of goodbyes. Lucky for me, they've usually turned out to be short, but every time, good bye is harder to say. This time, with tears in my eyes, I hugged my friends and thanked them for their kindness and friendship before getting on a bus back to Yangzhong. I miss them so much already, but in my heart, I KNOW I will see them again.

I'm BACK!

So it's been awhile because my proxy stopped working, but now I'm back!

Since a lot has happened, I'll just do a few highlights.

Sadie and I went to Hefei together for a weekend. Sadie lived in a city near there when she was in China and spent weekends there all the time. We only had time to go for one night, but it was worth it. Hefei is SUPER dirty but we made friends with the sweetest girl who showed us around and took us out to eat.

We went fishing with one of our friends. Chinese fishing is really different because they don't use a reel. Instead they just make the string long enough to reach out into the water a bit while being short enough to handle. They use re-hydrated ground up shrimp shells as bait and apparently it's better than marshmallows because we went for 1 1/2 hours and we caught more than 10 fish. Sadie even caught two, though the first one got away because she yanked the pole so hard the fish flew up and hit the roof before falling off the hook and back into the water. It was a lot of fun and required less patience. Though I do like fishing in America still and I still dream of going ice fishing someday. (I know! Everyone says it's not that fun, but I just really want to try it!)

We also spent a weekend in Shanghai so Sadie could visit a friend who lives there. We tried to do a little Christmas shopping and stayed in a great hostel in the center of tourist central. We also got to visit the Shanghai branch which was so nice especially since we got to watch the primary program.

Kelli decided to come to visit us in China! YEAH!!! She's coming next week on Tuesday, but we won't see her until Thursday (Thanksgiving) and then she'll go with us to Nanjing on Saturday for Thanksgiving dinner with the branch. The next weekend, we are going to Suzhou together. It'll be so fun to show her around and let her experience the China we love so much.

I FINALLY got to go to a Chinese wedding yesterday. AMAZING! Also a little strange. One of the young teachers here invited us to come with all the other teachers at the school. After school got out, there was a big bus waiting near the gate. We got on with all the other teachers and it drove to the restaurant. When we got there, most everyone was already sitting down, and by most everyone I mean 400-500 Chinese people. We were sitting at some tables near the front so we had to walk through hords of tables full of staring people. We don't really blend in here.

The tables already had food on them so we sat and basically started eating. The wedding ceremony happened while people ate and only semi-paid attention. It wasn't quiet and there weren't many sentiments.Also, I didn't understand anything that happened, but they looked happy together. They also had an MC sort of guy that announced everything. After the wedding part was over, the food just kept coming and they had entertainers there to perform. Some dancing girls in belly shirts, a singing woman who turned out to be a man, and a contortionist. They had a hula hopping contest and Sadie won a big stuffed baby Mickey Mouse. There were lots of toasts and I don't know how many times we stood because someone came to our table to toast us, but it was a lot, and I drank a lot of coconut milk stuff.

One of Yangzhong's specialties is puffer fish and what would a Yangzhong wedding be without it? It was good, but tasted like most other fish I've tried. Then there was the whole crab on my plate that I had to figure out how to eat. Lucky for me, a Chinese person helped me and made me knowingly eat the brain. Although it tasted fine, it was just a bit uncomfortable to think about. Other dishes included chicken feet, possibly pigs head though I can't be sure, whole shrimp. When the night was over, our table had layers on layers of food sitting in the middle and we didn't even eat half of it, though some other tables made much better progress than us. It never ceases to amaze me about how much these people can eat.

That's the guy. He really has a beautiful voice.

Update on the Demon Class

I've been in China for 3 weeks now and teaching in Yangzhong for 2 1/2. It feels like so much longer. Home seems a lifetime away and China seems like it's always been here.

I've only taught the Demon Class twice because they went on a field trip during one of our class times. But I'm proud to say that we are making progress! This time, there were only a couple flying projectiles, mostly paper, and I got them to sit practically completely silent for 20 minutes. Their teacher walked over to check on them and they were already quiet. GO ME!

Even though they were totally quiet for 20 minutes, that still leaves 25 other minutes where they were crazy. I had to tell them multiple times to put their homework from other classes away during the lesson, I made two students stand up in the back of class because they kept crawling around  on the floor at the back of the class. I confiscated a watch complete with a red laser that was being shown on me. And so on. I hate having to be so strict. In my other classes I can be kind of crazy and do things to make the kids laugh, but in this class, if I do that, they all go crazy and stop listening completely. If I let them be this loud and insane at the beginning of the year, they will only get worse as time goes on and I can't have that. 

They made postcards as part of the lesson activity at the end of class and most of them wrote apologies to me on theirs. It melted my heart and I just felt more love for them. They are children still in a sense and they work so hard in school. They are there nearly 12 hours of the day 5 days a week. They have so much pressure to do well in class. Can I really blame them for having pent up energy by the end of a long day? I try to make my lessons fun so they can have a little break from the mundane. We play games and I act weird so they laugh. I would just play games all class and have crazy amounts of fun, but I'm here to teach English, too so we have to do a lesson from their book or a cultural lesson about America. I hope that by the end of the semester, we can find a balance together that works for us both. You can't help but love them. Demonesque or not.

China Days

When you are in China, sometimes you get what I call "China Days." China is unpredictable at times and sometimes, you just aren't ready for what she throws at you, or you are homesick, or just overly emotional. Most foreigners I've talked to have similar experiences. It's on those days that I learn and grow the most.                                                                                                                            

Today was a China day. But as one of the characters from a movie I love said, "When it rains, you put on a coat." We (Janny, Julie, Sadie, and myself) got into the city and we found a pet store. I asked the clerk if we could hold one of the puppies and it was SO cute! If I lived here permanently, I might have just bought it.

We also found a crane game. You know, like the ones where you try to pick up a stuffed animals with the claws and it's nearly impossible to win? Except this one was better. MUCH better. Instead of stuffed animals, it was filled with cigarette packs. Hm.... which one, which one?

And then we went to eat at a Lanzhou pulled noodles restaurant, which is my favorite food in China. This was the third one we've found within walking distance of our apartments, I might add. After eating, Sadie showed the owners some US dollar bills she had. They got so excited and kept asking us how much one USD is worth in RMB. The boy kept asking us if we wanted to trade RMB for USD, but I didn't understand that until I looked up what he said on Google Translate when I got home. We gave them the money and took their pictures with it. It was so cute!

And then something incredibly surprising happened. We took a taxi back to our school since we had walked pretty far from home and it was getting cold. When we arrived in front of the school and I asked the driver how much money, he just kept telling me it was free. I was so shocked I just stared at him as he repeated it to me several times. Finally I asked why and he said it was his treat. That has never happened before! I've met plenty of nice taxi drivers, but never any that just took us somewhere for free. By then, I was completely feeling the China love. Plus, a couple people stopped us to take our picture and told us how beautiful we are. If that doesn't make you feel good, what does?

China has been one of the hardest things I've done. It has been the best thing I've done. I'm grateful everyday that God has allowed me to live my passion three times in only two years and that he has shaped me into a person that has been able to cope through the difficulties so that I can enjoy the truely life changing and happy moments. I am a new person. Every time I come here, I come home a new person. I don't know what God's plans for me are, but I hope that China has a lot to do with it in the future. For now, I'm embracing what I have and that's to be in China teaching English in a beautiful city with my sister. 我很开心！

The Cute Things My Students Say

"Hi, my name is *something Chinese* and I want to go to Beijing. It's nice to meet you, you are very beautiful!"

Me: "Who can use 'sorry' in a sentence?"

Clever Boy: "Sorry, I don't understand."

"My father wants me to study abroad someday so he says I need to play with you a lot on the weekends. When do you have free time?"

Student: "Do you like Justin Beiber?"

Me: "Yes, I do." Er... sort of. Haha!

Student: *squeal* "Look, Justin Beiber!" pointing to her purple shoes that look like ones JB wears.

"Hi my name is *something Chinese.* You are very tall."

Me: "Does anyone have any questions for me?"

Student: "How much do you weigh?"

I always let the kids in each class guess how old I am. The youngest I got was 18 with the oldest guess coming in at 35! Two students have guessed right.

While explaining a vocabulary word in class, I took off my scarf to use as a prop, when I doubled it back up to put it on, nearly the whole class gasped.

The best thing can't be captured in a blog post, but because Chinese is a tonal language, they mimic my tones when I have them repeat a word. It can get pretty out of hand on my part sometimes. ;)

My students are the best and I can't wait for them to do and say many more crazy and hilarious things!

The Class From a Demon Pit

Sadie and I are now in Yangzhong, Jiangsu China teaching at our school. We teach 7th and 8th graders together. She has half the 7th grade and half the 8th and I take the other halves. It seems like they lump the kids in classes based on their brains and personalities. It always happens that one class is full of well behaved smart kids and another class is full of demons disguised as middle school students who can't understand the lesson every other class does. Too harsh?

I walk into my fourth and final class for the day to applause and girls crowding me to ask me what my name is, how old I am, if I have a boyfriend, etc and boys walking behind me to see if they are as tall as me. Typical. Then, Class starts and I begin to introduce myself when a ruler goes flying from one side of the room to another. Shocked. A few minutes later after a lecture on not throwing things at other people, while I'm in mid-sentence, a girl in the front row throws a paper airplane across the room at someone. I'm thinking this class can't get worse. You think I'd be smart enough to never think that because it did. The next thing I know, one kid causes another to fall off his chair, another student hits the person next to her, while someone else is yelling across the room to someone while I'm talking. I actually felt like I was in a movie. Things are always over-dramatized there. Or at least I thought that until now! Then, their teacher walks past the window and into the class and immediately, like someone pushed a button that turned them into angels, they were silent. That is until he left a minute later. It's a good thing I've had classes like this before (not as bad, of course) or I'd probably have run out crying. It's also a good thing I know it's not personal. Of course, they got a good talking to.

Twice.

And by some miracle, I got them to be quiet for the last ten minutes of the class. SUPER TEACHER AWARD! But in all honesty, I can't help but love them even though the were being demonesque. These kids are surely going through a lot since being 14 isn't exactly easy and they are in school nearly 12 hours of the day 5 days a week. I think they are allowed to be crazy sometimes.

When things like this happen, you really have to just laugh about it. I mean, the girl threw a paper airplane at someone RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE! I have to admit that girl deserves some points for bravery. It's just Foreign Teacher syndrome. The symptom is a false belief that the foreign teacher doesn't care when people throw paper airplanes or chairs or rulers at people. But don't worry. I'm up for the challenge and I will find the cure! I'm determined to make this class one of the best.

Seventh graders are my favorite! They are so sweet and we have a lot of fun in class together. There is something magical about being a teacher in a class where you can learn and laugh together. You feel connected to each other even though all you know is their favorite color. If I didn't have some crazy classes like the demon class, I wouldn't know how to appreciate my angel classes. So the demon class is a good thing. :)

Okay, now for some pictures of our apartment!!! Sadie's room is not included since she was sleeping when I took these. But it's just a mirror image of mine so it's not necessary. Also, Chinese TV is the best.

China AGAIN!?

I'm so excited to be writing on this blog again because that means, I'm going BACK!

Roll your eyes... now.

In less than 24 hours, I've been asked to go to China in two weeks and I've accepted. Everything has happened so fast and in a whirlwind of emotions.

I don't know how to tell this story because I still can't think straight because I'm so excited.

The program director for China Horizons, Jacob, emailed me asking if I'd be willing to go to China to replace some teachers who are having health problems and need to return to the states. Oh, and would I like to bring a friend? Followed by a request to email him back for more details. With my hands on my face and tears in my eyes I told my mom what the email said. Then I did some jumping up and down, etc. I emailed Jacob twice that night because my first email was sort of incoherent. After emails and phone calls, everything has been worked out.

Sadie, my sister, is going with me and we are going to live in Yangzhong, a small city outside of Nanjing, the first city I lived in. It's a small island on the Yangtze River. We are going to be teaching middle school there for three months. We leave Oct. 2nd!

Everyone around me has been so supportive and I am so grateful. Thank you again and again!