The Homes – In the beginning I did the American thing and focused on differences. I mean they did not have heat or an indoor toilet. But it took me a just night and a day to see that they had so much more than a lot of Americans. They were happy. Stilwell would like to go back to his hometown to teach math at his old high school. Why not, the area is surrounded by mountains, clean lakes, beautiful plants, 1000 year old trees, clean air, friends and his family.
Most of you know that I don’t like cold weather, but I have learned to adjust. You just wear your coat and scarf inside and outside in the winter . I now love long underwear (only major drawback is that it makes me look fatter). Doors and windows are left open so there is always lots of fresh air. The students are hardly ever absent so maybe there is something to not breathing stuffy, re-circulated air. It’s probably not common knowledge in the US that the public buildings in China north of the Yangtze have heat but no air conditioning and the public buildings south of the Yangtze have no heat. We are south of the Yangtze – therefore no heat in the classrooms or dorms or government built homes. Their country homes were like townhouses with 2 rooms down and 2 rooms upstairs. The living room and kitchen were downstairs and 2 bedrooms were upstairs. The floors were cement or linoleum which was smart because they would wheel the electric scooters in at night to charge them. The girls slept in the living room on a bed that doubles as their couch during the day. I was given a bedroom upstairs with a really thick, heavy comforter to cocoon myself in. The second night I had adjusted so well that I slept like a rock not even turning over. The bedroom had it’s own chamber pot to use if I didn’t want to go outside in the middle of the night. Stilwell’s mother came over the next morning and fixed us breakfast which they called porridge. It was made with rice and sort of had the consistency of rice pudding but was hot and delicious with salty/pickled vegetables in it. Definitely not Dunker Donuts but still really good and probably much better for me.
Side note: When I show people at the English corner my photo of my little beach cottage they call it a “villa”. It is sort of hard to think of my 1100 sq ft house as a villa but I now I understand why.
