TIC

TIC (This Is China)- we say this a lot when things shock us - like cars driving on sidewalks - fireworks at 8 in the morning - etc...

This morning with NO prior warning from the office- I hear a noise in my kitchen - I go to investigate and ....surprise.....There is a guy hanging out my kitchen window scrapping something off the outside walls. Please remember I am 6 stories up and there are no locks on the windows. It is a good thing I haven’t taken my shower yet. I have a tendency to walk from the bathroom to the bedroom with very little on.

He is heading down so I warned Kate who is directly below me.  Julie, our local recluse and nudist on the 4^th floor, I didn't warn. (she gets real cranky when you wake her). Hopefully the scrapper won't have a big surprise when he gets there. There was another scrapper/patcher hanging by my bathroom window 3 hours later.  

New Favorite Street Snack

Think – Pita bread – but a little thinner. She rolls out the dough with some sugar in it then slaps it inside this big pot/oven. When it comes out it is a warm, crispy, and slightly sweet treat for 1 yuan (6.4 cents). Not as good as Dunker Donuts but still yummy.

Fireworks and Other Explosions

Kate and I went to see the fireworks last Saturday night. I found out that different fireworks companies take turns at running the show. You can even go onto a web site and vote for your display. This Saturday was a really good show – I would vote for this company…. if I could just read the web site.

As we left we ran into two unique Chinese peddlers: A cotton candy maker that runs off of bike power and a popcorn maker.  Kate got some cotton candy and it tasted normal- except no pretty colors. The popcorn maker is totally different from what you would expect. The guy spins this metal cylinder over a fire. When he removes it - he hits some lever and it explodes into a bag. Hot popcorn - no butter. Luckily last semester when Jason was here, he took photos of the popcorn maker so click on the link. The pictures are definitely way better than the 1000 words it would take for me to explain it correctly.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28398373@N07/sets/72157625497877237/

Rooftop Party

Last Friday night Meagan organized a NUDT foreign teacher party on our 18^th floor rooftop. In the picture you see most of our teachers – from left to right –Steve USA & Ling his girlfriend –Ranald UK - Meagan USA- Vincent USA- Amanda & Seth USA- Me – Tommy UK – Marian Australian – Andrew her husband took the picture.  It was hard getting a good fire going in the cheap grills but we ended up bringing up a George Foreman Grill to finish off the hamburgers. We all had a good time and got to know one another a little better. 

Notice the blue bag above Vincent’s head – we put it on one of the many, many cameras they have watching us. About 10 minutes after we put it up – the guards came up to “check up” on us – but they didn’t make us take it down. The 30 minutes later the big FAO boss (Mr. Li Gen) with a party of about 8 came up to “look around the new foreign teachers’ apartments” (yeah right – at 6:30 on a Friday night??). We offered him and the others some tequila jello shots. He had one but the rest of them refused. And yes, I was standing there cooking the chicken with the bottle of beer in my hands when they came up. 

More on Tibet

A lot of people have asked for more information about Tibet so here are some of my impressions that have stayed with me 

Tibet -A Riot of Color

Flags, carved and brightly painted doorways and eves, wallpaper, cloth – nothing matched but it all went together with the beautiful blue skies and clear air. Besides the visual impact the devotion of the Tibetans was the next thing that made an impression on me.  Carrying prayer wheels, the kowtow, ritual walks, prayer beads, prayer flags, spinning the large prayer wheels – so much of their day seemed to be spent in devotional activities. Lastly the amount of “armed soldiers” present at the corners of most of the streets, on rooftops, and marching in small groups around the streets gave such a contrasting and jarring impression when compared to the Tibetans and scenery- It left me with an unsettled feeling.

Due to our ignorance when making our travel plans we were only allowed to stay in Lhasa – (you need to state all the places you will go which are then placed on the visa). No matter - it was still a great trip. We had 4 relaxing days in Lhasa with plenty of time to walk around, explore, eat and shop as well as visit most of the important sites.  We stayed in an Indian owned hotel. The rooms were small but functional, they had a pretty good breakfast and the Internet worked well. There were lots of foreigners but Americans seemed to be in the minority.

The food was really good. We ate yak a couple of times (which is delicious)– we tried the lamb but it was so tough we couldn’t get it off the bone. Yak tea is horrid -sort of a combination of melted butter with milk in it. Some of the restaurants allowed the beggars to come in and put their hands out for money or their bowls out for food. There were monks at the table next to us and they had a little pile of jao (less than a penny) that they would take from for each beggar. I gave my share too – only thing that confused me was when they asked for food- I wasn’t sure what to do until I saw the other tables just putting pieces of food into their bags or bowls.  They could have had ALL our Yak Tea if we had know what to do ..... The mothers with babies and children were the most aggressive but the rest were very humble and tolerable. We figured they were “harvesting" from the tourists” in preparation for the long winter.

This blog I found when I was making sure I had the correct spelling for the praying stuff – it has some great pictures and a much better description of their devotional rituals.

http://blog.absolutechinatours.com/index.php/2010-11-17/ritual-walks-and-kowtow-around-jokhang-temple/ 

Finally Teaching

I finally got to teach at NUDT! - It was my first (and only) class It has 30 students - all sophomores - and from different Colleges. Supposedly being assigned to this class is an honor - but I would have been more honored if I had a full load and not just one class. Yes - I am a full time teacher and I have ONE 2 hour class a week. The rest of the time I am 'preparing for the next class'. This class has been hand picked - it has the top 3-5 students from 7 colleges. These kids get special treatment and classes due to the fact that they will probably be pretty high up in the government in the future. I can see why - they were great today. I got the majority of the students to talk a little - which I feel is an accomplishment due to the fact that it is the first day and they aren't used to hearing me speak - I am still a little fast.

The room was sooooo hot -4th floor (no elevator) and as typical no AC, but at least I could move around - the students sit on these horribly uncomfortable little square stools for 2 hours -  I was sopping wet by the end of the two hours but I was happy. The student monitor carried my backpack the 4 blocks to the faculty bus for me. During class the student monitor will get you tea or hot water whenever you want.  I just now need them to bring and wave big fans to cool me off. The room is a computer lab (with no internet) with video language lessons from the 60's (I had a hard time watching them without laughing).

The syllabus they have for the class is so packed with requirements that it is really hard for the me to get any good conversations started. I feel off the cuff conversations and arguments are more important than the dumb videos that they make the kids watch.

Back in Changsha - Aug 2011

Ok - I am finally in my NEW apartment - no major glitches in the apartment - but TONS of frustrations in the computer/network/internet area

1 - They have a nice - brand new - windows desktop computer - but it is in Chinese - so any question they ask me - which is very often - I can not answer because I can't read - so I take a guess and click on one of the pretty buttons -- I now have lots of flashing ads from some guy named Tommy ...

2. The have Office on the computer but they forgot to authorized the copy (probably illegal anyway) so I can't use it

3. My boss keeps sending me .doc files to open but I can't because the Office copy is not authorized and no--- I can not get onto the Google doc page to open them there ...because google docs is blocked (alone with facebook, blogger, etc etc)

4. They can not hook up my Mac computer to the network - none of the passwords etc will work

5. the windows computer doesn't have speakers - so - either I stay attached to the headset/computer they gave me or I miss any skype calls - no camera either

6. NO WIRELESS as they promised - so once again I am tethered to a desk and a really uncomfortable chair

Only other major complaint is that they only gave me one class to teach -( I start on this coming Tuesday )- and I still have to work on the web page (YUCK) - they promised me I could teach this semester.....so much for promises...