A Worldwide Night

Until about three weeks ago, I considered myself somewhat of a traveler. Even though I've never even traveled outside of America until now, I have visited around 20 states and can never seem to stay put. Considering my university was 550 miles from my hometown, yet still in the same state, I would say that being from Texas means you can do quite a bit of traveling without ever technically leaving your backyard. But, now that I'm in China, it seems like every person I meet has lived in or at least visited several different countries. I'm now to a grand total of 2. Last Friday night, I was sitting at a table in a bar on west street that included myself, from Texas, Justin and Francisco from California, Marty from Sydney, Australia, Yogev from Israel, Simon and Johnny from Leeds, England, Darcy from Shenzhen, China, Eiki from Harbin, China, Jen from Toronto, Canada, and Robert from the Netherlands. Not very often can you say that. This wasn't just a one night thing, I meet people from all over the world all the time. A couple nights ago I played pool with Camilla from England, her Chinese friend (with a thick British accent) Jun from Shanghai, and Tony from China.

I now have two roommates, Marty from Sydney and John from Ohio. John is a pretty experienced rock climber so I think this weekend I'm renting some equipment and heading out to do my first outdoor climbing. I'll let you know how it goes.

More to come...

E-mail Pics

google12969e7456a0f54c.html Got an e-mail from Dimple a couple days ago with a few pictures. Got a message from Vincent, Eric sent some pics, and I also received a postcard in the mail from Eric. So here are a few from their cameras...a couple are at west street, one is of me and Eric by the Li River, and the other is the group by the Li River- they made me stand

on the sloping part of the bank so I wouldn't look

as tall.

The End of An Era

Students come and students go here at Omeida. It's not uncommon to have 10 new students come in on a weekend, and at the same time see 10 more leave. They can stay for however long they want to sign a contract for. Some may ink for 6 months or a year, and others as short as a week.

So around 8 A.M. this morning, Eric and Vincent left on a bus to head back to Beihai. They were only here for a few weeks to study during their university's new year holiday, and will start back to class on Monday. And since Robin left last weekend, the last of my first crew of friends has now gone.

I met these guys the first day I arrived at Omeida and stepped out of the taxi to self introductions from all of them. They invited me out the next night and ever since then I've spent most of my time with them- everyday for lunch and dinner, weekend trips, etc.

So, last night a group of us went out for dinner and 'happy' (what they call fun). We took quite a few pictures in front of the school before we left for the restaurant. Here's one, from left to right, with Sonny, Vincent, Nancy, Eric, Me, and Freeman in front...

Dinner was nothing short of exceptional as always. The picture shows two types of beer fish (one spicy, and one spicy spicy), beer chicken, potatoes, and cabbage...we also has green vegetables and a sugar bread dessert that came out after the picture was taken. Dinner usually isn't just dinner, it's an event or an occasion. So, we ordered 10 or 12 of the 24oz local beers and just talked, ate, and drank, and made cheers, or gang bei, to Eric and Vincent to have a safe trip and happy lives. They taught me more Chinese, I taught them more English. So now, women shi hen peng you- we are all great friends. Here are some more pictures of us...one is Sonny, Me, Vincent, and Eric. The other is of Eric, Vincent, Jenny, Sonny, Sunny, and Nancy.

After a couple hours at the restaurant, we headed for KTV, one of the karaoke bars in town. And again, with no surprise like the first time, it was an experience. The Chinese love their karaoke. We had our room, beer, snacks, fruit platter, and just sang at the top of our lungs for 3 or 4 more hours. The English selection is prettty limited, and since all Chinese seem to love Backstreet Boys, I was forced to rock out to 'Everybody', 'I want it that way' and 'Larger than Life.' I also sang some Semi-Charmed Life, Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl, and Michael Bolton's Dock of the Bay.

We all vowed to keep in touch, everyone hugged and made pinky promises to make a trip to Beihai in June to visit, then we said our goodbyes. I then actually ended up going to a different karaoke bar and joining 2 American teachers, a guy from the Netherlands, and 4 other students for the rest of the night.

So, although three weeks isn't exactly an era, it's still the end of something. But, I've now begun to network. I'll have a couch to crash on and a local tour guide if I ever make it to Beihai, Shenzhen, Nanning, or Changsha. All the students and teachers are great at Omeida, and I have several good friends here and look forward to making many more.

I'll truly miss these guys. Eric says I am his brother, his American brother, and his first foreign friend, and the same goes for me in return. He's given me a Chinese name, Zi Xuan, and said that I can take his family name, Li, since we are brothers. In only three weeks, we've created the type of friendship that it may take some people a lifetime to make, and I hope we keep in touch for a long time to come.

Every Dog Has Its Day

I think most people in America think that anything running around in China is going to get snatched up and eaten. Do they eat dog here? Yes. And cat and horse? Yes again. But that doesn't mean the stray dog running around my apartment will just disappear one day because someone got hungry. Plenty of Chinese people have pet dogs, cats, birds, etc. the same as in America. I see people walking their golden retrieves and pugs and poms everyday. A lot of the Chinese are actually against eating dog, I guess that's why I've never seen them cleaning one out on the street like they do chickens and ducks. There's usually only one type of dog that they eat. 'Wolf dog' Eric called it. It's the only breed that is good for eating. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, I'm sure in poorer villages in poorer provinces they may stretch the limits a little more on what they eat. I know I've seen pictures of people eating a rat dish here in Yangshuo.

For the past couple of weeks, Eric has been telling me how delicious dog is. Everytime we walk by a dog he jokingly says 'mmmm, my dish.' So, tonight we did just that, I had my first taste of dog meat. And to be honest, it's really not that dog-gone bad. My favorite? Not by any means, but I definitely would have it again, especially after how hungry and dog tired I was today. It's a lot better than a few of the foods I've tasted here. (The piece of meat I'm holding up in the picture is tail). But it's a dog eat dog world out there, who knows what I'll try next.

More to come

Moon Hill

Me, Eric, and Vincent rode our bikes about 8 km out to see and hike up to the famous Moon Hill today, or Yue Liang Shan. Even though it's one of the most visited areas near here, we probably saw less than 20 people while we were hiking up the trail to the hill.

Before hand, we stopped to see the Baiyan area, the village where Liu Sanjie lived. It's an attraction, same as moon hill, so you have to pay to get in. The finalists for the Miss Tour Guide China were there on a photo shoot, so I joined in on the action (no worries Ryan, I also have close ups).

While at Baiyan, I bought a couple gifts to send home (surprises, just hope they fit). We had lunch at the village near moon hill- snails, veggies, and beef stir fry, check out the picture.

The hike up to the bottom of the hill was pretty steep, but didn't take too long, then we continued on to climp to the top. It was pretty cloudy today so the views weren't the greatest.

I also learned quite of bit of Chinese today. My students have been teaching me at least 2 sentences or phrases everyday and a few useful vocabulary words.

So, when the women at moon hill started trying to sell me water for 5 kuai or post cards all spoken in English, my previously learned 'bu yao le' came in handy. I also tried out 'wo bu huei ying yu' on one lady and she laughed and said 'you don't speak English!?'

Valentine's Day "Fishing"

Valentine's Day came a day early for me this year since I'm in the east. On Saturday, the school organized a fishing trip for whomever wanted to join in. 25 or so students went and I was the only teacher. We followed Uncle Jon on our bikes to a fish farm several miles outside of town. We passed through some pretty remote villages and rode along the Yu Long River for awhile. The fishing consisted of dropping a hook with lettuce into crystal clear stocked ponds of fish. Of course, noone caught anything with a rod, but a few people were able to corner some fish and catch them with a net. They also took a seine through one pond to round up some fish to cook. It was really just more of a day of relaxing and enjoying the scenery, which was incredible. Here are a few pictures...(click to enlarge- the first pic is my favorite since ive been in China. The others are Eric fishing, woman cleaning our catch, Uncle Jon and woman with fish in net, student biking through village, and Me and Eric at the Yu Long). I've also had some complaints that I don't have any pictures with me in them. Well, I promise you the next three posts will have plenty. Most of the pictures with me in them are on the students cameras, so once they e-mail them to me I can post more. But now, everytime somone wants to take a picture with me I make them take another with my camera so I can show all you guys.

Since I was the only teacher on the trip, I had somewhat of celebrity status, or Eric called me 'everyone pet'. I probably had to pose in over 50 different pictures with people throughout the day. Now I know what sai ge Mei Guo ren means from the girls saying it all day. The girls were looking at their camera and I was looking at mine in these pictures. Here is me with Charmine and Grace, me and Yalonde, and me and Ted (or Barney, I think he might've changed his name).

Lantern Festival

So, my lantern festival was cut a little short due to my food poisoning. I wasn't able to eat the traditional sweet dumpling for good luck, but I stayed out long enough to realize just how big of an event this was. Anywhere you looked there were people. Check out the pictures to see...

In case you're wondering, my food poisoning is now over, hopefully. It lasted around 30 hrs, quite possibly the worst 30 hrs of my life, and I'm sure I'll be eating street food again in no time. I'm still kicking and alive in Yangshuo. More to come.

First Class

Just taught my first class, and it actually went way better than I thought it would. Even though it was a level 1D class (one of the lowest levels of English), I still thought it went pretty smoothly. We mainly just had discussion, introducing everyone, getting to know some details about everyone. Tonight is the last day of spring festival, so there'll be a pretty big celebration tonight for the lantern festival. I'll post some pics later.

TV Tower

Climbed to the top of the tv tower karst yesterday with two other teachers, Justin and Francisco. It's probably no more than a mile to the top but its straight up. It may be the tallest of all the peaks in Yangshuo. It was pretty hazy so the views weren't too great, but I'm sure I'll be going back up sometime soon.

TIC

I got to experience something last night that I thought I would only read about in travel books or see on tv. I was with 5 Chinese speakers, so of course that's the reason why. Hopefully, this is only the first of many...

Yesterday was Dimple's last day in Yangshuo so we, Eric, Vincent, Alex, Dimple and Robin, all went out. We took a bamboo raft on the Li River for around an hour or so. The lady said the price was 10 kuai per person, but after 15 or so minutes of Alex and Robin's bargaining skills, they got it down to 6 kuai (under $1). This is a pretty touristy spot and activity, but it was definitely still a pretty cool thing to do. Here's Alex and Robin working the price.

We walked around asking for prices at a few restaurants, but being as we were in a very popular spot of town they were really expensive(probably more than $4 or $5 per person). The students started talking to a lady on the street with a brochure of the Liu Sanjie Impression. (link- http://www.yangshuo-travel-guide.com/liu-sanjie-show.html) It's directed by Zhang Yimou who also directed the opening of the Olympics. General admission tickets are near 200 kuai, but this woman said she would take us to her house where they would cook us dinner and we could see the play for only 20 kuai each. She made a call on her cell phone for a car, and a few minutes later a 3-wheeled motorized rickshaw type truck picked us up and all 7 of us piled in.

Once we got to the farmhouse, they told us that 20 kuai each was only for the play and that dinner would be another 100 kuai extra (total for the group). TIC. A little of the ol bait and switch. This really made the students mad. They argued with the people for at least 30 minutes trying to get a better price and telling them how they 'cheated' us. Alex said that he believes when a person does something bad to someone that his god will put shame on them and something bad will happen to them in return. We did have an awesome meal though- snails, beer fish, tofu, vegetables, soup, and rice, all for about $2 apiece. The play was really cool, we sat on the opposite bank of the river from the seating area but still had a great view and even better food. One of the pictures has an arrow drawn to where we were.

More to come

This Is China

Less Than a Dollar

Everthing is cheap, EVERYTHING. Even in a tourist town like Yangshuo, prices are only a fraction of what they are in America. If I ever do pay for a meal or drinks (the Chinese usually pick up my ticket- "Chinese custom" they say) it hasn't been more than $3. Even the huge meal we had at City in City was only 15 yuan per person (little over $2). All meals at the school are prepared by a man and his wife, and cost around 50 cents. I bought several mandarin oranges at the market yesterday for around 20 cents, I bought a cell phone and more than 1200 minutes all for less than $50, and best of all, i bought, or rented for 6 months, a bike today for only around 20 bucks. Check it out...

Today

Today, Thursday- I went to the school and set up a meeting with the head of the Edu. Dept., Freeman, for 3 pm. then walked around town for a couple hours. I went into a few shops on west street, and walked along the Li River some. Here are a couple shots I took...

I had lunch at the school, then a teacher training course from 3-4:15. I led a discussion class from 4:30-5:30 for level 1 students on how Americans celebrate Christmas and how the Chinese celebrate New Years. Had dinner at the school and 'social night' or English corner at 7. Here's a pic around sunset of the view from my apartment...

Sorry that these first couple of posts were a little on the elementary side. I'll try and keep up more often and have a few more in depth posts on my life in China, maybe not daily, but there should be something new fairly often.

Plenty more to come,

T