This morning after I finish class, Kate, her friend Beth, and I are heading out to see the rice terraces for a few days. Beth is visiting for a couple of weeks, so Kate thought she would like to see the rice terraces.
I’ve seen them in the autumn and the winter, but now they should be tall and green, so I’m excited. It should be gorgeous!

Well, as long as it doesn’t rain there the way it has been raining here lately!

People in Michigan complain that the weather is unpredictable. Let me tell you, they’ve got nothing on Yizhou here.

This morning, I left to teach at 7 am and everything looked good. By 11.15, I was finishing my second class when I realized that the sky was turning a frightening shade of dark gray.
I also realized that I had no umbrella and that the windows were open in my apartment and Kate’s apartment (Kate was out of town).
It was nearly library time and there were already four or five students in there.
(Every day between 11.40 and 12.40 we open our office/classroom for students to borrow books and practice their English)
So I ended up leaving the library in the care of a few students that I trust and borrowing an umbrella from someone to run back, shut the windows and grab my own umbrella.
I ran back and up the eight flights of stairs just as the absolute downpour began. I got into my place, shut my windows, then grabbed Kate’s key to shut her windows. I had shut the bedroom window, then I went to the dining room window. As I was trying to slide the windows, I slid.

I happened to be holding my key in my mouth and Kate’s key in my hand. When I slipped, I hit my hand on the edge of the window and the key to her apartment slid from my hand and fell eight stories to the ground. I shut the window and ran down as fast as I could to look for it.
The thing is, Kate’s door generally will open on its own unless you have it completely locked. I certainly couldn’t leave it unlocked! So I searched in the pouring rain without an umbrella, but I couldn’t find it! Soaked to the bone, I ran back up the eight flights, made sure her door was shut tight, changed my clothes, grabbed my umbrella and headed out. There is a computer in the library and I am not really supposed to leave it unlocked unless I’m there.
As I ran out, I took one last look around for the key.
That’s when I saw it- a glint of metal underneath a random parked car. I crawled on my hands and knees and got the key out from under the car. I ran back up to Kate’s apartment and locked the door.
I then ran back to the library, arriving disheveled and dripping. The students were a bit confused and the one whose umbrella I had borrowed was worried that I had broken her umbrella.
Oh goodness, only I could get myself into such trouble.

This evening, we held our second English class with the pastor and other members attending. It was a lot of fun again. We had a slightly smaller group, I’m sure the weather was a factor in that.
If you’re interested in some photos, you can find a few snapshots I got right here.

Happy Memorial Day to those of you back in the U.S.A.! I hope you’re enjoying your clean glasses of cool lemonade, veggie burgers and hot dogs at State Parks, and … I’m going to stop before I get too jealous.

It’s a warm day in Yizhou. Right now it’s 6.30 in the evening and it’s 28 Celsius/82 Fahrenheit. Certainly not the hottest it has been around here recently. After spending a couple of hours editing a student’s dissertation paper this afternoon, I decided to take a little walk around campus.
I discovered that my body has obviously still not adjusted to the weather here quite as much as I’d like. I don’t know if it’s the humidity or simply the temperature, but I was out for an embarrassingly short time before my thin t-shirt began to cling to my back with sweat. Students and teachers were wandering campus and some were even playing basketball! I’m finding my apparently intolerance somewhat debilitating. Going outside and just ending up a sticky mess is not one of my favorite pastimes, I must say. There is something terribly wrong with me or perhaps the people here are more adjusted to the weather…I’m not sure. This summer’s going to be a bit rough though, I can sense that already. In July, I was told the average temps should be 36 Celcius/97 Fahrenheit and above. If I’m sweating now, 10 degrees more should be interesting.

This morning, I did a chapter out of the textbook on the Chinese desire for male children and the one-child policy. It was an interesting topic to cover in light of the recent riots in Guangxi over the enforcement of this policy. (I think Kate listed some article links in her blog if you don’t know what I’m referring to.) However, my students aren’t very keen on the news, so they have no idea what’s going on outside of campus.

During discussions, a few students brought up that they have seen disabled and female babies abandoned at the side of the road, dead or dying, simply left for the garbage collectors. Other students began to adamantly argue that this was not the case, that only poor farmers do these kinds of senseless things. Then, surprisingly, many more students began to open up and tell stories of things that happened in their hometown. Most of their mothers have been required by the government “to go to the hospital so they can’t have babies anymore”. One girl told of women being forced to have abortions at 5 or 6 months, another said that in her hometown, girl babies were held under water until they died.
However, they all say that this doesn’t happen anymore as much as it used to. I really hope that’s the truth.

Speaking of pregnancies, apparently a student in the chemistry department here has been living off campus with a local man. She’s in the final year of her program and she’ll graduate in July. As part of graduation, the students are required to have a physical. Apparently, during her physical, the doctor discovered that she’s five months pregnant. The school called her parents and sent her home, so she won’t be able to get a degree. Poor girl.

On Saturday morning, I wanted to go to Bai Long Park (White Dragon Park). So I sent a message to Wendy, a student here that I’m friends with. We decided to head over to the park, but then we discovered that it was closed (for the fourth time!) because of the danger of falling rocks from the mountain.
So we headed to the square instead and we thought about climbing the mountain.
Well, for anyone who has ever been to Yizhou before, climbing the mountain in the late morning heat is a hideous idea, so we changed our minds. Instead we took a fantastic rambling walk through the countryside. We wandered around rice paddies, scruffy dogs, cows and calves, and a glass factory. We even spend a bit of time sitting with a little boy, his mother, and their family of pet cats. It was lovely.

Unfortunately… I remembered to wear sunscreen, but I forgot to put it on my shoulders. As a result, I have a terrible burn on my shoulders. Alas. That is a lesson for the future!

This morning, another friend, Lizzy, went with me to the hospital. Before you get too worried, Chinese people go to the hospital whenever they’re sick. I’ve had a sore throat for the past couple of weeks that has just gotten progressively worse. (probably just got whatever Kyle had in Vietnam) I felt terrible yesterday- my throat hurt when swallowing, eating, and pretty much all the time. I didn’t really want to go to a doctor, but I was in a lot of pain so I finally decided that perhaps I should attempt to go to the hospital.

So after an hour in the hospital, and 54 yuan later, I’ve got to take 21 pills a day for four days and I’ve got something horrible I’m supposed to eat every couple of hours and then I should be much better. Also, I’m supposed to change my diet- absolutely no spicy food and fried rice only twice a week at most. The doctor also said that I need to do as little talking as possible for the next five days or so. This should be interesting. The hospital itself was quite a bit different from the hospitals at home. Cement floors, tile only half-way up the walls…very peculiar. Not really all that bad, but not a whole lot like a hospital at home. I’m not big fan of hospitals and doctor’s offices to begin with though.

Now I try to be brave about most things over here. I take risks with travel, food, animals, etc.

However, there are two things I am quite terrified of- bees and cockroaches.
First of all, I am afraid of bees at home, however, there are bees here that are certainly four times the size of those at home. One of my least favorite things here is when one gets trapped in my classroom and buzzes past my face as I teach and try to retain composure. It’s horrifying.

Second, I have strong dislike of cockroaches. The first time that I ever recall seeing a cockroach was a year and a half ago on the streets of Philly. A scrubby homeless man laughed at me when I stopped to look at one because I didn’t know what it was. Since my arrival here in Guangxi, I have seen many. They are also alarmingly large. For the most part, they have stayed out of my way. I’ve seen them scurry across Kyle’s apartment floor and I have seen quite a few in Heidi’s kitchen and one in her bathroom (in Liuzhou city). Last week, I found a big dead one on my balcony. I was not pleased, but I was thankful that it was dead.
Last night, I was having trouble sleeping because it’s terribly hot, but then when I turn the fan up, the noise kept me awake. I finally got some restless sleep, but I awoke from a strange but horrible nightmare where a cockroach was crawling all over my bed. It was strange.
In the morning when I woke up, I realized that it wasn’t a nightmare after all- there was a big cockroach crawling all over my bedroom.
I finally killed it, but I don’t feel so great about the idea of sleeping in there again. I suppose I’ll just have to get over it.
Cockroaches are just…well, gross.
They fly, they crawl, they swim, and they have those disgusting long antennae.

On to something a bit more pleasant…
Now it has been raining quite a bit over here.
Yesterday, I was walking back from the front gate of the campus and you could see a storm coming- dark clouds, lots of wind, and you could smell the rain.
Suddenly, I heard students behind me start to run and scream. I turned around and you could literally see the rain coming, the students were trying to stay ahead of the heavy rainfall and it looked like the rain was actually chasing them. I laughed- until the rain caught up with me. This was not soft rain at all. It was painful and I was really glad that I was close to my apartment building.
Watching the storm from my balcony was fantastic. The thunder was amazing. It’s scary when you think about what thunder really is- the sound created by the intense heat of lighting in the air. It’s incredibly powerful and I really enjoy the beauty of it all.

Sunday, after the service, the pastor pulled Kate and I aside into the office to talk.
We’ve been attending since September and he’s never approached us before. I brought a student (who also attends) into the office with us and he translated. We were asked to teach a weekly English class!
A perfect opportunity for us to feel more involved and more at home. Despite the fact that we’re there most Sundays, I must say that I have felt like very much like an outsider.

So Kate and I put together a bit of a handout with basic introductions (Hello, How are you?, My name is, etc.) and some phrases that might be useful during services as well.
Kyle happened to be visiting because he had Monday-Wednesday off (his school is in the process of being evaluated, so all of the teachers were in meetings, but they’re in Chinese, so he can’t attend) so he went along with us last night for our first class.

The pastor said to except somewhere around ten people, maybe more. I had made 40 copies of the handout, just to be on the safe side, so there was a bit of laughter over that. We were asked to teach for 2 hours- from 7.30 to 9.30, but we figured that with such little material and only 10 students, that would be too much time and the plan was to head out at 9 instead.

We walked into the room to only 4 or 5 students, basically what we had expected. So we smiled and started up our lesson. As the lesson went, more and more people began to show up. My student (who translated for the class) said that the people thought it was at 8 instead of 7.30.
Instead of a class of 10, we ended up with nearly 60 students.
It was phenomenal.
There were elderly women with big smiles and few teeth. There were old men with thick glasses who were determined to eventually get the numbers 1-10 right. Little girls in pigtails were running around repeating all of the phrases. We even had some there who looked like they might be middle school or high school students.

One girl was with an elderly woman, perhaps her grandmother. The girl called me over, pointed to her grandmother, and said “What should she do? She can’t speak any English at all!” I laughed and told her that was the reason to be there and that most of these people are in exactly the same position. I sat down and went through the phrases and numbers with the older woman who was beaming the entire time. When went to get up to help someone else, the girl leaned over, touched my arm, and said “Thank you so much. She’s very happy.”
Just that made the whole evening worthwhile.

We ended up going for the full two hours, and as we headed out , everyone said “Hallelujah!” and “Goodbye!” as we left.
I’m certainly looking forward to next week.

Afterwards, Kyle and I walked around. I don’t often find myself across the bridge walking around at night. It’s not particularly safe to do alone. We went to the supermarket so that I could pick up some apple jam and Kyle could get something to snack on during his bus ride home the next day. Then we wandered over to a park nearby. I’ve been through this particular little park during the day- people are out playing games and sitting around.
At night, it’s something different. It was after 10, so it was rather dark. There were some lamps that lit up just enough to see older couples dancing slowing in the open spaces. Dance music was blaring from old, burnt out speakers and younger children wanders along the edges of the groups of adults.
It’s wonderful to be able to see these things and truly feel just like a spectator. In the dark, the people around us could hardly see us, so they weren’t busy staring at us or yelling out “HELLO!” We could just feel like a part of what was going on around us.

A great way to end a day.

It has been raining off and on in Yizhou for days. It’ll be a clear, sunny day and then, rather suddenly, we’ll get an intense heavy downpour. Mostly, however, it only lasts a very short time.
This morning, so far, it has continued to pour. I enjoy the sound of rain and I enjoy watching it, so that hasn’t been so bad. I’m not particularly thrilled at the prospect of going outside in 15 minutes though.

This week has been filled with volleyball matches, lessons, observing classes, and all of the other little things that make life what it is.

On Wednesday night, I had a class to make up from over the holiday. It’s a confusing way of doing things, but in China, during the May holiday, everyone gets seven days off, but that means they have to work the weekend before the holiday. So over the weekend, certain classes are made up. The problem is that it means that the students I see on those days are then ahead of the other classes by one lesson.
I decided to use this night class to teach them a few word games and fun ways to use English.

One of the games that they played was Pictionary. By the end of the class, in order to break a tie, both teams were at the board and they were both drawing at the same time and to win, someone in the group had to run up to the board and correctly spell the answer.
It was a lot of fun, however, I wasn’t paying close attention, I guess, and it was taking them so long to get the answer, which was dentist, that I didn’t notice until they were leaving, that the winning team had actually written “denist”.
Oops.

Well, I’ve got to go watch one of my coteachers teaching a class and then Kate and I are heading off to Liuzhou for a bit.

This morning, I was sitting downstairs outside of my apartment eating my breakfast- a funny pastry filled with strawberry filling and a pumpkin cake-type thing. While I was eating, I was reading ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. Underneath the building, there is a garage for motorbikes and bicycles. A couple came downstairs and went to leave on their motorcycles- the woman got hers started and headed off. However, the man was having a bit of trouble; he couldn’t seem to get it started. Eventually even the guard came over and was trying to help him out, but it was no good.
I just found it particularly ironic that I am reading a book that talks quite a bit about maintenance and repair of motorcycles (as well as many other things) and there’s a motorcycle in front of me that’s having trouble and I don’t know a thing about how to help.

In church this morning, I took a closer look at the bulletin for our weekly service. At the bottom, I noticed some addresses and websites. One of my freshmen students also goes to church and he happened to be sitting next to me. I turned to him and asked what those were.
“It’s an email address,” he said.
“Right, but for who?” I asked.
He looked at me and said very confidently: “Jesus Christ.”

I probably should have just taken that in stride, but I’m sorry, I couldn’t. I burst out laughing. He quickly corrected himself and said that he meant to say the Chinese Church.
It was certainly the most amusing point of my entire day.
So apparently the church in Yizhou has a website. I’ve been checking it out; it’s really quite interesting. Granted, I can’t read much. I’ve used Babelfish Translator to get some of it, but the translations are fairly inaccurate and comical. It’s certainly worth a look though.

I’m currently listening to a podcast that Kyle sent me. It’s a discussion between John Mackey (One of the founders of Whole Foods) and Michael Pollan (author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma). (I’ve linked John Mackey’s blog Michael Pollan’s site there, but Pollan’s doesn’t seem to work working- maybe someone outside of China can tell me if they can get it)
It’s an incredibly long podcast- nearly two hours. However, I thought I’d mention it because it’s incredibly interesting.
Personally, I’m a fan of Whole Foods- I really enjoyed shopping there when I lived in Philadelphia. I felt much more informed about what I was eating and where it was coming from when I shopped there compared to the grocery stores back home.
Anyway, I won’t bore you with details. If you’re interested in listening to this (I suggest that you give it a try), you can get it on mp3here.
It actually talks a little bit about organic food from China, which is something I’ve been doing a considerable amount of online research on lately.
Unfortunately, despite my strong feelings on animal rights and organic food production, there’s not a whole lot that I can do about my food choices in China.

I’m terrified of bees.
Absolutely terrified.
Unfortunately, there are bees here that are the length of my thumb. Really. They are ridiculously large.
To make matters worse, They seem to be particularly fond of my lessons.
It makes for an interesting time, that’s for sure.

During library time this afternoon, I was talking to a group of my students about insects in Yizhou. (inspired by the giant bee that was buzzing at the window behind us)
Apparently many of them used to play with cockroaches as children.
One of the girls told me that she and her friends used to hold them still with their fingertips (to keep them from biting or flying away), then they would tie a string to one of their little legs. They would then have a little cockroach on a leash. My understanding is that the best part of this whole little game was when the cockroaches went to fly away- they couldn’t get far because they were tied to the string. The kids would stand there holding a string with a cockroach struggling to fly. It gave me this image of a small child with a really horrifying cockroach kite of some kind. Eww.
However, I feel that I’m required to mention the fact that when I was a little kid, I loved cicadas. I would definitely play with them and they’re certainly not a whole lot prettier than cockroaches. To be quite honest, I’m not sure what attracted me to those funny little bugs in the first place. Kids can be strange.

I’m listening to a World Cafe podcast (of course!) and there’s a guy named Joe Boyd who worked with Nick Drake talking. I’m an enormous Nick Drake fan (Pink Moon is possibly the best album of all time) but I realized that I know very little about him and his personality. It’s extraordinary to listen to this guy talk about what Nick Drake was like and how he felt when his albums failed to succeed. Tragic, really. I fall in love with his music every time I listen, so it’s sad to hear how depressed he was about it. I suppose that it would be heartbreaking to put so much of yourself into something and then have it rejected the way that his music was. I guess he was just one of those artists who was ahead of his time.
Actually, that’s a saying I have often heard applied to artists and musicians who failed be a success during their lifetimes, but who were wildly popular after death. It’s such a peculiar thing to say. Can someone be “ahead of their time”? I understand what it means, of course, but it’s an odd idea if you think about it. The phrase implies that each person has a “time”. That’s rather frustrating to consider. I don’t remember being given a choice about when I was going to be born, so what if I’m before “my time”? What does that mean for me? Does that lable always result in an unhappy and unfulfilled life?
I suppose that I’m just thinking about it too much. That’s what happens when you spend your days explaining the meanings of phrases like “identify luggage” or “to be faced with the problem of”. You start to analyze every phrase for every possible meaning.
Well, I’ll leave you with a bit of one of my favorite Nick Drake songs to enjoy.
Nick Drake – Way to Blue

It rained for a little while tonight. I’m not sure if it was enough to cool the weather down for tomorrow, but I certainly hope so.

There are two things in life that I have now learned not to take for granted- running water and a working internet connection.
Before living in Yizhou I always had both of these things- a nice high-speed wireless connection and clean, running (and drinkable) tap water.
However, here, my internet connection is quite off-and-on and often terribly slow and frequently my connection simply doesn’t work. Also, as I’m sure many of you know, China frequently blocks various sites for periods of time.
Another strange thing is that the water in my apartment, and Kate’s as well, seems to turn off on a daily basis, often for hours at a time. Kate has been intelligent and has filled a bucket with water for those moments when it’s really necessary, but unavailable. I, on the other hand, simply start muttering at the pipes and continuing to attempt to flush the toilet or get the water to turn on for my shower. It’s as though I think I can will it back on. I obviously haven’t learned my lesson yet.

So my parents sent a package recently that included this funny rubbery blue ball with little squishy spikey bits coming out of it. It’s difficult to properly explain it, I suppose. We decided that a ball like this certainly needs a name, and we concluded that it must be a “B” name. In the end, we settled on The Venerable Bede. Peculiar, yes, but it fits.
Anyway, this has lead me to recently think about the real Venerable Bede. Bede was an amazing scholar who certainly holds a significant place in Christian history and English history. (Well, of course he isn’t called “The Father of English History” for nothing!) He was an incredibly knowledgeable man- someone whose dedication I, and many others, certainly admire.
However, I still find it astonishing that he spent basically his entire life in one place- he very rarely even left the monastary after age seven!
As someone with a deep desire to see the world, to experience things first-hand, to be there to watch changes as they happen, I find myself conflicted when I think of Bede.
Should I spend more time observing, recording, and staying still? Which is the more honorable- to live a live of tranquility and observation while gaining insight and increasing education or to go out and move from place to place, finding out through actions rather than observations, blindly feeling my way through unfamiliar conditions?

I can see how both are useful ways to live life, but it seems like a terrible contridiction that I have so much respect for people like Bede, but yet the way that I live my life doesn’t seem to reflect that level of respect.
Can you respect and admire someone and still live your life in a way that is so utterly different from theirs? Can I truly say that I look up to people in history like that? Or am I, by taking the opposite path in life, also saying that my way is better than theirs? Or are some people truly suited to one lifestyle more than another?

In other thoughts, today I spent time with a local Chinese family and my little kitten, Maeby. She’s getting so big these days. It’s amazing to watch something grow up- even when it’s just a kitten. Before I know it, she’ll be a full-grown cat.