So, this morning I did my first batch of exams.
The students put together little skits in groups of three. Last week I gave them topic suggestions and they chose one and put together an outline to give me.
This week they’re supposed to come in and perform their skits for 7-10 minutes. Some of the ones I heard this morning were quite interesting. Some were on dating- those were pretty funny. I had one trio cover the topic of women’s rights. They performed it in three different parts- the first was in ancient days when women were forced to obey their husbands and sons, the second part was in modern times where women are treated as equals (the husband was cooking while the wife worked), and the third was a woman as president.
The exams keep me entertained for the most part, but by Thursday I will certainly be ready to be finished with them.

*internet problems- this is actually a post from Monday, June 25*

Yesterday, Kate went out to the bank with Mary. On the way back, she said that she and Mary saw a motorbike with a cage crammed full of puppies.
Apparently Mary said “Megan would like that.”
Which, of course, knowing me, Kate thought was particularly strange to say. She figured, though, that Mary simply meant that I would like to see all of those puppies.
I have told Mary before that I like to go to the market and play with the puppies that are going to be sold for food. It makes me feel sad, but they’re so cute and it breaks my heart to see them stuck inside a cage.
Then, Kate said that Mary said “Megan is even kind to swerms”.
When Kate told me this story, I was trying to figure out what on earth was meant by “swerms”. I couldn’t think of what on earth that could be! Kate apparently had the same problem, but then Mary used her finger to demonstrate a snake-like creature. After that, Kate realized that Mary meant worms!
I guess Mary must have been around at some point when I tried to save a giant worm from drowning. After heavy rains, they are often all over the sidewalk and I can’t help it- frequently I try to save the poor things from death. They are huge here though- sometimes they seem more like small snakes than worms.
So perhaps from now on, Kate and I will just call the giant worms “swerms”.

This evening, as we were walking back from across the bridge, two of my students and I had a humorous conversation.

Me: “Some people in Yizhou walk really slowly!”
Them (Melinda and Emma): “They are trying to save money.”
*Pause*
Me: “How does that save money?”
Them: “If they walk slowly, they won’t wear their shoes out quickly. This way they won’t have to buy new shoes soon.”
Me: “Oh goodness.”

Happy Dragon Boat Festival, everyone!

As the countdown to the end of the term gets closer and closer, I thought that perhaps I should reflect a bit on my first year in China.
(okay, I know- technically I won’t have been here for a year until the end of July, but just humor me, please)

First of all, teaching has certainly gotten much easier. My first term was a serious challenge for me. I wish that I could tell you all that it’s a piece of cake and that I am just a natural teacher. Unfortunately, I am not. The courses I taught the first term were not easy or fun for me most of the time. The freshmen spoken English class (2 year program) was horrific. Many of the students were lovely people, but they had very English to work with and they were not very motivated. My culture classes were fun, but ridiculously large- it’s tough to teach over 80 students at once. We did have some fun- going outside and playing baseball and Christmas pictionary on the board, but for the most part, teaching so many students was rough.
This term I taught spoken English to the 4 year program freshmen and it has been much easier- smaller classes and their level of English is astounding. Best of all, most of them are highly motivated. It makes my work much more pleasant.

I’ve been able to make some friends here. Kate, of course, and I am very thankful for that. I think that having her around makes life in Yizhou a lot more fun. It’s much easier to face the craziness of China when you have someone to laugh at it with you. Some of the teachers have become like friends and it’s always nice to have colleagues that you can call friends. There are several students here that I have become somewhat close to, and I’ve got Weilinling outside of the school…when I can figure out where on earth she is.
Also, even though he’s seven hours away and I see him for maybe five days a month, it’s really nice to have Kyle around.

Homesickness and culture shock… I guess that comes and goes in waves.
I’m going to be really honest though; I’ve been really quite a bit homesick lately. So many people back home are moving and getting married and having kids this summer and I’m missing it. Recently, Kate had a friend visit and Kate is also going home in two weeks. Her father is coming out to China next year and her mother came to Hong Kong earlier this year. This summer some of Kyle’s family is coming to visit for a couple of weeks. I know that I should really feel happy for both of them, but I’d be lying to myself and to anyone reading this if I said that I’m not jealous. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been so jealous of anyone in my whole life. I’m trying really hard to get over it, but it’s greatly compounded by the fact my communication with people back home is made of up mostly short instant message conversations. I have received a number of packages and kind letters and emails every now and then and I’m incredibly grateful for that and I’m also terribly sorry that I’m so bad at replying. I keep promising myself that I will be better at that, but more often than not, when I have spare time, one of the last things I feel like doing is thinking about people that I miss.

On the brighter side, the mountains here are still gorgeous. The butterflies still astound me- they’re gigantic and incredibly colorful. There’s an abundance of fruit and flowers that I haven’t seen before and things are always surprising me. I’m really grateful that I am able to be here and see these amazing things. It’s such a huge contrast to western Michigan. I find both places beautiful, but in completely different ways.

Spiritually, China has been a challenge. I find it difficult to attend services in an entirely different language. It’s nice where there’s a student or someone who is able to translate little bits of and pieces of the sermon for me, but otherwise I try to bring in some kind of devotions or I sit and read some verses because the sermon is really quite long. It has also been strange to feel so disconnected from a congregation when I have been attending services for nine months. I’m used to seeing my congregation back in Michigan as an extension of my family, so it has been strange not having that. However- the situation here has changed somewhat since Kate and I started doing our Tuesday night classes. It makes me feel a little bit more connected and every little bit helps. I’m used to coming from an area where the majority of people are Christians- you don’t really even need to ask, you mostly just assume unless they tell you otherwise. So in that way, it has been an adjustment to be here. When I see someone wearing a cross necklace or mentioning anything about Christianity, I get excited about the idea that they might actually be Christian. It has been a big change for me.

I feel as though I’ve grown since I’ve been out here. It hasn’t been in leaps and bounds, but I’ve certainly grown. I’ve experienced things I never thought I would and I’ve discovered that I actually enjoy doing things and eating things I never dreamt of before. I’m glad that I’m here. Despite the fact that I do sometimes think about how I could be making a lot more money back home or that if I hadn’t come to China I would still be able to spend weekends hanging out with friends, I ultimately would not trade this experience for those comforts. I’ve had more good times here than bad and I feel as though this is really where I’m meant to be after all.

I just really hope that somehow along the way this year I’ve been able to do something to help someone- my students, other teachers, anyone that I have interacted with. It would make me feel good if I manage to make a difference to someone, at least a little bit, during my two years here.

This past weekend, I traveled south to Longzhou to visit Kyle. The weather there is unbearably hot compared to Yizhou. We have been getting a significant amount of rain here, but apparently they haven’t gotten the same there.
One thing that Kyle’s city has to relieve the heat that we don’t have here in Yizhou is this strange kind of frozen juice drink. It’s possibly the most delicious thing I’ve ever had. They take fresh fruit, juice it in a blender and add a few things (sugar cane juice and something else I didn’t recognize), then they pour it onto what seems to be a wok that freezes instead of cooks! They move it around on the wok until it’s frozen, then they put it into plastic cups and it costs a meager 2 yuan. Unbelievable.

On Saturday, Kyle and I took a random bus trip to a small village nearby. There really wasn’t a whole lot to see there- I suppose that doesn’t mean much to anyone who hasn’t lived in Guangxi. It was just like every other little village in Guangxi- gorgeous mountains, a rainbow assortment of butterflies, talkative ducks, and curious children.
So, in all honestly, it was absolutely fantastic.

While I was visiting, we also took a bus for half an hour to get to a pool in another village. The water in the pool comes from some local natural spring I guess. The water was nice and cold! Well, that would have been nice, but on our way there it began to pour! There was rain, thunder, and lightening while we were swimming. Perhaps not the safest circumstances to be swimming outside, I suppose. The lightening didn’t seem terribly close though, and I have to admit that one thing that China has done is change my perception of what is dangerous and what is not.
Buses speeding and driving all over the road, riding a motorbike with two other people and no helmet, sitting on the back of a bike and riding in the road, eating in restaurants that are obviously home to cockroaches and mice, eating questionable food: These things are all okay.
It’s crazy to think what I’ve adjusted to in just one year here!

In other news, when I was visiting, Kyle introduced me to this amazing website and I just have to share it with all of you-
www.kiva.org.
It’s a site that allows individual people like you and me to loan money to people who really need it. It’s seems like a great way to help someone if you have limited funds. It’s not really a donation because they will be paying you back, but you’re not earning any interest on it. There are people who want to buy cattle or supplies to start a small shop to support their families. It’s definitely worth a look- I think it’s a great thing to do and a way to have a connection with someone in another part of the world. In this increasingly global world in which we live, it’s getting easier to help people every day, so I don’t see a reason not to.
I didn’t see any people in China listed, but I’m hoping that they can eventually expand to include some folks from the rural areas in southwest China. It sure could help quite a few people.

** Sorry for putting up multiple posts in one day, but my internet was out for a couple of days after I got back, so they piled up.

Ah, so it appears that The Great Firewall of China has struck again.

My photo hosting site, Flickr, has been blocked in China. However, it is a strange sort of blocking. I can see my site, but I can’t see any of the photos posted there. Extremely frustrating. As it turns out, my year-long contract with Flickr runs out in a couple of days, so I now have to decide if it’s worth $25 dollars for me to pay to keep the account. If the block continues, I will be able to upload photos (hopefully- unless more of the site is blocked, which could happen) but I won’t be able to see them.
I suppose that if folks outside of China are enjoying my photos, perhaps I should continue to subscribe to Flickr’s services.
If you want to see a bit more about this situation, you can read about it here.

It could be a situation that will sort itself out soon, or it could simply stay this way for the remainder of my time in China.
Granted, it’s not any sort of dire situation, but I certainly hope that something is worked out rather quickly.

This past week, time has moved in strange ways.
At moments, it seemed as though time was dragging in slow motion at the bottom of a late and at other moments, it was as though entire hours passed without my knowledge (or approval, for that matter!).

The rainy season has begun!
Thunderstorms rumble through the not-so-distant mountains on a daily basis and pre-dawn bolts of lightening brighten the sky.
I absolutely love the sound of thunder, especially as it echoes through the hills. However, all of this rain has been doing unfortunately very little for the humidity.

We have managed to get a few bright spots in through all of this though. Between the grey and cloudy days, there have been a few sunny, gorgeous blue-sky afternoons. Perfect opportunities for long walks and paddle boats on the river.

I know that I have been rather silent on this issue, but Darfur has been on my mind quite a bit. It’s a long story, but during my time in Philly in 2005, doing a lot of looking into careers, Darfur, social justice, and volunteer jobs, is what basically ended up putting me where I am right now- in China.
However, the fact that certain Chinese companies are basically supporting what is going on in Darfur has not escaped my attention. In fact, apparently Sinopec is one of those companies and that happens to be where the gas comes from that takes me on my journeys across China and my weekend trips to visit Kyle.
It’s terribly frustrating to find myself in such an utterly helpless position.
It weighs quite heavily on me, but I’ve realized that there is very little that I can do- in fact perhaps nothing at all.

I try to be conscious of my surroundings and the world, but I’m finding that more and more difficult as the days go on.
I’m not sure if it’s China, or if it’s simply where I’m at in life.
I can’t manage to watch the political debates at home online (my internet connection, while actually functional now, is still not really letting me do very much), I can’t recycle, I can’t talk to the farmers I buy produce from to find out what pesticides they’ve used, I can’t buy organic food or fair trade coffee.

Actually, I did find one store in Liuzhou that happened to have foreign imports- including my favorite organic soda from home and some organic muesli. That was an amazing find.

Has anyone heard/read a book called World-Changing: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century?
I’ve read about it a bit and it sounds quite intriguing. I’m just trying to decide whether or not it’s worth the cost of international shipping to get myself a copy, so I’d love opinions.

Despite the fact that my long absence from posting has given a different impression, our weekend in the terraces was short-lived.

We arrived in Ping An Thursday evening after a long time on various buses. The weather was relatively comfortable as we walked up the terraces and found ourselves a place to stay the night. (well, as it goes in teh terraces, as soon as we got off the bus, someone found us and lead us to their place)
We walked over to a little restaurant and had dinner with a gorgeous view. Then we went to bed early, planning a nice breakfast and then a hike from Ping An to another site about 4 hours walk away.

In the morning, as we went to get breakfast, it appeared that the weather had other plans in mind for us.
It stormed with lightning and thunder for hours and hours. A four hour hike in those conditions seemed less than ideal, so after lunch, we decided to grab our bags and catch a bus to Sanjiang, a town a few hours away that is famous for a bridge that it has.

Sanjiang was lovely, although the weather followed us. We wandered around and saw some bridges and some interesting buildings and people. Certainly worth the trip.
Then we began the ride back to Liuzhou, then to Yizhou. A weekend full of buses, that’s for sure!