kickin' it in china

i love china. it is great. everyone is so nice and pleasant to be around. i actually taught my students the word pleasant this week. the best part about teaching is getting to know the students. i would rather hang out with the students than teach them, but teaching is my job. they always want to take you to eat or go to KTV, aka karaoke. the trick here is to get the students to like you. it is better they like you than they actually learn anything. of course, i hope my students learn something. beer is always involved with food and KTV. sometimes though, i think i could drink this country under the table. they love to drink, but there is always a time when they slow down. i usually say, "let's have some more". then they say "are you sure"? then i tell them in america we like to drink, then puke, then pass out. do not get me wrong, there are some drinkers here, but i guess it is complicated to explain. complicated, another word i taught this week.

i have to mention the squating. it is amazing. everyone, and i mean everyone, in china can squat. i do not mean squat like a catcher in baseball. it is sort of the same, but with your heels on the ground. trust me, no one in the west can do this. they will squat while they read the paper, smoke a cig, eat, wait for the bus. i must say this is one thing i am extremely jealous of. i have been practicing. it seems so comfortable.

for all the people of color reading this, i think the chinese and africans/african-americans have the same roots. the chinese love fried chicken, i mean they love it. KFC is a major chain and it is always packed. i get watermelon at just about every meal. they bring it out like they bring bread back home. you go to a restaurant and sure enough, here comes some watermelon. i love it. they also love entertaining, and being entertained. singing, dancing, hearing songs, whatever. a few people have told me that they know the chinese man is a minority in america, also the black man is a minority. we are both trying to better ourselves against the man. so that means we are brothers, or comrades.

one thing about china that is not so cool, is the music i hear on the regular. i will post soon about the music. that is another whole ball of wax. until then, peace, i miss everyone.

by the way, this is the first drunk blog i have posted. i must have hit the backspace key about a hundred times.

still available in the US?

i believe my blog has been banned in china. it only took two months. i tried my best to keep it pro-china. i am pro-china. this is a test to see if you yanks can still read the posts, because as for now, i can only create them, but not actually review what i have written.

school finally begins!

so my first week of school is just about over. it has gone okay. i did not start until this week because all my students are freshmen. in china, freshmen have military training for their first month of school. nevertheless, my teaching load is pretty heavy. no more drinking every nite. oh well, i am still working less than in the US. hopefully i am making a difference with some of these students. many seem really responsive to learning english. i have classes of about thirty students and office hours of about ten students. the classes last and hour and 45 minutes, with a ten minute break in between. sometimes i let them out early. i am trying to make the class fun for everyone. one good thing is all my classes are on the same floor, in the same building, and the same lesson plan. they are all the same, just different students. i always get a huge HELLO! when i walk in. i know it will be tough come the end of the semester. twelve weeks left. after that though, i get to travel all around china, and get paid. i cannot fucking wait. here is a photo of a couple of my students.

what the fuck! was that an earthquake? oh, it was just north korea testing their nukes.

alarms

i live on a college campus. it is nice because a couple blocks away is the downtown area with all of the traffic and noise. but on campus at nite it is pretty quiet. almost dead quiet. they school takes away the electricity of all the students at like 11:00. no tv, no internet, shit no lights. the only people up past then are the foreigners and security guards. of course outside campus there is still crazy action going on. since i am on campus, the university or somebody, plays this music through loudspeakers that can be heard throughout. every weekday this music plays at 6:30 in the morning, then at noon, then at five pm. this shit is on the tick for about twenty minutes. i have learned to sleep through the morning wake up call. but i am usually in the apartment at noon. sure enough, here it comes, the same music i heard the day before, the day before, the day before. it is like 1984, okay everyone awake. everyone go to lunch. everyone go home. like we are a mass population of clones. i am suprised there is not a, everyone go to sleep jingle. by no means is this music entertaining, it is becoming quite annoying. i guess the phrase that readily comes to mind is, it feels so communist.

partying, chinese style

at mizzou i was a volunteer at the asian affairs center. doing this work afforded me an opportunity to travel to china. i met a man there named bill, who was from chongqing. a few days ago we finally got to see each other again. he took me to his hood to show me around and meet his colleagues. as soon as we get there, we go into a banquet room of this restaurant. food is being served on a table that has a huge circular plate. you just spin this plate around and grab whatever looks delicious. it is all chinese food, some that looks familiar, and some i have no clue what it is. i try it anyway. i figure i might as well enjoy china and what it has to offer. even if i do end up with a tapeworm or something. while the servers are bringing out the food, i notice they began to open bottles of this clear liquid. i think to myself, here we go, out comes the baijiu (bye-joe). baijiu is this alchohol that chinese men love to drink. the women do not really drink it, and if you are a man and do not drink, it is considered disrespectful. one of the americans i have met claims she can use it to clean off the paint on her windows. and i am putting this down my throat. so at this dinner the men toast everyone and anyone with shots of baijiu, constantly. after about an hour of this, we leave to meet bill's wife. his wife has a friend with her, who i think bill is trying to set me up with. she was not bad looking and her english was really good. one think i have noticed about chinese women is most do not really shave and they will wear the same outfit over and over again. it is like they are wearing a superhero costume, or maybe they are just on the cusp of the new wash cycle. so as of yet, i am not really into them. after we meet up with the women, we all go to get massages, the legitimate kind. the massage takes about an hour. they actually wash your feet, and they end with rubbing a bag of hot rocks all over your back. it was very nice. my feet have never been so clean. when the massage was over, what happened next? you guessed it, more food and baijiu. i am thinking, we just ate two hours ago!! of course it is another huge meal that consists of many more dishes. also at both meals, they hand out packs of cigs. i have finally run out of camels, and i think certain types of chinese smokes are making me feel like shit. all the drinking is not helping. after this we all go home and pass out. the next day we get up and eat breakfast. i am wearing my same clothes because i stayed over, but so is everyone else. the men and the women. they are all superheroes. after breakfast we walk along the river. bill lives near the yangtze river. the longest river in china. it is a nice walk, but i am feeling really crappy because of the chinese squares, and the last thing i want is more chinese food. of course before i leave to go back home, we eat a huge lunch. we just ate breakfast two hours ago!! i can barely eat, i just pick at the rice to satisfy my new group of very hospitable, chinese friends. sometimes i long for chinese food from home, like the kung pao chicken. ed likes his chicken spicy. i have not been able to find that here. anyway i get home and sleep the day away. i felt much, much better, when i awoke.

partying, american style

i have a couple of folks from the peace corps that live on my floor, and like i said before, this immediately gives me someone to go out with and explore the nitelife. i was invited out for dinner and dancing with a new group of foreign teachers. the teachers within the peace corps are under a certain set of restrictions than myself. their salary is a third of what i make, they cannot really do any traveling until their commitment is up, and their commitment is at least two years. needless to say, they still know how to party and do it very inexpensively. we all met up around eight and went to this restaurant i have already deemed my favorite. they have western and chinese food there. spaghettie, pizza, chicken fried steak, it is all delicious. after dinner we walk around the streets of the city drinking beer. a huge bottle cost about 40 cents. i love drinking on the street. while we walk around, i find out how small this world really is. one of the girls i just met went to 'ole mizzou. another girl who is with us, is from kansas city and went to truman state in kirksville. more midwesteners half a world away. after getting our drink on outside we go to this dance club. this club plays western music you would hear in the US. it is also a place where other laowai (foreigners) go. laowai, by the way, is a word you here on a regular basis. the chinese like to say it when they see you. i went into the restroom and i heard it. i also noticed some chinese guy staring at my junk when i was taking a piss. this club was alot of fun, chinese girls dancing on the bar, and a live band between DJ sets. after a long nite of drinking and dancing we take a taxi back home. not much different than a nite out in the US, except for the whole being in china thing. i only met a few members of the peace corps, but there are over twenty in this city alone, and every saturday nite the plan is drinking and dancing. i also heard there are nearly a thousand foreign teachers in the chongqing area. i am enjoying meeting new people and discussing why they came to china and how they went about making it happen.

GO USA

back home i spout off many criticisms i have about america: race relations, foreign policy, the government in general. i felt by coming here it would give me a different outlook on the US. so in turn i would have to leave the states to feel more like a true american. since today is the five year anniversay of september eleventh, i think i already feel more patriotic. there are articles in the chinese newspapers about the anniversary, of course i cannot read any of them, but i do get to speak to some chinese about the event. it is nice being able to give them a perspective from a US citizen, that they otherwise would not have gotten. i have already done this with race relations in the US. the chinese really only know what they get from television. i am going to be asked a thousand times, "do you play basketball"? i don't really mind it, those chinese, you gotta love 'em. i am interested to get into good discussions about thanksgiving and christmas with my students and others, when those holidays come around. oh, and i find it amusing that i have been told a few times to not speak about the bible. i can bring up general ideas from it, but no preaching. it seems as if every chinese person thinks that since i am american, i must be a christian and really into jesus. there are missionaries around, but i have not met any. didn't mao kick them all out in '49?

your comrade brother
edub

okay everyone, this is the end of my first full week in china. i arrove here in chongqing on wednesday. the man i was sitting next to on the plane snapped a couple of photos of me with his phone. i guess he had to have proof when he told his friends that he saw a laowai (foreigner). the chinese are funny and extremely nice. they will stare at you all the time. when i am walking around i hear random hellos. anyway, upon arriving from the airport, we reach my apartment building. my first impression of the building was, what a shithole. but then i walk into my apartment and i was like wow. it is really nice. the a/c is cold, i have all new furniture and appliances, television, washer, hot water, and high speed internet access. in many ways it is nicer than where i was living back home. one problem is the apartment is on the eighth floor and there is no elevator. everyday with all the stares. play on words. chongqing is known for the three hots. hot weather, hot food, and hot women. i came just at the right time, because the weather is starting to cool down a bit. it is becoming quite nice. never any sun, though. it is either gray or less gray. the food and the women are the hottest in china. i have already seen a huge difference between here and beijing.
i have met all the other foreign teachers. there are six of us. three of us have been here a year and the other three just starting. along with myself there are two peace corps volunteers. they live on my floor along with this alcoholic english snob. he apparently has a drinking problem, and when he gets drunk, madness ensues. a guy and a girl from the peace corps. they both seem really nice. there are other volunteers all over chongqing and through them i already have a network of friends to party with. another teacher is a sixty year old man who has his own place and a car. he says he wants to retire here. i do not know how he drives in this traffic. it does not seem like you obey any rules of the road, you just drive. drive in the other lane, run red lights, whatever. the last teacher all the chinese i have said, you guys will get along. i think it is because he is a black dude from chicago. and you know what, we have gotten along. he has given me the scoop on everything. actually i think all of us are going to mesh well, save for the drunk from the UK.
i am sure there is more to say, but i will save it for my next post.
oh yeah, i finally saw my first baby pissing wherever it wanted. it was in supermarket, disgusting. they sell diapers, but apparently no one buys them.
peace out commie style.

first impressions

well i arrive in beijing on monday. my plane was a half-hour late, customs took forever to go through, even still there was my good friend matt kern waiting for me. it was nice having someone here i already know. i have this great feeling about china as soon as i arrive into beijing proper from the airport. there are people everywhere. well this country does have over a billion people. the streets are filled with cars, bikes, buses. i love all the bikes. everyone rides them from young girls to old men. the buses are packed with chinese like sardines. the cars are all suprisingly nice. i have not seen one bucket. audi, honda, lexus, the same ones we have and some we do not. we walk around the major spots. my friend here is living the lush life. his apartment is off the heezy and it is on the park ave. of beijing. hunger sets in. i want to immerse myself into the chinese culture. when in rome. so for food we went to eat pizza. the pizza was good, but the belgian beer was even better. okay, so maybe the immersion will start later, if ever. they got everything over here we got, but here it is a little bit different. kfc and mcdonalds are all over the place. i did have a long flight so the night was cut short.
the next day i wake early to head to the forbidden city. this place is the must see of beijing. i just think of the movie the last emporer, that was filmed there. it is huge and took over three hours to walk around. well, it is a city. so i took lots of photos and got a few stares. i love the stares. a chinese man will see you and then tap his buddy that he is walking with, so they both can get a good look at you. i am a tall black man in china, which helps because i can easily get the photos i want without having to get in front of anyone. after the forbidden city, i walked all around this area similar to times square. i had a bigmac and then thought, why the hell am i eating this shit. i need something authentic. i go to this vendor and he is selling something that looks like a gyro. sounds good to me. i pay him, less than one dollar american, then began to eat my gyro. well it does not necessarily taste like lamb. you know what that means. that's right kids, cat in a pita pocket, yum yum. tomorrow i leave for my city, chongqing. it is about and hour and a half flight southwest from here. next post will come for the CQ. peace out. edub

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Well... I'm going to China tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for some sweet stories and information about stuff.