The Most Humbling Experience

I have come through my surgery quite fine. As of now I still have some pain and it is tough to do some things but am getting better every day. The whole ordeal was extremely humbling and something I won't soon forget.

Wednesday afternoon, Jasmine and I went to the hospital to register. I paid the deposit and also paid a deposit for my hospital pajamas. We went to my room and situated some things. I also found out that they did in fact have a Western toilet in my room. I was so happy when I saw that. After talking to the doctor we left and I went home. On Thursday, I arrived at the hospital early in the morning with Howie to have some blood work done along with a chest X-Ray and EKG. I was put to the beginning of the line because I was a foreigner. During the short wait that I had many people were staring at me, which is normal, and asking Howie questions about me. After finishing at the hospital, Howie and I ran some errands and went home. Friday, we returned to the hospital to find out that my white blood cell count was elevated (Gee, surprise! It's been elevated since I arrived in Dalian.). Because of this I had to start IV antibiotics and hang out at the hospital for a while longer. They did let me go home that day though. Dr. Gong also talked to us about the procedure and had Howie sign a bunch of papers for me. We also explained to Dr. Gong how expensive the surgery was and how we couldn't really afford it. He promised to help us lower the costs. Saturday I didn't work because I had to go back to the hospital to have more IVs. That only lasted about half the day. After taking a nap at home, Patrick, Howie, and I went out to Pizza Hut, a sort of last hurrah for me. I ate as much cheese and grease as I could fit in me to last for the next few months. When we arrived home Howie and I packed for the hospital since I wouldn't be allowed to come home until I was discharged. This included cups, dishes, soap, and toilet paper since the hospital doesn't provide those things. After everything was packed we headed to bed. Sunday morning came way too fast. After a call to my parents, Howie and I headed to the hospital. I got my last antibiotic IVs, took a nap, and found out that I had to be shaved and have an enema. I was none too pleased when I found that out. Later in the afternoon I was led to the "dressing preparation room" where I was told to lay on a bed while Howie was sent out of the room and three nurses surrounded me. I was completely shaved from my upper thighs to the bottom of my rib cage. And not just shaved but dry shaved. Not too pleasant. Later that evening I received the unpleasant enema in the same room on the same bed. I returned to my bed after that and began the wait. From what the ladies in my room had told me I would be running for the bathroom in minutes. In preparation for this I untied the waist of my pants and sat on my bed. When it was finally time I had forgotten that I undid my pants and ended up partially loosing my drawers halfway to the bathroom. After all was said and done I settled into bed completely exhausted from the entire day. Monday was the day. I was woken up, as usual, at 5:30 for a temperature check (with a mercury thermometer and all). Since I wasn't allowed to have breakfast and my roommates snored I decided to go back to sleep. I slept until the nurses came in to tell me to change into clean hospital pajamas, remove my underwear, and put my shirt on backwards with the buttons on the back. After a short while, Patrick and Howie's little brother showed up. They were there to lift me from the surgery bed and carry me to my bed (about 5 feet) after the operation was over. Patrick was in charge of my shoulders and head, Howie in charge of my mid-section, and Howie's little brother in charge of my legs. Eventually, the nurses came back in and told me it was time. I got out of bed and got in a wheel chair and was then completely covered by a huge white comforter. (Howie laughed at me and said that I look like a Chinese breakfast food.) By this time I was pretty much out of it because of lack of sleep due to my snoring roommates. I was brought down to the surgery floor along with the three boys. I was wheeled through the family waiting room, which was filled with men chain smoking and women jabbering at one another. This is where I left the guys. I walked to the surgery bed by crossing blue sticky flooring. It was as if they lay down huge sheets of tape so any dust on shoes won't go into the surgery ward. I climbed into the surgery bed and was immediately covered up by a large green comforter. The nurse started rolling me down the hallway towards the surgery room. This was it! Or so I thought. I stopped moving when I got to the operating room door. Then the nurse just left me in the hallway. I lay there for a while and dozed until the anesthesiologist came by and told me who he was and asked if I had any questions. Even if I had any questions I’m not sure he would have been able to answer me in English. I told him no and he walked off. I fell asleep again and woke up in the operating room with doctors and nurses pulling my clothes off of me and telling me how to position myself on the bed. The anesthesiologist then put a mask on my face and simply said, “Sleep”. All of a sudden I was terrified that they would start cutting me open while I was still awake so I fought the sleeping gas as hard as I could. At some point they had put all the heart monitoring things on me and I could hear those beeping. As I was fighting to keep my eyes open I noticed that they were pumping something into my IV. I’m assuming it was the anesthesia stuff because all of a sudden I couldn’t breath. I’m panicking. I’m trying to stay awake and keep my eyes open and now I’m trying to breath but can’t! I wanted to tell them that I couldn’t breath but wasn’t able to move my mouth. I couldn’t move any part of my body. I could feel my lungs not working. I thought, “Well, I might die,” as I heard the heart monitor start beeping faster and faster. I eventually gave up. The doctor’s tried to wake me up after the surgery and all I remember saying is, “I need to pee. I have to go to the bathroom!” over and over again. I didn’t really wake up for numerous hours but I vaguely remember something that Patrick said while I was being moved from bed to bed. It was something like: “They didn’t tie her pants back on? Pull her pants up!” Apparently, my pants had fallen down while I was being moved and Howie’s poor little brother got an eyeful. The rest of the day and the next day was mostly a blur. I remember waking up at one point because I felt like I had to go to the bathroom. I looked at Howie and asked him to put my pillow under my head. He said that I couldn’t have the pillow yet and had to wait a few more hours. I’m not too sure if I got cranky with him or not but he explained that I couldn’t have my pillow until 6:00 and it was only 4:00. I passed out again while playing with my oxygen nose tube thing for a bit. I woke up with my pillow under my head and told Howie I wanted pain medication. Howie asked me if I wanted some morphine to which I responded that I did. (Before the operation I told Howie to ask me this when I woke up in case I wasn’t able to ask.) The nurses came in and shot something into my IV and I slept a while longer. I woke up a while later crying from pain and yelled at Howie that I needed more morphine. He went to tell the nurses that I wanted morphine. They apparently didn’t believe him and came in to look at me. When they saw me lying there crying they ran out then ran back and gave me a shot in the butt. I couldn’t believe that it took me crying in order for them to give me something. When I woke up later, Howie told me that they didn’t have morphine or an equivalent at the hospital but that the nurses gave me something that helped a little. After the shot in the butt I felt a bit better and didn’t need any more. I felt slightly confused why I had an overwhelming urge to pee all the time. I then remembered telling the doctors in the O.R. that I needed to go to the bathroom and vaguely remember them inserting a catheter. After telling Howie that I wanted it taken out he explained to me that the nurses said they had to wait until tomorrow morning. I was not happy about that but too tired to care. Thinking about it now, I’m thankful that I had it so that I didn’t have to get up and go to the bathroom. I remember at one point I woke up to Howie emptying the bag into a Coke bottle to empty into the toilet. I am so thankful for him. Not just for that but for just being him. On Tuesday morning, Jasmine (a girl that I work with) came to visit. She brought me some flowers and left after only a little while because I was so tired. I remember asking Howie about the catheter again. He went and found my doctor and the doctor was dumbfounded as to why I had a catheter to begin with. He then remembered that I kept saying “bathroom” so they put it in. He said it was fine to take out. They did this in my hospital bed with no curtains or anything. There I was for the whole world to see. Later in the day Patrick showed up for a while but I was so out of it still that I don't remember much of what went on. Howie’s friend Wesley and his wife also came by with two huge bags of instant porridge mixes. They don’t speak English so I was in and out while they talked to Howie. Howie’s friend Peggy also came by with two-dozen white roses and a huge fruit basket. I don’t remember who came in what order since I was still quite out of it.

That day we hired a patient care worker. The nurses here don't take care of patients. Their job seems to be doing IVs, taking temperatures, and changing sheets while the patient is being cut open. The patient care worker's name is Yao Jie (her sirname followed by "older sister"). She was very diligent with her job. If I needed anything she tried to do it for me. She probably would have had the surgery for me if she could have. She helped me go to the bathroom (which was really embarrassing), helped me in and out of bed, and did anything else that Howie and I asked her to do. If I woke up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, she got up. She would always put newspaper with a hole tore in the middle of the page on the toilet seat for me. One time, after being in the bathroom, she came out just laughing and hollering about something. Howie told me that I ended up with black Chinese writing all over my butt. I didn't find it that humorous but Howie helped me get it all off while I stood there still slightly delirious holding myself up by the bathroom counter. On Wednesday I was doing much better. I was able to lay on my left side without pain in my right shoulder. I only needed 5 or 6 IVs that day. Julie, my friend from work, came to visit and stayed a couple hours. At one point during a walk in the hallway I came across a small box in Howie’s coat pocket (I was forced to wear his coat when I went in the hallway). He told me it was for me and I opened it to find a pair of white gold stud earrings in the shape of stars. It was my Christmas gift from him. My manager, Tommy, and the main receptionist from school, Freda, came to visit later that evening with flowers. During one of my walks around the halls that night I broke down. I was so fed up with dealing with the discomfort, I missed my family, I didn't feel well, and I wanted some cold water. In this culture, cold water is bad for your health. I was just so tired of drinking hot water that didn't quench my thirst. I was also exhausted because my roommates snore. There were also random people who would come into my room just to look at me. I was also tired of the patient care worker that we had hired. She wouldn't let me do anything by myself and her leg massages hurt. After a horrible night’s sleep I had a few IVs and was told that I could go home because it was Christmas but I had to come back the next day. After the IVs and some breakfast Howie and I high tailed it out of there. His brother had come to help us carry all the flowers and fruit and everything else that I had collected during this. When his brother arrived at the hospital he wouldn't even look at me. He finally waved at me when he saw out of the corner of his eye that I was waving at him. I think he was really embarrassed that he saw me partially naked while moving me from the surgical bed. When we got home we had some lunch then spent the afternoon sleeping. Later that night Julie came over and we talked for a while then headed back to bed. Friday morning I just had to wait around for the doctors to officially release me then Howie and I went home again and tried to catch up on sleep. As of today I am feeling a lot better. I can sleep on both of my sides, eat a lot more than I had been able to, and wash my hair by myself.

The lighter side of the experience:
Each morning in the hospital Howie's little sister cooked breakfast for us and brought it in because the hospital food was so bad.
Although my roommates snored they were very kind and quite funny. One lady was about 40 and worked for customs. Her name is Liang Jie. She had been suffering from gallstones for about 10 years. She ended up getting a fever after the operation and had to stay longer than normal. The other lady is Wei (said like way) Aiyi (said like I.E.), her sirname with aunt. She worked for a hospital and ended up having 20 stones in her when the surgery was finally done. She was funny. Some of the things she would say and some of her facial expressions were the best. Patrick came by a few times and Wei Aiyi had a ton of fun listening to him. She named him "Chi Baozi" because he likes to eat baozi so much.
Dr. Gong came through and the bill for the surgery was 5,000 Yuan less than what I was told it would be. The nurses (one of whom is a friend of Howie's) told us that was the cheapest surgery they had ever seen those doctors perform. I'm very thankful to Dr. Gong for helping us out and for Michael (the school's owner) making a phone call. The surgery, in USD, ended up costing about $2,750.

Everyday I'm feeling better and better and it won't be long until I'm back to normal. I start work again on Friday and I'm sure I'll be in good enough shape by then to do well.

Click here for pictures from the hospital and our apartment decorations.

The Day

I have to have my gall bladder taken out. I have been back and forth to numerous doctors about this and have decided on a doctor and a hospital.

I went to speak with Dr. Li, the specialist, this morning and after about an hour of talking (the other patients only took about 15 minutes) we decided that Monday would be the day. The thing is I can't just go to the hospital for the operation then stay there for a few days for recovery. I have to go in a few days before for some tests and stay at the hospital for two nights. But before I do that I have to go to the hospital and register the day before and give them my personal items. So here is my schedule for the next week.

Wednesday: Work then go to the hospital to register
Thursday: Go to the hospital again for tests and stay the night
Friday: Have more tests and stay the night
Saturday: Work
Sunday: Work
Monday: Have surgery
Tuesday: Recover
Wednesday: Recover
Thursday: Hopefully at home for Christmas

This all wouldn't be quite so bad except that the hospital has no showers. They also don't have food. And the toilets are squatters. I would think that they wouldn't want people who just had surgery to squat. Hopefully they won't make me use a bed pan! Yuck!

The school has also lined up Chinese teachers to take care of my while I'm recovering. I told Tommy, my manager, that I didn't want that and it isn't necessary. I would feel so uncomfortable having all these people I work with taking care of me. Howie is taking his yearly vacation time to take care of me so I really don't think it's necessary for the others to come.

I was told that the cost of the operation would be about 10,000 RMB. That was when they thought I was a student. The girl I went with today told them I was a teacher and the price magically went up to 25,000 RMB. I was crushed when I heard that. I don't have 10,000 much less 25,000!!! Grrr... When the school found out how much it was going to cost, Michael, the owner of the school, called his friend who works there. He told his friend to take good care of me and lower the cost! Having "guanxi" (connections) definately helps!

I also have pictures of Howie if anyone wants to see them.

Come to Dalian

In one of my higher level children's classes, I asked them to write an advertisement for Dalian. This is what they produced: (Keep in mind that they are about 11 or 12 years old.)

1. holiday party
2. improve the environment
3. the history is long
4. eat seafood
5. the people are friendly
6. Once upon a time, there was a old man and a old woman. They were poor, a person gave them a piece of corn flour. The corn flour wouldn't be used up. The bag was called da'lian. Many many years later, the people who lives there called it Dalian.
7. history prison, it was old. Russian and Japanese Museum
8. Snake Island
9. Many tall buildings. Wide roads. Chinese goods were sent to the rest of the world. You can buy anything you want.
10. Ships are big, the transport are good.

This is word for word what they wrote, grammar and bulleted points and spelling and all... I'm just glad they speak better than they write.

If that advertisement doesn't make you want to come to Dalian, I don't know what will.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Honestly, it doesn't even feel like Thanksgiving. I am not with family and there isn't the scent of turkey and stuffing in the air and there isn't football on TV.

I got a few "Happy Thanksgiving" texts today from some friends and that is what reminded me.

Tonight there is a buffet dinner at one of the swankier hotels. Patrick and I are going to that and I can't wait to have American food. Hopefully it will be as good as everyone has said it is. It better be for the price. 180 RMB per person. Not horrible but compared to my usual 10 RMB meals it is a bit outrageous.

Last night I signed a new contract with the school I'm at. I only signed a 6 month contract so that puts me here until at least August 31, 2009. I didn't get what I wanted, a weekend day off. But I do get the same classes that I have this semester so I won't have to spend my evenings planning lessons. I also get to stay in the same apartment and keep the dryer that Patrick and I have.

That's mostly what's been going on here. I hope everyone at home has a great Thanksgiving!

Recent Random Events

I ate real pizza last night! A whole pizza for less than $10.

I was riding on the bus last night and there was a little girl (about 3 years old) singing the opening of Beijing Welcomes You (the unofficial song of the 2008 Olympics) over and over. It was cute.

I spoke an entire sentence of Chinese to a taxi driver and he understood me. I meant to say, "My friend wants to talk to you." According to Howie I actually said, "My friend wants to talk about you." But close enough.

I taught some of my really low level adult students the phrase "I'm blowin' up." That was funny.

I ate noodles tonight. I got them to go. So the shop keeper put them in a plastic bag for me. A bit odd but very normal here.

I will be going to bed tonight before midnight for the first time in over a week.

I now have 2 Chinese tutors not including when Howie teaches me random Chinese.

I learned that Chinese are not allowed to have satellite television. Only foreigners are allowed to have it. And no I won't get it trouble for letting my Chinese friends watch my satellite.

I have decided not to apply for the assistant manager position at another school but to continue working where I am.

I crossed the street by school during rush hour and was almost hit by no less than 10 cars/trucks/buses.

During exams today I learned that my students are, for the most part, retarded. How many times do I have to say "a head of lettuce" for them to remember?

Howie

I have been getting a lot questions about Howie. So I thought I should let everyone know what's going on...

A couple months ago I was shopping with a friend of mine. Because we live near each other and we were all the way downtown we decided to just take the bus home together. After explaining to her what stop she should take I got off the bus at my stop. Now, riding the bus is a pretty normal occurrence for a lot of people. But have you ever ridden the bus during Chinese rush hour? This can be quite scary! Not so much the bus ride itself but getting off the bus.

Anyway, the stop for this bus from downtown is across the street from the community that I live in. This means that I have to cross 8 lanes of traffic with no cross walk. It's typically no problem but this was Chinese rush hour. A terrifying experience! Basic traffic laws are not observed here. Even if there are traffic lanes painted on the road, they are completely ignored. Some people don't like to use their headlights even if it's 3 am. And it is rare for anyone to use turn signals. The way one crosses the street here is by lane. If the first lane has no cars coming you go across that lane then wait for an opportunity to cross the next lane until you eventually cross them all. I had done this a few times by then but I still wasn't used to it at the time.

Back to the story: I told my friend how to go to her house from her stop then got off the bus. I crossed the first lane of the road. I then hear a guy next to me say, "You can cross next to me. It's dangerous now." I look over expecting another foreigner but it was a Chinese guy about my age.

When we got to the other side of the road we talked for a minute or two. He told me his name was Howie and asked where I was from, why I was in China, the normal questions I get here. But this time it was all in English. We then exchanged phone numbers and went our separate ways. This is quite normal when you meet someone new but you never expect to hear from them again.

A few weeks later was National Day Holiday here. Most people had about a week off of work so there was a lot of partying being done. I was at a bar waiting for some friends when I got a text from Howie asking how I was doing and how he would like to invite me to dinner sometime and introduce me to some of his friends. I was slightly leery of meeting him because of the way he phrased things so I politely declined and said I was really busy. (In all honesty, I was busy. Not busy working though. Busy going out with friends.) I didn't hear anything more from him for a few weeks.

One night my friend Julie and I went to a bar and I invited a bunch of my friends. Well, almost all my friends go to school here and they all had a big test the next day that they were studying for so they couldn't come. It ended up being Julie and I at the bar being bored to death. She kept asking me if I had anyone else I could call. I said, "Only one more person. A guy I met at the bus stop once." So I texted him and he was at the bar within half an hour.

We ended up having a great time. He turned out to be a really nice guy. Julie, Howie, and I all live within 4 or 5 blocks of each other so when it was time to go we shared a cab and he dropped us off at our apartments and waited for us to get inside our main gates before the cab drove off. And in typical Chinese fashion, he paid for everything.

The next week he was in Guangzhou (near Hong Kong) on a business trip so we didn't see each other at all. When he got back Patrick and I invited him to go to a club with us and some of the girls we work with. We all ended up drinking way too much and decided to head home even before the bar closed (a rarity for us, we are usually kicked out at closing). Again, he made sure that Julie and I were safe inside before he left.

About a week later Howie invited me out with one of his friends and his friend's girlfriend. Even though they didn't speak English we were still able to have fun together and play a game in Chinese. (Luckily my Chinese numbers are pretty good and Howie's friend's girlfriend isn't good at math so she usually ended up losing.)

The rest is just a bunch of the same. So longer story shortened a bit, Howie and I started dating. He has gotten the seal of approval from all my friends here. Whenever he comes over to my place Patrick always tells me how much he likes Howie and how great he is.

FAQs answered: He's 25. He's from a farming community in northern Liaoning province. He taught himself English. He works in international trading. And yes, he's pretty short but not shorter than me. He is an only child, but has a foster sister. He lives with his "sister", his sister's friend, and one of his friends who he calls "brother" and they are all very nice.

Daily Schedule

I'm on a 25 hour contract at this school (which is the highest hour contract that is offered) so I have a lot of free time. Here is my schedule for anyone interested:

Monday- Day off
Tuesday- Day off
Wednesday- 2pm-3pm: C3 (about 7-8 years old)
3:05-4:30: Free Talk (17-mid 20's)
Thursday- Day off
Friday- 1:30-3:00: Free Talk (24 year old)
Saturday- 8am-10: C6 (8-9 year olds)
10:15-12:15: C7 (8-9 year olds)
3:15-5:15: C7
Sunday- 8:00-8:30: C1 (5-6 year olds)
8:30-9:00: CP1 (3-4 year olds)
9:00-9:30: CP2 (4-5 year olds)
9:30-10:00: CP3 (5-6 year olds)
10:15-12:15: C9 (9-12 year olds)
1:00-3:00: C10 (11-14 year olds)
3:15-4:10: C2 (6-7 year olds)
4:15-5:15: 1-2-1 (18 year old who is practicing oral English to enter University)

I really dislike my Sundays because of all the small children. Wednesday's C3 is my worst class by far. They don't pay attention and are little monsters except for two or three students.

Chinese Medicine

I arrived at home after Chinese class to find a good sized bag sitting on my coffee table. In this bag were a bunch of liquid filled pouches. I naturally assumed it was my "high pressure boiled" medicine. I called Tommy to ask how to take this. I have to drink this stinky brown liquid 15-30 minutes after I eat in the morning and at night. I was not looking forward to drinking this since many Chinese people that I know said that they can't even drink it because it makes them sick.

I fixed my dinner consisting of ramen noodles with a poached egg and watched CNN for a while. After procrastinating I decided I'd better just get it over with. I grabbed one of the pouches out of the refrigerator and cut it open. I then poured it into a cup so it would be easier to drink. If the smell of the liquid had been a little stronger that alone would have made me vomit. I pinched my nose shut and lifted the cup to my lips. "Here we go", I thought. After gagging for a while I had to give up. I drank most of it but I have to admit some of it got washed down the drain. I'd say that was pretty good for the first time!

After swallowing as much as I could I spat as much of the flavor out of my mouth as I could. I then headed straight for the water cooler in the living room and drank about 4 glasses of water. But that didn't help much. I could still taste it. I then went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. If I could have brushed out my throat I would have. Even brushing didn't help that much. I could still taste it. Eventually, either the taste just went away or I got used to it.

That didn't last long though. I burped a while later and the taste came right back. Ewww... At least it's only twice a day.

Another trip to Dr. Li

As soon as Micheal heard that my test results still weren't quite right he decided that I had to go to the Chinese doctor again. This afternoon he picked me up in his fairly new BMW and drove me to the same doctor's office that we visited a few weeks ago.

We arrived after an awkward car ride (he doesn't speak a lot of English and I barely speak any Chinese at all). We walked into Dr. Li's cubical and I sat down. Dr. Li again checked my pulse on both my wrists. (I'm sure he isn't checking my pulse but that is what it looks like.) He talked to Michael a bit and began writing down a bunch of stuff on a prescription pad (it's actually a large notepad that he puts carbon paper under to make a copy for himself). There was a lady watching all of this and she began talking to Michael about me. All I understood from their conversation in Chinese was that I am American, I'm a teacher, I look good, and I'm fat.

After thanking Dr. Li and saying goodbye we walked back into the main hall which looks like a health food store. We went to the cashier then walked up to a counter in front of a wall with at least 150 drawers in it. Each one had different characters on it. Turns out this is where the herbs are stored. Michael gave the pharmacy workers the list of medicine and they began putting sheets of wax paper on the counter so they could put the herbs on the paper so Michael could examine them. At first I thought they would mix all these things together and I would have to boil this and drink it. I soon realized that would not be the case. There was way too much stuff for me to make tea out of. There were about 20 different herbs on the counter now. All put together it could fill a plastic grocery bag. Michael then said that we could get the medicine tomorrow. I thought this was a little weird since everything was sitting right there on the counter. It's not like they had to order it or anything.

After Micheal made sure all the herbs were there and that none of them were rotten we began to leave. Michael changed his mind and decided to show me what they were going to do with the herbs. From what I gathered, they take all the herbs and whatnot and put it in a high pressure boiler (Michael's words) then they make some sort of elixir from that. I'm sure it won't taste very good but at this point I'll do anything to make my WBC count go down so I can get residency in Dalian.

Da Hei Shan

October 1st is National Day. It is sort of like Independence Day for us Americans. Everyone gets a few days off work and all schools and businesses are closed. It is actually illegal for most people to work that day from what I've heard. It is also a day for families to get together and celebrate.

Obviously, my family is not here to celebrate National Day with me, even though I didn't really care to. Michael, the owner of the school, felt that since everyone had some time off the school should go on a day trip and that way the foreigners and the Chinese Teachers who had nothing to do could have some fun together. He planned a trip to a large mountain about 45 minutes out of Dalian near the development zone called Kai Fa Qu.

The name of this mountain in English is "Big Black Mountain". I should have known this would be bad just from the name. "Black" always foreshadows something evil or difficult. I am not a fan of exercise or sweating. When our buses arrived at the mountain I immediately thought how I should have just stayed in bed. We hadn't even begun our trek but I was already sweating just from the sun! One of the other teachers pointed way up the mountain and said, "that's where we are going." I thought she was joking! It looked so far away and so high up. After a stop at the bathroom, the group started climbing.

Naturally, I was at the end of the pack of people. Even though I'm in China, I'm still one of the shortest people here and can't keep up that well with everyone else. The walk was quite leisurely as people were taking pictures of this and that. Somehow I ended up quite a ways in front of most of the others. The teachers who were walking with me decided to take a snack break and we sat down in a random pagoda to eat some oranges and rest a minute. We then began the trek again and caught up with the first group which included Patrick. I collapsed on a step and asked how much longer we had. Patrick said, "We are almost there. It's just up on that bluff." I thought, "Oh, thank God! 'Cause I'm about to die!" Some of the other teachers started catching up so we got up and began moving again.

Patrick was right, we were almost there. But as I turned what I thought was one of the last corners I saw one of the steepest staircases I've ever seen in my life! After forcing myself to go up this I was disappointed to see another staircase around the next corner. Eventually I got to the top and was greeted by a Buddhist temple. After a rest I entered the temple with everyone else and began wandering around looking at stuff. I just thought, "Great, we are at the end. Let's go back now so I can take a shower." But no, this wasn't the Big Easy Mountain or the Big Fun-time Mountain. This was the Big "Let's test every ones endurance" Black Mountain. We still had about another mile or so to go.

The rest of it wasn't quite so bad. It was on a paved road with only a slight incline. We got to the top and took some pictures of the landscape and all that touristy stuff. All of a sudden there was a group forming to go even higher on the mountain. Apparently the rest of the people hadn't gotten enough yet. There was a small trail leading up even further to where some radio towers were. I opted out of this fun-filled adventure and decided to check out another pagoda with fake terra-cotta warriors around it. There was a Chinese teacher, Tommy (the manager), and Michael who accompanied me. After checking out all this we began the journey to the bottom of the mountain. We walked down a winding paved road to a small farming community at the bottom.

When we reached the bottom we headed into a house. The houses at the bottom of the hill prepare "countryside" food for tourists and Michael had arranged for us to have lunch there. The house was quite interesting. It had the normal bedrooms, living room, and kitchen but there was more. They had a small courtyard in the middle of the house and a strange room with a huge platform that filled 90% of the room. I was invited to go in that room which turned out to be a bedroom. This platform was the family bed. When I sat on the bed it was warm. I was told that this is a traditional Chinese bed. In the winter and during holidays families will eat together and sleep together on this bed. The stove in the kitchen is exhausted through a horizontal chimney that runs under the bed and keeps it warm.

After the other teachers arrived we ate. The food was delicious. It tasted just like American food. There was even something that was just like pot roast. After finishing dinner we boarded the buses and went back home.

My batteries died but here are some pictures that I got.

The Health Check

The first couple of days here were filled with orientation and getting settled. One thing that is required for all foreigners is proper residency papers. In order to get these you have to register at the local police station and have a health check.

Patrick and I went to get our health check one morning. This wasn't a good day for me. I was having some pains in my stomach and side. I knew it was just a problem with my gall bladder since I'd had these pains for a while every couple months. It wasn't very bad this day as I was able to stand and walk for the most part.

During the health check you have to have a chest X-ray, blood work, EKG, vision check, urine test, and an ultrasound. Well, during the ultrasound the lady looked at me with a worried look. She asked me if I spoke English then she proceeded to tell me that I had a gall stone. Great. Just super. I told her to wait a moment and brought my manager, Tommy, into the room. It was what she had told me, I had a rock in my gall bladder.

After a couple of days I got word that there was a problem with my test results. I just thought, "Great, I have AIDS or SARS or something horrible like that." It was said with such urgency and importance that I could swear they were going to tell me that I was dieing. Well, that was not the case. My white blood cell count was really high. Okay, okay, I have an infection. Let's just go the the hospital and I can get one of those truly amazing IV cocktails (those really do seem to work for everything). No, it can't be that easy. Michael, the school's owner, decided that he wanted to take me to his family doctor. Now, that is usually all well and good, but his family doctor practices traditional Chinese medicine.

A couple days later I was picked up by Michael and driven to the doctor. We walk into this large building selling herbs and natural pills. It looked more like a health food store than a doctors' office. We pay a couple RMB and go into a hallway where there are a bunch of old Chinese doctors sitting in cubicles. There weren't exam tables or curtains or doors or anything. Just doctors sitting at desks with a chair for the patient next to the desk. Micheal told the doctor what was wrong with me. The doctor checked my pulse on both of my wrists (as though it would be different or something) then felt my stomach. There was some discussion about me in Chinese and, as is the norm, a small crowd formed. (I get looks quite often but imagine being the only white person in a traditional Chinese doctor's office with no doors or curtains. Everyone wanted to know what was wrong with this strange pale person.) After a couple of minutes we thanked the doctor and went back into the medicine room. We got a bunch of boxes of meds and Michael explained to me how to take them. One was a bunch of little tiny balls that I had to take with hot water. The other was regular pills that I had to take 6 of 3 times a day.

I asked Tommy the next day what the doctor said was wrong with me (as Michael doesn't speak much English). Come to find out my lunar is too high. That's right. My solar is too low and is being thrown off by my high lunar. Because of this I am sick and must avoid cold foods such as bananas. Instead I should eat warm foods like lamb and apples. I still don't know what a warm food is and what a cold food is but I do know to stay away from bananas.

After all this I got my blood checked again and it was off again. So I am now on some Western medicine. We will see how this works and try the test again. And probably again and again.

Arrival in Dalian

We arrived in Dalian and were greeted at the airport by our manager and a Chinese teacher who had gorgeous flowers for me. We were taken to a great dinner and shown our apartment, which is magnificent.

Everything here is amazing. We get free lunch at school everyday whether we are working or not. I have a personal locking desk at the school. We are about one mile from the beach.

Our amazing apartment:

• hardwood floors
• mattresses that aren't just blocks of Styrofoam
• new bed sheets that are clean
• tons of closet space
• a dresser in my bedroom
• a vanity in my bedroom
• wireless Internet
• desktop computer
• a toaster
• a coffee maker
• coffee bean grinder
• tea kettle
• dishes
• eating utensils
• towels
• soap
• toothpaste
• some food for our apartment
• personal heaters for the winter
• extra comforters
• a bathtub! (very rare in China)
• a huge mirror in the living room
• large bedrooms
• a large television
• huge stereo with extra speakers
• satellite TV complete with HBO, BBC, CNN, Discovery, National Geographic, and more!

The Visa Story

During our stay in Xuzhou we met some great people and some not so great as can be expected. One of the "not so great" people was our boss. This is a franchise school and the owner, You Kai, treats the school as a business and seems to forget that it is a school. Naturally, Aston is a business first and a school second. For You Kai, the school is a business first, second, third, forth, and so on. He regards the school as a school maybe twentieth (that's being generous). Patrick and I had been sucking up to him from day one. We knew that he was hard up for teachers and he would constantly tell us what great teachers we were. As is the custom in China when trying to impress someone during a meeting, You Kai practically shoved cigarettes down our throats one after the other. We never signed our contracts with him because we could be disciplined for breach of contract but because there wasn't a precedence You Kai could not be disciplined in any way for breach of contract. After numerous meetings with this man it became apparent that we were being blackmailed. During a private meeting with You Kai, Patrick and I made a supplemental contract that was signed by You Kai, Patrick, the interpreter, and myself. This contract stated that we would receive bonuses if we broke our future contract with our Dalian school and stayed at his school. We would also receive bonuses if we recommended our friends to work for Xuzhou Aston and they signed on. I can deal with bribery. It's not that bad, especially in this case. The main part of the contract was that he had to provide us with Z (work) visas before our contract ended on August 31. If proper visas and paperwork were not secured by this date, You Kai would pay any expenses related to getting a proper visa which included travel expenses to Hong Kong or Seoul, visa processing fees, and food and lodging while waiting for a visa among other things. We felt a bit relieved after having this contract written and signed. Although we were working illegally on a visa with a fast approaching expiration date, we would get a proper visa in some way. With that in mind we bought plane tickets to Dalian for September 3. The day after our contract expired we had another meeting with You Kai. We were hoping that it would be about our visas since we had not heard about the progress of our paperwork. You Kai suddenly decided to tell us that we had to sign a contract with him in order for the government to finish our visas. Here we were the day after the end of our contracts with no passports and no visas being blackmailed for our passports! We immediately got on the phone with corporate Aston in Dalian about this matter. We had been talking with numerous people in corporate about our visas and other problems with this school for quite a while. Corporate immediately began calling all their contacts, including the U.S. Embassy. We told You Kai that we would discuss the matter the next day after speaking to Dalian and giving them some time to work on the situation. At this point I was ready to head back to the States. If Dalian couldn't help us with this (because of the Olympics it is very difficult to get a tourist visa transferred to a work visa) I would rather go home than to work for a person like You Kai. No matter what he bribed me with to stay I would more than likely go home. Corporate Aston worked on getting us our visas until at least 11:00 pm when we got a call that we had a few options. We could sign a new contract in Xuzhou and stay there, we could go back to the States and either stay there or come back after securing a work visa, or we could enroll as students at one of the universities in Dalian and work with a student visa. We were instructed to go to our meeting with You Kai the next day and ask for our passports back and leave. When we got to the meeting on the 2nd You Kai said he didn't have our passports; they were at the visa office waiting for a contract with Xuzhou Aston before they could be stamped with the government seal. We told him that we needed our passports because we are leaving on the third for Dalian. We told him that Dalian had figured out a way to get us a visa and he literally laughed in our faces. After about an hour and many calls to Dalian from both Patrick and You Kai, You Kai walked back in the office and simply said, "Okay." He shook our hands, gave us our Foreign Expert Certificates, and invited us to dinner at "the best restaurant in Xuzhou." (I do have to admit it was an amazing dinner. If you can find "dragon fruit", splurge and get some, it's amazing.) The next day we had some bags mailed to Dalian and received our passports including our work visas! That evening we were driven to the airport (which is about an hour out of town) by You Kai's personal driver.

A few hours later we were in Dalian.

Han Dynasty Tombs

Xuzhou was the capital city during the Han Dynasty. Naturally there were terra-cotta warriors and a tomb that people could visit and spend money at. Since we didn't see the Ming Dynasty tombs while we were in Nanjing, Patrick and I decided to spend one of days off visiting these tombs.

When we arrived at the tombs we got in for half price because we told them we were students and got a discount. The tombs are mostly a huge garden with multiple museums and buildings. After wandering around for a while we found a huge Buddhist temple with paintings of the family of the emperor of that time. We also found a museum with a bunch of rubbings in it. Apparently, the Han Dynasty is known for it's stone work which was then made into rubbings. The translations at this place weren't very clear so I am guessing when I say that. We eventually found some of the terra-cotta warriors. The place where they were found was underwater so the building housing these was half way underwater and halfway above water. The statues here were about 2 1/2 feet tall and were warriors on horses. After that we went to another building that had statues in it that were about a foot tall. Not very impressive but still cool to look at since they are thousands of years old. There were three displays in this building. One was just a glass case that had dirt in it that supposedly had warriors still buried there. The second had some of the dirt moved away and the third had completely unearthed warriors.

The coolest part of this place was the mausoleum of the king or emperor or whatever during that time. As with Egyptian kings, the Chinese would create a huge underground house for the deceased emperor filled with food and gold for the afterlife. The place was huge and dark and very wet. It was like being in a cave. The ceilings were quite low and the rooms where jewels and food were kept were small. At the end of a long hallway with rooms on each side was a replica of the coffin (the original is in a national museum). The coffin is the shape of a man made of jade and gold wire.

I have to admit that I expected a lot more from this place but it was still interesting to see none-the-less.

Pictures from the outing.

Nanjing

One day Patrick and I and our roommates decided to head to Nanjing for a quick trip. Patrick brought along Monica, a girl he was seeing and Elizabeth brought her boyfriend, Chad. Because the others worked until about 4 or so we got a bullet train to Nanjing that left in the early evening. We were going to stay at a hostel there that Elizabeth had stayed at before. When we arrived in Nanjing we were greeted by one of Elizabeth's foreign friends who walked us to the street the hostel was on. After making plans to meet back up with him later on after showers and whatnot we headed to the hostel.

When we arrived we learned that Patrick had not booked enough beds for all of us. There were six of us but there was only one or two beds that were booked. That wasn't even the biggest problem. Turns out that none of the boys had brought their passports or IDs with them. Patrick and Chad just hadn't thought of it and Dan's passport was at the visa office getting a new visa. Without ID you can't stay at a hostel or hotel. We considered what we could do. Monica ended up saving the day. Actually, not just the day but our entire trip. She used to frequent Nanjing and knew of a hotel that we could stay at and best of all she had a VIP card for it and saved us quite a bit of money. She got on her phones (she had two for some reason) and started calling around. All of the hotels she talked to said that all people staying there had to have a form of ID. We eventually got a room at a hotel on the other side of the city. Because the boys had all forgotten their IDs, we decided that the girls would ride in one cab to the hotel and the boys would follow. Before heading to the hotel we met Elizabeth's friends and had real burgers and milkshakes at a nearby burger joint run by and American. We then took separate cabs to the hotel. After we had gotten the room the boys could waltz in and pretend they were picking us up to go out. It worked out perfectly. There were 3 guys and 3 girls. There were already two couples so Dan and I got put together.

The way hotel rooms work here is that your key not only opens the door but also turns on the electricity in the room. There is a slot on the wall that you put your key in which engages the power. Because it was so hot in the room we cranked the air and left the key in the room. When we asked for another key we were told we couldn't have one but when we came back the security guard would let us in our room. We headed out to a bar called the Blue Marlin and had some cocktails (which was unheard of in Xuzhou).

After some time at the bar we decided to head back to the hotel. The only problem with the room was that there was a single bed and a double bed but there were six people. We ended up pushing the two beds together and five of us slept on the huge bed while Patrick slept in the window (it was a small ledge where maybe three people could sit comfortably but still too small for one person to sleep comfortably). I don't think any of us slept very well that night due to the lack of room in bed.

The next morning Elizabeth and Chad headed off by themselves and the rest of us went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. During WWII the Japanese raped and murdered thousands of Chinese. I had only heard of this once before but never really learned about it. The museum was amazing. Everything was translated into Japanese and English. It was actual English too. I didn't see one word of Chinglish or Engrish. Some of the things that the Japanese did during this massacre were absolutely horrific. We weren't allowed to bring bags or cameras into the museum. There were numerous things on display but there are a few that stick out to me at the moment. One was a picture of dead bodies. These bodies weren't adults they were toddlers and infants. Another was a wire cylindrical cage that had nails pointing to the inside of the cage. A person was put in the cage then rolled down the hill all the time being stabbed by rusty nails with every rotation. There were a lot of Nazi symbols because Hitler helped the Chinese during this massacre (Hitler probably learned a lot of his torture techniques from the Japanese during this time). There were interviews by survivors and by some Japanese soldiers. Some of the soldiers were very apologetic about what they were ordered to do. Some smiled during their interviews and thought they had done a great job. Outside the museum there was a bronze pathway with footprints of survivors cast in it. There were mass graves that had been unearthed that you could go in and look at. The entire experience made me realize why so many Chinese truly hate the Japanese. There is also a documentary about the massacre called Nanking which is pretty good if anyone is interested.

After the museum we went to a shopping mall to get some Japanese food (quite suiting considering where we had just visited). At this time Elizabeth and Chad showed up and we all decided to go to the Ming Dynasty Tombs. We found the correct buses and headed that way. Once we got close, Elizabeth and Chad went off on their own again. We eventually found the tombs but they were really expensive. I wanted to see the tombs because I would probably never have the chance again but the rest of the group decided that it wasn't worth it and the tombs are pretty much the same as the ones in Xuzhou. After I heard that I wasn't so bummed about not seeing the ones in Nanjing. We got back into town after waiting forever for a bus and went to a large park near the train station. Because we had some time go kill we decided to rent a small boat and drive around on the lake. From the boat (which only went about 3 mph) we saw some great buildings and got really close to the old city wall. When it was about time for the train we got on the subway and met up with Elizabeth and Chad and had some dinner. When we arrived in Nanjing we tried to buy bullet train tickets back to Xuzhou but they were sold out. We did manage to get hard seat tickets on a regular train.

We got to the platform just in time for the doors to be opened and boarded the train. This train was severely over booked. When there are no more seats available on a train here they sell "standing tickets". Basically, if you can find a seat you can sit. If there are no seats available you stand or sit in the aisle or where ever you can. Luckily we had seats. After arguing with someone to get out of our seats we were on our way. I was constantly being bumped as I was in an aisle seat. I had a man stand next to me for at least half the train ride that was constantly shoving his crotch in my face or resting it on my shoulder. I tried to nicely push him off me since my glares were not working. Eventually I ended up elbowing him every time he came close to me. There was also a family that had standing tickets. The father had convinced some college kid to share his seat with him. His daughter and wife were stuck sitting on the floor in the aisle. The poor little girl was exhausted and fell asleep on the floor but had to be moved every once in a while as a snack cart was wheeled through. Eventually we got back to Xuzhou and went home.

It was a great trip and a nice change of scenery.

Some pictures of the trip.

And some more.

The Elevator Story

The new apartment that we lived in was on the 20th floor. One day I got home from school and got on the elevator to go to the apartment. This elevator does not service the 2nd-7th floors of the building, only 1 and 8-25. There were 7 people and a bike in the elevator, including me. I think the capacity is 13. We are going up just fine until on the 6th floor the elevator starts falling! Luckily it corrected itself and just dropped to the 5th floor. All the buttons stopped working and the door opened. The door opened to a floor that is not serviced by this elevator... Luckily people had cell phones and started calling the service numbers. And all though the elevator doesn't go to the 5th floor there was a door there. After about 15 minutes of pounding on this door that was nailed shut, calling service numbers, holding the elevator door open (so it wouldn't close and potentially fall the rest of the way down), and pushing the call button someone pries the nailed door open and we exit into some sort of storage room. The elevator on the other side of the building was packed and I assumed it only went to floor 8. So I found a flight of stairs and went down them to the first floor (this flight was not a flight that would go to my hallway). I end up in some sort of wierd parking garage. There were cars on lifts over cars on lifts over parked cars. It was just strange. Anyway, I walk around the building to get to where my stairs are and walk up 20 freaking flights of stairs! I was almost to the point of trembling when I got up to the 20th floor. About 2 minutes after I got home my roommate, Elizabeth, walks in cool as could be. I asked if the elevator was still broken. She said yes but she used the one on the other side of the building. Apparently the other elevator goes to the 20th floor. I never thought it did since in our hallway there is only one elevator. Apparently you can walk down half a flight of stairs through a breeze way then up another half flight of stairs to get to the other elevator. I had McDonalds to make up for all the calories I burned by walking up and down so many flights of stairs...



After the elevator was eventually fixed, it was a good 2 inch gap between the floor and the elevator. Here is a picture I took from the 20th floor between the floor and elevator looking down.

Daily occurances in Xuzhou

Day to day life in Xuzhou was pretty normal. I would typically get up at about 6 am and head to the shower. I would dawdle around for a bit and leave for work after grabbing a bottle of frozen water from the freezer. Depending on how much I dawdled I would either walk the mile and a half or take a taxi to work. On the way I would stop and get one of the amazing "Egg McMuffins" (if I was running late this was pushed back an hour during my break). I started work at 8 am with a C2 class. C2 is an hour long and filled with 6-7 year olds. I then had an hour break where I would typically prepare for my next class which was C5 (10-13 year olds). I then had C5 at 10:15 for two hours. After that came lunch. Depending on if other foreigners were working that day or not determined what I ate for lunch. If there were foreigners working we would all go to lunch at a nearby restaurant. If I was the only one there I would wander around, find some food, and go back to school to eat. At 2:00 it was time for class again. I had a C1 class filled with 5 year olds. This lasted for an hour. Those children were adorable but they went crazy during break when I had to leave. They would grab onto my shirt, pants, and backpack and try to pull me back in the classroom. Originally, I would leave the classroom, go to the teachers' lounge, then leave the school. Eventually though I ended up fighting 10-15 5 year olds to get to the teachers' lounge then I would hang out there for about 10 minutes until the kids were back in class so I could successfully leave the school. After the C1 class I had about an hour to get across town to Aston 2 for a C3 class. I took the bus and usually got there about 20 minutes later. C3 started at 4:15 but I usually had about 30 minutes before that class. On nice days Patrick (who exclusively worked at Aston 2) and I would sit out on the front steps and talk and smoke. After a few weeks of this some of my C3s started arriving at school early so they could sit on the front steps with us and talk to us. C3 lasted an hour. Patrick's 3:15 class lasted 2 hours so I would usually hang out and wait for him so we could share a taxi or ride the bus together (depending on the weather). When we got home we would usually order up from a restaurant near our building that would deliver to your apartment. The evenings were either spent lesson planning or talking to the roommates or spending time on the Internet.

I always had Wednesday and Thursday off. Because I was working the summer intensive program I was typically exhausted and took full advantage of these days off by sleeping and lazing around the apartment. Occasionally I would go to the store or just wander around town for a while.

Daily life in Xuzhou was pretty hum-drum and uneventful.

Pictures of my kids and the schools.

One night the foreigners decided to have an international potluck. The Australians made Bangers and Mash. The rest of us were Americans so we made the following: Dan-Nachos, Elizabeth-Mac and Cheese, Me and Pat-Spaghetti and Garlic Bread. We invited some of our Chinese friends. One was Elizabeth's boyfriend, one was a girl that Patrick was kind of seeing, and the other was our friend Bob's boyfriend (Bob had recently returned to the States).

If we weren't too exhausted we would spend evenings at Shao Kao (BBQ), KTV, or the club.

Random pictures of Xuzhou.

Moving and the New Apartment

Because of the amount of bags that Patrick and I had it took a couple of days to fully move. When ever we would go to the new apartment to see the other teachers we would haul as much as we could fit in the taxi with us.

After the first night in the new apartment I was sitting in the office at work when Dave walks in. He said about one sentence if that then drops a note on the desk in front of me. I no longer have the note but it basically called both Patrick and I ignorant, disrespectful, unappreciative, and homophobes among other things. He also made comments about how we left the apartment a mess when we moved. I went about my morning going to classes and dodging running children in the hallway. During one of my hour breaks Dave walked into the teachers' lounge. I seized the opportunity to get some things straight. I looked at him and said, "Dave, I need to tell you something. Patrick and I are not the same person. You cannot keep blaming me for things that he did." I then started to walk out the door to get my daily "Egg McMuffin". He began telling me that I am indecent because I allowed him to sweep dirt and trash into a pile in the middle of the living room. I calmly responded with: "I am not Patrick's maid or mother or wife or caretaker. I am not Patrick." I then closed the door and walked down the stairs to go outside. I reached the bottom of the steps and found Dave behind me yelling at me about how I am disrespectful and should respect him because he respects me. He was yelling at me in front of students and parents who were arriving for class. I calmly looked at him and said, "Dave, I'm not going to argue with you in front of these parents and children." I started walking off but Dave continued to follow me and yell at me. I finally turned around, looked him right in the face, and told him to "Fuck off." This must have worked because he left me alone so I could go get my "Egg McMuffin".

Now these Egg McMuffins were the highlight of my morning. A street vendor had a sort of bar-b-que looking contraption with a skillet on the top. He would fry an egg then stick it in the middle of a flakey pita-looking pocket. Even without the greasy egg in the middle, the bread was delicious! Whenever I would go to this man's shop all I had to do was hold up a finger to tell him how many I wanted and he knew exactly what to do. You can't beat that delicious breakfast for about $0.25!

The new apartment was great! Not only was the apartment great but the people were easy to live with as well. We lived in a huge building with elevators! Our apartment was on the 20th floor out of 25. The apartments were set up similar to a suite. Once you got to our floor you would unlock our front door. But then there was a small hallway with three more doors. These doors lead to the actual apartments. Patrick ended up living with a nice 19 year old guy named Dan and I ended up with a nice early-twenties girl named Elizabeth. My apartment was quite small but it sure beat living with Dave. The floors were clean for the most part, there wasn't a horrible mystery smell in the kitchen or bathroom, and we had gas for our stove! The best part is that I had an actual bedroom now! I even had a closet! The view from my room was quite nice. I had a large half circle window that I could see the TV tower from and I could see the courtyard on the 8th floor of our building.

I saw Dave only a handful of times after the move and was not too upset about that.

Pictures of our second apartment.

The Roommate

When you meet someone new, both parties, generally speaking, try their darnedest to be nice to each other. This was the case with our roommate Dave. He seemed to be very nice and we were all getting along quite well. This changed a couple weeks after moving in.

I usually got up for work at about 6:30 and immediately got into the shower. One morning as I was walking to the bathroom completely naked except for my towel a strange person walks out of the bathroom. Dave had started bringing guys home from the gay bar. He never asked us if it was okay if someone stayed over. I didn't have a problem with it but I wasn't not able to lock my room in case one of these guys decided to rifle through my belongings.

He would constantly invite us out to dinner with his friends. Now, this is a nice gesture but none of his friends spoke English and we don't speak much Chinese at all. During the dinners we had a semi-good time but we were always then invited to these people's houses which I wasn't up for. Eventually I got tired of having dinner with older men that I didn't speak the same language as and thanked Dave for the invite but that I would have to pass. He immediately started getting cranky with me about how I can only experience the culture if I hang out with locals and on and on and on. I appreciated the invites but I didn't sign up for Dave to be my life coach or political science teacher.

One night Dave asked if he could have some friends over for some drinks. Patrick and I said fine but that we had to work in the morning so him and his friends would have to be quiet after we went to bed. After about 30 minutes of me trying to sleep I went to Dave and asked him again if they could keep it down. I finally passed out from exhaustion. I woke up to find beer bottles everywhere, my Coke half way gone, and cigarette butts in a bowl on the coffee table (Patrick and I didn't smoke in the living room because Dave didn't like the smell of cigarettes. I guess smoke doesn't smell so bad when you are trying to please your friends and let them smoke in the living room.)

Patrick and I dealt with all that stuff but the following was the straw that broke the camel's back:

After the toilet cleaning Patrick and I decided to hire a maid. We still had not tackled the bathroom and after the toilet we had no intention of cleaning anymore for fear of what we might find. We talked to Dave about getting a maid and he said that would be fine with him as long as it was only 15 yuan an hour. So we started setting up the process of getting a maid. Apparently maids don't like cleaning foreigners' apartments so it was difficult to get one for us. Finally, one day we were told that a maid would be coming to our apartment. We told Dave and asked him if he would be willing to hang out at home for a few hours so that the place could get cleaned since both Patrick and I worked. He said no problem. We planned on the maid being there for 2 hours.

The night before the maid was to come Patrick and I wrote a "to-do" list for the maid and wrote a letter to Dave explaining that if it ended up being more than 15 yuan per hour we would pay the difference and he wouldn't have to worry about it. We left the note on his bed so we would be sure that he saw it when he finally got home.

After work the next day Patrick and I walked into our apartment hoping to find a clean house. That was not the case. Nothing at all had been done. Patrick immediately called Dave to find out what had happened. Apparently, the maid was an hour late getting to our place and when she finally got there and Dave opened the door there was not one maid but two. They talked about prices and Dave found out that it wasn't going to be 15 yuan per hour. According to Dave, the two ladies wanted 20 per hour and wouldn't stay for anything less than 3 hours. So the price went from 15 yuan per hour for one maid to 20 yuan per hour for two maids. To me that sounded like a deal. Dave didn't agree. He sent them away. We had been trying for weeks to get a maid and in about 10 minutes Dave had gotten rid of them.

That was the last straw. There were a couple of other teachers that would soon be moving so we called the manager and asked if we could move into their apartment. We could no longer live with someone that didn't respect our wishes and was constantly changing his story about everything. We started smoking in the living room and about a week later we moved to our new apartment.

The Field Trip from Hell

A couple weeks into the summer semester the school decided to have two days of field trips. I was scheduled to go all of the first day but not the second day since that was my day off. Instead of my typical "promo hours" on Friday they had set me up with a help session (I sit at the school waiting for students to show up for tutoring). I convinced the manager to drop my help sessions on Friday morning in exchange for going on the morning part of the field trip on the second day.

The following is part of an email I sent to friends and family explaining the field trip:

We were still scheduled to work and had to go to school in the morning but instead of teaching we were herded on to buses with about 160 kids. Yesterday we all went to the Xuzhou museum where we saw clay pots and whatnot from 60,000 to 40,000 years ago. We also saw a huge jade tomb from 8 AD. It was interesting but it is hard to imagine that stuff is really that old. I don't believe it myself especially when the museum is free and smells of mildew. Just my opinion though... After that we went to the lake (which has the cleanest water in all of Xuzhou) and walked around aimlessly then took some pictures.After they decided that we had enough pictures taken we went back to town near the school and had lunch. A typical Chinese lunch with about 8 people at a table and a lazy susan in the middle holding about 12 different dishes. All the foreign teachers were put together at one table with two unfortunate Chinese kids. Those kids were horrible! We named one of them Lunchbox because he was extremely rude and every time a new dish would come he would spin the lazy susan so the dish was in front of him. He would shovel the food from the dish to his plate, bowl, part of the table, his mouth, and his hands. Eventually we all started grabbing the lazy susan and spinning the new food away from him so we could get some food and he wouldn't eat it all.After that we went to the aquarium. We spent a good 10 minutes herding the kids across the 1/4 mile long bridge to the aquarium and another 30 minutes waiting for our tour guide who never arrived before we just walked through the aquarium by ourselves which took about 10 minutes. Most of our day was spend herding children and counting them millions of times to make sure we weren't missing any.The worst part of that day was that one of my favorite students, Jimmy, had a bathroom accident and had to go home early. He is always so much fun to be around. He's 9 years old and is just the cutest little thing in the world! On the way back to school one of my favorite C3s, Emily, sat next to me on the bus. Half way to the school she passed out in my lap. When we arrived at school I woke her up and she looked so embarrassed that she had fallen asleep on her foreign teacher. She was just too cute!

Pictures of day one.

The second day we planned to go to the zoo. I was really excited but had to keep in mind that the word "habitat" doesn't translate. We get to the zoo. There are huge colorful statues everywhere. I thought, okay, it won't be so bad... Well apparently it isn't just a zoo. It is a zoo/amusement park/meditation hill/hiking trail/etc. All the colorful statues were for the happy amusement park (and possibly to soften the harshness of the "zoo"). We get into the "zoo" and the first animals I see are skin and bones bears in a huge concrete pit. Next we see the area where they have a circus show type thing. This is yet another huge concrete pit. In the pit along with ladders and balls and see-saws for the tricks are tigers in pens. One of the pens had two tigers in it and they were obviously cramped in there together. We continue on. Next is a row of foul smelling pens about 7'x10' with individual animals in them. In one of these pens is a three legged raccoon of some sort. Next to it is a porcupine that couldn't walk without limping. Next to that was some sort of dog with half its hair missing. In it's little house you could see what had happened to all its hair as it was laying all over the place. The poor little thing was so sick or hot or something that it had begun tearing all its hair out. I'm not going to lie. I cried. Not just because of the dog but all of it put together. I had seen three tiny areas of the zoo and just couldn't help it. These animals are being abused. There was a pen of geese not 10 feet from the pond. They couldn't get to the pond though. They were all crammed in this little pen with no water for them to play in. I had pretty much given up on looking at things until Patrick finds me and tells me about how just up ahead there is a cage with vultures in it and what looks to be a dead bald eagle in the water. I go up with him and see the vultures but I didn't see a bald eagle in the water. Turns out the eagle is alive and walking around the cage now. He won't be living for long though as he has a huge bloody, dirty gash on one of its wings. The cut looked pretty new and pretty infected. Because I am supposed to be entertaining these children I went and looked at the disgustingly thin tigers and then followed them to the monkey house. It was a typical monkey house but without the ropes and tree limbs. You go up stairs and look down into a concrete pit with a pond in it. The first thing I see is a bunch of trash in the water. I then see a baboon looking animal walk into the water and start picking up the garbage to try to eat it. The water is disgusting. I go to take some pictures and one of the bigger kids grabs my arm and brings me to another part of the wall and proceeds to show me his empty Sprite bottle and to look at the baboon down in the pit. He then tells me to throw the bottle down in the water. I sternly say no and he turns around and starts pitching trash at the monkey thing. It was horrible. One of Pat's kids sprayed one of the monkeys with juice or pop or something and Pat smacked him on the head and yelled at him loudly with a lot of swear words. All the kids got the message. My group did not see the tiger and bear show. From the sound of it, it was a typical zoo animal show except when the animals didn't do their tricks they got hit in the face with sticks. I was never so happy to leave a zoo and I don't particularly like zoos. I wanted to go today because I wanted to see what a Chinese zoo was like; I suppose I found out.

Pictures of day two.

The Toilet Story

One day I had an epiphany. The bathroom might smell so bad since we hadn't cleaned the toilet since we had gotten there. I mentioned it to Patrick. His response was something along the lines of: "Oh, you have to clean toilets? I thought that was a germaphobic American thing." I explained that it wasn't and that we should clean the toilet. Now, I must tell you that almost every toilet I have seen in China has some sort of black nastiness at the bottom of the bowl. In our toilet the bowl did not hold water. When you flushed it simply just rinsed everything down the pipes and drained all the water out of the bowl. Because of this, I thought that the black stuff at the bottom of our toilet bowl was mold or something. I grabbed the toilet brush and some toilet bowl cleaner that we had just picked up from the market across the street. I began cleaning the toilet just like anyone else would. Put in the cleaner and insert the brush. This is when I realized that this toilet had probably never been cleaned...

With the first sweep of the brush down the bowl a huge sheet of "mold" came unattached from the porcelain. I thought I would vomit. This "mold", as I originally and probably hopefully thought, was actually petrified fecal matter. After gaining my composure I flushed the sheet of feces down the toilet and started the cleaning process again. At this point Dave was walking out the door and asked what we were doing. I explained that we were cleaning the toilet. He said, "Oh, I just cleaned that a week ago." Patrick and I responded with, "No, because a huge sheet of crap just came loose." Dave's response: "Oh, well I didn't clean the INside of it, I wiped off the OUTside of it." (Gee, Dave, you're bright!) After the first wipe and flush the toilet started to look cleaner but there was still a lot of black stuff at the bottom towards the S pipe's opening. I gave up on the toilet brush since it was too big to get into the pipes. I rolled up my sleeves and directed Patrick to grab me a shoe polishing brush (which we had purchased to clean the rest of our apartment) and bleach. I grabbed this brush covered in bleach and began scrubbing the bowl of our toilet. I wasn't making much headway and asked Patrick for a toothbrush so I could get further in bowl without having to actually put my hands in the very bottom. I got a little more of the black nastiness to come out. After flushing the toilet again I asked for a pencil. It was similar to a drawing pencil in the way that it had no eraser on the end. I used the top of the pencil and started scraping the bottom of the bowl. All of a sudden flakes of what I prefer to think of as mold started flying off the porcelain. Because this pencil was quite short I was dangerously close to having this "mold" all over my hands and arms since I was now practically crawling into the toilet. At the sight of these flakes flying off I got so nauseous that I had to quit. Patrick grabbed a Flathead screwdriver and gave it a shot. He also couldn't deal with the thought of having hands shoved in the toilet and quit. After repeatedly washing my hands, bleaching them, and Purelling them I decided that I am done cleaning this apartment.

First few full days in Xuzhou

The next day I was still pretty out of it but I had to go through training and all that. Before we went to training, Pat and I went to the market across the street and got a bunch of cleaning supplies. We spent a good 6 hours cleaning our apartment and still didn't get to the bathroom. The office cabinet in my room was covered in something. It was everywhere, even in the drawers. I had to scrub it with a brush! We were so tired of cleaning that we didn't wipe the bleach off the floor so the floor is kind of weird since there is so much bleach everywhere.

Our toilet seat was cracked so that was not fun. When you sat down to go to the bathroom you had shards of plastic digging into you. All the seats here are plastic. The repair man said that we should put something under the seat for extra support. Then he said something in Chinese that I am assuming was a fat joke towards Pat and I. We can't flush toilet paper; we have to put it in the trash can so that makes the bathroom smell even worse than it originally would.

Our kitchen had a horrible smell in it that we can't figure out. We just poured a bunch of bleach in the cabinet that it is coming from hoping that would kill whatever it was. We are were going to hire a cleaning lady. They are about $2/hour so we figured we would do that once a week or two. We planned on not cooking here because we would have to buy a tank of propane for our stove and that would be a waste of money for just 1 1/2 months.

Our laundry machine was a piece of junk. There are no dryers here first off. That's not too bad but the washer was basically a tub that will spin the water around for you. The bad part was that there is no rinse or spin cycle. So we loaded the washer with clothes, soap, and water from a hose. We let that move around for a while then drained the water. We then put more water in and let it move around some more. Drain while putting more water in to rinse some. I eventually ended up hand rinsing all the clothes and putting them in the spinner. The spinner only holds 2 pairs of jeans at a time so it took about an hour to do one load of laundry and I did most of the work; the machine helped a little.

Pictures of our apartment.

Xuzhou... Finally!

Our train to Xuzhou arrived at about noon. It was now July 10 I believe. I have no idea how long we were actually traveling but it was well over 36 hours. We got out of the station and found a phone. We were to contact the training manager, Scott. I called the two numbers that were were given by Scott. Both times some stupid girls answered and told me that Scott was not there and we should call back in 30 minutes. So we waited 30 minutes in the horrible heat with hundreds of people blatantly staring at us. (Come to find out that there are only about 30 or 40 ex-pats in this town and it's rare for them to use the train.)

After the 30 minutes I called the school again. A guy answered this time who spoke very good English. I told him who I was and that I was at the train station and we needed to be picked up. He was astonished that we were in town and no one was there for us. He asked me if I could see KFC. I said no. He asked if I could see McDonalds. I said yes. He said to go to McDonalds and he would be there in 15 minutes. I said okay. I went to tell Patrick what was said. Right after I told him some girl walks up and asks if she can help us with anything. This was probably the 20th person during our trip that had asked us so we said "no, we have a friend coming to get us". She insisted on helping us do something so she pulls out her phone and calls the school. She talks to the same guy that I did. She was yelling at him! She gets off the phone and in broken English says to stay where we are and that someone will be there in 10 minutes. She walks away after we thank her and Pat gives her a hug. I think she was meeting her boyfriend at the station because a boy showed up and she points at us with a huge grin on her face. She must have been very pleased that she helped foreigners find their way.

A few minutes later Leon, the guy who had answered the phone, shows up and helps us carry our bags 2 blocks away because the taxis at the train station are too expensive. We get two cabs. One for us and one for our luggage. We get to the apartment and are greeted by Dave, our roommate. We drag the luggage up a flight of stairs to our apartment and walk in. It is a sty! I didn't expect much since it's China but this place was disgusting! It is a nice apartment but it looks like it has never been cleaned. The kitchen smells like moldy poo and rotting who-knows-what and the bathroom makes you not want to shower because you would just be dirtier afterwards.

We went to the school and met Scott and figured out when we should meet him to go through training. Later that night we went to hotpot with Dave and some of the Chinese teachers. This is where I got really sick. I wasn't really sure where I was or what I was doing at moments. I was drenched in sweat again and felt like I was going to pass out or throw up at any moment.

Hot pot is this meal that you have a stove in front of you with this huge pot of broth. You order a bunch of random stuff to put in the broth like noodles, meats, veggies, and cicadas (those are really popular right now). Oh and cow testicles. As soon as the food started coming out I just got more and more sick just looking at the raw meat. I decided I had to leave. That is a very very rude thing to do here even if you aren't feeling well. I waited as long as I could but had to give up.

I got back to the apartment and passed out on the couch. Leon had to put a curtain in my bedroom (since there is a window from my room into the living room) and give me a fan since I didn't have AC. I didn't even hear him pounding on the door I was so sleepy. He woke me up by yelling through the kitchen window. I heard him, got up, for some reason started walking towards Pat's room. He must have seen me do that so he yelled again and I sort of woke up a bit more and let him in the door. I slept while he was pounding nails into the wall to put up a sheet over the window. He woke me up to tell me that he was leaving. I slept more until Pat and Dave came back. Everything was still a blur.

The first day or so in Xuzhou.

Arrivals... Maybe... Maybe...

During our flight we were fed twice and received all the free alcohol we could handle. I had always heard that because of the high altitude one will become drunk faster than on the ground. I stuck to this rule and only had a bit of my first drink. Well, it didn't do anything. Although I hadn't slept I was unable to do so. I decided to get another drink to help put me to sleep because there was no way I was falling asleep on my own at this point. I figured that four drinks combined with high altitude would make me at least drowsy. This was not the case. I was awake for the entire 10+ hour flight. Patrick had long since passed out and I was stuck there with not much to do other than browse through the on demand movies and television shows. When one movie was done I would watch the flight screen that tells you where you are and how much longer you have until you arrive before giving up on sleeping and watch another movie or TV show.

The flight was pretty good overall. The seat belt sign was on almost constantly because of turbulence but other than that it was okay. There were plenty of movies to watch and a lot of radio stations to listen to, not to mention the meals and free liquor! I highly suggest taking Air Canada for international flights just because of my one experience with them.

Because of the delay in Vancouver, our flight was three hours late arriving in Beijing. We had thought about catching a flight to Xuzhou, our final destination, but this was now out of the question. We grabbed our luggage and got through customs extremely quick. During some research before leaving I found that there was a shuttle that went from the Beijing airport to the train station. Since we were no longer in any sort of rush we got on the shuttle and started our 45-60 minute ride to the train station.

At the final stop for the shuttle we looked around and didn't recognize anything that was around us. I had been to the train station in Beijing before but couldn't see it anywhere. Using what little Chinese I could remember from the last trip I began asking random people what direction the train station was. No one seemed to know or understand me. We finally began walking down the sidewalk carrying 2 large suitcases and 2 carry-ons each. Let me tell you, this was a pain in the butt! The side walks in China are nothing like the sidewalks in the U.S. Here, they are tiles. Not just plain tiles but tiles with grooves and notches in them. There will be tiles with circles on them or tiles with grooved lines in them. This didn't help our problem with the luggage. Eventually we found a random white person and asked him how to get to the train station. He told us and we continued walking.

About a mile or so from the shuttle stop, we found the station. After taking a rest and getting some water we went into the lobby to get some tickets to Xuzhou. According to the Internet (a very reputable source, I know) ticket window number 1 in Beijing always has a clerk that can speak English. This, however, is not the case. After clawing our way through line (the Chinese queuing system is outrageous), with about 150 lbs of luggage each, we find an English speaking clerk and get a ticket to Nanjing which is only 30 minutes from Xuzhou according to the clerk. In order to get to the platforms where the trains are you must go out of the ticket lobby back outside then fight through another line, have your bags scanned at security, and find your platform. Luckily, we found someone who spoke English and told us where to go. There were so many people offering to help me with my bags. I reluctantly let someone help me and he ended up actually helping instead of stealing my bags as I feared he would do. No one took my stuff and they seemed very pleased with themselves that they helped an ex-pat. We found the correct platform and were very happy that there was an escalator up to the platform gate. Different story when we got to the gate though. We had to carry our bags down about 2 flights of stairs.

We had gotten soft-sleeper tickets and were directed to the proper car and cabin. One of our cabin-mates had very good English and told us that we could try to fit our bags in the overhead storage area. Because of the size and amount of our bags, only half were able to fit. We ended up sleeping with some of them. As the train began moving and people started settling down the lady who spoke English started asking the usual questions. "Where are you from?" "What are you doing in China?" "What do you think about China?" and eventually "Where are you going?" We told her that we were going to Xuzhou to teach English in a school there. She seemed quite confused at this. I thought it strange that she asked where we were going since we were on a train to Nanjing which was very close to Xuzhou. Turns out it was pure luck that she asked this. The reason she was confused is because we were not on a train to a city near Xuzhou. We were on a train to a city near Suzhou. She had a bit of fun with this and proceeded to explain that Suzhou and Xuzhou are completely different cities. There is also a Fuzhou, a Chuzhou, and a number of other --zhou cities all in China. She was kind enough to write Xuzhou for us in Chinese characters so that we could get the proper train when we arrived the next morning. After a terrible night's sleep we finally arrived in Nanjing, which is not close to Xuzhou but is close to Suzhou.

We arrived at about 7:00 am and unloaded all our stuff. Patrick stayed on the platform with our luggage while I went to go get some tickets to Xuzhou. I followed all the people assuming they would be going to the exit. I found a booth that said ticket counter and stopped there. The lady in there just looked at me then pointed towards another sign that said ticket counter. I went towards the sign but realized I had to exit the station to get there. I didn't really have a choice so I left the station. I got to the other counter and it was closed. Now I had to actually go outside and assume that I would be able to get back to Patrick. I found an actual working ticket office and bought two tickets to Xuzhou. The tickets had correct pinyin and characters so I knew we were going to the right place. I went through security and wandered around until I found an information desk. I stood there for a couple minutes waiting for someone to come to the desk. No one came so I went in the direction of a waiting room. When I got there I saw some doors that looked like they would go to the platforms. They were all closed and there was a guard there. The guard was busy talking to someone else so I just walked on by and went through whatever door I wanted to. I figured if they really didn't want me to go through the doors they would stop me or yell or something. I went through the doors with no problem except that I didn't know what platform Patrick was on. I walked over the bridge over the tracks looking for him but couldn't see anything. I picked the middle platform to go down so I could look around a bit. No such luck. I went up on the other bridge on the other side of the platforms and looked around. I remembered this weird granite sidewalk next to a wall and figured that is where Pat must be. Sure enough he was just at the bottom of those stairs that I chose to go down. Well, they weren't stairs as much as it was a broken escalator.

We sat there for a while pounding waters and sweating to death. My bra was completely soaked. It looked like I had just come out of a shower fully clothed. Pat wasn't doing any better. It was about 90 degrees with about 95-100% humidity. There was a very helpful security guard on the platform that helped us find the right spot for our car. We stood there so we wouldn't have to deal with the crowd of people trying to get on the train at the same time. About 2 hours later the correct train came. It was a very futuristic looking bullet train. All there were was soft seats, no classes. There was very little overhead space so we took about 10 other people's overhead bins and still had a bag on the floor slightly in the way. Oh well. When we got situated and seated, the men sitting across from us had a slight look of "Why they hell did we get seated next to the stupid Americans". It took us about 2 1/2 hours to get to Xuzhou. When we got there we hired a red cap to carry our bags for us. We are pretty sure he ripped us off royally but at the time we didn't really care. I was not about to lug those things up one more stair and tear my arms off in the process.

Departure

The day of departure was quickly approaching. I was living with my brother, Elias, and his friend, Steve, in Orange County, CA. I was all prepared. I had my visa and was for the most part packed. There was only one problem: How was I going to get to San Francisco to catch my flight to China? I had no car that I could take with me and very little money to get there. Luckily, about a week before the flight, Steve was moving to the Sacramento area and offered to give me a ride when he moved. I gladly accepted and rode to Sacramento with him and his dog.

After spending the week with Patrick, a visit from Elias, and repacking my stuff I was ready to go. Our flight was for about 7:00 am on July 8. The night before Patrick and I were running around like chickens with our heads cut off checking and double checking that we had everything in order and doing last minute laundry. We didn't sleep the entire night because we had to leave the house at about 3:00 am to get to the airport in San Fransisco. The time to leave the house finally arrived and we loaded into Joanne's, Pat's grandma, SUV. The three of us arrived at the airport a little before 5:00 am and Patrick and I said our goodbyes to Joanne (who was also kind enough to let me and Elias stay at her house). We were officially on our way.

After checking in and having one last smoke for the next who knows how long, we proceeded to line up for the security check point. We found our gate then took turns going to the restroom and finding food and other necessities (such as Skoal) for the flight. As we sat at the gate eating our cinnamon rolls and drinking water the thought that we would soon be in China still hadn't hit me. Our plane started boarding and soon we were in Vancouver, Canada. Neither of us had been to the Vancouver airport before so we rushed as fast as we could through customs to find our next gate. We eventually did just to find out (after waiting for about an hour) that our plane was not safe to fly and that we would have to wait another few hours for a new plane to arrive.

It was obvious to us that we were in the terminal for flights to Asia as it was filled with Asians and Asian restaurants. We decided to get some food while we were waiting for the plane and settled on a Japanese restaurant. Being true to airport food, it was insanely expensive and sub-par for the price. While Patrick went to find some drinks I tried to sleep a bit in the seating area near the gate while sticking my arms and legs through handles of our carry-ons so they wouldn't be stolen if I happened to fall asleep. Although I had not slept in over 24 hours, I was unable to sleep. After a while Patrick came back and told me about the different beer that he had drunk and how much it cost.

This next story may provide a laugh for some. It had been about 6 or 7 hours since we had our last cigarette so we decided to break out the chew. Now, I had never chewed before and had always found it quite disgusting. After Patrick gave me a course in "Chewing 101" I grabbed a tiny pinch to put in my lip. Patrick laughed and said I needed more than that. So I grabbed a slightly larger gob and stuck it in my lip. Listening to Patrick on that one was a HUGE mistake! I immediately got really nauseous and dizzy. I spit it all out in a bottle I had and swore I wouldn't do that again.

Eventually our plane showed up and we began boarding. We were headed to China!