You See What I See

Jay vs Chinese International Post - Round 3

I have been away for over four months and have had no success in getting any physical materials into or out of the country via the postal system.  Not a big deal, except for the fact that I have business to attend back home that requires documents to be sent about.  Plus, I would like some pop-tarts and the power adapter for my electric razor.  And my Xbox 360.  And my cat.

Anyway, I will try once again to bend the postal system here in China to my will, and hopefully the world can have some non-digital proof that I am yet alive.  Not that I'm sure I want the world to have it...

In other news, I have recently completed a move to a new apartment, a mere one floor below my previous place.  It is largely an empty shell, but it is tremendously spacious.  I have one room that I use entirely for drying clothes and I've still got more raw space than I really need.  As much as it seems odd for one person to have so much room, it is my most sincere wish that the school doesn't try to squeeze another teacher in here.  Bathroom-sharing here would displease me.

In the next post, expect some woes, but not too many woes.

Culture Stress

The experience of living in abroad has it's own little version of the stages of grief, made up of the following : Honeymoon, Frustration, Understanding, and Acclimation.  Much like the stages of grief, the stages shift around quite a bit, and you don't necessarily always progress through them linearly.

More and more, the Honeymoon stage seems long gone.  No surprise and no distress about it, but the "everything is fun because it's new" part of the experience has just kind of faded away.  Most days I spend shifting between Frustration and Understanding.

Today, however, seems to be solidly Frustrating.  I've said it before, but ultimately everything here is more difficult.  First, because of the obvious issue of the massive language barrier, and second because everything is just naturally more difficult in one of the poorest parts of a developing country.  After awhile, there's a lot of stress involved in doing seemingly simple tasks and that stress can get to be a little much.  

I think the only thing that can possibly make me feel better is if I go out and find a hamburger.  Fortunately, I know a place.

Here come the men in blur

In case you haven't heard, they sell DVDs of dubious origin here in China.  

One of the teachers passes a street vendor selling the all the latest and greatest, including a compilation disc that  includes 10 or so big films, the highlight of which is Men in Black III.  Of course, this close to the film's release, he can only assume that this is the bootleggiest of available bootlegs, but at 6 kuai (appx 1 USD,) the price is right.

He gets home, expecting to find a lousy, video cam-captured version, and - in fairness- that's what he finds.  But he also finds that the cameraman has tried to capture the full movie-going experience for his at-home audience by recording the 3D version of the film.

Going to the theater is expensive here, but in all honesty, it's nice to know that you are definitely going to get to see the movie you've paid to see.

...I feel like maybe I just jinxed my next trip to the movies...

It is always, ultimately, about ducks.

Posting from a -surprise- fairly spotty connection, so I will be brief.

Today I saw three of the scruffiest-looking ducks rampaging across an untended veggie stall.  It was harrowing.

S.O.S.- The tiger needs a family

This situation is not a surprise to most of the people that would read this blog, but I'm hoping maybe by posting here I can reach the right person.

Here's the thing; I left a cat back home in Phoenix when I left for China.  I love the little guy, and he's been through a rough time lately, and the people I left him with can no longer keep him.  I absolutely need to find someone willing to take him in, as I don't want him to go to a shelter.

I've knocked on a lot of doors without luck, but this thing really needs settling for good.  If you read this and can help, let me know.  If you read this and can't help (directly), please, please, please see if you know someone who can.

Me, illuminatin'

Guiyang is a...thickly peopled city, with approximately thrice the population density of Phoenix, and the skyline reflects the premium on horizontal space.  The school I teach in is on the 13th of 26 floors, and my apartment is on the 7th floor of my residential unit.

Elevators are are often slow, unreliable, packed to capacity, or strangely absent (sometimes you can see a hole in the wall where one used to be, though!) so I spend a lot of time on stairs.  In what I'm assuming is a cost-saving measure, no stairwells that I'm aware of in Guiyang are always lit, or even lit throughout nighttime hours. Instead, stairwell lights are generally linked to sensors.  Back home, motion sensors seemed to be the usual go-to sensor for security and what-not, but not here.  These sensors are dependent on sound.

But it's China, and many of the sensors are improperly or inconsistently calibrated (or just plain broken,) meaning most of my trips up or down stairs requires some combination of the sound of my footsteps, the sound of me whistling, the sound of me shouting, or the sound of me clapping.  Not every sensor responds to the same sounds, and not every sensor responds every time.

Today I got tired of waiting for the notoriously slow elevators at school, so I decided to fly down the steps.  Around the 5th floor, I picked up a tail; a 5 or 6 year old girl from the school on that floor.  Chinese children seem to be insanely reckless, and even though I was descending at a nice clip, this little girl thought she had something to prove by stomping down right on my heels.

I guess I had something to prove too, because instead of letting the little girl pass me, I thought it would be more fun to let her chase me.  At the 5th floor, the stairwell is no longer on an exterior wall, but entirely dependent on the stairwell lights for illumination.  It can get a little terrifying.  But me and the little girl were racing, and a little darkness wasn't a big deal, until partway down the third floor when it was clear no more lights were going to be turning on.  I clapped.  She shouted.  Nothing; just blackness below.

Well, I'll tell you-  I hesitated for a moment, and I think the girl did too.  But then I went for it.  I pounded down 2 and half floors in almost total darkness, hoping that nothing unexpected had found its way onto the stairs.

I made it to the lobby unharmed.  I went and had KFC for lunch.  The server tried to speak to me in English, but I confidently maneuvered the conversation with my limited Chinese.  I drank a big Pepsi and I thought about how fun it is to live in China.

It wasn't until much later that I wondered if the little girl on the stairs safely made it out of the building or was swallowed up by the darkness.