My Neighbor Laowai

One of the fun things about being here in a less-developed part of China is that foreigners are still fairly uncommon, so we catch a lot of attention.  People shout "Hello!" at us in the streets pretty much every day, we get eyeballed quite a bit, and every so often we get a round of drinks at the bar.  Following is a fun instance of being special because I'm not Chinese...

Yesterday I found the Totoro store.  I was wandering around near school when I found a little shopping complex with a store entirely dedicated to merchandise based on Hayao Miyaziki's My Neighbor Totoro.  The shopkeepers made quite a fuss over me, going so far as to mime how I might use the Totoro oven-mitt.  As I was leaving, I was asked if I would take a photo with the shopkeeper in front of a giant Totoro mural.  Apparently they don't get a lot of Western shoppers.

Anyway, I totally neglected to get my own photo in front of the mural, but I did nab one outside the store.  I know Gemini loves Totoro, so I'll try and get back and get a proper picture.

Another Birthday Surprise!

Today was Jenny's 5th birthday.

Jenny is a charming little girl who I'm pretty sure has a severe case of ADHD.  She's smart enough, but she doesn't really play ball with the whole classroom thing and usually spends most of the lesson either on the floor, behind my cabinet, or with her arms wrapped around one of my legs.  One of her favorite things to do when asked "Jenny, how are you?" is to yell "I'm a Jay!" or, alternatively "I'm a sandwich!"; at which point she laughs her fool head off.

In a delightful turn of events, Jenny gave ME a birthday present:  as she was demonstrating her mastery of the concept "I'm angry!"  Jenny socked me solidly below the belt.  In honesty, I'm kind of surprised I went this long without a taking a shot in the crotch, but I was still hoping my streak was going to last.  The class spent the rest of the lesson working quietly on a cut-and-paste worksheet.  I was somewhat concerned about giving them scissors.

In other news from tonight's lesson, Charlie declared- in Chinese- that I am a butt and that he is a butt, and, eventually, that his present condition (how are you?) was "tired, hungry, and," again in Chinese, "butt."

A Fantastic Birthday Dinner, and Surprises on the Way...

A friend of the teaching staff had a birthday today, and we celebrated with cake and presents at the office, followed by dinner at a restaurant next door to the school.  This was easily the nicest restaurant I've been to so far in China - we ordered using an ipad, if that gives you any indication- and we managed with a few gift certificates to have a 5-person dinner, with drinks, for about 20 dollars total.  Go China!

A birthday surprise was revealed during dinner, a surprise that will involve me- and thus, all of you- in the near future.  What could it be?  Stay tuned for mind-blowing amazingness!

Yet another Chinese thing happens...

I walked out of school today to find a man with about a 10-foot length of scrap metal, trying to dislodge a blanket that was draped over the electrical cables stretched between two nearby buildings.  He didn't really seem too concerned about anything short of his goal of retrieving this blanket, which seems to be the way the Chinese in general think.  At any rate, he managed to free the blanket from the first tangle of cables, only to have it fall onto a single, thinner cable below.  Without pausing to reassess the new circumstances, the man tugged at his makeshift hook again and ripped the cable free from one of the buildings.

Well, he got the blanket down, but at what price?!?

The Greatest Meal on Earth

I haven't been here that long, but sometimes I feel very comfortable and very at home.  I can get to and from work, I can get most of my essentials pretty easily, I have friends, and -of course- I have the internet.  I can't really manage a lot of semi-complicated tasks, and -I found out yesterday- the book store is pretty much useless to me, but mostly things aren't THAT bizarre.

But then, China every once in awhile needs to assert its Chinese-ness.  I'll reserve for a time when I have pictures a post about the meat-market I found while wandering through the alleys of downtown Guiyang; for now, I'll just tell you about my dinner last night.

I was with another teacher last night, wandering around, and we decided it was time to eat.  Often we'll try to go somewhere with a menu that has pictures, but last night we sort of allowed ourselves to be enticed into an establishment that didn't have this foreigner-friendly feature.  It started off harmless enough, as we stood outside this particular restaurant while I tried to skim the menu posted outside for anything I recognized, until a representative of the establishment took notice and came out to try to talk with us.  My spoken Chinese is extremely rudimentary, so my companion took the lead.  Unfortunately, we just couldn't seem to get much sorted out.  Over the course of a few minutes, at least three other employees came outside to try to communicate with us.  At some point, the other teacher managed to convince them to bring us a menu.  I can recognize a handful of characters regarding food items, but I couldn't figure anything out this time.  At the point we all probably should have realized that our efforts were in vain, we decided to finally go in and just let allow whatever was going to happen to happen.

What followed was at least another five minutes of ordering, including fruitless referencing of a Mandarin phrasebook,  at least one apology from what appeared to be the restaurant's owner ("Sorry, my English....no.") and quite a number of pantomimes of animals (including: cow, pig, and fish!)  

Eventually, we did manage to get served a decent meal, and while the ordering process had been quite an adventure, what really topped off the whole experience was what happened in the lobby about halfway through the meal.

The other teacher and I were chatting when my eyes were drawn to something behind her.  In mid-sentence, I stopped and said "I need you to look at the floor, right now."  There, in the center of the lobby was an big fish, flopping purposefully across the floor.  Wherever it had come from was obscured from my view, but it had managed to carry itself a good 6 feet, given the trail of water behind it.  In my heart, I wanted more than anything to see it reach whatever destination it intended for itself, but -alas- a waitress stepped up and wordlessly, expressionlessly, bent down, picked the fish up, and deposited back from whence it came.  The waitress then returned to work as though nothing had happened.  I was a little too shocked to be certain, but I'm pretty sure she didn't run off to wash her hands. 

And that's sort of been my experience in China.  Nothing ever goes quite according to plan, and nothing is ever quite a you'd expect.  Something, somewhere is always just a little off and it never seems to be in the way that you might anticipate.  

I think my plans for the day included climbing a mountain and people-watching.  Wish me luck!

A few more images...

What's behind the door?

I sometimes feel a little rude for snapping pictures of all the insane things that make up day-to-day life here in China, so I try to shoot with a little bit of circumspection.  As I sneaked my camera out to capture this guy, he meowed loudly and knowingly.  His vigilance is unparalleled.  All hail the convenience store Guard Cat!