Scary Drivers and Mexican Food!!

Drivers in Changsha are crazy.  They really are!  Friday, I watched as my dear friend and boss was nearly run over by a bicycle and then a bus.  We were running for the bus, and a bicyclist came out of no where and smashed into Teresa, she went flying and rolled a bit.  She tucked her feet up and nearly avoided being hit by the bus.  We were both shocked and she was quite hurt by the bike, which was ridden by a teenager.  She proceeded to ream him, quite appropriately.  He was like "i have to go to school."  She replied "You almost killed someone!"

Needless to say this put a bit of a damper on the afternoon, especially since she couldn't laugh due to the bruise that was forming.  But then my friend Garrick got into town.  He came up and smiled and said. "There was an accident in the parking lot"  I shrugged. "Oh ok."  "Someone drove into the plants"  "Oh really... China...  Oh Teresa almost died..."  Then I launched into the above story.  We decided to take a walk in the park due to the lovely lovely spring weather.  We walked out side and this is what I saw.

I was shocked! Needless to say.  And Garrick was like, "i was wondering why you weren't more shocked!  With that we went on to have a fantastic walk, followed by an evening of Mojitos and Mexican food.

Other Waiguoren

The first few months here, I was always excited to see other foreigners.  But now when I see them, there is a moment of "What are you doing here... here in my part of China?"  I am not sure when this shift happened.  I think it happened when I started to see tons of foreigners, and not just regular foreigners.  The foreigners who have Chinese girlfriends they treat like crap, the ones who clearly couldn't get a girlfriend in the states.  This is not to say that all foreigners in China are like that.  My fellow volunteers clearly don't fit into this group!  All my foreign friends do not fit into this group.

But as I may or may not have mentioned, I have become friends with the International Department teachers and students.  I was thrilled when I was invited to go to dinner in the country for a student's birthday party.  The whole department, teachers and students, went to this student's family's villa.  It was amazing!  Huge!  All the houses in that area screamed money, and were based off western designs.  Terrible for the rain though, slippery ass stairs on a rainy day.  They had tons of Shaokao (BBQ) for us to BBQ.  The students went crazy and cooking my own food quickly became impossible.  But if I hung around the students who were having more fun cooking than eating would give me food.  The parents immediately supplied the two foreign teachers, Nick and Lawrence, and me with cognac.  Very pleasant cognac.  The students went crazy 'toasting' Lawrence with Budwisers (expensive imported beer) that has materialized.  Lawrence was mostly saying no, but drinking a bit.
*Sidebar about drinking in China.  It is not really socially acceptable to just drink, people toast each other or play games*
Soon enough though both teachers were smashed, embarrassingly smashed.  I was mortified listening to them howl the Beatles and putting their arms around everyone.  Everyone else was just calmly watching and chuckling shaking their heads.  How do you not feel like Chinese people judge you based on the few drunken foreigners?

Liao and a student!

The evening was fun, the ride home with Liao was interesting.  He was quite drunk, sitting in the back seat with me.  Trying to get me to come work for his department next year.  Nice guy, I don't think I could cut it!  Too much work.  As he himself said "Right now you are free."

Sea Moon Water Palace

Women's day is celebrated all over the world, and in China.  The day is celebrated by giving some women a half day of work, and people buy flowers and presents for the women in their lives!  I am all for celebrating mothers, but how about those of us who don't have children or don't want them!  So my primary school invited me to a "Water Palace."  I said "Of course!"  Lucy was excited, and her excitement was infectious.  The next day I met her and we walked to the "Sea Moon Water Palace."  It was a fancy spa, after 3 attempts I finally got some sandals that fit.  Then we walked into ladies room, a big sign that said "Males Stop" in English was proudly displayed.  We went to our lockers and changed out of our clothes.  It wouldn't have been so awkward if the other teachers were trying to hide their bodies.  I shrugged and went with it.  There were showers, two giant baths with TVs playing soap operas.  One had water massage in it, beds with jets that you could turn on.  Then there was a sauna and a steam room.  Both with windows so you could watch TV!

"Do you want to have a hot towel massage?"  Asked Lucy with a smile, I looked confused so she immediately said the Chinese phrase of "You can have a try." This is what my dear friend Lucy says to me every time I look apprehensive about something.  So I get led to a massage table, the lady puts down saran wrap and tosses water over the table.  Then gestures for me to shed my towel and lay down.  I do so and she tosses water over me, opens a towel from a bag.  And starts to scrub the shit out of me, then I realize she is ripping all of my skin off.  With a hard scrubby towel!!  It hurt, and made me giggle, then made me really uncomfortable as I saw the rolls of dead skin accumulating on my arms and legs.  Then I got to flip over, and man, she did everything.  I felt like she had just rubbed off all my skin.  Which of course she had.  Then a shower and then into some pajamas.  XXL (and they were still a little small)  It was too early for dinner, so we went up to the 3rd floor.

The 3rd floor had low lighting and rows and rows of comfy chairs.  There were personal TVs for each individual chair. But Lucy and I chose to chat and eat watermelon.  Our conversation flew over all the place, talking about mothers and daughters.  And my teaching and my plans for the future.  Then to a buffet it was terrible... then home.  I was finally warm.

Cross Cultural Exchange

Little did I know how much I would enjoy today!  Today has been a very eye opening experience.  I went along with about 10 high school students from New York.  As they came into a class in Yi Zhong for a good cross cultural exchange.  Be prepared, parts of this had me hiding my face trying to avoid the train wreck.  Other parts were priceless.  But one thing is it put into sharp relief how immature Chinese students are by American standards.  Standing in front of these students the American students looked so mature, but they were all about a year younger than the Chinese Students.

The first minutes when the students walked up, I heard very clearly "black people" and the class erupted into laughter.  I wanted to hit my head against a wall.  But a moment to discuss Chinese people's perceptions of black people.  They are extremely racist, but not from a stand point of hate.  Their entire understanding of Western culture comes from movies and tv shows.  Then think about how they are portrayed, and how few black foreigners come to China.  The more that come, the less racist future generations will be.

But anyways, so the Americans were nervous and mumbling.  Which made it difficult for the students to understand.  They asked each other questions, some were interesting.  Some were awkward "Are you a boy or a girl?" was pretty awkward.  The Chinese students went crazy when someone asked "are you allowed to date?"  And two of the American students cozy-ed up to each other and said yes.  It was chaos.  It was hilarious.  There was also an awkward moment where a student was asking about basketball, directing it at the black student.  But overall a good exchange.