Un fako Español worked! Can you believe it? I can’t. I win! Pretty funny. When I found out I was laughing for about 10 minutes. I just sat and laaaaaughed:
I even ran down to the school to tell my friends about it because it was too unbelievable. I mean it probably wasn’t entirely just the Spanish that did it. I edited one post from talking about a specific keyword directly to talking about it like this [Due to my website being blocked I've taken out certain words. The word that's supposed to be here starts with the word "total" and ends with the word "itarianism"]. Also I was hoping that if I bumped that post off the front page it might help as well. Anyway a simple fix and any computers that web crawl and automatically block access to websitos with certain words won’t find it that way. So now whenever I’m going to talk about something that may get mi websito blockado’ed I’ll just switch en to ¡Un fako Español! If anything I think this makes things even more funny to me. ¡Writing en un fako Español es muy fuñada!
So on to our regularly scheduled blogram! (gross… what a gross word I just made up…:-( )
We had a few days off of school because all the kids had “Sports Day.” Or… sports week or something. It was more than a day and of course it was like a Tuesday and a Wednesday, the two most useless days to let us have off, not attached to any weekend or anything so we could skip town and have fun.
In time for sports day they opened up the new stadium. They also included this wheelchair accessibility ramp!
Except… it’s impossible to get to this floor using a wheelchair, there’s no ramp or elevators to this level. Therefore I really don’t know what the point of this ramp could be for. I could see using a skateboard on it, but I could also see falling to your doom… :-/
[Two days after I wrote this part of the post I saw a kid skateboard over to the ramp, stop at the top of the ramp, get off his skateboard, walk down the ramp, then continue to skateboard... w-... what???]
Here’s the inside:
So I hear from the kids things like “We’re not allowed to date” and “boys can’t be in the girl’s dormitory late at night so we never get to see each other” etc etc. I’m a little confused as to how they can’t find the time to go hide somewhere. I mean look at this gymnasium. The doors are open at night, I’ve walked through there at like 12:00. None of the doors in there are locked and there’s little nooks and crannies to hide in everywhere around campus. There are lots of stairways and many of them have open spaces under them surrounded by plants. Why not just go under there? You could go up in the planetarium or behind those gates that I went over or down in the cement gulley between the buildings, etc etc. I don’t know how this is so hard. It’s really easy. The main problem would be the sneaking into or out of your room, but really that’s as simple as going out your own or a friend’s window. There’s like one or two guards, they’re not watching everywhere. There’s some cameras sometimes but I don’t think many of them are being used and I think at night they’d be a little more concerned with watching the perimeter than watching the interior cameras.
It’s really not hard to trick the guards and get out to a place to meet your girlfriend. If you dress up in teacher clothes and walk around no one will stop you. I’ve walked across the big area where kids aren’t supposed to be, there’s a guard near the fence about 100 meters away with a big flashlight that can light up the whole field. He never shined it at me and there’s no way he could see if I was a student or a teacher. It’s possible it was radioed that I would be walking through the school, but they wouldn’t know what route I would take. All you would have to do is walk across in broad sight but be really confident in your walking and don’t look like you’re sneaking. Besides, even if that didn’t work, with the amount of times I’ve heard of kids simply booking it away from teachers and escaping I’m absolutely positive that all it would take to see your boyfriend or girlfriend is a little bit of preplanning.
Aaaaaaanyway, back to pictures. More of the stadium. The stadium is open, but still a little bit under construction:
These guys are filling in the cracks between the cement with tar. They melted it in that pot in the wheelbarrow. It had a constant open flame going. I honestly didn’t know there were so many ways to do things by hand as I’ve seen done in China. When I think “what’s the easiest way to cut bricks quickly and efficiently” (especially after having to do with hammer and chisel in high school) I think “Get a power saw. A little money down will save time, increase productivity, and I can use it on projects in the future as well.” They don’t do that though. They just use a hammer and chisel. I’ve seen it this way at many construction sites throughout the city. Always taking the more labor intensive route than the efficient route. I think some of it is the “people need jobs” thing. However, maybe it’s cheaper to do it this way in China? I don’t know. I can’t see mathematically how getting a job done more quickly and efficiently by putting a little money down up front to make it that way would hurt. I can only see it helping in the long run. Not that this tar is an example of it being this way, it just got me thinking about it. Whatever works for you:
Here’s some picture of the students practicing for sports day opening ceremonies. Notice that on the wall there is a “Beijing 2008″ sign. Is this a permanent sign? I mean it was a year and half ago already, is that sign still going to be there in 10 years?
See these next kids? See? Getting away discreetly can be done. They grabbed their stuff, sneaked slowly up the stairs near where I was standing, then ran as fast as they could to go play badminton without any of the head teachers seeing them. Now, granted, I guess I should have stopped them and turned them in because I’m a teacher and I’m supposed to be some sort of authority, but I really don’t care. They need the break. Plus no one has ever told me to stop students when they break school rules nor have they told me what the school rules are. Not only that but I’m a foreign teacher, I didn’t know what was going on! I don’t speak Chinese! I had no idea they were supposed to be down doing what every other student in their grade was doing!
I’ve also caught kids in the bathroom with cellphones, they had a moment of panic as we stared at each other and they tried to figure out if I was going to take away their phone or not. Of course I’m not, once again I don’t care. As long as it’s not a distraction in class I don’t care what you do with your life. However if I catch a student smoking I’m going to confiscate their cigarettes, they’re killing themselves and I’m not going to allow that. Almost caught one girl doing it, but none since then. I’ve already decided that would like to hawk a loogie into their cigarette pack, shake it up, then hand it back to them. Either that or do the classic “smoke them all at once” thing. Except that one has always seemed like a bad idea to me, I mean wouldn’t that make it worse? Maybe it makes them sick? I don’t know. I’ve found a lot of people that are all about being healthy in this country. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about health so much in my life. For a culture that is so obsessed with being healthy there sure are a lot of smokers here.
Here’s some guys watching the kids practicing:
Students from the top 6 classes I think. Clearly they’re talking about something important:
This is underneath the stadium. It’s kinda cool down there. It’s not done yet so it’s yet another part of the school that has a bunch of empty rooms in it. I assume they’re going to be filled with ping pong tables, Twilight screening rooms, and KTV stations:
They also added a bunch of basketball courts underneath the building. They love adding basketball courts to things. I’ve seen one in the city where there’s a basketball court that’s elevated off the ground above a park. I think that if there’s free space in China it’s filled with one of 3 things: trash, a person, or a basketball court. I’m glad they filled our free space with a basketball court, but that does bring the court count up to 16 I believe. I feel like there’s probably another dozen or so hidden somewhere that I haven’t found. I’ve never been in the student cafeteria. They love this game so much I bet it’s actually a basketball court in there:
Sports Day(s?)
Finally they came. I knew it was coming because I heard it through the grapevine, I was never actually officially told until the night before. Something I really like about being a foreign teacher is the random amount of vacation time. It’s annoying not knowing when vacation is coming until the night before or sometimes hours before (also sometimes you’re told you have vacation but then all your students are there in the classroom waiting for you because you don’t actually have vacation) but I mean all added up it’s about 6x more vacation time than I would have working in the US. That’s pretty cool. It’s especially cool cause I mean I’m quite introverted and my job is to stand up in front of people and act really outgoing and confident. It takes a lot out of me, especially on days when no one is cooperating. So having random days off is pretty cool and is definitely one of the many perks that comes with the relatively low pay.
So here’s something a bunch of smoker kids wouldn’t be able to do. I think the faces people make when they’re trying to do something physically demanding are pretty priceless:
This girl kept trying to sneakily get a photo of me:
Some observers up at the top of the Wonka Stairs:
Hotpot on the Pot
Okay I didn’t actually eat hotpot on the pot, but I did eat hotpot and I did eat something on the pot. I just wanted to say it because it made a good headline. Since I had a couple days off I went out with my teacher friends Helen, Quentin, Mei, Zhu, and Helen’s daughter (not a teacher). We made an evening of it. It was nice.
I spy with my little eye: Owen’s Apartment:
Out near the school buses there was apparently a chair meeting:
I’m sorry. That was a horrible horrible joke. I’m just… I’m ashamed…
This kid was making faces on the other bus, but then as soon as I whipped out the camera he was just like “No… No I don’t think so.”
Chinese people love to have their photos taken, but only when they’re prepared and posing. If they realize you’re taking a photo and they’re not prepared with a pose, they freak out and do everything in their power to ruin the photo. As evidenced by this photo of Mei:
Notice how she flees for her life as though I had just whipped out a gun and started shooting in the air. I have a number of photos of students where they are cowering in fear of the camera. I have one other student that walks by me every day and says “I hate you” because I once snapped a picture of her studying. Once again, if they aren’t prepared for you to take a photo they must do everything in their power to destroy your natural looking, possibly national geographic award winning, photo journalistic snapshot.
Obviously none of this is entirely true. I have however distinctly noticed that people in China love to take my photo, but I’m not allowed to take theirs. One of my favorite things to do when strangers take a photo of me in the street is to whip out my camera and take a photo of them. They get completely taken aback. I remember one that would stand her daughter in front of a group of us and try to take her photo with us in the background. I ruined many of her shots. Sometimes they laugh and find it funny, sometimes they look a little insulted. I have a growing library on my computer of people taking photos of me, but I’ll save that for later.
This is Dongmen, it’s a shopping district. Here’s an ad with a bunch of obese babies:
Interesting factoid: This is the first McDonald’s in China:
I’ll eat there eventually (just because that would be kind of neat in a really lame way) but that night was hotpot night. So we went to a hotpot place that seemed really nice. It’s called Little Sheep or something. It’s a chain. I honestly thought their logo was the same sheep from a popular cartoon here called Happy Sheep and Grey Wolf, but I guess they just draw all their sheep the same.
Here’s hotpot:
I don’t have any other pictures of it because people were making fun of me for whipping out my camera all the time (one reason to go everywhere alone is so that when you stupidly snap photos of things that most people find meaningless it won’t hold anyone up). Basically hot pot is a metal bowl full of extremely seasoned soup. Then you order some thinly sliced raw meat and vegetables and you put them into the pot to cook. One side is hot the other side is a mild miso kind of flavor. It’s very nice. Chinese hotpot I think is quite similar to Japanese hot pot except maybe the shape of the bowl and the flavor. The Japanese hotpot I’ve had didn’t have a spicy half, just the mild half.
It takes awhile to make the food and eat it but it’s a lot fun. I’d like to do it more often, but I can’t reeeeeeaaaaaad. AAAaaaahhhhhhhh Kan bu dong! I could be enjoying food in China so much more if I could read and speak but I’m just too slow on the uptake. This is one reason I like to go out to eat with people so much. There’s someone to talk to and I get to eat something that I don’t have to point at.
*sigh* Heaven…
After hotpot we went out to someplace I’ve wanted to go for awhile now:
Even the light fixtures are made to look like a nice, Dairy-Queen-style swirly bum brownie. Someone had to not only think of this detail, but then hire someone else to actually spend their afternoon creating them:
Finally the desert came:
This one is called “Dried and Crusty poop”:
This one is called “Diarrhea”, it’s mango ice cream with mango flavored ice shavings and bunch of various kinds of melon balls:
Here is Helen hugging a turd and eating out of a toilet:
The ice cream was pretty decent actually. The gimmick is rather ridiculous, but the food isn’t that bad. Surprisingly on par with the price I think. I had a good time but I don’t particularly feel the need to ever go there again. Who knows though, maybe I will. Not by myself however, it’s very much something you have to go do with your friends.
Sports Day(s?)(2?)
More Sports Day the next day. Personally, I didn’t expect to see Scout running down the track with a stick and a hoop. I’m sure Boo Radley is in the audience somewhere making sure everything is okay.
Some of the kids had on like “class pride” sweatshirts and stuff. I don’t think I ever bought anything in high school that would in any way help out school pride. I remember being asked things like “Why aren’t you wearing school colors?” I don’t remember my response, but I’m sure it was snarky. Down with school pride! Only have self pride! I’m clearly a Satanist:
Monkey King
As always happens when I see a crowd of people, I must investigate:
Oh. Oh I know who this is.
So near my Chinese class there’s occasionally a guy with trained monkeys that sits on the street and does performances. This only solidifies my feeling that China is exactly like the US near the turn of 20th century. He’s basically a modern day organ grinder:
I really don’t know what to say about it. I watched him handle these animals in such a disrespectful way when he was setting up to do the show. I mean I’m pretty confident those little monkeys do not lead very good lives. I was so amazingly torn when his partner came through asking for money. Do I not give him money because I don’t approve? If I don’t give him money and he can’t afford to keep the monkeys anymore, what will he do with them? Eating live monkey brain isn’t common at all, but it’s not unheard of. If he needs money I’m sure he could find someone willing to pay for them.
The basic act was the guy would throw out a little block of wood. Then he would tell each monkey to put their butt on their block of wood. Each monkey would do it, but then the last monkey took the block of wood and put it on his head. Then the man would then yell “No! Your ass! Put it on your ass!” and then the monkey would put it on his head again. Eventually the monkey stole the man’s hat and threw it somewhere. It was funny on the surface, but I just couldn’t laugh what with the mother monkey clutching her child her the whole time. I just felt too sad to laugh:
Pastries, Happy Neurons, and Monsters.
Here’s some tapioca. It was unflavored. I didn’t know tapioca came in unflavored form, I always knew it mixed with vanilla and sugar. I took the tapioca and added like 4 spoonfuls of sugar crystals. Didn’t help much:
Tiramisu that Mei gave me:
I figured out that I don’t feel like I live somewhere until I buy frozen food. Something about having food in the freezer implies long term stay, so it very much feels like home if there’s frozen food:
I honestly don’t know what “sheperd’s purse” is, but any time I’ve heard “purse” in reference to some part of an animal, it has never been a part that I’ve wanted to eat. In fact, it’s usually the part that makes me cringe and close my legs:
I got this from a street vendor near the junior school. Happy Neuron is lime flavored. However, after trying many different examples with different types of food, I’ve found that the term “lime flavored” in China isn’t the same as “lime flavored” in the US. In the US “lime flavored” is usually sweetened lime. In China “lime flavored” is about half lime, half mint and nothing to cut either flavor to be a little more palatable. Lime in its pure form is too strong to enjoy, same with mint. Apparently the tastes here make it so that if you put two things that are too strong to enjoy together it will make them more palatable and taste better? Something like this? I don’t know. I just know that it’s one of the more intense flavors I’ve experienced and I don’t particularly enjoy it. It’s just too strong. I don’t want mint, I want lime:
I was invited by Helen and Mei to eat some crab. I remember once when I had to draw a crab in observational drawing class and I had to bring it home and keep it in my fridge. I had to stare at the thing that absolutely disgusted me for hours as I drew it over and over again. I hated it. The smell and the look of it sitting on the stool next to me is forever etched in my mind.
I had never eaten crab before however, so I was going to at least give it a shot. I mean if I didn’t like it there were still other people around who would eat it for me:
This is how far I made it:
I got through almost one section of one leg. I couldn’t do it. I would put it in my mouth and I would just want to gag. I could not do it. It was taking all my effort cause I just kept thinking of it’s little mandibles fingering away and it’s gross alien spider legs scratching me as it tried to quickly run up my shoulder or something. Helen and Mei made the joke of “What if you woke up and it was in your room?” I said it wouldn’t bother me. “What if it was on your chest?” The amount of obscenities that run through my head when that idea is brought up is rather staggering. If I woke up and I had a crab on my chest I would flip out. I knew I didn’t like crabs, but I didn’t know how much I hated them until I had to put one in my mouth.
Here’s a video of me trying to eat a crab, I would have recorded more but as you can see I had my hands full:
Here’s some delicious things you can find in the Chinese subway vending machines:
Something I’ve always kind of liked was watching these kids go to get food at the edge of campus. They do it every other day or so. Students aren’t allowed to get delivery food:
I like watching them because I think of how they’re almost being sneaky and getting away with it. Like they found the one blind spot on the fence where there is level ground on either side and the guards can’t see a delivery boy parked and passing food through the fence. Except what they forget is that while there’s a blind spot right there for the guards, it also happens to be right dead in the middle where the big bay windows in the teacher’s cafeteria look out to. Right after this picture was taken two of the teachers that are supposed to be in charge of discipline yelled, pointing out the window at them, then ran out of the cafeteria in different directions. I got to watch as the kids happily walked away, blissfully unaware of any impending doom:
Ouch; better luck next time boys:
For the longest time I was curious as to why everyone in China was eating bamboo. Clearly I’m from a northern climate having never seen sugar cane before:
At one point I was in the grocery store and I found sliced ham. This means I’ve found sliced ham, sliced bread, and mayonnaise all at my local grocery store. Because of this I decided to actively try and find the cheese. I found it. My options are as follows:
Fake brie:
Fake brie with blueberries:
and fake American cheese:
That’s it.
*sigh*
Almost. Almost had a good ham and cheese sandwich. So close China, so close. I hope that in the future we can try to work together a little more to make a proper ham and cheese sandwich a possibility. We’ll see what sort of progress you’ve made in a few weeks.
Here’s a girl restocking shelves backwards down an escalator that I thought was kind of fun. You can even hear someone hawk up a loogie somewhere in the first 2 seconds:
THE SHELVES MUST BE RESTOCKED!
Also for a little while I was watching every single South Park episode I had missed since going to college. South Park has a good idea. I don’t know what the studio did to make this legally possible, but the let any and all of their shows viewable in every country for free and without commercials. Every show should be like this. Because of this I go to their website so I only see advertising for products they get the revenue for. Why would anyone not go by this standard? I always check the official company website first for whatever show I want to watch. If it’s not available there I go somewhere else. I’m going to view the show somehow so you might as well try and control what website I’m viewing it on and get paid for it.
Anyway there’s a little bakery I go to now and again, hoping that the woman who works there will be happy to see me at some point. She never is. Probably because Yantian sucks. I always get a fun fruity drink of some kind, but this day I got a cake kind of thing too. Transporting that home on a bus in a little plastic bag was really hard:
Sell traditional Chinese medicine for Christmas. You’ll make a killing:
FYI that number in US dollars is $3,048.96. What do they do? I don’t know. In all honesty I don’t think that little card says what they do, you just have to know. I mean if you’re buying traditional Chinese medicine that’s that expensive you probably know what you’re doing. However if I’m going to sink over three thousand dollars in something natural that may or may not be scientifically proven to work, then it better be something that may or may not cure cancer, AIDs, or Alzheimer’s.
Here’s a batch of fruit that looks… gross… Does anyone know of a word I can start using that isn’t the word “gross”? People are starting to notice that I apparently only have two words in my vocabulary: “weird” and “gross.”
Anyway these fruits look like crime scene photographs:
I have a lot more to go over, but I feel like now is a reasonable stopping point. This past week has a been pretty tumultuous. My dog Rocky died. He was my dog since 3rd grade (so I was about age 9 or 10). He was put to sleep on Friday the 18th because he was just doing really badly. He was sick, blind, deaf, everything really. I was going to post a picture of him, but I realized I don’t have any pictures of him on my computer. This makes me rather sad. I’m sure I lost them in the hard drive crash I had last year. Just another section of photos from my life lost in that hard drive crash.
Anyway, Christmas is in two days. I’ll try and post something next week that covers everything else I want to talk about.
