list of things I never did, ate, or experienced until I came to China

 The list will probably grow in the next two years...

- (most recent) Surgery, to remove my appendix 

- Stayed in the hospital for 3 nights 

-        Had a Chinese name

-     Lived with a host family

-     Spoke Chinese

-        Ate Pork

-        Drank cola since it was the only beverage they served cold

-        Slipped on a banana peel

-        Craved KFC and McDonalds at least twice a month

-        Drank green tea for two months straight with no sugar

-        Ate a bowl of rice every day for the past two months

-        Had no bread for two months

-        Did not watch TV for 3 months straight

-        Ate ice cream after each spicy dish of dan dan mian (Sichuan specialty noodles)

-        Brought tissue to a public toilet

-        Used a squat toilet

-        Drank boiling water in a 100 degree weather

-        Dripped in sweat just by standing outside for 2 minutes 

-        Blogged

-        Been soaking wet , twice

-        Ate duck egg

-        Tried preserved eggs

-        Taught a practical writing class for nearly 50 students

-        Played ping pong

-        Played mah jong (Chinese game, equivalent to rummikub)

-        Been on a train ride that was 21+ hours long

-        Had my own apartment

-        Hear the sound of spit on a regular basis that could cover your face if it came your way

-        Hear an obnoxious “Hello” at least 5 times a day

-        Been at a tea house for 10 hours straight

-        Get stares every day

-        Have my picture taken by 300 freshman (my cheeks began to hurt)

-        Ate bamboo

-        Saw babies with slits in their pants so they could do their business out in the street

-        Girls and boys aged 2-4 peeing in the street

-        Been so afraid of traffic

-        Went rock climbing and joined a club with only Chinese speaking members

-     Went to a Kareoke bar (KTV) as the highlight of my night, and spent 5 hours there

-        Been so talkative with strangers on the bus/train

-        Had to accompany my site mate to the hospital and helped her after she fainted in the grocery store.

-        Bargained for a price

-        Been certified and signed a contract to work in a university

-        Toasted more than 7 times with the deans of my school at a banquet.

-        Had a banquet dinner from the Government of a province to celebrate foreign teachers

Chengdu: Environment, Food & Traffic

 I’ll try to do my best in describing the imagery of where I lived with my host family.

         My host family’s apartment: The apartment is on the 5th floor (no elevator) within a gated community. When you walk out there are tight streets that cars, scooters, bikers and walkers all migrate towards each other. There are other buildings surrounding you and small sitting areas to grab food and convenient stores on the ground level of the apartments. Children will be playing with the stray cats and old folks will play Chinese checkers on the wooden stools of the food place. When you finally exit out of the gate, you arrive on the main street which is really busy. Before you actually get to the main street you have to pass a huge rectangular dirt box. There is no path way to avoid the roads that are being deconstructed for future subways, so there is mud mixed with water and dirt everywhere.

        To get anywhere you must take the bus, bike, get a scooter or walk. Most, if not all have a scooter or a bike. There are 4 lanes on the road- 2 for cars, 1 for buses and 1 for scooters. The scooters and cars are bullies of the road. They chose whichever way they want to go and when to cut the buses and the people walking. They don’t stop for you; in fact they are oblivious that you even exist. There is no principle of rules and regulations or even penalties. The road is very much like the game “traffic madness” combined with “road kill revenge”. Yes, I’m basically willing to wear a helmet just walking to the bus station.

         Breakfast here consists of hard boiled egg, some kind of water with rice in it, cooked vegetables, hot pockets with meat in it and a bun that is pretty much tasteless and sticks to the roof of your tongue. For those who do not know, food in China is far from the American Chinese food. Apparently, chicken lo-mein is not even a real dish. So far I’ve had different types of noodles (mian). Noodles in soup, noodles with beef or pork, rice, preserved eggs, duck egg, duck, dumplings, and lots of other dishes with excruciating spices! Sichuan is known for spicy food and basically putting pepper in EVERYTHING. So far I’ve been lucky not to have too much of it, but some of the other volunteers took a bite of one pepper that makes your tongue numb! The areas where you get food is cramped usually among other “whole- in -the –wall” places, in an alley-way. From the first sight, you would not even consider walking in there, but you soon learn to love it. You sit where ever there is an available seat and you literally yell out “boss”(Laoban) in Chinese to get the attention of the “waiter” , who is caring a fanny-pack with a bunch of money to take down your order. It’s baffling to all of the volunteers who are paying only 5-8 kuai, which is a dollar and some change worth of lunch. Other places that are in nice restaurants are very expensive compared to the alley way food chains we always go to. Western food is THE most expensive, which is why we are leaving that for when we really feel home sick or want to splurge.

Few thoughts

Since I’ve been gone from the states starting June 30^th, I haven’t had the urge to blog mostly because I was waiting for a grandeur moment to record and deliver for people back at home. To me it seemed like every day during training was a regular routine so I didn’t bother sharing what happened. From talking to other volunteers, maybe the grandeur moment for family and friends isn’t something new that happens, but simply being involved in the process of traveling, living and experiencing China every day in different ways. So here I am writing after being in China for three months.

To be perfectly honest, Chengdu, Sichuan didn’t feel like I was going to be a volunteer. Back at home everyone asked, how did I like china so far. Of course I loved it, because it was new and exciting and there was so much to observe. However, I knew where I would be after training was going to be different, therefore, I didn’t want to generalize all of China based on one location. Everyone has this image of the Peace Corps experience of you living in a mud hut, carrying an empty bucket of water to the nearby river, and teach to children in a rugged 4-walled building (if you are lucky). Most people’s reaction to the Peace Corps being in China was, “Why?” I had the same reaction when I arrived to Chengdu. Chengdu is one of the common places for tourist scenes and for foreigners to study and live there. There are also a bunch of foreigners that own a bar and make a living, perfectly content with their lives in Chengdu. The level of education is solid, there are many bars and clubs, huge malls with designer clothes and apartment complexes for wealthy families. Mixed into all that is the old streets and apartments that have been there for decades-the old and new generation. If you turned to a different street corner it would feel and look like China, characters on every sign and stores that were aligned next to each other, spanning nearly 20 miles, in a small 10 by 10 space. Other times it looked like any other street in the world with busy people rushing to get to work or to school.   

Training began as soon as we arrived July 1^st. 74 of us were taken to our training site in Chengdu, Sichuan- the southwest part of China. We were divided into 4 groups and I remained in Sichuan University prior to being relocated to our permanent sites.  We attended classes discussing the health and security issues, rules and regulations, TEFL training, language classes, different aspects of our service, and model school. My site manager’s name is Xiao Ping. If you sound it out it sounds like “Shopping”. He told us that was the reason why his wife loved him. We loved him because he had an amazing attitude and a surprising sense of humor. Our language teachers were the most incredibly patient people I have ever met. We would need to pronounce every word at least 10 times (individually) until we at the slightest sounded like we were saying the right tone or the right word. Safe to say, thanks to them I learned basic Chinese survival skills. I can still however, mess up saying “peach” or “condom” based on the difference in the tone.  During training, I met people who become great friends. We’ve created inside jokes, had quotes held against each other, played ping pong, random nights of walking around the neighborhood, exploring, and helped each other through some confusing times from “What the hell am I really doing here?” to “How do you say this in Chinese?” It was definitely bitter sweet when we received our site placements and knowing that some of us were 30+ hours away from each other.

Living with an Asian family

The day came for meeting our host families, July 6th. It was a Friday and we had all morning and lunch to spend with the other volunteers before we all left. We went back to our hotel rooms to bring down our luggage, when I came down stairs I glanced to my left and saw my name on a blue  piece of paper with my name and mini description of who I was. When I took mine out, they caught the paper and ran towards me. The mom locked arms with me and dragged me to my luggage to help me carry it out. The dad carried a camera that would not leave his sight, literally, held it up until we arrived home and even then he was clicking away. I was also greeted by their friend and his 10 year old  son,  who was the only one who knew English. We went to a little whole-in-the-wall place to have lunch. Much of what was talked about is kinda blurred but I remember just smiling a lot and being slightly overwhelmed.

When I spent the first night there, I didn’t think it was too far from how I grew up and I noticed a lot of similar characteristics. For example, we all take showers at night, the mother urges me to dry my hair  after the shower so that I won’t get sick, feeds me until I look like I’m at least 2 months pregnant and showers me with affection. They were really the sweetest family who had me there for the right intentions and not just having their daughter practice English. Most host parents would like us to call them “mama” and “baba”, however mine insisted on calling them “aunt” and “uncle”. Somehow, I avoided using their real names and calling them by their preferred titles. 

A typical day with the host family and training went like this: “Yi Lin, get up”, my aunt’s voice would greet me at 6:30am through a small cracked space between the door. Second came breakfast. I would usually get a piece of "cake"(which is their version of wonder bread) and green tea or a glass of milk. Sometimes, I would eat stale cereal or this pyramid looking type of dessert with sweet red beans. My aunt would always stare at me with fascination that a white person could actually, drum roles please…. EAT! She would then ask me, “How do you feel?” – this is chinglish, meaning “do you like it?” An umbrella, a bus pass and a bottle of water would be thrown into my bag and a wave of goodbye sent me to the university for a full day of training. I would get back around 5:30 and have dinner at 6:30. Dinner was my favorite part.

One thing I cannot deny is that my host mother was an amazing cook! Chinese food is not easy to make, especially trying to add all those spices and cooking in the small kitchen with the bear necessities. We would have about 3 to 4 plates in the middle of the table. Chinese style eating is communal, which means “your germs are my germs”.  You use your own chop sticks to pick at the dishes, and you just keep going back and forth. Every meal is served with a small bowl of rice (mifan wan). I have had 60+ days of eating rice for each dinner meal.

My host sister was the one who could speak English. When we were sitting around the dinner table she would ask me questions about America and the American culture. The questions and comments often made me giggle because they were naive and mostly because they thought it was so much better in America, or that everything was free. Here are a few questions I was asked:1. All Americans have perfect teeth, right? 2. Going to the Doctor is free , right? 3. Do you have any religious beliefs? 4. Why do people have religious beliefs? 5.Not a lot of Americans have eye glasses. 6. They all like coke and eat fast food everyday.

What they know about Americans is just from the media and what they heard of from the grape vine. It was always stressed during training to be a good representative of American culture by dressing professional, trying to integrate and have a mutual understanding of eachothers' culture. In a way, no one wants to be responsible for all of that as a sole individual to represent ALL of  America, but when asked questions about America and you hear statements that couldn't be farther than the truth, you bounce up at the first opportunity to say it how it is, and so I did. Just as they were amazed by my routines, traditions and culture, I was amazed with theirs.

My host dad was obsessed with tea. I mean he had huge amounts of it stored beneath the coffee table with every type imaginable. Offering tea is symbolic to respect of the household and host of the family. The tea set was beautiful. It contained miniature cups, brushes and rocks. I asked why he would cover the rocks with tea and than brush it, so that the tea would spread all through out the rock and cleanse it. He said that "tea is a rock's best friend". Among other things I learned while living there was calligraphy. He would always show me pictures he took since he loved photography and one of them was of calligraphy. Right then and there he decided to show me how to do it. I spent most of the morning practicing words he wrote down, including my own name in Chinese while my host sister was inspecting errors and my host mother leaning over and smiling.. It was my favorite moment with my host family. My experience with my host family was definitely one that will remain with me as one with great significance to my future stay in China. If all families are like this, sign me up again for two months!