Ladies and gentlemen we have a unicorn

Or so I was called by a few foreigners I met. I finally met a group of foreigners in Qinhunagdao at my very first party in China and one called me a unicorn. His girl friend finally explained that it's a word they use for young white blond haired girls like me. She explained the comment to me when I was complaining about how everybody in Qinhuangdao stares at me and makes a big deal over my looks. The way she put it was. "If you saw a unicorn would you ever be the same?" I guess this is a fair comparison, it's just strange to think of your self as a unicorn. Of course to me I'm really not that special   but in general I don't see being blond as a big deal because it's pretty common in America. But of course here it's very different from the typical sea of black heads.

I guess when I thought about coming to China I was thinking about how global our world is. I was thinking about how I hate how American culture has overrun other smaller and local cultures in the world. I felt that I wouldn't be that interesting because they saw plenty of white people in magazines, on ads, on TV, and in the movies. But I seriously underestimated China's ability to keep their own unique culture in a global world. Sure in places like Shanghai you might as well be in a city like New York or London; they're not very Chinese. But as I keep saying, Qinhuangdao is a small town. There are very conservative people here and also most people don't make much money. Not only is Americana not as popular in China as I would have assumed, it's in someways untouchable to the people here. Picture a hick from a small farm town in America (like most of New Hampshire), that's where I'm living. My town in New Hampshire has a hell of a lot more culture than this place does. These people are sheltered. To them I am a unicorn. 

I guess I just have to take it as a compliment... But it's hard to when you can't go out with out every person in the bar trying to talk to you, when you can't walk down the street with out being stared at, when you can't sit down and eat without ending up giving somebody the reader's digest version of your life, and when you can't go to the grocery store without being asked your advice on a product. I do know that if I ever see a unicorn I'll just leave it alone; the poor thing deserves it.

Want to learn more about Qinhuangdao? Checkout this website my friends made. (There are even some pictures of me on there!) http://qhdconnect.spruz.com/

Beijing Beijing

All the tour-books warn against visiting China - especially the big cities - on national holidays, but unfortunately when you are employed in China you get the same holidays as the Chinese people do. I have to say, I don't agree with the tour books. Maybe it's just because I'd been living in China for a month before my one week vacation in Beijing during the worst time to visit Beijing, but I didn't think it was bad. Sure, there were a lot of people, and even if you could get a taxi it just stood still almost the whole time you were in it, and yeah they blocked off a lot of major streets because of the National day festivities... and of course there was the fact that they shut down random metro stations. But other than that, it was pretty normal. I ended up staying in a hotel out of the main city. At the time I booked it I was thinking about how I wished it was closer to everything, but once I got there, I was glad it wasn't! In the outskirts of the city life went on like normal, and taxis didn't cost a fortune because the highways around the city weren't packed. 

If there's one thing I think you should experience when you go to China it's being stuck in a big crowd of Chinese people! It's really annoying, but also funny (as long as you don't have to be anywhere!) My last blog post I talked about how Chinese people can't be orderly to save their lives, well when there are more of them it's even worse. I got to the point where I would just weave through groups of people and run around or through them just because their slow meandering in a general direction was so frustrating. It was like no one actually had to be anywhere they were just letting the crowd push them around. 

I'm convinced that Chinese people just go places to say they've been there. They show up, buy the ticket, then take pictures in front of random stuff and that's it. There's no gasps of wonder or even much reading of information. They're all about the picture taking, especially when it involves them standing in front of stuff. That way they can prove they were there!  Another thing they like taking pictures of? White people! Honestly I didn't get asked to take my picture with nearly as many people as I thought I would, but it still happened. It was also very common to get pictures taken of me. There was an especially memorable guy who I caught taking a picture of me and I started laughing at him, he sheepishly walked away. As he walked away -with his girlfriend- I saw him show her the picture then promptly get smacked. People not only think it's okay to take a picture of me (and my friends) without asking, they will visibly get angry if you get in the way of them taking the picture. I was walking around with two friends who are black, that was the photo op of the year. A blond and black people?! It was like Christmas in china. I would get annoyed and cover my face with my hand and people would get pissed at me. Oh, I'm so sorry I got in the way of you taking a picture of ME! 

It was so crowded that the first time I went to the forbidden city I wasn't even able to get tickets, the ticket windows closed while I was in line. Wangfujing street, one of the most famous streets in Beijing was very crowded. Walking down the street reminded my of the time I tried to walk through time square a few days before new years. I have to admit though, I didn't get as claustrophobic in Beijing because the people are so short you can look over hem and forget you're in a big crowd. This is dangerous, it can lead to collision with the young and elderly (who are the same size). I think the coolest part was a huge line of "Chuar" stations set up all down a transecting road. There had to be hundreds! Chuar is Chinese Kebab, but don't picture a kebab shop you'd find in Europe or even real Kebab. It's just meet and veggies on sticks all set up and then you pick what you want and how many and they throw it on a grill and put spices on it and give it to you. Chuar can be foudn everywhere (well  all over the north at least). It's really delicious too! Especially if you find a place that does "Qiezi" or "Doufu" (eggplant and tofu). Though I have delved into the "Yang rou" (lamb) and "cong" (scallions) and they're also pretty good. There were just people and sticks everywhere! It was an amazing sight to see. 

Another food related high light of the week was visiting a famous Hot Pot place in Beijing, it's a chain and there was a restaurant right near the hotel I stayed in. Hot Pot is a new love of mine since coming to China. You sit at a table that has a huge pit in it with a burner at the bottom. The burner gets lit and a big vat or two (this restaurant had two) get put in the pit. The vats look like sinks, they're really big and filled with broth. At the restaurant in Beijing their were two types of broth, one was spicy (really spicy) and the other was milky. In China "La" or spicy doesn't just mean hot spicy, it means that there is a lot of spices in the dish or a lot of flavor. (Note for French speakers: it's the very same meaning as the French épicé). So the spicy side had not only spicy peppers but also a lot of ginger, I never knew ginger could hurt so much! 

So, you get a sheet of paper full of all the ingredients you can add (a lot like a chuar place, though at a chuar place you tell them verbally) and check them off. At this restaurant you could get a full or a half portion of each thing, which was really nice. There are a bunch of meats, fish, veggies, mushrooms, noodles and types of tofu. In China there are a TON of types of tofu, even if you don't think you like tofu you'll find a type you like here. There are also a lot of different types of mushrooms- I love most of them and a lot of styles of noodles. The noodles are different shapes and also made of different things. This restaurant had soba noodles which I have an affinity for after falling in love with the food at a Korean/ Japanese restaurant near my house. 

So you order all you want then they bring it too you on plates- raw- even the meet (can you say health food violation?). You get to put the stuff in the water as you'd like. I like putting it all right in so they turn off the burner quickly, because it's so hot when it's on! After observing the chinese people I found out that they place things in the water and eat them much slower. Also, there's a bar with seasonings, you take a bowl up and fill it with sauces and other seasonings and spices. I really like the peanut sauces. It's really delicious! You just pull the stuff out of the water and slather it in sauce and eat. I can't believe we don't have it in America! 

Being in Beijing is really nice because it's such an international city. You can get any type of food you want! I've even tried new types of food I'd never tried before coming to China. I got to go to a German restaurant, they're popular in Beijing, there are a few. There are also a lot of areas you can go and meet a lot of foreigners in. This is something that is seriously lacking in my city. In Qinhuangdao I have met a total of four foreigners and two of them work at my school. Getting to speak English with native speakers was wonderful. Though when I had lunch with a bunch of native speakers I kept forgetting the English food vocabulary, which led to them thinking my Chinese was much better than it is and also to them thinking I'd been in China much longer than I had been. I ended up teaching a lot of chinese during my trip to fellow Ciee-ers, I guess living in the Chinese-boonies has its pluses!

Want to learn more about Qinhuangdao? Checkout this website my friends made. (There are even some pictures of me on there!) http://qhdconnect.spruz.com/

Oh China...

Between the popularity of crouch-less-paints for children, mini-skirts for day time use, and spitting just about anywhere I can't help but to think the country with the longest and richest history in (possibly) the whole world might have gone astray... a lot!

I'm not trying to say that there's anything wrong with China's culture I just don't understand how children urinating in public buildings, people ignoring the fact that they affect any one's life but their own, and half dilapidated buildings is a culture.

China's a very strange place, I don't think I could begin to describe just how bizar it is, and no one would understand they depth of the oddity with just a two weak vacation here. But believe me, it's bizar. I've been a lot of places in my life. I'm no Carmen Sandiego or anything - I'm just saying I haven't spent my whole life in rural New England either. I've seen enough strange stuff to not get shocked easily but China often makes me go "What the fuck?" After being here a month and a half I still get the erge to text people when I see strange stuff happening.

So children really do wear crouch-less pants, mostly without diapers. I've only ever seen one kid wearing a diaper on under crouch-less pants. A lot of the little boys have at least a hole big enough for their penis to fit through. The kids are prompted by their parents to pee everywhere. And not just every once and a while, I mean sure - sometimes a parent in America is desperate and they lead their kid over to a tree and try to sneakily get them to pee. But in China it's everywhere. I have seen a kid being held over a trash-can in a mall to pee and a mom just pulling out a little boy's penis at a bus stop (facing the street), that's just normal here.

The Chinese people are convinced anything can give you diarrea, I don't really know why - but they are. They're also convinced that the sure to any sickness is just to drink hot water. No - not tea - hot water. That zhou (pretty much rice and water but they translate it as "porridge") should be eaten every morning and that ice is the devil. I mean, I'm sure this comes more from the fact that I live in an area that is essentially a small town (of roughly 3 million people). Also this comes more form older people than young.

Women's clothing is almost a 50/50 split between dowdy/childish and consisting of way too much of the color pink and prostitute. I guess it's not fair to judge what is and is not appropriate women's wear in another country. But when the skirt you are wearing out in the day to McDonald's hits well above the seam of your panty hoes, I don't know what else to compare you to but a prostitute. The women here all cover their chests - there is neither a scoop or a v neck in site. Women's footwear is also about a 50/50 split between really ugly sneakers and just as ugly 5 inch platform stilettos. Needless to say, I feel that Chinese women are confused about how they want to be perceived.

The spitting! It is so gross. Blowing your nose is strange here (I've only seen one person do it other than a white person) but hocking a loogie is totally cool. I'm fairly certain I've written about this before, but still - EW! I was told by another foreign teacher that kids will just go to the trash can to spit up mucus in the middle of class, gross. I don't understand how spitting out one's mucus is superior to blowing into a tissue...

Chinese people do not understand lines. They can not form one and they can not follow one. They also can not walk in a straight line, and when they do manage to it's when they are taking up an entire street or just close enough to the people next to them that it is impossible to get by them and they are traveling slower than a snail and just looking around. I'm convinced that Chinese people dont walk, they meander. I would die if I saw a Chinese person walking at a sensible pace, just die. When they're late they run (or if their women teeter around on their tiny little feet and high heels). Chinese people as a whole have very little perceived respect for the people around them or ingeneral for anyone who's not themselves. Before coming here I always thought that China would be a community based country, but I don't feel that way any more. People are out for themselves and don't seem to have a care in the world about anyone around them.

Want to learn more about Qinhuangdao? Checkout this website my friends made. (There are even some pictures of me on there!) http://qhdconnect.spruz.com/