When all else fails, eat

Between the cold, the lack of electricity, studying for finals, and a big nationwide English test coming up, my sophomores have been pretty stressed lately. They have apparently turned to food to calm their nerves, a tactic I can relate to as I'm pretty sure I used to gain ten pounds every reading week at NU. They have been kind enough to include me in their stress-eating. While I'm a bit sick of Chinese food since my town is quite lacking in variety, I always eat better when I go out with them. (But seriously, I would kill for a Portillo's hamburger right now. Or Lou Malnati's. Or even just a bowl of cereal.)

First stop this week, hot pot! Except this time my friend Sarah and I went to a place where you get to choose your own sticks with food on them from a giant refrigerator. You then put the sticks in the hot pot and pay by the stick. With each stick costing about 15 cents, I went all out.

Next up, cooking lessons round 2! My favorite girls came over to cook for me again, and were disappointed to hear I had not used the kitchen since last time we had done this. On the menu was fried bok choy, spicy pork with green peppers, dumpling soup, and scrambled eggs with tomatoes. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made an appearance at dessert.

Finally, Justin, his girlfriend, and a few students who come to our weekly English corner went out for a family style meal of sweet and sour pork, duck, braised eggplant, and fried tofu. Ironically, the sweet and sour pork dish is the only food I have found here that remotely resembles American-Chinese food.

So well fed and ready to work, this week starts my sophomore finals. I'm giving them a listening and speaking test on top of their regularly scheduled classes, so as a break we'll just be watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Elf all week. I really doubt I'll be sick of Elf after watching it three times.

I will be sad to see my sophomore classes go. They are by far my most enthusiastic and fun students. I have really enjoyed teaching them and getting to know them. Most of them have become friends rather than students. Since my freshmen started so late thanks to their mandatory military training, I still have another couple of weeks of lessons with them.

But a month from today... Chicago!

10 Things I've Learned Through Teaching

1. Teaching allows you to develop great upper body strength. Erasing an entire whiteboard three times a day is hard work.

2. You can see everything from the front of the classroom. There is no way that student sneakily texting in the back goes unnoticed. This is a warning to all my friends still in school.

3. Putting your worksheet up to block your face while you're talking on your cell phone does nothing to hide the fact that you're talking on your cell phone. That's like the college equivalent of putting your hands over your eyes and saying, "You can't see me."

4. If you correct a student 98 times about the difference between "he" and "she", they are probably still going to get it wrong the 99th time.

5. When the student finally gets it right the 100th time, your week is made.

6. Teachers look forward to movie days even more than students do.

7. Even the best kids will try and find ways out of doing work.

8. In a class of 40+ kids you will quickly learn the names of the really good students and the troublemakers. Everyone else just kind of blends in.

9. You will do things in your classroom you would never imagine doing in public. Like singing.

10. Do not agree to take a picture with one student unless you are prepared to take pictures with all forty students. It's worse than prom.

One of my freshmen classes. It was very difficult to get them to stand still for this. Afterwards they spent 10 minutes pointing their camera phones at me.

(Not a) Winter Wonderland

Hechuan is cold in the winter. Not Chicago cold, mind you. It has yet to drop below freezing and there is never any snow. What makes it cold is that south of the Yangtze River most buildings do not have central heating. In small towns like mine, there is no heating at all. That means you run the risk of getting frostbite while writing on the whiteboard in class and all of my students dress as if they're gearing up for the Snowpocalypse.

I am luckier than most because I have a tiny space heater that was stipulated as a requirement in my contract. It is unfortunately only sufficient to heat either my upper or my lower body, never both at the same time.

But I will never take that tiny space heater for granted again. Thursday morning I woke up to find that the power was cut. It came on just long enough to have night class Thursday night, and then went out again until about an hour ago. This is how I have spent the past two days:

Chicago, I promise I will never complain about your winters again.

Table manners

On Thursday one of my students was putting on an extracurricular presentation about American table manners, and she asked me to be a guest speaker. I was given literally an hours notice, so I figured since I have (supposedly) been practicing proper American table manners for approximately 22 years now I could just wing it.

Her initial presentation was in Chinese, but fortunately one of my other students showed up and sat in the back translating for me. It was a great presentation as far as I could tell, except for a few tiny factual errors. First, she described the "American fourth course" (which comes right after the "American meat course") as the vegetable dish. Okay, I thought, maybe she is just referring to the side of green beans or broccoli that usually comes with chicken or steak. But then she showed a montage of various types of salad, including one of those edible fruit arrangements. This made me giggle a little. At another point she pointed to a really beautiful picture of a steak, and then called it fish. I’m going to have a hard time forgiving her for that one. Oh, and for some reason pretty much every photo of food she showed was of sushi. So I guess this lesson was more of the Japanese-American table manner variety.

To be fair, my presentation was certainly not perfect either. I may have accidentally said the fork goes on the right and the knife goes on the left, which was in direct contrast to what they had just been shown on the PowerPoint. I guess Home Economics in 7th grade really didn’t teach me anything. I talked about tipping, ordering at a restaurant, being a guest in someone’s home, not putting your elbows on the table, whether the boy should pay on a date… I was pretty much all over the place. But I redeemed myself at the end when I pulled a real live knife and fork out of my bag. It was like I had pulled out candy. Everyone wanted to have a go pretending to cut food. They went at it so enthusiastically it was a miracle a few fingers weren’t chopped off. Some even valiantly sacrificed parts of their notebook so their friends could actually cut something up. This didn't go so well, seeing as how it was just a butter knife.

Although I really shouldn’t poke fun at their fervor for cutlery; I’m the girl who is bringing home chopsticks for everyone as souvenirs…

LiT Pt. 5

Thanksgiving with Chinese Characteristics

Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful. Justin and I were going to host a big Thanksgiving meal, but we realized we didn't have the resources (the only traditional food we knew we could find was potatoes) or the time (we both had a full teaching day). So my Thanksgiving passed with classes where we watched a Thanksgiving episode of Friends and discussed the PG-rated history of the Pilgrims and Indians. My dinner included a grilled cheese sandwich with some of the precious cheese I brought back from Chengdu, and by the end of the day when my Thanksgiving was over and the one in the US was just starting, I was feeling a little sad. Until I got a call from one of my freshmen.

I am thankful for my students. A few of my freshmen were calling to see if they could bring over Thanksgiving presents cause they realized I must be missing home. They bought me sugar cubes, gum, lollipops, and a traditional Chinese incense holder that is supposed to bring good health. Not quite the same as turkey and stuffing, but who doesn't love sugar candy? Their thoughtfulness and gratitude remind me that I am lucky to have this opportunity.

my Thanksgiving gifts

That being said, this weekend was the first time I felt really homesick. It was hard being away from my family knowing that they were having our annual nerf-gun contest and choosing between fifty different desserts on my grandma's special "Dessert Table" without me. (Although they did make me feel included by Skyping me in.) It gave me a taste of how hard missing Christmas is going to be.

Miss and love you all!

But I want to say how thankful I am for friends and family back home (and abroad) who have been so supportive during my time here. It definitely hasn't been easy, but it would have been impossible without all the Skype sessions, email updates, and care packages. Thank you! I can't wait to see everyone over winter break.

Oh, that reminds me... I'm coming home for winter break! See everyone in January!

Chengdu in photos

Last weekend I got out of Hechuan for the first time in over a month. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province and only about two hours by train from where I am. It is especially well-known for having the largest Giant Panda Research Base and Breeding Center in the world. Close proximity + pandas = top of my travel list.

For anyone finding themselves in Chengdu, I highly recommend the Mix Lazybones Hostel. It is one of the nicest, cleanest hostels I’ve stayed at, and I’ve stayed in hostels all over Europe. They had a comfy lounge to meet travelers, free Wifi, a bunch of group tour options, and a kitchen that served Western food. (French toast! Pizza! Milkshakes!) I was in heaven.

As is usual whenever I stay at hostels, I also met some great people. After an easy train ride, I did some quick sight-seeing on my own before coming back for a Dumpling Party hosted by my hostel. I love the backpacking community; something about traveling cheaply brings out the friendliest, most open-minded people around. I latched on to some Canadians who had come down from studying in Beijing, but also met up with Germans, Dutch, British, Irish, and of course a few other Americans. It was great to meet new friends to make traveling solo more enjoyable.

The Chongqing-Chengdu bullet train. This little boy shared an orange with me.

Wenshu monastery

the hostel's dumpling making party

The next morning a group of us went to see the pandas. This was by far the highlight of the trip.

I'll let the panda photos speak for themselves:

After the pandas, the Canadians and I went out for traditional Hot Pot. As you know, I am now a Hot Pot expert. There were no English menus and no one spoke English, so we ended up just walking around from table-to-table pointing at other peoples food to show what we wanted. The whole restaurant got a kick out of this and dinner was delicious.

Hot Pot!

On Sunday, a group of eight of us (two Canadians, two Germans, and four Americans) hired a car to drive to the LeShan Buddha. I hadn't been surrounded by so many Westerners since orientation three months ago! It was great to be able to speak at full speed again without worrying if I was using words that were too big.

The LeShan Buddha is the largest stone Buddha in the world and about a two-hour drive from Chengdu. Anyone who has driven in China knows that those two hours are a harrowing mix of swerving in and out of "lanes", narrowly missing being hit by buses, and lots and lots of honking. We luckily arrived in one piece and had a great time exploring. Although as usual a lot of people seemed more interested in us than the Buddha. When else are they going to get eight foreigners in their picture at once!

They rate their toilets in China. This one was not Three Stars, as advertised.

One of the many groups who wanted a picture with us

The Hostel Group! Thanks for a great weekend.

The LeShan trip took all day, so in preparation for an early train the next morning, that night I settled in to watch the hostel's screening of Into the Wild and enjoyed one last milkshake and a hamburger. Overall, it was a great weekend with delicious food and good company.