Gaelic Football in China

(It was windy, I couldn't get a good photo. Shut up.)

So it completely slipped my mind on Wednesday that I have photos of China that are appropro for Paddy's Day. Namely, the annual All-China Gaelic Games. So here's a belated Irish in China post.

Go Mikey Go! (Game against Shanghai; Mikey's the one who started the Dalian Wolfhounds)

There's a surprisingly large Irish expatriate population in China, and they've of course brought their national sport, Gaelic football, to the Chinese, English, Americans, Australians, and whatever other nationalities will stand for the rough sport. I played keeper in the Games in Beijing '08 and Shanghai '09, both for the Shenzhen Ladies (though I trained with the Dalian team, we didn't have enough for a full girls' team.) I famously fractured my foot in '08 post-games and my appearance in '09 was completely guilt-tripped by my captain, but the Games were ridiculously fun nonetheless (despite my foot wanting to destroy me for making it suffer through an entire football competition).

Also, for anyone who knows me personally, Gaelic football was basically where my obsession fondness for the Irish took root.

Dalian Wolfhounds men's team, Beijing 2008 (check out the air pollution! healthy sporting conditions to be sure!)

Photo of the Day: Ball Skills

Some Aston English teachers got together for a friendly expats vs. locals football (soccer) game. This was taken at halftime. I forget who won, but the expats all walked over to Noah's bar aftewards for mid-day drinks; was a good day. Taken at Olympic Square, which is also the pitch we used for Gaelic football practices.

Photo of the Day: Student Lunches

[The girl in the blue is the one I'm currently visiting in South Carolina for Spring Break.]

Eating lunch with my classmates (the two girls and guy in the foreground), all of them American. Class ended at 12 every day and there was an endless amount of choices for food around the Dongcai campus. They were all incredibly cheap too; usually costing 5 rmb for a bowl of noodles (~75 cents) or 7-10 rmb per person to share dishes 'family-style' as we're doing above.

New Year's and reflections upon leaving Dalian

So after my last post, I had a couple days of free time to start packing. Which I did a minimal amount of before Sigma came to visit from Taiyuan. I finally had a chance to repay her hospitality when I'd visited in April; she'd also learned from my experience not to take the bus, but just to fly instead.

She arrived on the 30th, and we went to the Post Office to ship off about half of my clothes, and the tailors so I could get my buttons resewn on my jacket. While there, she decided to turn into a mitten into a case for her iPhone by buying a zipper and paying a lady 5 rmb to sew it in. I could hear the lady in Chinese saying to her friends, "She's a laowai [foreigner] so I'm going to charge her more." Well, 5 rmb is still only ~75 cents to us!

On New Year's we went to my friend Wayne's restaurant Brooklyn, where she met all my friends. I also used Sigma's visit and the New Year's partying as my one last hurrah as well- while showing Sigma around and while everyone was out for the night, I had a chance to say my goodbyes to all my favorite places and people in Dalian.

Just like Christmas, New Year's wasn't quite how I'd expected it to go. I had these grand plans to be at the pier, or the seaside, and watch fireworks...Instead I was at the intersection of Huanghe Lu and Bulao Jie, trying to get a glimpse of the fireworks coming from Renmin (People's) Square between all the high-rises. Still, I was very excited about the coming of 2009, and a new me; a clean slate and fresh start and every other New Year's cliché.

I took it easy but nevertheless Sigma rested most of New Year's so I packed a bit more, grabbed some Korean takeout, and Asheena came over to keep me company. Sig left the day after back for Taiyuan, and I went for one last night out.

All year I'd pictured a giant "leaving do" when it was finally my turn to host one. Every six months when contracts are up, they're taking place every two or three days; I must've gone to maybe fifteen after my first term in China (even had a 'mini' leaving party for when I headed back to the US and Shanghai for the summer).

However, after the last three weeks I'd had in Dalian, I was ready to make a quiet exit and just get out. Most of my closest friends had already left anyway, so I had hotpot with Asheena, Carol, and Matt- the three staples of my time there; they'd been there when I had arrived and would still be there for a good few months after I left. Carol and Ash especially meant a lot to me; we were like the Dalian and/or jaded version of the Three Musketeers. After hotpot we went to this bar I'd always wanted to check out- Transformers Bar, which was awesome- and just chatted until about 11. Then I went home, packed some more, went to sleep on the couch, and that was my last Saturday in Dalian.

The next morning, I woke up fairly early to finish packing- by the time I finished, my suitcases looked like they were pregnant they were so full, and I don't even want to remember how heavy my carry-ons were. Ash came over to help bring all my belongings down from the fifth floor, and I caught a cab to the airport on my own. Never said goodbye to my roommates, didn't say goodbye to a lot of the people I'd met over the months (though many of them were still nursing New Year's hangovers as well), and I called only two people on my way to the airport.

So it was a bit surreal, the way I left things with Dalian. It still feels that way, a bit. Maybe it's because I left once over the summer with the knowledge I'd come back, that this time because I was doing the same routine of packing and going to the airport, it didn't hit me that I wasn't coming back. Maybe because I'm still bitter about the last three weeks, I don't even care that I'm not going back. Because a city like Dalian takes on a life and personality by whoever inhabits it currently; it's not like Beijing or Shanghai or Hong Kong, with its constants no matter who comes and goes.

It wasn't until a week later, when I finally arrived at my house in York, that it finally started to sink in that I've left Dalian and my entire way of life for a year behind. It still hasn't fully struck me yet though, and honestly I don't think it ever will. Every expat agrees: living in China is like living in a bubble, a different reality. After re-entry, it's so easy to think, That year went by incredibly fast. Did all that even really happen? Or did I just Rip Van Winkle the entire last year? And most days I wake up and I'm still not sure.

Christmas week and the Harbin Ice Festival

It's hard feeling Christmasy in China. There aren't many decorations, and there certainly aren't Christmas carols. It's nice getting a break from the blatant commercialism but as Christmas came nearer it became a little sad for the expats here.

On Sunday I went to a house church. I'll write about that in detail when I'm back in the States.

On Tuesday I spent the whole day in Harbin. They have an Ice Festival every year, as well as a park that has giant snow sculptures. FK and I took the overnight train up and arrived at 6 am; we bought a map and got our bearings and first headed out for the snow park.

The park was across the Songhua River at Sun Island Park; by the time we arrived we were actually so cold we had to take a break in a McDonald's (never were we ever so happy to see the Golden Arches!). The river had frozen over completely, and there were horses and carriages as well as ice skating there.

We took the cable car over- it was 30 rmb for me, but 50 rmb for 'Foreign Visitors'...Fran wasn't terribly happy about that. The Snow Park seemed to have some Finnish bath theme, and it was only about half finished, but the giant centerpiece was completed and highly impressive.

The sculptures were still in progress while we were there- they made a giant box of wood planks, shoveled snow into it, then took down the wood which created a giant rectangle of snow to carve- but that made it cool without it being overwhelming. Plus, there were very few tourists around.

Then we went back over the river on one of the horse-drawn carriages, and slipped around on the ice for some fun. We thawed during lunch, meaning we spent about 15 minutes eating and 45 minutes chatting. We decided to head to the Japanese Germ Warfare Base of Unit 731, which is where the Japanese carried out gruesome medical experiments in WWII. We found a shady shared taxi there, since it was 20 km south of the city, and when we arrived we discovered Lonely Planet had their times wrong! The place closed at 3 and we arrived at 3:30! We were so disappointed, but had no choice but to take a bus back into the city. 

45 minutes later, we were back at the train station in the city center and it was completely dark outside. We decided to walk all the way to the Ice Park, since we'd passed it on the way to the River. On the way, we also went to the Church of St. Sophia, a gorgeous Russian church. Fran's picture doesn't really do it justice but I have yet to upload mine.

We finally arrived at the Ice Park; we could see the lights on from a couple blocks away.  This gave us hope because the Festival officially opens Jan 5, and the reason no one else wanted to come with us was because they were worried it wouldn't be open yet. Well IT WAS! It had actually opened the day before, on the 22nd. And, on top of that, it was a Disney theme this year!

I felt like such a child again; apparently I just had a look of "sheer delight and joy" for the longest time. There were even fireworks a few minutes after we walked into the park! I have pictures of that too, on my card....

We spent a couple hours there, going down the ice slides and taking funny photos and running around the park. I can honestly say there is only one experience in China that topped this, and it just barely wins- when I cruised through the Three Gorges. I had an absolutely fantastic, spectacular, amazing time; even despite the obvious parts of the park that were not ready yet (like the food shops and the random blocks of ice sitting around waiting to be carved up). In fact, we liked it better because again, there were very few visitors. Our pictures look so deadly because there weren't loads of people in them!  Aladdin's palace

 the giant ice castle (the ice slide wasn't ready yet- but yes, those are escalators and elevators!)

Finally we walked down the main cobblestone pedestrian street searching for a Russian restaurant. We found one after about an hour, and even though it wasn't that good, our legs were so tired from all the trekking of the day that it was wonderful just to sit. 

We took the overnight train back, and while the first night we played cards until lights out, that night we climbed straight into bed and fell asleep until we pulled into the Dalian station, at 7:30 am Christmas Eve.

That night Leanna came over, and we went to Tesco and bought a load of snacks and sweets and the tiniest bit of substantial food for dinner. Tropicana made this new fruit juice blend of pomegranates and peaches and whatnot and since we couldn't find cranberry juice, we settled on that instead. We splurged 16 rmb (~2 USD) on a cheese wheel and bought a baguette, then grabbed Korean takeout at the bottom of my development. We came home with our load and ate while watching the Santa Clause- the only Christmas movie I watched all season :( 

I met everyone else out at the clubs close to midnight- I decided not to drink though and let me tell you, watching everyone else be out off their face while techno is playing in a crowded club and you're bone dry sober...after a while, it actually gets tedious.

Christmas day I went for a massage with Carol- half an hour for 30 rmb (~4 USD) and it was amazing. The masseuse I had was a young guy, and he was really nice to me too, really interested yet not nosy about me being Chinese American. Then I watched a bit of The Godfather II and had Christmas dinner at 6. 

I had to choose between 160 rmb buffet at I-55, one of the first Western restaurants in Dalian, or a 200 rmb buffet at the Swissotel. I chose the former because certain people I thought would make me feel awkward were at the latter...but I regret my decision now. Though honestly, I think either one I went to would've made me feel awkward and out of place and wishing I was at the other, but at least at Swissotel the food would have compensated for it. Then everyone came over to my place afterwards (keeping in mind I only knew four of them, the rest I'd just met that night) and we watched Definitely Maybe until midnight.

So Christmas and the entire holiday season really had not gone at all like I'd planned it. The 26th is really hard too because it's the one year anniversary of when my grandmother died and I felt really alone without my family or any friends around...everyone was too busy working to come over. If there's any bright side at all to this month, it's that Harbin was absolutely magical and that I am now definitely ready to come home.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, Chinese style, involved all the expats getting together at the Swissotel for the all-you-can-eat 180 rmb Thanksgiving Buffet (26 USD). It was expensive, yes, but absolutely tasty. Tom turkeys, lamb chops, giant hams, cheese, breads, fresh seafood, authentic sushi, dessert table, chocolate fountain...the only thing missing was pumpkin pie. On top of it all, I had nearly all my friends with me. Though mostly American this term, we of course brought the Irish, Brits, South Africans, etc. They loved it- though, who wouldn't love all that food?
It was a bit difficult to maneuver at first because I fractured a bone in my foot three weeks ago playing gaelic football and have been on crutches ever since. However, everyone helped me get food and because of the crutching about, I never got too full and kept eating plate after plate. After a while, people would leave the table when I sat down with more food because they couldn't stand the sight of more Thanksgiving dinner.

Afterwards, we decided to do the really American thing and go bowling at the 24 hour, three floors underground bowling alley. Obviously since I can't bowl on one foot, I played pool on my one foot instead. The games also became only 10 kuai ($1.50) after midnight, so we all killed time playing doubles pool until midnight. Fran came extremely close to bowling a 200, and for his fourth or fifth time bowling (apparently it's not big in Ireland) we were quite impressed. About one am we went home and slept off everything we ate, without the hassle of Black Friday the next morning. Though it was a great Thanksgiving on my own, living abroad, my only complaint would be that I do kind of miss the holiday buzz.

Election from abroad

It's easy to be left out of the loop when living abroad. I have no idea what movies or songs are popular back home right now, what the latest trends are, what's the big marketing campaign for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and I'm okay with all that because it keeps life simpler.

The only real downside was when it came to the election. I woke up Tuesday morning slightly excited about the election, about change on the horizon...only to remember that I was 13 hours ahead of the States (Daylight Savings Time couldn't have been pushed back another week, no?) and had another 36 hours to wait for results.

Wednesday morning I bolted out of bed at my normal time of seven am...only to remember again I still had yet another hour before polls started closing. Leanna was worse than I was; halfway through our first class she remembered about the election, after which she started to freak out, "What if Obama doesn't win?"

We get three breaks during our four hours of class, and during each break someone was running back to the dorms to check the votes. After the first break it was 77-34 Obama, but an hour later he had already climbed past 100. At the last break Sam, a Korean American friend, rushed into my classroom and raised his arms into the air and yelled, "Obama's our new president!!", effectively making all the Koreans and Russians very wary of us Americans.

To be fair, they had good reason to be wary. Many of us, like myself, had been abroad for the majority of the campaign season, including the climax over the last few months. Our celebration was weak at best, and constituted mainly posts on each others' facebooks and texting each other in all caps (it was only 1 pm our time after all), but we were rejoicing the fact that after all the turmoil we could only read about and missed out on, we had at least one reason to look forward to going home.

An interruption post about volleyball

I know I'm behind on National Holiday and my subsequent trip to Shanghai, but today was amazing and deserves its own post while I'm still reveling in it.

The Chinese language department had a volleyball tournament between all the classes over the last couple weeks, and my class had been doing pretty well. I always went home right after class so I never checked it out, but today Leanna had another class so I agreed to step in for her just for the first half hour because the rules stated every team needed at least two females.

Well turns out one of my classmates is actually a volleyball coach, and three other students (two Korean and one Russian) were also really good. I played on a team for two years, but that was like five years ago, so only basic skills like underhand serving and passing/setting really remain. I was more backup; but the coach and one of the tall Korean guys set up a set and spike almost every single volley, I was very impressed with our reaction times and strategic movement.

Our first two games we beat the other team 25-21 and 25-23, then the next two they beat us 25-18 and 25-20 (or something close to that). So going into the last game the refs (just young Chinese students) said we were only playing to 15 points...we ended up neck and neck the entire way, and the game finally ended with a tense 19-17. In all the games I played on a team I never was so into a game, nor did I enjoy winning a game so much. We ended up winning the Final as well after that, though it wasn't as much of a challenge.

It was fun as well because they mixed rules; you could use any part of your body- meaning you could kick the ball, bounce it off your head, etc...I made an incredible save by bouncing one off my shoulder.

I was impressed, I think every one of my classmates made it out to see the match by the end. So I got to interact with them outside of the classroom, and am now fully convinced we are the best class ever, we have the greatest personality and energy. They were all waving around trash bags making noise and the most enthusiastic la la dui (cheerleading squad), even when it started to drizzle and the sky started darkening at 4:30. My listening and intensive reading teacher even showed up. I'm so glad I decided to stay and experience the Chinese university life for once instead of going back to my apartment and lounging about on my laptop like I always do.

Four hours after we'd started, we finally finished taking pictures, getting our prizes (giant 'premium containers' of Nescafe) and congratulating each other, and we all went our separate ways...but I still get to see them tomorrow morning! As if leaving Dalian in two months weren't hard enough, now I'm in love with my class....

Starting Over

I don't know why exactly I stopped writing. In fact, so much has happened in the last three months that I wouldn't even know where to start, were I to catch up from April 24th on.

What I do know, however, is that I have missed blogging. I read through my old entries and wish I'd kept with it, if anything just to laugh at my predictions for the future. The only excuse I have (and it isn't much of one at all) is that so much was happening, so fast, that I felt overwhelmed by it all and eventually gave up on blogging about it and focused on just surviving life in Dalian.

SO! I have decided to bring back the blog. I am spending another semester in Dalian, another five months in China altogether starting on Monday, and my first step in the grand scheme of my life is to outline some goals. (Hey, baby steps.)

1. In the next five months, I want to update at least three times a week (when internet access is available)
2. I want to focus less on making money and socializing and more on becoming proficient in Chinese.
3. I want to seriously consider taking the HSK.
4. I want to NOT know exactly what I want to do, but perhaps do research into grad schools or other career paths post-graduation.
5. I want to spend no more than 500 kuai a week (~70 USD)
6. I want to talk to my sister at least once a week.

==

For those who are interested, a brief recap of the last three months:
-May Holiday was a week on the Yangtze River, and a day in Chongqing/Dazu and a few hours in Beijing, during which I really started to become close with Andy Z and Leanna
-I returned to training with the Dalian Wolfhounds Gaelic Football Team
-Celebrated Cinco de Mayo with Kathleen and some close friends
-Sichuan Earthquake hit on May 12 and while we were about as far away in China as possible, it was extremely impressive how the country reacted
-My expat friends started getting stopped for visas and passports quite frequently
-Went to a housewarming party of another friend...became very social in general
-Went back to Beijing the weekend of the 16-18 with BCA again, met with Etowners
-Cancelled my trip to Shanghai for my birthday and celebrated with friends in Dalian
-However, because of the 3 day bar ban that resulted from the May 12 Sichuan Earthquake the week before we didn't really have anywhere to go after dinner
-Went to Beijing for the All China Gaelic Games June 6-8 => so far, the best weekend of my life
-My father visited the second week of June and after seeing Binhai Lu and Xinghai Square, loved the city
-Started tutoring a Korean student in Math and English for the Dalian minimum: 150 rmb/21.50 USD an hour
-A friend opened up a bar/restaurant called Brooklyn that is doing extremely well among the expats
-Come June, everyone started leaving! Expat turnover in smaller cities like Dalian is constant
-Finals were a mess! I really lost focus the last two weeks of the semester
-Went to Shanghai July 6th, met some friends, left the 9th back to the States
-Since being back in the States, haven't done much, but did go to Cape May, NJ to stay with Andy Z for a few days, then stopped in Philly on the way home to visit Amiekay for a night as well
-Yesterday was my sister's 12th birthday, but my father and I have had huge issues discussing my Future so I am currently living with Lys, Ryan and Nikol in their new apartment and feel bad about not being close to my sister
-Was not wanting to go back to China because of pre-Olympic madness, but since row with father, don't really know where I want to be right now. The US has my friends, but I can't stay at home; while Shanghai is extremely humid and housing is tricky...was going to travel but now don't know since my funds are low and my parents might not want to help me with expenses anymore....

So that's a decent, if not brief, overview of what my life has become in Dalian and the summer so far. I'll write more in the morning, I'm exhausted from the last two days of family drama.

The Weekend in Taiyuan

I had a fantastic time in Taiyuan. Regardless of the bus ride, it was really good to travel again and to see Sigma, who I have not seen since her 21st birthday party back in late 2006. Who knew when we saw each other again we'd both be living in northern China?

The city was not as bad as I expected it to be. Size wise, it seemed just like the areas right outside the heart of Shanghai- busy, but not overcrowded. I heard it was horribly polluted and there was not much to do, and I think those things are true on some level, but I was expecting much worse. The pollution seemed to me to be about the same as in Shanghai; the sky was generally a hazy gray and you could see the sun and moon as colored, somewhat distinctively shaped blobs in the sky. As far as things to do; well I'm sure for a weekend I was greatly satisfied, but the nightlife was definitely sketchy (our time at bouncing floor club was short-lived but very interesting). There's always KTV in China though, and that's what we did Saturday night. I can't believe I'd been here over two months and still hadn't done KTV with friends yet.

It was cool as well to see how the teachers live; I mean my expat friends here in Dalian are all teachers as well but with Sigma I actually lived the teachers' life, haha. I stayed in her provided "apartment" that was really just a permanent room in the school hotel, I went with her to a teachers' meeting, had lunch with two of her best students, and we even paid two students of one of her friends 50 yuan to clean her bathroom (it was just a little on the sketch side). Oh, and Sigma had a motorcycle too that we rode around in for a bit, it was awesome to feel the wind blowing in my hair.

Saturday I actually cut off most of my hair. It would have been my grandmother's 88th birthday, so I cut off about nine inches and am going to donate it in her memory. The people at the hair salon were soooo confused though as to why I wanted them to just chop off all my ponytail and stick it in a ziploc bag, and I even had to threaten to leave before they would agreed to just cut it off first, and then discuss hairstyles. It turned out pretty well; it's uneven but I've learned at this point that I will never be happy with a Chinese haircut so I am just grateful I look decent with a short haircut.

Sunday then Sigma and I had pictures taken! Photography studios in Taiyuan were so abundant, and all around China in fact, and they're relatively cheap and loads of fun. For about 55 dollars total we got to dress up in two outfits each (the package we got was meant for one person so we had to split some aspects of the deal), get our hair and makeup done full out, and had a professional photographer take our pictures and make us do silly poses and whatnot. I'd actually had it done in Shanghai for my senior photos back in 06, but the guy in Taiyuan actually had a crew! He had people that would just fix our dresses and the lighting and whatnot so all he had to do was call out the poses and take the picture. They turned out GORGEOUS, I mean Sigma's did anyway- especially the ones with this huge black hat (I'll post pictures later). She's going tomorrow to the studio to sort through them and decide which ones we want to keep.

Then I had lunch with my grandmother's younger sister. We went to a hotpot restaurant, and her daughter (my dad's cousin), son-in-law, grandson, and his girlfriend came along too. It felt nice to be surrounded by family again, even though I'd never met any of the other four, since I haven't been around any relatives since I left Shanghai. She reminded me so much of my grandmother, and then she took me to her apartment after lunch and was so kind I just became overwhelmed and started to cry. It was a good kind of cry though; I was really glad I had been able to visit her.

After that then it was almost time to leave for the airport (there was no way I was doing anything but flying back after the horrendous ride out) so Sigma, Aussie David and I went to this tea bar where for 18 yuan a person you had all-you-can-drink teas, and bubble teas, and smoothies and more. Our favorite was this yogurt drink with REAL strawberries mixed in, it was so delicious to have proper dairy again.

Then Sigma saw me off in a taxi; the taxi driver made a comment later in the trip that "your friend didn't look like she wanted to let you go" and I think I wanted to stay more than she did! But the taxi driver also tried to rip me off twice that trip so I wasn't very happy with him in general. I thought for sure I was going to miss my flight because he was taking his grand old time, since he was mad I wouldn't pay him a flat rate of 60 yuan to go to the airport and told him to run the meter instead. (It ended up only costing 40, and when I handed him a fifty he refused to give me change at first claiming he had to pay a toll along some part of the road).

I made the flight though, and actually ended up talking to someone who lives maybe a ten minute walk away from me. He even had a driver and gave me a lift home, saving me quite some time and taxi fare. In fact when I got home I realized I still had time to make Trivia Night, and arrived in the middle of just the second round. It was really nice to be able to recognize so many people when I came home as well; I didn't realize I'd made so many friends in the last month. Since going away to Taiyuan, I think I'm actually going to miss Dalian when I leave in less than three months. The weather also jumped up about 20 degrees while I was gone, which makes me incredibly excited to see this city in bloom. I'm a Shanghai-er, that's for certain, but citites I never thought I'd be able to survive in, like Taiyuan and Dalian, have definitely managed to take a hold of me as well.

The First Month

I've become quite fond of life in Dalian.

My foot is healing slowly. I've been invited to the Beijing Games for gaelic football June 7th and 8th, which would be totally awesome but I have to first play the game and NOT take myself out. Is two months enough? Don't know.

I've been making progress on my Chinese; not as much as I'd like with vocabulary though. If I made a conscious effort to pick that up, then I'm sure I would, but I'm focusing mainly on recognizing characters so my spoken Chinese is still only conversational. And I refuse to pick up speaking errrrrr hua, pronouncing Ws like Vs, and actually saying the H in any word that starts with Sh or Zh. After 15 years in PA who thought I'd actually prefer being a "southerner"? haha.

I should probably hang out with more native Chinese speakers, but
1. there are none my age here since everyone here at Old Dawai is a Chinese language student and therefore...not Chinese
2. that basically means hanging out with Andrew and Caleb, since I think they know the most, but they're actually from Jersey and Baltimore haha
3. hanging with expats is terribly fun. There are few Americans here in Dalian; it's a lot of Europeans and Canadians, which I find incredibly interesting. Plus the expat community is pretty small so everyone knows each other; it's not like Shanghai where you can meet someone and never see them again (that's right, I actually listed a negative aspect about Shanghai haha). Most everyone I've met is around 23 or 24 and is here to teach English, while either learning Chinese or just trying to explore the country because they've just graduated.

I've also been teaching for the past month now at an elementary school every Tuesday and Thursday, on top of my tutoring job on Saturdays. I get only the minimum wage for English teachers here, 100 rmb/hour (14.28 USD) but it's nice to have a little extra spending cash. I was going to quit after my first couple days because it's a 40 minute commute one way, and I don't like children, but my five year olds really took to me and then I couldn't bring myself to quit. Even still some days I go thinking, I really hate this job, but when I arrive, they all start yelling to each other, "Ed-i-na's here!" and come hug me and I can't bring myself to leave.

It's been interesting though observing how the Chinese interact. The teachers can touch the children and it's not considered inappropriate- I can hug them, they give me kisses, we take pictures all the time before and after class. My Chinese counterpart Elva has smacked the kids a couple times when they're not paying attention, or being disruptive. At least once a week she will completely lose it and single out someone and give them a good berating in front of the whole class. Then she'll turn to me and say in a normal voice, "I'm sorry. Continue." And I just stand there like OH MAN and these five year olds are like, whatever. He had it coming.

Elva and I might go out to dinner one night though; I asked to exchange numbers tonight after class (which was me acting like a total buffoon trying to teach the kids the words "fly" "jump" "run" and "swim") and she gave me a hug she was so happy. She's 26 and I think she wants to improve her English, even though her English is decent already. Oh, random sidenote: Our principal studied in London, so when she speaks to me it's with a British accent. I love it!

So the weeks have just been flying by. I mostly stay around Dawai; the only time I go out is for a Carrefour run or when I go to work. The weekends usually involve going out Friday or Saturday, and then always Trivia Night on Sunday at Hopscotch. The nightlife isn't much, but now I think it's kind of cozy actually. Hopscotch is definitely my fave.

Thursday I'm finally going on a trip! Ever since last August, I haven't gone more than three weeks without traveling somewhere (last semester was chock-filled with traveling- I went to DC four times in one month), so being stationary for five weeks in one place has me aching to pack up and go...so I'm visiting Sarah-Laura out in Taiyuan. I've heard it's a horribly polluted city, but I'm excited nonetheless to take that 19-hour bus trip and spend the weekend with her. Plus my grandmother's little sister lives out there; I plan on visiting her as well since Saturday would have been my grandmother's 88th birthday. I'm also doing something else in memory of my grandmother but that's a surprise for now....

I think I've struck a balance between being comfortable, and still stepping out of my comfort zone here. I could manage to put myself out there a little more, but hey, baby steps. I'm having a blast and wouldn't change anything about my experience so far....now back to the mountain of homework I have to finish in order to enjoy this weekend.

Life in Dalian

So after two weeks of classes, I should probably update. [I swear I meant to last week...but time just gets away from me somehow]

Overall I am happy here. I was a little sad at first because Dalian is nothing like Shanghai (everything closes at either dusk or 9!), but I have accepted that and am doing well.

Classes for most people are from 8:30-10 and 10:20-11:50. Tuesdays I only have one class at 10:20 so I can sleep in. Unless I want to shower of course, because the showers only run hot water from 6:30-8:30 in the morning. They are also in the basement, which means that I have to walk down five flights of stairs every morning I take a shower. I also take calligraphy and er hu electives in the afternoon, and a Modern China and a Chinese Foreign Policy class with my program director.

After classes everyone gathers outside the dorm for lunch; that combined with the set class schedule makes it very remniscent of high school. Dawai (that's its nickname) is located on a hill and so all the shops up and down the hill cater for the college students. Every day we can choose from Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Italian, street vendor barbecue, bubble tea, sweet rolls, etc.

The campus itself is the "old campus" since "new" Dawai is actually about a 45 minute bus ride away and is the one offering all the different classes and majors and where 90% of students are attending Dawai. Old Dawai is just one big building; most of it is dorm rooms and then at the other end of the building are the classrooms; there are five floors of them with about seven classrooms on each floor.

The dorms are not as bad as my first impression led me to believe. We have central heating (or had, I think it gets cut off today) and lockable closets for our valuables (apparently the ayis like to roam around people's room sometimes). I bought a new pillow, pillowcase, bedsheet, and comforter, so now that my OCD is put to rest, I sleep like a baby every night. My roommate is Korean; she speaks little Chinese or English but she is incredibly nice and polite. She also likes to blare gangsta rap from the States when she's not studying. When the warmer weather arrives any day now; I'm also going to stock up on Raid because I saw my first bug last night in the sink while I was brushing my teeth. I also have to pay for my internet- a 20 hour internet card costs 25 yuan (a little over 3.50 USD) and I'm already on my fourth one in less than two weeks.

From what I've been told some of the students that are here are only here because they can't get into college back home, so learning Chinese is their chance at having a marketable skill. Most of the Russians here are terribly stereotypical and makes me believe that about them. The biggest population here is Koreans since we are 200 km from the North Korean border; whereas in Shanghai all signs are in English or Chinese, in Dalian all signs are in Chinese and Korean, then Japanese, then English, and sometimes even Russian. It's a very international location. There's also a great number of Italians here, mostly from Venice. I don't know why.

So the culture shock I had really wasn't so much towards Chinese culture, but more internationalism in general. Sure, I had to get used to the northern China "rrrrrrrr" accent, and the way they say "v" instead of "w" (as in, do you go to Davai?), but I'd never really known any Koreans or Russians or Italians before I came here. Many people here know at least two or three languages; my friend's roommate is ethnically Korean but was born and raised in Russia and therefore knows Korean, Russian, Japanese, and English. Personally, I'm picking up bits of Korean and Italian; Beatrice down the hall is teaching me conversational Italian and I love it.

What does bother me about this city (again, besides the accent) is the blatant racism; my Caucasian friends have jobs paying 150 yuan/hour (over 20 USD) tutoring Korean kids, but their parents won't take me because I look asian. Almost every single person I encounter assumes (doesn't even ask, just assumes) I'm Korean, and then when I tell them I'm from China, they either refuse to believe me or ask why I look like them and yet am learning Chinese. I even had a Korean guy ask me what part of Southeast Asia I was from once.

I was once showing my friend how to work the laundry machine, and the cleaning lady in there told me my English was very good. I told her, "Well I am an American" and she does a double take and just stares and me and goes, "Really? But you don't like him!" and points to my friend and I go, "What, him? He's not even American. He's Australian."

I did manage to find a job though, teaching five year olds at an elementary school English. They are not terribly bright, have no attention span whatsoever, and I think they just repeat words but have no idea what they actually mean, but they are so darn cute I couldn't bring myself to quit. Which I was about to do on Thursday because it's a 45 minute commute one way, and the going pay rate from the Chinese is only 100 yuan/hour...but it's a job, and it's an experience (I mean, it's legit, so I can totally put it on a resume). I also may have a tutoring job as well...it's hard to find jobs because I always get, "Why do you look like us? Were you raised in the States? Do you go to school there?"
I had to put the character "Mei" (from "Mei Guo", which means America in Chinese) after my name on my business cards just so people know I'm an American.

I have made a great group of friends here though; three of them are from my study abroad program, two are from Juniata and the other girl of the group is from Winthrop, in South Carolina. I'm also friends with Italians and Australians and Koreans...though not so much the Koreans...yet. I have also really developed a fondness for Korean food, it's pretty fantastic (but not kimchee). Anyway I am in the middle of preparations for spending another semester here abroad because I really don't feel a semester is enough for me to grasp the language, plus I don't want to leave the internationalism of it all. Because Etown says I have to withdraw to do so though, I am actually researching schools back in Shanghai.... Either way, I probably won't be back to the States until the very end of this year.

Nightlife

I went out last night with an Etown alum who lives in Shanghai; it went down exactly as I imagined being an expat in Shanghai on a Saturday night would.

For dinner, he and his wife took me to this pretty posh looking sushi place where we had to take off our shoes to sit down; they also invited along a couple other friends they knew. The sushi was great, the sake was sweet, and I liked listening to them talk about their different projects in Shanghai. All four of them know more Chinese than I do.

Then we walked down a couple streets to the Eager Beaver, which was full of expats; it seemed the whole area we were in was marketed towards foreigners. Directly across the street from us was Abbey Road, which looked like a Beatles themed bar. Back in the Beaver, I watched rugby on the TV and played some foosball; some guys started playing though who were way too hardcore about foosball, so I just talked to some more people, and observed the others in the bar. After one rolled around, I just grabbed a cab home.