Birthday Photos

24 years and a Visit from Dad

It's funny. The spell check on my word processor does not recognize the word, 'blog.' I wonder if the updated version does…

Monday, sometime after midnight I completed 24 years of being alive in western cultural standard time. In China, because a baby is alive in the mother tummy (so I was told), I would actually say I am in my 25th year. The thick lime green mug in front of me stains my tongue red with an infusion of raspberry goodness; a birthday gift from Bethany. To my left a small bottle of Brer Rabbit Mild Flavor Molasses joins a red balloon with a cut out construction paper stem hoping to pass itself off as a tomato to remind me of my favorite nickname, tomato face, christened to me by Utuq after observing me huffing and puffing after a jog. On my right a happy plant reaches its little arms all directions in a tall dark pot wrapped with ribbon and warmth. All gifts. Gifts from good new friends who took the time to make dinner for me (Megan and Yoko), decorate, invite several others (Gulambar, Utuq, ZouYen, Summer, Bethany) and then laugh over a more than lively game of UNO.

Early in the week I had received a guest also bearing sweet and dear to my heart, tidings and gifts from another continent. My dad came to stay last Thursday evening, taking a train Sunday evening to work on the greenhouse in Hunchun. It was a whirlwind trip of wakefulness at all crazy hours mixed with jetlag naps and bouts of caffeine-laden drinks to stall the sleepy.

All week I prepared and talked about the arrival of my dad with my students, so by the time Thursday rolled around I was even receiving text messages welcoming him here and wishing me happiness (of course). The big question of the day was, how to get to the airport and back? Harbin airport is situated, conveniently, way outside of Harbin to, as one of my students decided, "keep the sound from bothering the city people." (Honestly, I wondered if this construction burden city would even notice a plane flying over.) Figuring it all out took a bit of back and forth. Of course, there was the taxi but then one could be sure of high prices, there was a bus but the last one left from Harbin at 7pm, there was the idea of going and hanging out for 4 hours before my dad arrived but my students then insisted on going to accompany me and I just wasn't sure if that would be so fun (love my students but that is a long wait). Finally, dear Li Peng (from the Hunchun bus trip) came through again and found a car service that would take us and bring us back for a great price! We (because he still insisted upon coming) hopped in and went off for the 40 min trip out because we went the slow- but-cheap route, which bypassed the tollbooth by meandering through some back villages and orchards. In China, some things, like long underwear time, heater turn on time, and time zone in general, are not negotiable and most people simple accept and adjust. Other things, like regulations concerning copy write and obviously overpriced tollbooths are simple put to the side, respectfully but with precision that always brings a smile to my lips.

And so my dear dad arrived, accompanied me to class the next morning to the joy of my favorite students. We were playing Jeopardy review in class and dad was the happy host, whitening his fingers with chalk to keep track of all the points. The most interesting moment was when I brought dad to the foot massage place where he was quite happily surprised (after a bit of apprehension) to have his feet massaged for the first time in his life!

Yes, of course, the stay was too short and Sunday night came before it should have but thankfully my friend Utuq was there to help us maneuver the huge railway station in Harbin. We were able to accompany my dad into the waiting room; a tall ceiling hazy with cigarette smoke, dust and the muted colors of many people packed tight together with various articles of luggage and box, then down to the platform to actually board the train. It is quite the squeeze as the open the doors to go to the platform about 10 minutes before departure so the scramble was a wee bit intense and the send-off overly short, but there he went. I received a message mid morning telling me he arrived safely into the Hunchun farm. Oh dad.

Being Cold or Overly Properly Clothed

The cold fall arrived in Harbin and settled her dry cold self into my
toes, hands and every building I spent time in (including my
apartment). For a while the heat was not turned on anywhere because
the Chinese heating system follows dates on calendar. The Moon takes
precedence over Cold and so the time-of-the-long-underwear and the
time-of-the-radiator comes when he dictates and neither the warmth of
Sun nor the chill of North Wind can persuade otherwise. The long
underwear comes out just after the Mid-Autumn Festival and, without
fail, my students layer on the wool under thick pants and puffy winter
coats. The body is not to get cold and the translation for an upset
stomach is a cold stomach. Unfortunately, I have the quirky body of
my father with ice feet and hands that do not cooperate regardless of
how I dress. Nicely then, I am forever told how cold hands mean a
warm heart, which comforts but at times I could do with a bit less
extreme for either organ. It causes me endless frustration to be
either sweating in my big winter coat or freezing in a thinner
windbreaker so usually I just go through endless
taking-off-and-putting-back-on to regulate my jumpy body temperature.
It is a little shocking to my overly protective students though to
see me arrive all in a huff and promptly strip down to short sleeves
to begin the class, fussing about how warm the room is; they wouldn't
be caught dead in short sleeves in winter unless they were planning to
work out in a warmed gym…and even then I am not sure they would go so
far. I do not jest; a thin almost hose type layer, then a thick wool
layer, then the jeans, then the long puffy coat. I have seen knitted
knickers an inch thick underneath heavy sweaters and my longjohn lack
is probably just as concerning to them.

Anyway, the radiator underneath each windowsill finally came on
the end of October during a rather cold spell and we were all
overjoyed to be able to sit in our rooms and feel warm. Of course,
occasionally they really crank up the water heat (or something) and we
all put on tanktops and shorts and forget that it is –9C outside until
the wind hits our face and our warm pampered faces wonder if they
should have hibernated in the sauna room of the apartment forever.
Yesterday, joy of joys, it snowed (xue in Chinese)! Suddenly,
winter has arrived with her blanket of white to shield the poor bare
swept earth. I wonder some if I mourn a bit during the time between
the glory of harvest and the sleep of winter. The bare ground and
stripped trees seem so cold and tired of life; I feel tired of life
too. The sun spends less and less time with the forsaken north and my
heart understands those ancient people that gave great sacrifices to
urge the sun to come back and not abandon them. Yet, the moment those
fluffy white specks hit the ground and energy changes; winter has come
and, be it only an inch of frozen dry white, it is an inch of white
and it makes all the difference to my sensitive soul. So…I am over
exaggerating but truly I am learning the simple joys are the sweetest
and most healing. Yeah for xue!

The Long-Trip Bus

About 3 weeks before Golden Week I had already decided I wanted to visit Hunchun but I was beginning to worry because the implications of a whole country on vacation was dawning on me concerning the travel. Of course, it just so happened that during my second day of office hours a student came to visit me who just so happened to be from Hunchun. Seriously. Considering the fact that my students are from all across China the probability of that happening is pretty scarce so it was a rather beautiful moment and I still feel inspired thinking about it.

My student was thrilled and promised to help me figure out transportation suggesting that I opt for the Hunchun bus instead of braving the overcrowded train that would only get me to Tumen (45 min drive from the farm). From this point on everything was taken care of by Li Peng and I didn't do anything besides continue to assure him that whatever happened I was fine and he needn't worry. In the end, the bus was sold out (you can only buy the ticket the day before or of) but his sister's friend was a relative of the bus driver (oh connections in China!) SO of course there would be a seat for me, somehow! It is amazing.

I packed my Josh and Wiens family hiking backpack (thanks you all!!!) and headed out with Li Peng around 3:30pm on that Friday wondering if I was going to go or not but perfectly happy either way. The bus was a Long-Trip bus; which means a bus with bunk beds instead of seats. Yep. Pretty cool. You get in, take off your shoes and deposit them in a little bag to take with you and then sort of shimmy down either the left or right hand aisle two bunks high for each row. The beds are narrow and just barely long enough for me so about average Chinese height. Each holds a mattress and a thick blanket with a small rectangle pillow filled with some kind of bean or bead and there is just enough room to sit up and only have to bend your head a little. I wouldn't recommend it for a very claustrophobic person.

I boarded the bus and was given the farthest bunk in the back corner, due to some switching around to allow the pitiful foreigner (that's me) a real seat instead of something less official. I protested and tried to point out that I was strong and would be fine anywhere, not wanting to deny someone of a seat, but seeing as my Chinese is only as good as my awkward waving gestures and facial expressions…well, it didn't work. By this point in my time in Harbin I was pretty exhausted and so even remembering the word for yes or no (there is actually no single word for no) was beyond my capabilities. I just sat back, smiled at the giggling staring people (mostly women) around me and ate some dates from a ziplock baggy. It was pretty exciting till I realized I would eventually have to pee and the thought of climbing through everything, trying to ask where or how to use the toilet, going out in the very cold somewhere and probably squatting in the dark all the time sort of worried that they would leave without me (I'm over paranoid at times)…was a bit too much to handle. I just kept falling asleep waking up to the nearly full moon staring at me and my face almost frozen due to the draft from the window by my head. The bus stopped about 3 times, for about 10 minutes each by the side of the road and I jealously watched the guy beside me jump out and return in a very short amount of time, probably feeling very comfortable and relieved.

I was told we were to arrive at about 4AM so at about 2:30 I had gathered up courage (or enough discomfort to be mistaken as courage) to prepare the big dive into the unknown world of "the rest stop," when all the lights came on and everyone else starting gathering their stuff and piling up blankets. So we had arrived! Unhappily for me the trip did not actually end until 2 hours later due to Timothy's car breaking down, but the managing woman took good care of me allowing me to stay in the bus after we spent a confusing amount of time communicating that (on my part) I didn't need a taxi because someone was coming and (on her part) that I should stay in the bus and sleep to keep warm. I was so excited and awake I opted to sit in the front of the bus till I begin to feel the chill creeping into my bones and the bus lady's urging for me to get into a bed under a pile of blankets became more than just a request but rather like an order. In the end Timothy asked me to take a taxi, gave him directions over my cell phone and I arrived. Cold, desperately excited to use the bathroom and not quite ready for the sun to come up but there she was; already peeping over the horizon.

Guess what. I caught a cold. Go figure.

The trip home was much nicer because by then I was rested (sick but brain rested) and more confident of asking questions. Also, the bus was only half full and I got a seat way up front with a thicker blanket. We even stopped for dinner this time where I ate very spicy soup and managed to find a bathroom (yes I was entertaining but that comes with the leaving of the comfort zone to travel; you end up either frustrating or amusing people so it is good to be on the happier side).

Coming back to Dorm A-13 and banging on the door to wake the night guard (my dorm has a midnight curfew) was actually a comfortable returning. I remembered how a few weeks ago I arrived in the middle of the night scared and homesick. This night I walked into the courtyard and looked up to see the moon and the bright stars of the constellation Orion and in one moment the city was not so bad and home was at the top of 16 floors with friends down the hall.

Going to the Farm – Mid Autumn Festival and the Golden Week

Mid Autumn Festival. Moon cakes: some only slightly better than Christmas fruitcake, some worse, some delightfully yummy. I personally prefer the sesame or red bean filled ones. They come in all sizes, but always round and always bearing the ingredient inside in Chinese character on the top (no help to the illiterate me). The Mid Autumn Festival celebrates the harvest moon and is a time for eating moon cakes with your family while looking up at the full moon is a park or backyard. My students brought me several bunches of these always surprises cakebits and, as a foreign teacher, the international affairs office of HIT always gifted us with a beautiful tin case filled with only the most expensive moon cakes in Harbin. Strangely enough the most expensive moon cake is a sort of sugary bean filling surround a whole hard-boiled egg yolk (I am assuming the yolk resembles the full moon?). I didn't mind the surrounding filling but the dry egg yolk was less than exciting. I enjoyed the less expensive varieties. I was told that some of them have meat but thankfully none have yielded such delicacies (to my relief).

Golden Week. National Holidays in China. Three times a year the whole country (almost) goes on vacation for a week (maybe longer over the Chinese New Year) and though government is working to change this, it is a time-honored tradition and was ever present during the most recent Golden Week. A country of 1 billion people all going on vacation, a country of exceedingly mobile people all traveling to somewhere, wreaks a bit of havoc on transportation systems (which consequentially do not get vacation at this time).

I too decided to seize my chance of a lifetime to see a little bit of China's countryside and also to visit a family and farm where my father has been working the past couple years. The "small" town of Hunchun (only the size of Winnipeg) is also called the Last Stop because it is literally in the corner of China between the ominous shoulder of Russia and cold front of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

I was visiting the Shell family of Timothy and Naomi and their 4 "eager beavers" of Mary Frances, Ruth Anna, Miriam and little Lyte. They live and manage a farm there consisting of all sorts of cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, a few dogs, lots of cats and a beautiful bunch of hills covered in pine and aspen like trees. I am sure there are more things but I was a little confused about who managed what and where and, as I was sort of delighting in long walks in the clean air and a very exciting new family to hang out with, I chose to relax rather than be inquisitive. (I can always ask questions next visit). It was a wonderful visit! I spent lots of time baking with Naomi and reading books to the family (yes the whole family listened to me read Prince Caspian and the Magician's Nephew and yes I did get hoarse). We spent a day with a few other families out in the country near to another town called Yanji picking pingguoli (apple-pears) and looking for 'pretty' rocks. The girls are also avid collectors of all sorts of rocks that end up in piles and jars various places.

Yes, those are sparse details but really the most exciting part of my Golden Week experience was, as I was mentioning before, the travel there and back….

Thanksgiving in Canada

Today is (well was for me now) Thanksgiving day in Canada. The past three years I have spent this holiday in the glorious home of my friend Judi. Far and beautiful, tucked into north-western Ontario on a bit of an island called McKenzie. It is always a time full of deep talks, canoes across crinkled waters, numerous cups of strong black tea swallowed in evaporated milk and honey, dancing while cooking frenzies, and (my specialty) the gathering of leaves and harvest field beauties to adorn the Thanksgiving table.

Yes, I am sad to miss my very dear holiday with some very dear friends.

So to commemorate this Canadian Thanksgiving far from home but ever still thankful I have decided to devote a blog to all the amazing things in my life right now.

A hurrah for green things! My fingers and eyes seek out the clinging green on waving branches, drinking up that precious colour now more than ever for soon it will be only found on pictures and in my mind's reserves. The few spots of yellow and red or purple flowers also get special attention and yes, I stop often to be the odd curly haired crazy sniffing up great breaths of sweet marigold or fading rose. It is a trick Josh and I have been testing this past year; stopping to smell all the flowers to live longer or happier on a natural flowery sort of high (better on the lungs).

China! It still has yet to sink in. I cannot seem to grasp how I wanted to travel and then: zing! Bam! Here I am. Although, globalization seems to creep up on me and I often wonder if this is actually Winnipeg with a Chinese flavor or China with a Winnipegish sort of flavor? I feel concerned that all cities might feel a bit like that and I am confused as to whether to enjoy feeling at home or be annoyed that I can never really leave. (I need to think more on this one.)

Josh! Family! Friends! If home is where the heart is than my heart just keeps getting bigger. I could elaborate but then I would never stop. It is good simply to be in awe of the cup of friendship that continues to overflow.

Water in large bottles and kind, patient people that understand me when I fumble in Chinese and bring me a new bottle when I finish one. Vegetables and fruits from kind and patient vendors with wooden carts on the street side. Too many kinds of rice and things to add to rice for me to tell the difference and only one kind of flour. Hot baked yams right out of the steel drum on the corner. Tea of the green, black, whole flower varieties and then some. Yellow and green colored chalk that remains on fingers and migrates to everything else. Strong wind that stirs up dust and blood to cool whipped faces in the struggle to walk in the dazzling autumn sunshine of the sweet morning. Runners that cushion the happy simple plodding of early morn jogs. Recognizing a character on sign, understanding and being understood when speaking Chinese. Recognizing a student's face and almost remembering a name and sort of saying it right. Sitting for a moment of silence and suddenly forgetting to hear the construction banging outside. Skype connections clearer than telephone; communication that goes beyond words.

It is good to be thankful.

Teaching English – Master's Oral English

Ah yes. The thing I came to Harbin to do: teach English. I have now completed 3 weeks of classes and am officially a laoshi or teacher. Seven times a week I teach the same 2-hour class to about 25 to 30 students each time. In total I have almost 200 delightful students each with a beautiful Chinese name I am attempting (!*!) to memorize and learn to say in a way that is at least somewhat near to correct. It's a wonderful sort of disaster that only remains bearable with lots of laughs and forgiving patience!

The course I teach is designed to improve the listening and speaking skills for students learning English as most of them can read and write very well but when it comes to the more productive (listening and speaking) aspects of the language they are less confident and able. My job is to get them speaking. Easy right?

Well, in some ways. The greatest blessing so far in my arrival to Harbin is that this course is already planned out! Megan, an English teacher from Arkansas who has been here for a year already, is teaching the exact same course and she has all the lesson plans, worksheets and overheads for the whole semester. YES! They are done and all I have to do is look over them, figure out how to make sense of what I say and do and copy off the worksheets to hand out! The hard part comes only when I step into class each morning.

So there I am four mornings a week; walking over to the building, scurrying up the steps to gather the little plastic box with a key to open the computer and a remote to turn on the projector (the rooms are fully equipped), then stepping into the corner room full of large windows partially covered by dusty drapes and solid long wooden desks. Usually I arrive about five minutes before and the class is already there; studying, chatting softly, and (yep) basically just waiting for me. It is all rather awkward still and oddly frightening. It is considered quite a privilege to have a native English speaker as your teacher, which creates quite a celebratory sort of gap that I have yet to really break down. (Hopefully that will come with time.) Yet, I have definitely settled into a nice routine which is much more comfortable to me than that first week of teaching. It was crazy! Trying to get everyone's names, figure out who is supposed to be in the class, being too soft and allowing several auditing students (grrr), trying to explain all the policies and such in a simple slow sort of way and probably failing miserably, since I tend to talk fast when I get excited. Of course, things still don't quite gel all the time and I have many lessons to learn. Many.

My respect and awe of those in teaching positions grows by the minute…

Morning in Harbin

China lives all in one time zone: Beijing time. It is handy for traveling and calling long distance across China, to be sure, but it does have quite an effect on the rising and the setting of the sun on those living east and west of Beijing. In Harbin the sun peeps it head over the horizon around 5am or so. I do not actually know the exact time because I prefer to have my eyes and curtains shut at this time of the morning. The afternoon is when the difference is more noticeable as the setting sun begins to draw long shadows in the dust and concrete by 3:30pm or so and by 6pm it is pretty much dark with a few stars. This makes it entirely convenient, then, to do everything early. Indeed, we eat lunch at 11 or 11:30 with dinner beginning at 4 or so (because it can last a long time I am told). Yoko and I joke about eating lunch by mid morning or else we won't be ready in time to have dinner!

Ah, but the current joy of my morning is the jog I have been going on in the morning with the whole of Harbin. There is a football (soccer and such) stadium right next to the dormitory building, which opens for public use from 5:30am to 7:30am (Or as Guodong has said, half-ah-past-ah 5 to half-ah-past-ah 7). So I have been quite the early bird and will get myself out there to jog a few laps with a great number of everyone. Its great! Mostly men go to jog but there are some women, children and older folks mingled about, stretching, walking, jogging at a nice slow 'Mya' sort of pace.

So, yes I had been enjoying this very energizing routine of about 6 or 7 laps before rushing home to run up the stairs, shower and run out the door for class at 8. THEN one morning a student asked me if would want to try running around the nearby park/zoo. It was delicious! There are people everywhere at that time of the morning, aerobics classes on the lawn, women practicing fan and/or sword dancing, people doing some kind of martial arts, choirs practicing, bands trumpeting…etc! What a treat! It is like the day of a big happy marathon, but every day. I get excited just thinking about it….can't wait till tomorrow…

Hello hello hello

Hello hello helllo! To all who check this blog and find few new posts...be of good cheer! A small storm is brewing but is not to be released until my return from a small farm near the town of Hunchun in the Jilin Province. I leave there today for retreat, for small mountains, for fresh air untainted by exhaust of too many taxis honking and too many construction workers constructing, for the the farm where my father has been working the past couple of years. No, I will not see my father, he works from afar but I will meet colleagues of his and new friends of mine.
I do promise to be posting about my most interesting and delightful (though tiring) students and several other random but welcome adventures of mine. So rest in anticipation dear friends!

Oh! And a belated very happy Mid Autumn Day (Tuesday the 25 of Sept) to all you who appreciate the lunar calendar! Yeah Moon Cakes!

A blog for Josh

Ah this blog. I have been neglecting it. I feel like my brain and inspiration are getting sucked into a giant vacuum, thus the blog has suffered. My students are numerous but great. Sweet, eager to learn, but so many names and faces. New names, new faces, new words, new sounds. Culture shock does not have to come in the form of strange food, strange customs, strange living arrangements – instead it has come in the form of a classroom, which is an entirely different world that exists all over the world and I admit my utter ignorance of such a place. I will talk in depth about the classroom soon, when I have the words.

I have been having severe sleeping trouble. This can be attributed to stress, overdose of good strong green and jasmine tea and my inability to stop thinking, ever. Yet, it is more than that. A long-distance relationship. Somehow those words do brutal injustice to what is the struggle and difficulty of living, separated by land, water and time, from the person you feel most connected. How can it be described, knowing that other piece of yourself hurts and you cannot sit by their side? How can you communicate sympathy and support with words typed inside a text box or said across an echo-ey phone line?

Chinese is a difficult language but there are teachers and books and rules. The language of love across rivers, mountains, oceans, wind, and time is harder. It is more illusive. When you cannot communicate it breaks the heart and the body cannot rest because everything feels out of place.

When I write, I try to speak to a group. To find words and connections that make sense to a larger crowd than just myself. This experience however, is only my own. Being away from Josh, from someone whom I have learned and grown with in the past year, is more difficult for me then being in China and teaching, though I have never done either.

So this blog today is a gift. A 'silent' admission to you, Joshua Daniel Wiens. I will see you when you get here and hopefully I will sleep a couple nights before then.

The Grand Tour

It is a special privilege you know, to be totally out of synch with everybody else, to be unable to speak or listen, to be the 'foreign teacher.' So privileged, in fact, that it merits us to be formally introduced, given decorous gifts and then carted around to partake the campus of HIT and Harbin city sights.

Friday morning, for some unknown reason, we met Guodong in the downstairs lobby at 7:40. Why so early? No one could figure it out but there we all sat in the white van at 7:40 sharp, proceeded to wait 15 mins and then drove approximately 2 minutes to arrive at our first destination of the main building (more or less a 5 minute walk away). We were ushered into a lovely conference room, photographed like celebrities, given gifts and formally welcomed. We then spent a mildly interesting time learning about the history of HIT.

In the early 1900's Harbin was a small sleepy town in Northern China, jolted awake to industry by the extension of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. HIT was founded at that time by the Russians to study railway engineering and other such fields. The first president was Russian and so were most of the small graduating class. Later it was handed over to Chinese guidance, expect for the period during the Japanese occupation. Today an expanded HIT boasts of being of the top ten universities in China with campuses in three different provinces of China. (Guodong said the other two places but I missed them, apologies!) Of course, the focus remains focused on technology but they also have departments for different languages, alas there are no International Development, Politics or Art in general majors at HIT. Languages like French, Russian, Japanese and English are studied for the purpose of basically going into business with a multi-national or becoming a professor. An interesting note; being a professor in China is regarded as a most prestigious office and this job is prized above most professions. I find this refreshing and want to pass on their love and respect to the many teachers in Canada and the US that suffer from lack of appreciation.

The rest of our tour was dry and most spent in the van with the soft spoken Guodong explaining each passing building to an increasingly uninterested bunch, I am sorry to say. So I will finish with one last point of interest; it is mandatory for every first year university student to go through two weeks of military training. On second campus we saw sidewalks full of camouflage clad young men and women practicing forming lines and standing straight with childlike nervousness and uncertainty. It appears to me an uncomfortable and unwise sort of union; education to military service, but it is in no way uncommon or unusual. (Mentally, I note it as something to examine if I ever decide to take up my small bachelor's thesis again for a masters.)

Teaching English

Tomorrow I will walk into a room full of 24 students and become a teacher. It is a bit of a deja vu experience for me because last Monday I thought would be my first day of teaching. In fact, I was totally prepared: powerpoint on flash drive, handouts copied and arranged in new clear plastic folder, and lack of sleep due to nervousness clearly painted on my anxious face. The department was very clear that we would begin September 3^rd, so there I was at 8AM Monday morning. Actually, I was early (a feat considering my usually close to late appearances) and had declared myself as teacher by spreading my stuff over the front desk and asking a student if they could please find the key to open the computer. (Remember, students often study in their classrooms.) Almost everyone vacated the room expect for one student who, speaking very little English, came up to my desk looking very confused. I asked him to locate his name on my class list, which he did reluctantly, all the time trying very hard to tell me something about Week 3. I, the very anxious to start class teacher, told him not to worry things would make sense soon.

Well, 8AM sort of came around and still I had no students. I was feeling a bit concerned about the only three students helping me to get the key to the computer, when one of the girls realized she was in the class next door (also an English class taught by Branson not me). I checked the room number on my list. Yes, room 115. Yes, that was the number above the door to the classroom. Then, hallelujah!, there was Miho in the next room! She noticed my confusion, plus the two students trying hard to explain something to me in fragmented English words, promptly came and spoke in Chinese with the students. "Oh Mya," she says, "the students say they have this class but on their schedule and on the board in front it says it does not start until next week, the 3^rd week." What? Oh bother. I thanked the students, told them I would figure it out and see them next week or something and went home to make some frantic calls.

Eventually, I did get in contact with Leslie and Guan (our liaisons with the graduates department) who literally patted me on the head, comforting me for my strange first day, and explained I actually did not start till Week 3. A mixed sort of relief: happy to be free to adjust a bit more but also upset I couldn't just get the first week over and done.

So, indeed, I have had the week to adjust and sleep a bit which has been a very good thing. I do have to work a week later in December, which does mean working over Christmas (though I get that one day off), but over all I appreciated my time. Honestly, I did not get half the things done I had hoped but I now have a bamboo plant in my living room and a working hot plate. I consider those accomplishments not to be taken lightly. J

And, tomorrow I will become a teacher. I am scared, frightened, excited and probably too confident for my own good. The lesson will be fairly easy, it is the names I am most concerned about.

I actually have a small rant I would like to share here (you can bear with me or just pretend I finished with the above paragraph): Ok, I do not want to give English names. That concept does not sit well with me and I have felt frustrated this week with all the talk of English names and bringing books to help people choose, and not letting students pick things like 'rainbow' or 'sky-bird.' Well why not!? But most of all, why are the names they have not good enough? What is an English name? How it is so different? Yes, of course it will be difficult to remember everyone's name, especially because Chinese pronunciation is very complicated for newbies. Bah! I am bad with names as it is and learning some 200 new student's names is going to be a bigger challenge than learning rudimentary Chinese, but I truly pledge to do so to my best abilities. OK. So maybe I am over-reacting but, unless a student is very insistent on using the name they choose for themselves in English, I will use their name given to them by their parents. (If anyone has any thoughts or advice on this for me PLEASE email me! I would appreciate the encouragement.)

Zaijiang! (Goodbye minus some accents for the pinyin). More Later!

Sunday Morning - The Streets of Harbin

Take the elevator, 16 floors down, students get on, we all get off. Walk through the glass doors, around the corner and through the streets of HIT and surrounding neighborhood. A wooden cart filled with various fruit, some in piles, some in boxes neatly wrapped in netted foam and brought in from the south or farther. Another cart, stacks of corn and corn husks piled all around. A large boiling pot of steamed corn besides a pot of coals, a woman roasting corn, one by one on skewers. 2 yuan a roasted corn. 15 yuan for 10 peaches, now sliced and freezing in my little fridge. Stay on or close to the uneven dusty side walk, walking around each tree. The taxis, cars and buses heed their own call and not the signs on the road, nor the people skittering about. Signs everywhere in Chinese characters, I recognize a sign for water but the rest dart the concrete landscape like decoration and do not help me determine the within. The railroad tracks run a block from the HIT gates by my dorm. The train comes by; little guards in blue suits come out to ensure traffic, human and gas-powered, heed the lights and dropped post. A man in a skull cap, perhaps Muslim from western China, roasts skewers of all kinds of meat on the sidewalk in front of his shop. Here, an old man enjoys a trim from an impromptu corner barber while a anxious looking lady supervises. Here, a couple youths strip plastic off large white window frames. Stiff, serious faced ladies and gentlemen walk slowly about under both gentle willow leaves and sharp banging of the nearest high rise, less welcoming perhaps but currently faster growing. Mist, pervades to soften the noise and the dirt, for a moment there is hush. Even the, "ugh ugh ugh," of the wise women doing morning tai chi, is quieted. The black canal, loosing a few pieces of trash to a freshly clad young woman sweeping with a net, remains, as ever, black and unmoving. Every tree, thin or thick, painted with a white substance, create a manicured appearance and keep bugs off. Swooping small birds, brown and black, careen across the well-kept lawn, snatching at these unfortunate bugs left on the ground. It is a morning of tradition, yet a morning of tomorrow. Walking 'home,' I sense an unease that is not uncomfortable. An adjusting taking place at a rapid pace but not unwelcome. If these are the streets of Harbin, perhaps they are also a small face of China. I wonder.

Thus ends my Sunday morning walk. (I enjoyed it, did you?)

The Manhattan Market

Thursday Miho (Japanese teacher) was kind enough to take Yoko and I to the wholesale market called Manhattan. I must assure you, the pronunciation of Manhattan is an entirely different thing and it was only when I saw it written down that I realized. Sounds more like "Mahaadeen." In any case, the only resemblance to the New York island is that it is packed full of way too many of everything.

The first floor is the most random floor where you can purchase anything from soap to huge decorative furniture. Second floor mostly household items from window blinds to bathroom fixtures and third floor holds media devices, cookware and things like leather massage chairs and wrinkle free steamers for clothes. Large furniture like couches, wicker chairs and dining sets make the fourth floor much quieter. A good place to go for a bit of rest before taking on the first floor!

Thank goodness for Miho! She easily maneuvered us around (she speaks Chinese very well) and helped us to purchase a rice cooker, dish drainers and bright coloured shower curtains to enliven that drab sticky space. The difficulty is in the bargaining. One never accepts the first price but must always bargain down a bit to get to something more sane. This is the hardest part for me. I have listened and listen to the Chinese numbers but for some reason they are not sticking in my brain. Furthermore, trying to think of many numbers in a very short time, calculate the difference in $US so I have a vague idea of what I might be spending, WHILE trying to discern what is a good price and what is too high when even a DVD player is maybe stated at Yuan 200 (US 22 or so) proves to be very mind boggling. Mostly this is what happens: I stroll up and sort of point and remark about a lovely red skillet and within seconds someone is by my side rapidly speaking about the amazing qualities of said skillet (or something). I say something random in English and shake my head and rummage in my bag for piece of paper and pen, which in turn clues her in to finding some type of calculator. She punches in a number for the price of the skillet, which of course is very high since I do not speak Chinese and thereby am certainly a foreigner who does not know diddly squat and will pay an exorbitant amount. I punch something else in, very low and she looks at me like I am crazy and then puts down the calculator. Thus, I walk away in order to quickly get called back to a slightly lower price which I decline…the price gets lower…by this time I really only wanted to know the price of the lovely red skillet and I really do not have 100 some Yuan to pay for it. And so the saga continues. I must admit I have bought a few things I really didn't want already because I am a softy and I can't bear to say no when I can't explain why. Not expensive things but for instance, the kitchen now supports a very bright pink trashcan to remind me of my gullibility. Ha.

Added note: The rice cooker that Yoko and I bought ended up not working. It was quite a disappointment after we bought rice and some veggies, chopped them all up and then discovered our rice cooker only kept things warm and refused to cook anything. We waited awhile until our rice and veggies were just slightly warm but then gave up. I was worried about exchanging the thing since I did not receive any kind of receipt but when I arrived at the spot the lady quickly understood my gestures, we tried it out, it still didn't work so she promptly pulled out a new one and handed it to me (we tested it first of course). So hurrah! I was happy the rest of the day! Yesterday, then was Yoko and I's first meal in our apt. Such an achievement!

So we all know I have arrived but where did I arrive to and all that jazz?

Harbin Institute of Technology (or something that I only know how to say not spell out in Chinese) is a very large university with two campuses in Harbin. I live on the main campus with many buildings, cafeterias, and the continual sound of many more buildings being constructed. Moving forward and building seem to be two very important themes in China and they are evident hourly. (they are building right outside my apartment window at ALL hours – night does not deter this structure from springing up under some industrial sun that never sleeps). Yet, it is still a very nice campus. Lots of tall wispy willows, bushes and flowers decorate the streets. I live in a tall dormitory of 16 floors on the very top floor with four other English teachers and two Japanese teachers. The 15^th floor is the home of a few more foreign language teachers including four more English teachers (from US and Britain) and the three Russian teachers. The rest of the dorm is full of all the foreign students; from first years studying Chinese (mostly Russian and South Korean) to masters level from Iraq to Zimbabwe studying biotechnology or computer science…etc.

My apartment is a three room and bathroom affair of very tall ceilings. The whole place is freshly painted white and there are two large windows in both the living room and bedroom. It is truly a very nice apartment the only problem is the lack of smaller items. The kitchen included a microwave, a hot water heater and a refrigerator but there were no dishes, nothing to cook with or on, no rags, no drinking water. Supposedly, the apartment is supposed to include a hot plate for cooking and indeed, there is a hot plate. Does it work? No. Sigh. The bedroom has a lovely cabinet to hang clothes but no hangers. The bathroom is equipped with a nice tub and broken toilet seat but no shower curtain. Yes, it is one thing to have a space with a chair and a bed; it is another thing entirely to inhabit a home.

So, my friend Yoko and I (also facing the same dilemmas) have been slowly gathering pieces. We continually wonder, what things are important enough to buy even though I might only use them for one year? Thankfully, she is very happy to share things with me like a rice cooker…etc. Of course, as far as food, it is very easy and inexpensive to eat. The university cafeterias (of which there are three on this campus) are large and the food tastes fairly good (the teachers have a separate eating place). When I say inexpensive I mean that it is cheaper to eat there than to cook for yourself. A meal at the nice cafeteria in the cushy buffet place for teachers is about 8Yuan or $1US dollar. A normal meal might be 3Yuan or about 45US cents (roughly). Around and within the campus are also a plethora of restaurants, from western coffee shops (crazy!) to Korean and of course tons of Chinese. Paying more than 20yuan for a meal would be very pricey indeed (a little over $2US). The food has been wonderful and I will speak more about various restaurants in a later post or so (something to look forward to!).

Yes, this is my home now. I have two plates, chopsticks and some spoons. I found a lovely yellow bowl (see a later post about the market) and we figured out how to have drinking water delivered. Slowly, little by little, it will feel like home. The few books and pictures are on the shelves and I even have a few little plants on the windowsill given to me by the gracious Japanese prof, Miho. Hurrah! Harbin!

Traveling

Saturday morning, 4am, my parents and I arrived, bleary eyed, to Denver International Airport. My checked luggage was (hurrah!) not overweight and thus, toting my nifty new backpack (thanks Joshi and Fam!) and clutching a bag stuffed full of important papers and my regulatory plastic ziplock of toothpaste and contact solution, we sat down to coffee and thick muffins. I made it through some rigorous inspection, waved to my dear padres kneeling to peek at me from under the frosted glass surrounding the security checkpoint and stepped onto the plane for Salt Lake City. The connection there to LA was remarkably on time but then I had to walk out of the terminal and head around the sidewalk to the International Terminal. So odd! There I checked in to China Eastern Airline, feeling foreign already with my brown curls. I proceeded to place a call to the Joshi I left behind at home and cry bitterly into the plastic receiver. Thankfully he knew what to say to set me on my feet again towards a meal, a beer, and a bit of a moment to relax and remember I was just me and would be just fine. There was again the rigmarole of security checkpoints but soon I was seated on a large plane with my wool sweater, pillow and book in what was clearly an eastern Chinese flight. It was a bit of a shock at first but I recalled Joshi's words reminding me we are all just penguins under the sun. I smiled at the baseball-capped grandfatherly man beside me and he smiled back. Yes, we may not speak the same words but a smile is a smile is a smile and all was well.

39 long hours later I arrived in to Harbin airport and happily scooped up my luggage (I almost clapped to see it had not been lost). Guodong, a small young looking Chinese man with a large smile greeted me. It must have been almost 1am and he looked as though he had just woken, showered and popped over from next door. (The more I see Guodong the more I realize he always looks like this --- I wonder if he sleeps and what his trick is). We drove through some lovely brush sort of forest and into an ominous looking city, very little traffic at that hour. Eventually we passed through a gate and drove around HIT (the university) arriving to a tall building, "Foreign Students Dormitory." I was neatly deposited with a few instructions into a rather large but unfriendly seeming apartment on the 16^th floor (aka the top floor). At this point everything appeared threatening, new and far to overwhelming but thankfully the bed was clean and firm and I rested.

Yes, this is the end of side one. You will just have to wait in gleeful anticipation for the continuation. To be continued…