My 22nd Birthday

A couple of weeks ago I turned twenty-two. I love swimming, and it has been so warm here we decided, hey, let's head to the lake! We talked to a few friends who had been previously, and after hearing it only took about an hour and a half by bus we thought, "Sounds like a great adventure. Let's do this!"

So we woke up bright and early on May 11th, and after riding a bus to the terminal, waited patiently for the free bus to downtown to show up (which comes every hour, on the HALF hour.). We weren't exactly sure what we were looking for, but right about the time 8:30 hit, we noticed a bit of a ruckus happening on the other side of the road... HUNDREDS of people appearing out of thin air running full speed for an unmarked bus that was in the midst of pulling up. I couldn't help but to burst out laughing, and then quickly realized, this was probably our bus! With that, Drew and I were off on a mad dash across the street,weaving in and out of cars, bushes, and other scramblers to the unmarked bus we were assuming was ours! We asked someone on the way into the bus if it was the right one, and she of course laughed and told us yes.

After an hour to the other side of town, we were at the long distance bus station. We soon realized that the picture of the bus our friends had given us was the picture for the SECOND long distance bus we needed to take, which led to an hour and a half long adventure trying to figure out which bus was the bus we were supposed to take! Eventually we found it and took it, hopped on the next bus, which promptly drove one stop, and let everyone off. By this point, what had originally supposed to have been an hour and a half journey, was nearing four and a half hours. We asked the driver, "Are you going to the beach?" "Yeah, of course!" So we waited... finally I said, "WHEN are you going to the beach?" "Oh, in about half an hour." She responded. So, we got off that bus, and decided to try out a covered three-wheeler. We were now in a pretty remote village. Fifteen minutes later, we were pointed to a long path that headed toward the water.

We walked down the path and were surrounded by a myriad others headed toward the beach. To our left and right was kiosk after kiosk selling everything from clothing, to dried fish, to nail clippers, to sheets and curtains, to fruit, to turtles! It was awesome! Along the journey we noticed camels and peacocks hanging out at the different booths. When we got to the beach, it was covered all the way to the shore with dancers, artists, game booths, and more camels and peacocks! The water was full of long canoes, boats that looked like they were built on stilts, and other unique looking water vehicles you could pay to try out. We decided that place was as good as any to eat our picnic lunch. Between mounds of garbage, we laid down our towels and ate our tuna sandwiches as the villagers gaped and snapped pictures of the funny white foreigners, trying to get a tan. Why would we ruin our perfectly white skin?

We ended up leaving that place shortly after and finding a beautiful remote beach with next to nobody at it, surrounded by picturesque mountains and a clear sky.

After this was dinner time. We found what I think was the only restaurant in the village and took a seat. The waiters and waitresses nervously argued amongst themselves over who would have to talk to the foreigners and take our orders. Finally after realizing that none of them were going to come over, Drew walked over and asked if we could take a look in the kitchen at what they served. After pointed to a few items, we waited for our meal to be served. Next to us was a giant enclosed area filled with water and fish, and next to that was a few baskets piled on top of each-other with live chickens. A couple minutes later, we watched as the cook came out, caught a fish that had to be at least a foot and a half long, dropped it on the ground and proceeded to beat it with a stick! Next to him was a guy sitting on a rock plucking the chicken we'd ordered for dinner. I don't know that I've ever eaten such a fresh meal!

We headed for the bus home after that and arrived to our destination about two hours later. I had a feeling that this was gonna be one of those birthdays that just sticks out to me as a memorable one. As we traveled through the mountains and I watched the sun set in the valley, turning the events of the day over in my mind, I smiled. As completely foreign to me as everything that happened that day was, I knew it was exactly where I wanted to be. This strange, unfamiliar place, this is home... and I love it.

Every Day Life

The Jetson Mobile

Grocery Shopping

Shao Kao

Dancers at the Park

Feeding the hungry fish at the park

The dog we pass every afternoon on our way home from school

Shopping!

Us

Sometimes when I'm in my extremely Western-style apartment, eating extremely Western macaroni and cheese that was graciously mailed to me, and watching extremely cheesy chick flicks on my computer, I forget that I'm not in North America. It's a really odd feeling after Zack Ephron turns 30 again, I have to run errands, and I'm suddenly jolted to the reality that I live on the other side of the planet. Usually it happens almost immediately as I walk out the door of my apartment, and "China" fills my nostrils. Who knew one country could have so many overwhelmingly powerful smells... all within a few feet of one another! I have never been to any place that I have experienced such a plethora of odors within a journey of 30 feet! Ha ha!

So from thirty feet out the door, usually Drew and I are headed to our mode of transportation... which right now happens to be a three-wheeled scooter that also happens to look rather like a bubble-shaped hovercraft from the Jetsons! I absolutely think it is the coolest thing ever... Drew has a few issues with it, since it is fairly circular-shaped, and he tends to crack his head every time we go over a bump. We found out about a week ago that actually mostly old people use these three-wheeled scooters, because they are handicapped. So funny! If we have failed to remember that we are foreigners in a foreign country by then, it doesn't take long before we've drawn a crowd! A friend told us a few weeks ago that "foreigner is like panda. Not very many, so everyone want to see." Now imagine a panda driving past you a bubble-shaped-hover-jet. You'd be staring too!

We pass food markets with their fresh rabbits and chickens ready to be butchered in front of you when you buy them, horse-drawn carriages carrying a myriad of things from trash to vegetables, parks full of elderly people playing chess and authentic chinese instruments, and groups of men and women all over town dancing together to get exercise as we weave between buses stuffed to the roof with people, taxis, and bread-cars (really skinny short vans that look like loaves of bread).

Then the adventure of getting errands done becomes a reality. And yes, it's always an adventure! Buying chips at the grocery store becomes a debate in your mind... do I really want to try seaweed flavored Pringles, or should I stick to something more familiar, like roast-beef flavored potato chips (which impressively taste a LOT like roast beef!) Ordering furniture at the furniture store... well let's back up a step. Trying to explain to the taxi driver that you want to go to the furniture store across town and not the one a couple miles away, then trying to be as friendly as you can with the little Chinese you know when he wants to strike up a conversation, then finding the furniture you want, trying to decide whether you really want a color within pointing distance or if you should try to attempt to say the word in Chinese and find out what color you REALLY said when the furniture arrives, explaining your address, giving your phone number and hoping you'll be able to answer their questions when they call you... oh it gets much more complicated than this! We have come to learn that what takes an hour in America, takes at least a day here in China... at least until we can speak the language!

Now the language burier... that is the REAL adventure! We know just enough of the Chinese language to get ourselves in trouble! I have ordered a can of Sprite (in Chinese) at restaurants three different times now and have somehow managed to receive two different kinds of pens, have an entire discussion with a waiter (mostly me just staring blankly at him) about whether I wanted a giant bottle or a can, and a bewildered smile from a waitress who responded to my request by saying she couldn't speak English.

Drew's goof-ups are the funniest to me... for some reason the words for you, me, and he or she, have been jumbled in his mind. So far, he has called a child's mother beautiful (in attempt to call the child beautiful), told a waitress that she wanted chopsticks, and asked one of our friends if his wife was Drew's wife! But at least he's willing to go for it! He's my hero. Always the one to get things done when I'd rather just crawl under my covers and pretend that our scooter will magically be fixed by morning and the internet will be set up by itself if we want it bad enough!

At the end of the day, I love China. I love its strange smells, its funny old people that think we're funnier than they are, its food (which is awesome), and all of the funny interesting scenes we like to write home about. But it's always good to know that my extremely Western apartment, full of macaroni and cheese and corny chick flicks are always waiting for me to come home to.

Christmas in China

For those of you who are curious about our first Christmas away from home, it was AWESOME. Though Chinese people don't celebrate Christmas, they love to hear about it, and most major stores have a Christmas tree up somewhere, and sometimes a lot more :)

Christmas Carols are playing in every store you go to, both in English and Chinese. We started to learn a few Christmas Carols in Chinese at our school, which we could sing if we had the words in front of us! Maybe next year we'll be able to do it without looking.

We have managed to enjoy a lot of the festivities this year, such as singing Christmas Carols (even with other Chinese people... they love it!), making gingerbread houses (I was able to do this with some Chinese Children with some friends of ours), and we even got to go ice-skating!

Oh, and for those of you who have been wondering about Drew's skateboarding escapades, here's a quick preview of his latest endeavor. This is in front of a school of 500 students who had never heard about Christmas and all it means before.

On Christmas Day, we received text messages most of the day from all of our Chinese friends wishing us a Merry Christmas, which we thought was super cool that they remembered, and thought of us on our favorite holiday.

We celebrated in the morning just the two of us, opening presents and reading the Christmas story and eating a giant breakfast of dutch pancakes (crapes), bacon, and eggs. In the afternoon we went to a Christmas party with some of our friends and ate all of the fixings! Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, and the list goes on! That night we went home and got on skype video and watched my family open presents. The next morning we talked with Drew's parents, which was Christmas night for them.

My favorite part of Christmas day was going to a couple of our Chinese friends' places and giving them Christmas cookies. They were so excited to try Western Christmas Cookies! For both places, it was their first time. They were so grateful for something so small!

Even though it was hard to be away from everyone, I feel like this was one of my favorite Christmases. It has been amazing to share what this season means to us to so many people, and be embraced by those around us. We absolutely love China and the Chinese people! How special to celebrate our first Christmas just the two of us in the place we know we were made to be in. We couldn't imagine being anywhere else. To all of our friends near and far, Sheng Dan Kuai Le! (Merry Christmas)

Culture Shock

Moving to a new country is funny. From day to day the same routines go on around you, but for me at least, the things that make China so unique and cool are the exact same things that seem to irritate the crap out of me on any given moment. And it's not because there's anything wrong with the way things happen here! Culture shock decides when I like it and when I don't, seemingly.

The biggest cultural burier in any given country is the language. No matter if you like the food, the clothes, the people (that speak your language), the scenery, whatever, if you don't know the language, life can be pretty frustrating sometimes! When we first came to China, our favorite words were "Wo ting bu dong." meaning "I don't have a clue what you're saying." Apparently this is hilarious to anyone who talks to us... I guess it would be hilarious to me too if I had just had an entire one-sided conversation with someone and then realized they didn't understand a thing I just said! This is the one thing that when I'm tired and just want to go home, I just don't want to deal with! Haha, poor sweet-polite-people-who-actually-make-an-effort! By the time the last word has left your lips, I've already blurted out "Ting Bu Dong" and ended THAT friendly conversation!

For the last month we have been in intense language study. This has been extremely good for me and extremely painful to my brain! By the time we leave that classroom I don't want to speak in ANY language! Our teacher is absolutely incredible... so patient and so encouraging!  I'm not sure how she perseveres through our bumbling attempts to speak and our frustrations when we discover the word we THOUGHT we were saying actually has four other meanings, and we used the wrong one!

I was having one of those turn-off-my-brain-and-walk-home-without-looking-anyone-in-the-eye evenings a couple weeks ago when a girl interrupted my trance and said, "excuse me," in Chinese... I immediately responded with "Ting Bu-dong" even though I at least understood the two words she had just spoken. That didn't stop her and she immediately went into a stream of words in that annoying, unknown language. For some reason I didn't just repeat myself and walk away. I stuttered in Chinese, "What?" She repeated herself again, two more times. Suddenly it clicked! She was hungry and didn't have any money to buy dinner! Could I spare ten kuai (equivalent to a dollar fifty)? I picked up my purse and handed her ten kuai without second-guessing myself. "Thank you very much!" She exclaimed in Chinese, "What is your name?" I knew this one too! "My name is Deanna." "Deanna?" "Yes, Deanna." I replied, with a giant smile on my face. She thanked me again and walked away. 

I walked on air the entire distance back to my apartment, completely unconcerned with the fact that my first conversation in Chinese was with someone asking me for money. Someone else caught me in the elevator and started speaking. I didn't have a clue what she was saying. I gave her a giant smile, and responded in perfect Chinese, "Wo ting bu dong!" 

Celebrities

It's funny being the white people in China... kinda like being the white people in our old neighborhood. Sometimes it's like being a celebrity. We actually were nicknamed "the white people" in our old neighborhood. Not because were anything out of the ordinary... just not Afro American, which was apparently hilarious to ALL of our neighbors. Here is pretty similar, except the language barrier seems to be a point of interest for old people in particular. They find it hilarious that we don't understand anything they say! However, they're all very sweet and helpful! Okay, so that part of it really isn't much like being a celebrity. The stares, the (not so) subtle picture taking, and (my favorite) people waiting until after you pass them to yell out 'HELLO!" at the top of their lungs. That's the part that sort of makes you feel like you're somebody important.... or something.

Since being here, Drew has become an instant celebrity, and not because he's white either. Drew met a group of skaters the first week we were here, and by our second week, it was brought to his attention (and to the attention of any skateboarder that he ran into) that he was better than every professional skateboarder in China, which led to him being sponsored by the local skate shop. This has provided Drew with a plethora of unique and/or exciting (sometimes just unique...) opportunities involving skateboarding:

Week 2: Professional Skateboarder Kenny Reed came to town and looked for the local skate shop to find someone to show him around. Of course the first person they called after the team manager was Drew. Needless to say, Drew jumped at the opportunity to show around the guy who was his favorite skater when he was 14.

Week 3: KTV was filming a commercial and needed some skateboarders to gape at a Beijing Opera Singer. They called the local skate shop, who of course knew a great red-headed-skate-boarding-gaper (they asked some other skateboarders too).

Week 4: A local arts college was celebrating their 50th anniversary and decided that in the midst of the classical piano and organ pieces and the ballet dancing, it would be a great idea to have some skateboarders do a demonstration. They called the skate shop, and the skate shop decided that Drew (and his friend Bofly) would be perfect syncronized skaters.


Week 5: So far, so good. No ballet dancing opera singers have asked Drew to catapult over them yet. Too bad. Maybe next week...

First Post

Hey guys,

We have  been in China for three weeks now and thought this would be a great way to keep in touch with all of you.

Here is a list of the top 10 things that have shocked and amazed us thus far about this culture:

1. Kids pee on the streets... their parents tell them to.
2. Old people walking backwards does not mean they're senile (well, it might). They believe they are walking backwards in time, and de-aging.
3. There is no wrong way on a one-way street.
4. Eye contact on our part is not necessarily the cue on their part to stop staring, haha!
5. BYOTP... Bring Your Own Toilet Paper.
6. Old people actually hang out and do stuff... like playing authentic Chinese music together every morning in the park!
7. KFC is BETTER here!
8. We knew they ate just about any kind of meat, but we didn't know we could witness it being killed and skinned at the market before we took it home to grill out! Mmmmm.... Fresh!
9. Skateboard culture transcends every culture. As different as we are from Chinese people, when it comes to skaters their habits, priorities, and lifestyles are the same as skaters in the US.
10. Leaving your underwear out to dry in front of your business doesn't drive away customers.

So that was a very small glimpse into our new lives. We love it here, and can't wait to learn more about our country, so we can adjust, and give you awesome updates like this one!

We love you all, and hope you enjoy hearing about our adventures as much as we enjoy sharing them with you!