A New Room-mate

We have a new room-mate. It’s a rat. Yes, a rat-a-tat-tat. We are now the fourth apartment in our complex that I have heard of having a rat in the apartment. It’s quite terrible. I have not been able to enter any rooms without hitting the wall and stamping my foot. I saw the rat yesterday morning. At first, I thought I was seeing things. So I went back into my room and hoped that I was still just waking up. But when my room-mate got back from her walk, she confirmed that the rat had indeed come inside when she had left to go out that day. It came through a hole in the screened-in door when she opened the main door. This is no ordinary rodent we are dealing with. It’s very clever.

No one else really seems concerned about the rat living with us. But my room is right beside the kitchen and therefore a prime place for the rat to have a nice nap after having a feast, (at least if I were a rat, this is what I would do.)
However, I now have three methods in place to capture and or kill the rat. A mouse trap box which is a box that will capture the rat when it enters it to eat the food. Two sticky pads that supposedly the rat gets stuck on and then you can put a bucket over it and take it outside. And finally, rat poison. Apparently, it is illegal to sell rat poison because people were using the poison to kill things other than rats. However, when we were buying the sticky mouse traps, I asked my Chinese friend if the sticky pads were also poisonous. The vendor lady heard me, looked suspiciously around, and asked, “You want poison? I have that too.”

Rear Views

The next 4 pictures are a series of pictures I took from a rear view perspective. You can learn a lot about a culture by watching from the backside. If I try to take pictures from the front, the activity or feeling I'm trying to capture changes because people feel nervous and self-conscious.

Buddy Hug

It's common to see same sex friends walking down the street holding hands, or buddy hugging each another. It's normal, and I notice that I also link arms with my Chinese friends when we are walking together.

Fashion Front

This look is very popular here. It's a bigger, baby doll shirt with really short shorts (optional) and leggings or tights. (Needless to say, you won't see any pictures of me sporting this style.)

Strong women

Everybody's got a motorbike

Not such a Rare View

Please notice the half-back. It's a popular look here for guys. Men, if you feel hot, no worries. Just roll up your shirt and let the breeze cool your stomach.

A Turkish Culture Lesson

I just went over to my Turkish friends’ apartment to get a pie plate we had lent them. I didn’t want to just ask for the plate and leave, so I sat down and chatted with them for a little, half an hour and two cups of tea later, my friend mentioned the borrowed plate, but she said that in Turkey, the custom is to fill the plate with food before returning it, and she asked if she could return the plate later. How fun. I didn’t even mind that I didn’t complete my original intention of the visit. After chatting with my friends, I felt lighter; they helped relieve a lot of pressure that I had been placing on myself to learn Chinese well. I was telling them I was feeling overwhelmed with classes and sleeping very little. They said not to worry. If I didn’t learn it now, I will learn it in a month. They also said that learning the language will come with time. I felt encouraged. What a healthy way to view language learning. Not knowing all the Chinese characters in class is not really a just cause for self-criticism.

Picture #1: The Friend (Read the next 3 posts as a series)

This is my Chinese friend. Can you guess why she's excited to start eating?

Picture #2: The Feet

Because she ordered pigs' feet for us. Yum. One for her, one for me.

Picture #3: The Fear

Okay, so I'm a little scared, a little apprehensive about this cuisine. When I eat pigs' feet, what exactly is it I'm eating? It's not meat. Is it skin? Is it fat? Perhaps I'll never know.
My friend ate her pigs' foot down to the bone in about 3 minutes. I nibbled on mine.

Weaning

A baby cries outside my window. It’s Chinese, but some emotions speak all languages. It’s hungry, or it’s crying for its mom. I think of my Chinese tutor. She won’t go home to her baby until after it falls asleep. She will sneak into its room and peak at her while she’s sleeping. She’s trying to wean it from her breast milk. She has not let her baby see her this whole week. Other methods of weaning her baby didn’t work, so she’s trying this more traditional Chinese method. Her eyes are puffy, her demeanor worn, she misses her little one very much. She asks me if I know of any other methods. I have no helpful suggestions on this topic.

She asks me a lot of questions about my family this week. Or maybe it’s just in my head. Maybe I want to talk about my family more so I thwart all questions into short stories about my family.

I let her read a card I have stuck in my textbook. It’s from dad. He starts, “Hey toots!” My tutor is confused. I explain. She continues reading. She finishes and says, “your father tells you interesting things about life.” I try to recall what might be so interesting in the card. I skim it…it’s written in the form of short points about the week: the activities, the highs the lows…all these things captured in only 5 sentences. (My dad’s efficient). I see the line: “your mom had a shower last night. I went on a bike-ride.” I start to laugh. How funny these sentences must seem to my tutor or to any second language learner. It sounds as though mom took an actual shower, and dad thought this event significant enough to include in the letter..as though she only showers once a month or so. I explained it to my tutor. We laughed.

A Beautiful Monday

I wrote this blog this past Monday:

Today, finally, and truly, the weather is what I like to call Fall; I can’t get enough of it. I went on a jog at five. It was the perfect time and temperature. Apparently, it’s not normal to go jogging here at that time because I was the only person jogging. While a lot of students were outside, enjoying the weather, they were doing more relaxing activities such as strolling, playing cards, making out, etc. I’ve noticed that while I’m out by myself in public, I have a tendency to constantly have a look of consternation and seriousness on my face. The moment I don’t, people start approaching me and asking me questions that make me nervous and usually end in, “Can I have your phone number?” Even though I’m in a bigger city in China, a lot of the freshman students from more rural areas, haven’t seen foreigners before. So they respond by staring and talking loudly about the foreigner, sometimes in Chinese, sometimes in English.

Random picture so faithful readers keep checking this blog...

This person is selling meat on a stick. It's beef chunks seasoned with spices: pepper, garlic, and some mystery flavors. Yum!

New pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/chinatripchinatripchinatrip

Team Week

My team-mates and I have been having "team-building" week. Today this involved a field trip in the city. We went to a park and played Dutch Blitz. Can you imagine how people stared at us, tried to figure out the game, and even tried to join in playing?