Trip to Wudalian Chi

On Friday, I went to dinner with the same four students that had taken me out to dinner. I told them that since they took me out the first time, I would take care of dinner the next time. We went to a restaurant near our school that I pass by twice daily on the way to and from the bus stop. What caught my attention about the restaurant is that it has a sign on it that says KTV. KTV is karaoke, and I thought that would be something fun that would could do together. When we got there, the vote for KTV didn't pass, so we just ate instead of having both dinner and entertainment. We got a private room. The waitress handed me the menu to order. When you go to a restaurant here, the waiter or waitress hands you the menu and stand there until you order. Instead of feeling pressured to order, sat there with the menu for a minute showing my students all the characters on the menu that I knew. I conceded the menu to them to order. The first dish that came was a plate of pig joints. We received packets that contained chopsticks, a plastic glove, and straw. We all put on our one glove and picked up our pieces and started eating. The knee was the best piece, so they gave it to me. After struggling to eat off of the knee effectively, they gave me another packet, so I could use a second glove. They completely cleaned the bones; I could only stomach the meat but not the fat, ligaments, and cartilage. I felt bad wasting the best piece. They summarily put their straws to use. They slid them inside of the bones and started sucking out the marrow. I decided to give it a try, and it wasn't bad. It tasted like the rest of the meat but the consistency of a thick liquid. Think of a warm, meat flavored smoothie or milkshake. The rest of the food was really good, especially the sticky rice cakes that we had.

When I went to eat with Susan when I first got here, I was shocked at her tone when she talked to waiter. It is in no way abnormal to yell for the waiter; that is just how you get them to come over after you order. After we had been sitting for a while, she yelled for the waiter and said something to him in an agitated cadence. I asked what she said to him, and she told me, "I said, "I'm hungry; hurry up." Sven was telling me that those of higher classes really distrust and talk down to people of lower classes and occupation. He theorizes that since people try to take advantage of people with money, the upper classes think those serving them are trying to cheat them and treat the lower classes like lesser people. I know Susan's father is a math professor, and teachers are very respected in Chinese culture. I expected my students to yell for the waitress when we needed things. They quietly slipped out of the room and asked humbly for whatever we wanted. I wonder if they treat waiters and waitresses with more respect because they come from a similar stratus of society.

Joking around with me, Crystal asks, "When are you getting married?" I say, "In a long time. When are you getting married?" Fred jumps in, "Tomorrow." I snap back, "Are you the one marrying him?" This spurred a pretty serious discussion of relationships and marriage in China. I asked when they seriously wanted to get married. Dave answered that he wanted to get married at thirty. I asked him why he wanted to wait that long, and he said that he wanted to wait until he had enough money. I asked if the reason why guys buy expensive western clothes and spend lots of money in bars is to show women there that they have lots of money so they have the chance to get married. They adamantly agreed. I asked that if they have to do this because there are so few women. Again, they agreed. Dave interjected, "I think this is a bad thing. Most women are just interested in money, but not all of them." I was very satisfied with his analysis and reluctance to generalize.

Since Crystal lives in Henan province, he can't go home for the National Day holiday next week. The other three guys all live in Heilongjiang, so they are all going home. Since I'm still feeling pretty far behind in my class, I asked if Crystal would be my tutor during the holiday, and I offered to pay him for his time. Right when I said I would pay him, all of them rang, "No, no, no." They informed me, "We are friends; we don't talk money." I apologized for offering and said that I appreciated the cultural lesson. After dinner, we all went back to my room for a little while, listened to music, and taught me Chinese phrases like "Dear, I'm hungry; can you cook dinner?"

I had to get up early on Saturday to go to Wudalian Chi. We had a personal bus for our group of ten. In our party, there were five Germans, one Austrian, one Chinese, Sven (representing Switzerland), Mark (representing Holland), and myself. A fair amount of the conversation was in German over the course of the weekend, leaving myself and Bo Feng (our Chinese traveling companion) oblivious to what people were talking about. It didn't matter to me at all; I've become quite good at spacing out when listening to languages I don't know. The drive there took six hours. It was a really nice drive. The was a long conversation about Christianity, politics, and race in America. Since I have lots of opinions on those subjects and tend to get excited when they're brought up, I think I dominated conversation a little bit. To be fair though, I have a bit more knowledge and experience on those subjects than those with whom I was discussing. It was really interesting to get European and Chinese perspectives on the subjects. I was really impressed with Bo Feng's knowledge of America politics (with Europeans, knowledge of American politics is almost expected). Of Chinese people with good English speaking ability, he is by far my favorite. He is interested in the aspects of America that I find interesting, and I appreciate his sense of humor. What he finds funny is very strange and goofy. We were surrounded by flat farmland dotted by white birch trees. As we got farther north, the yellowing of the leaves on the white bark created a beautiful effect. Having lived in rural Russia for seven months, Sven said that it really reminded him of Siberia. I was encouraged to find this out. It was exactly how I pictured rural Russia whenever I have read Russian literature.

When we arrived, we ate a big lunch and headed to the main attraction in the area, Laohei Shan. Wudalian Chi is a series of volcanoes that just pop out of the plains. I was a bit disappointed when I arrived. There were six or seven bug bites on the horizon with a couple lakes in the middle. Laohei Shan is the supposed to be the most popular of the volcanoes according to Lonely Planet. We were all surprised when arrived at the gate to find that entrance to the park cost sixty yuan which is very expensive for Chinese standards. However, the price lead to several funny moments. Sven kept quantifying the value of each of the views. This lead to the Sven-o-meter, a device that measures the value of tourist sights. Its quite a complex device. Sven says how much he thinks something is worth, and I place one of my forearms horizontally while the other gauges it Sven's measurements in relation to the cost of entrance. Another good moment was when we were told that we couldn't bring lighters into the park. Sven had to explain to us that the village has been peaceful for the last twenty years and that they didn't want us to light the volcano. The sight itself was nice in addition to light-hearted attitude of the group. The mountain was surrounded by a lava field that looked like the moon. Mark walked into the lava field, took the moon from America, and claimed it for the Netherlands. The walk up the side of the mountain to the crater was nice. We were surround be trees, and that was a first during my trip here. I made a Chinese friend on the walk up. I managed to understand one of about every six or seven phrases he said to me. I managed to find out that he was from Xiamen in Fujian province, and he gave me a bottle of water since I was lacking one. When we reached the top, he got me to take a picture with him. The crater was impressive, and the views and the wind off the top of the mountain were refreshing. The walk back down was not so fun.

We briefly returned to out hotel because it was getting cooler. For sunset, we walked to Hao Shan, another "mountain" just on the outskirts of the village. I think "Hao Shan" is the name because even though their was nothing saying this at the mountain, a near by street was named Hao Shan. On the top, there was a Buddhist statue and tow pagodas. The trees on the top were a collage of reds, yellows, greens, oranges, and browns. By the time we got there and reached the top, it was almost completely dark. It was a nice place to go to conclude the day.

We walked back into town for dinner. We went to a place near our hotel. When we got the bill, back it was far more than we expected. A debate between Bo Feng and the staff ensued. They charged us twice as much for two dishes and almost double for our beer. It took about twenty minutes to get the bill from 170 yuan to expected price of 104 yuan. Granted, they difference in expense is not that great when it taken from the standard of Western currency, but it is greatly disrespectful. No one likes it when someone tries to take advantage of you.

We walked out of the restaurant, and everything in the town had shut down. Since it was relatively early, we looked around for something to do. We were referred to a KTV place. We walked over, and we opened the door to what looks like the inside of the a trailer. The room is small, there are two couches, and the walls are covered with tanish cloth. There is a strobe light, bad techno is blaring, and there are three middle-aged men dancing poorly. The owners take us upstairs to a room for KTV. They bring out the song book, and the only western music is from Classical composers. We leave. One the owners comes back out. He has traveled to the depths of the basement to a secret vault and pulled out the tome of Western music that he hid because nobody uses it there. We go back up to the room only to find out that they didn't have the CD that went with it.

We walked down the street to another place. They immediately put some familiar music on, and spent the rest of the night singing. If I had to estimate, the town has about four hundred people at the most, but it also has two KTV places. On the walk back, the vast majority of the lights in the town were off, and I saw more stars than I had seen in a long time.

The next morning we went to a different set of lava fields after a quick breakfast. The place wasn't too large, but it was interesting. The lava field at Laohei Shan were completely barren; these had different trees and shrubs creeping out from between the rocks. We left there and went to a spring. This spring supposedly had minerals in it that were healthy. People came with water jugs and filled them from the spring. It just tasted like carbonated water to me, but when I lifted a car later, I knew it had to be the water. We wandered into an outdoor market. There were fish, meat, fruits, and vegetables lined up on the sidewalk. We went into a bakery and had some chocolate covered pastries and moon cakes. Moon cakes are the food that people give each other for the Mid-autumn Festival during the National Day holiday. The vendors tired to pitch their products to us in Russian, and we had to let them know that we weren't Russian.

Our admission to the spring also included entrance to one of the lakes. It seems that you have to pay to access anything worthwhile here (or sometimes you have to pay to see thing that are not worthwhile). The lake was first place I have been where it fit my preconceptions about what China would look like. There were pagodas beside a lake that was lined with tall reeds. The reeds were rustling in the wind, and they were backed by yet another lava field. It was my favorite part of the trip.

We left the lake and went to a Buddhist temple and monastery that was on the far side Hao Shan. Fed up with charges to get into places, most everyone decided not to go in, but I was really interested. I paid the fifteen yuan entrance fee and went in. After paying the monk at the door, I starting spraying pictures. The temple area was filled with statues. Smaller ones were free standing in the courtyard; larger ones sat inside temples. All of the statues were of warriors except for two golden buddhas. There was a fat buddha and a skinny buddha. There were three temples inside the walls of the compound. The largest temple was under renovation. I walked around transfixed by people worshiping and throwing coins into a metal tower. I walked into the second largest temple. There was a female monk kneeling in prayer. I was taking pictures of the inside of the temple, and I turned in her direction to take a picture. She was not pleased. She covered herself up with a jacket, then immediately pulled it off to start yelling at me. I had no clue what she was saying, so I just walked out. I definitely understand I was being disrespectful, but in another sense, when you open your temple to tourists, charge admission, and have a gift shop, the sanctity of the place is lost. Also in my studies of Buddhism, I never found anger as trait a practitioner should express. At the same time, I realize that an individual monk has no control over whether her temple is open to the public and can understand her frustration in having her worship disturbed; I should have been more respectful.

After waiting for a couple minutes, the monk at the door let the rest of our group into the temple for free. We walked around for a minute then walked up Hao Shan again to get a better view in full daylight. When we got the Buddhist statue at the top, there was an old woman with red ribbons. She gave us each one to tie on the trees for good luck. We asked if we had to pay before we took them, and she said it was a gift. After we had tied them on the trees, she asked Bo Feng to get us to give her some money. She asked for five yuan at first, then two, and she said it was nothing to us. Bo Feng told her it wasn't right of her to tell us that it was a gift then ask for money. When we walked away, she untied the ribbons we put on the trees.

I really enjoyed the trip. It was two great Autumn days. Getting out of the city was nice, and I found rural Heilongjiang province beautiful and interesting. I've posted many pictures from the trip on the picture sight, so check them out. As of Tuesday, it will be one month since my departure. I've been thinking about a lot of things about China, home, and the relationship between the two, so I'm going to provide my analysis of my first month here in my next post. Thanks for reading, and keep the e-mails coming.

All Work and No Play Makes Ryan a Very Dull Boy

Sunday morning, I got up early to take some pictures and do some studying. After walking around and taking some pictures, I sat down in a park by the river to study. Everyone is up early on Sundays. People are playing badminton and ping pong. Adults are doing exercises like Tai Chi and inline skating. Children are jumping around on playgrounds with their grandparents watching. I sat on a bench next to a playground. Slowly, people started gathering around me. When they saw I had a book of Chinese lessons out, they started asking me questions. I did my best to answer them; it was good practice for speaking and listening. I got quite a bit of free tutoring on my pronunciation and characters. Elementary school children would show me how to write the characters. I would help them pronounce the English words in my book, and they would help me pronounce Chinese words. Younger kids would run up to me and say, "hello." They would immediately get embarrassed and run back behind their parents' legs. It was good fun, and it was really productive way to study.

At eleven, I met up with some friends to go to Sun Island park. The park is a short boat ride across the river. We grabbed some food before we crossed because the food in the park is very expensive. I went back to a street vendor I had bought from earlier in the week. He remembered me and was very excited that I returned, with friends no less. After a few of us purchased some food, I asked him if we were friends, and he confirmed what I had expected. This street vendor is not Chinese, and I learned how to ask what country people are from this week in class. I can't wait to return and ask.

The boat trip across the Songhua River was nice. We had a Chinese person with us, so we got tickets across and back for two yuan compared to the ten yuan that the Lonely Planet guide told us we would have to pay. Sun Island was a surreal place. It is a giant park that is perfectly landscaped. Mark compared it to Disney World without the rides, and I think that is an accurate description. Nothing there felt authentic; the entire environment was perfectly controlled. There were dear and squirrels that you could feed out of your hand. Every bush was unnaturally shaped. For a while, we enjoyed the welcome break from the constant hustle of the city, but the combination of not being able to sit or lay on the grass with Kenny G-esque music blaring from speakers everywhere in the park wore down the group's spirits. By the time we left, most of us were more than ready to go.

We all had dinner together at one of the outdoor beer gardens on Zhongyang Dajie. It was a feast of street food and beer. A member of our party opted for the grilled cocoons we saw earlier in the day. They are still moving before you put them on the grill. I took care of the beer. Beer is ten yuan for a pitcher and you put down a five yuan deposit on each pitcher. I got us three pitchers of beer. When I went back to the counter to take back the pitchers and redeem my deposit, they wouldn't give me my deposit back. I got the Chinese member of our group to talk to them and explain to me what was going on. They said I needed a receipt to get my deposit back. They never gave me a receipt in the first place. The people working there certainly recognized me purchasing the beer, and it was just a little way to take fifteen yuan from me. It really bothered me. First, its such a short-sighted decision to not just give me my deposit back. I'll most likely drink hundreds of yuan in beer over the course of my time here, and I will never go back to that beer garden. I will go to the one on the next street in either direction when I want to go to a beer garden, and when my friends and I go out, I'll request that we go to another one. They took fifteen yuan from me and lost out on several hundred yuan in potential business. The second reason for it bothering me is that it reveals how easy it is to take advantage of me. I have been very lucky so far; I really don't have the capacity to do anything if some takes advantage of me. I'm lucky I lost out on about two dollars, so I can have my guard up for people who are after more money or worse.

On Monday, I had Chinese class in the afternoon. I got up early to study before class. When I was walking out of the my school to go study at HIT, a student approached me. He introduced himself and asked if he could come along. His English name is Andrew, and he speaks very well. On the way to the bus, he told me, "I have a very good personality." We chatted for a while on the bus. He said he was very interested in American culture and language. We found a place to study at HIT. He studied English and I studied Chinese. He had a dictionary and was just writing words and phrases out of the dictionary on a sheet of paper. He is not and English major and he says that he gets up two hours before class everyday to go to the stadium at school and practice his oral English. He helped me with pronunciation. We got to one word, and he was making me repeat it. The word had a "d" in it, and I guess he wasn't pleased with my pronunciation of it. It must have sounded like a "t" to him because he said to me, "Sometimes in American English 'd' is pronounced like 't', but not in Chinese." I told him that we never pronounce "t" like "d". He repeated, "No, but in American English, sometimes 'd' is pronounced like 't'." I decided to let it go.

Then, something clicked for me. I realized that the reason I don't like students like Andrew and Susan because they try to tell me about things I already know, and moreover, they're wrong. I didn't come to China to have Chinese people tell me what are the famous American brands or how we speak. Dave, Crystal, Brad, and Fred can barely speak to me, but when I talk to them, they can tell me about things that I have no clue about. I find out things about rural life in China, and they ask me questions, rather than thinking that already have the answers. Susan and Andrew tell me things about themselves. They say that they are brave or have a good personality. My other students leave it to me to interpret what type of people they are. Susan and Andrew in a sense treat me like I'm stupid, and the other guys give me something to learn and learn something in return.

In class on Monday, we had another dictation test over the vocabulary we had been studying. On last Thursday, we had a dictation. I missed most of my tones on my pinyin and knew three characters. On Monday, I got all my pinyin right except one tone and only forgot three characters. The time spent studying over the weekend really paid off, and I was really encouraged.

After class one of the Russians invited me to eat dinner with him. His name is Nikita. He was the Russian who was particularly interested in car cost, average salary, and exchange rates at our class lunch. It was one of the hardest experiences I've had communicating with someone since I've been here. At lunch with the class, the Russians could work together to come up with the words they wanted to say, but that night, it was just he and I. Despite the difficulties, it was one of the best conversations I've had since I been here. We talked about each other's homes. He said Russia was an "evil" place; he followed this statement by throwing fists and saying, "Boom, boom, boom." He told me, "In China, American boy can walk around at night, but in Russia, no." We were talking about my family, and he was asking about the things we have. He got to another point where he was reaching for words. He put his hands in the shape of an oval on the table. I said, "Egg...chicken." He spread his hands open like the egg cracking. I said, "Born." He said, "Yes, sometimes I ask 'Why I not born an American boy.'" I was taken back by such a simple and profound question. I thought for a second and replied, "I ask myself the same questions: 'Why was I not born a Russian boy?' or 'Why was I not born an African boy?' I don't know why. There is no reason. I am just lucky." With that, my whole analysis of China had to be turned around back on myself. The only reason I can condemn materialism is that I have everything I need and want. The ability to look down materialism is a luxury in itself provided by having more than enough. I already have everything I want, and it is only because I am in that place that I can look and the Chinese and be perplexed by why they want more than what they have. I should keep in mind how fortunate I am to be born in my circumstances and approach everything else with that understanding.

This week has been entirely consumed by Chinese class. I have been in class for four hours a day, and outside of eating, the vast of majority of my time has been spent trying to learn characters. I am not displeased with the class; I think it is very good that I'm getting intensive Chinese lessons. However, so much of my time has been focused on the written side of the language, and what I really want to do is improve my oral Chinese. Its nice to go into the city and understand that that building is a bank, but I would rather focus my time on trying to talk to old men in the park. The amount of new vocabulary we get daily is mind-blowing. We average twenty words a day. There is no possible way to integrate that many words into your functional vocabulary, but if you really go after it, you can memorize the characters. Really, the class is geared so students can pass the written exams. Passing them is a nice thought, but that never has been my intention in learning the language. I'm not sure if I'll try to take the same class next semester. I think I'd rather go take would I've "learned" this semester and go out into the city and figure out how to use it.

Thursday night, I had dinner with one of my students. Her English name is Rainbow. Two students with whom I had played basketball saw me and approached me, and I asked them to join us. I asked them their names again, and they gave me Chinese names. Rainbow suggested that I give them English names; I readily agreed given that Chinese names are pretty inaccessible to me. The names are three syllables long, and if I'm going to remember three syllables, its going to be a word that helps me survive here. At the end of the meal, I gave them their names. I chose Chris and Mark. They asked me what the names meant. I told them that in America, we only pick names because they sound nice, but normally, the names don't have a meaning. They were disappointed.

After my experiences naming people so far, I've given some thought on how I'm going to administer English names from now on. First, I thought I would give them Biblical names. Some Biblical names are names we use in America, and they have a story behind them that has a meaning. Then, I thought about trying to tell Bible stories to students in a way they could understand, and I abandoned that idea. Then, I considered giving names of philosophers and theologians. Those names certainly have ideas associated with them, but explaining those ideas would be even more difficult than Bible stories. Then I came up with the perfect idea. I'm going to give names from the TV show American Gladiators. The names certainly have the sorts of meaning that they are looking for, there are names for men and women, and there is a ready-made list of names. I can't wait to write about my new friends, Nitro, Laser, and Ice.

This weekend I'm taking a trip to Wudalian Chi. It is a series of volcanoes that last errupted not long ago. And by not long ago, I mean 1720. In the last erruption, the volcanoes had lava flows that blocked a river to create barrier lakes. It'll be scenic, and I'm looking forward to the fresh air and hiking. I will return with pictures and stories. I would love to return to some e-mails from home as well, so please, keep them coming.

The First Week of Class

True to my word, I have made an update in a reasonable amount of time given the detail I choose to write in. I feel that I should warn before you start reading that some of this post is R-rated. There is profanity and reference to morally compromising sexual behavior. This is fair warning; if you think you may be offended, then don't read further. Really, I don't think any of it is that bad, or I wouldn't have put it on here. I have to confess that I have edited some events thus far for my readership, but I'm very excited about adding in the profane this time. I think the entertainment value will compensate for potential offensiveness.

After a full week, I'm feeling pretty good about my Chinese class. At times, I felt so lost that I had no choice but to laugh at myself, but all-in-all, I feel like it was a very productive week. Despite my fluctuations in studying discipline over the course of the week, I have made some substantial gains. I have added several words and phrases into my functional vocabulary, which I feel like is the most important part to me. My listening ability is really weak. I have not figured out how to effectively identify initial sounds, final sounds, and tones. Considering that these are all the parts of listening, I'm not in a very good state there. If I keep up at this rate, I'll be able to talk to people and have no clue what they're saying back. I'm confident that it'll come with time. Its a hard thing to practice on your own time though.

The most exciting part of the class has been riding around on the bus and being able to identify some characters out in the city. For some, I can identify them, know what sound they are, and maybe know what they mean in the context; for others, I see them I know that I should know them because we've been over them in class. The written language has already lost its completely foreign look. We had a reading class on Friday that broke down the characters into their components. When you approach the characters as combinations of those components, the whole written language becomes far less intimidating. You can look at a twenty stroke character and identify all the components. Sure, it'll take a long time to write and master those strokes, but you feel like you can manage it. The book is very annoying at times because it only provides the steps to writing the some of the new characters you get with a lesson; the rest you have to figure out on your own by looking at the character and applying the rules for the order of the strokes. Nevertheless, learning characters still has the feeling of a pleasant surprise, and I hope I can keep that perspective on learning them. I think it will keep that side of the language from becoming too frustrating. Mark was telling me that the amount of class time the program gives you after one year should be sufficient to take the test to be able to attend a Chinese university, the HSK 6. The prospect of having my Chinese ability quantified that concretely is exciting and will give an ultimate goal to work towards.

I only had one class to teach this week. It was on Thursday morning. After being in a Chinese class for three days and staring at the teacher blankly for a good portion of that time, I was able to identify that look and sentiment in my students. I needed to make my class a bit more simple. I decided on what I'm doing for a mid-term and final for the class. Since basketball is their core interest in American culture, the mid-term will be a basketball game. I'm going to spend a couple sessions extensively going over basketball vocabulary, and in a couple weeks, we're going to have an English-only basketball game. For the final, students will get into pairs and prepare a dialogue about anything we have talked about over the course of class. Their dialogue will be one minute long. After that, I will jump into their conversation for another minute, and they must successfully respond to what I have to say. I think I'll be a good examination of their abilities to form good English phrases, pronounce them, and know vocabulary around one subject well enough to have a conversation about it.

For rest of the first session, we did an exercise on introductions. I figured it would be a good way to learn everyone's names and assign English names. English names are absolutely essential for me because like I said, my listening skills aren't that great. Someone will say their Chinese name to me; I'll try to repeat it; laugher ensues. Then they say it again slowly, and I do better with it. I made them say things to each other like "Hello, my name is... Nice to meet you. Where are you from? What do you do?" Then we talked about other things you could talk about when you meet someone. I guess it was a lesson in small talk, and I don't know if I'm the best person to administer such a lesson. I went around the class and listened to them talk to each other, then I made each person introduce themselves to me in an effort to learn each student's name. If they didn't have an English name, I gave them one. Only one person was dissatisfied with his name. I tried to use the same method as I used with the students with whom I went to dinner; I listened to their Chinese name and picked names with the same consonant sounds. I gave a guy the name Bo. Everyone started laughing, and he looked displeased and asked for a new name. I asked what was wrong with the name Bo and asked if it was a curse word. No one answered. I changed his name to Kit which was quite the random name to pull out. During the break, I asked some students what Bo means in Chinese. They said it means cat. I didn't think that it was that bad of a name, but I could concede that Cat is not as cool of a name as Crystal or Robot.

For the second session of class, I talked about American profanity and racial slurs. I justified teaching them about it by saying that they were an important part of American culture. If you can use profanity with someone you know or vice versa, then it is a sign of comfort in a relationship to speak freely. If someone is using profanity or racial slurs around people they don't know, that is a really good sign that it is a bad situation, and you should probably get away. Despite my rationalizations, I taught the lesson because I thought it would be fun, and I knew they would be interested and wanted to know. I know that when I'm learning a language one of the first things I want to know is how to curse. Let me assure you, the lesson was most certainly fun. If you ever get the opportunity to have twenty-five Chinese people practice their pronunciation of "God damn it," take advantage of it. My favorite part of the class was when I created a dialogue to help understand the proper way to use the term "bullshit." I created a basketball scenario to put the use of the word into a context they could relate to. One side of the class said, "That's a foul!" The other side responded, "That's not a foul; that's bullshit!"

In regard to teaching about racial slurs, I think it turned out to be a really good part of the lesson. I told them that these were things that are unacceptable to say regardless of the context. A bit of a history lesson is necessary to explain the racial slurs and the racial tensions associated with them, and I think that lesson is essential to understanding the current state of race relations in America. If anything in my lesson accomplished the goals of teaching about American culture of in a way that could be beneficial to my students, I think it would be this part of the lesson. Some of the students looked a little uncomfortable at the end of class, so I surveyed whether they thought the lesson had an acceptable subject. They all said yes, but it wouldn't be the first time that they have withheld information from me if they really felt otherwise.

My Chinese class is divided into four fifty minute sessions separated by ten minute breaks. During the last session on Friday, class got a little rowdy. A Russian girl named Katie started passing notes to the Canadian guy in our class named Jack. She was on the other side of the room from him, so every time a note was passed it was a big production. Everyone got involved. I was sitting beside Jack, so I got to read the notes. She was writing to him, "I want to go out with you tonight." and "I want to go dancing with you." Amused by the sophomoric behavior, I suggested to Jack that he send back a note that provided boxes that she could check yes or no in to find out if she liked him. Everyone stopped paying attention; they were spent after an intense week. I wasn't like the teacher could discipline us either. She would have just said things in Chinese to us that we couldn't understand, and we would just look back at her with vacant faces. For example, one of the Russian guys in class forgot to bring a pencil. The teacher starts talking to him and hands him a pen. Jack is in the back cracking up. He has been teaching in China for a couple years, so he knows oral Chinese. I asked him what she was saying to him, and he told me that she said, "Coming to class without a pencil? Why did your parents send you here? Does your mother know you don't have a pencil?" The Russian guy was not embarrassed in the least because he didn't have a clue what was being said.

After class, Mark, Sven, and I had lunch with this guy named John. He is an older guy from the Mid-West, and he is going on his third year here. Hearing him speak to waitress was extremely encouraging. Don't tell my mother this, but it made me want to spend more than a year here to achieve that level of oral fluency. Afterwards, I had plans to go swimming with the same group of students with whom I've been eating and two other students, Allen and Jackie. Sven and Mark decided to join. It was a funny scene. The students all had matching swim suits and caps because they had the same swimming class. They looked like a swim team, but could barely swim. They had been swimming for years, but no one had ever taught them anything. This was juxtaposed against Mark and Sven, who are stronger swimmers than myself. When the three of us were tired and leaving, the students stayed to swim. But they weren't really swimming at this point; they were just sitting on the side of the pool. Mark said it was a good example of Chinese dedication.

Mark invited me to come to dinner with some guys from his class. It was a Russian guy's birthday, and I accepted the invitation. When I was walking to the bus stop to meet everyone at HIT, I walked past all the street vendors that are set up on the weekends. I was walking along, and I heard someone say America in Chinese. Knowing that I probably spurred the mention of the word, I looked up to where I heard the word coming from, and there is this man about fifteen feet to my left in his 40s or 50s staring strait at me. He is looking pretty pissed (possibly in the British sense of the word as well). He just keeps speaking in a loud angry tone while unwaveringly staring at me. I just keep walking. I look down at my shirt. I am wearing a shirt that has a stars-and-stripes recycling symbol on it and says, "America Recycles Everyday." I promptly zip up my jacket. It was a warm night. There was no reason to bring my jacket in the first place. No one had been anything but extremely nice and excited to me when they found out I was an American.

I arrived at HIT a couple minutes early because it is hard to gauge how long it will take to cross town in the buses. Mark and I met up with the Russians outside of the international student dorm there. It was a guy named Vanya's 19th birthday celebration. Somehow, we immediately get talking about basketball. Maybe because I'm tall and American, people assume I play basketball. I'm glad I do because I'm not sure if I could really relate to anyone otherwise. We agreed to play together sometime. In our group there were five Russians, one girl from Hong Kong named Joy, one guy from Barcelona named John, Mark, and myself. I got put in a cab with Vanya, Joy, and John. We had a nice discussion about politics. It started when I made mention to the law the prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sundays in Georgia. I've made mention to that law a couple times since I've been here to get a rise out of people. It sparked a good discussion of American politics. Having become interested in Spanish politics last summer when they legalized same-sex marriage, I asked John what he thought of Zapatero, Spain's current president. John had some criticisms of the current Spanish government from a Cataluyian perspective. He is in favor of independence for Catalan, but he started talking about how independence would hurt trade for Catalan by inhibiting trade with the rest of Spain. Vanya jumped in with an analogy about how the fall of the USSR hurt trade in Russia because resources, production, and assembly for products are now in different parts of Russia and former Soviet states. He says it has reduced Russia to an energy dealer. Our cab arrived first, and when we got out, I really appreciated that I was one of four people standing on the sidewalk from completely different corners of the world. Harbin is a very international city, and I appreciate the opportunity it has provided to speak with people from every continent.

Harbin has also made me extremely jealous of the language education systems of other countries, especially those in Europe. For example, Sven learned German, French, and English before he graduated high school. He spent seven months in Russia, so he can chat with the Russians in their tongue. He has also been in the language program here in China for a semester, so he is the wise sage that has experience learning the language and can offer advice to Mark and I when we voice our frustrations. Mark can speak Dutch, German, English, and French, and now he's making the effort to learn Chinese. I feel ashamed when I think about my Spanish speaking ability in relation to their English.

The restaurant we went to was very good but also strange. It was incredibly nice. We all walked past a doorman wearing a grey, three-piece suit while we were dressed in jeans and t-shirts. All guests had there own private room, but it was unnecessary at that point. We were sitting down to eat after eight, and the Chinese usually start eating dinner no later than five thirty. The restaurant was called Around the World, and our room was the Russian themed room. The entire room was made from wood. There was a fireplace with a matryoshka (those dolls that stack up inside each other) on it; the Russians informed us that they are only for tourists. There was no music, and the room was eerily quiet. Each seat at the table was set with twelve plates and twenty-six pieces of silverware. Vanya took the head of the table, the Russians lined his left side, and the group of "others" flanked his right. Most conversation stayed on its own side of the table with Vanya pivoting between the two. Beer came, and the language barriers loosened.

Vanya told us a story of one of his first nights in Harbin. A group of his friends went out to dinner, and we looking to go out afterwards. They start looking up the word for disco in the dictionary, when they stumble upon the word for striptease. Inspired by their discovery, they decide to take that course of action. They get in a cab and ask the driver to take them to a striptease. The driver asks them if they are looking for expensive or cheap. After hearing the price range on expensive, they determined that they are in the cheap market. The taxi takes them to this hotel. It is ninety yuan to get in the door. They pay and go in. They are taken to back a room with a bar, and all these women are lined up and the bar. At this point, Vanya struggles a bit with his English; he says, "These women are..." I fill in for him, "Prostitutes." The story continues. Their Chinese is not that great and the people in the hotel begin telling the Russians prices for their services. It is two hundred for a room for three hours. It is three hundred for a striptease. It is one hundred for sex. Mark chimes in, "Three hundred for a striptease, and one hundred for sex. Do they fuck with their clothes on?" Vanya says that they decide its getting late; the dorms are locked at midnight; they don't want to pay the money, so they just go home.

The group of Russian we ate with are from Moscow. They were telling us about the differences between themselves and the eastern Russians that are here. They feel like they can't understand the other Russian here. They said that all the eastern Russians care about is going to clubs and fighting. They come back the next day and brag about how they fought. We also had a long discussion about vodka, and the Russian traditions surrounding it. The food was excellent, and Vanya picked up the tab. I figured each meal was about fifty yuan, and in dollars, that is nothing (a little over 6) for the type of meal we ate. Given the exchange rate is four rubles to one yuan, it was a particularly generous gesture. Vanya said that it was his birthday, so he picked up the bill. Mark and I protested that that is the opposite of how it is supposed to go. He wouldn't hear us out.

Given that it is one of the only place in the city the foreigners go to, we all went to Blues after dinner. After a long week of work and class, everyone was in extremely high spirits. The group of young Aussies was there, and given our relatively new relationship, I was flattered by the warmth of their greeting. The mood definitely rubbed of on me, so much so that I actually made my way to the dance floor for a decent part of the evening. That is a very good indicator of the sort of state I was in. Really, I the reason I danced was because Oren was there and he was dancing. He was wantonly flailing himself about having a great time. It was absolutely hilarious. When people aren't taking themselves seriously, I really enjoy dancing. I ended up wearing someone's tie around my head on my head. I think it was discovered on the floor and bounced around a couple people until it ended up finding a home as my headband. It was the first time I really enjoyed myself there.

Tomorrow, I'm heading across the river to Sun Island. It is supposed to be a very pretty place, and I have been carrying my camera around a bit more. Tomorrow, there should be a picture update. Also, if your interested in a different take on some of the same places and events, Mark gave me the link to his blog. I read it, and I found it in many ways confirming of my experience. The URL is http://kruuemel.waarbenjij.nu. The URL is in Dutch, but he writes in English. Be sure to send me an e-mail.

A Small Problem

I just put up a post that details the last week. I started writing it before the two previous posts, so it isn't at the top of the page. The post is titled Teaching, Studying, and Such. Scroll down to it, or you can click on the title in the taskbar on the right.

Good News/Bad News

So this Monday, I started a Chinese class. Its at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT). Its going to be great. HIT is one of the best schools in China. My class is filled with people from all over the world. There are plenty of Koreans and Russians. There are three Africans, two Arabs, one Canadian, and myself. Its intensive; I'll have twenty hours of class a week. That's four hours of class every weekday on top of my (extremely light) teaching schedule. I think I'm going to really learn Chinese. Last night I memorized eleven characters. I was so excited because when I came here, I was content just learning oral Chinese. I was too intimidated by the characters to even make an attempt on my own. It was very rewarding to start down a path you never thought you could travel and feel like you could make it.

However, there is a price to this class beyond what it costs in tuition. For one, I am already behind. The class has already met for a week before I started. I'm twenty hours of class behind, and I have to learn what I missed on my own time. That means I probably won't go out, wander around, and run into unexpected things like I have been doing. By the time I catch up, I think I'll be too cold to want to wander aimlessly. Plus, I'm already on backlog for about a week of things I need to write about for the blog, and I expect updates to continue to be sporadic and become less eventful. I've made notes on things I want to write about, but I'm afraid the events will lose significance in my mind as time passes. I'm going to write about last week as soon as possible.

With that said, I had my worst moment since I came to China today. I had just walked out of the gates of HIT after class. I was walking toward my bus stop when a little homeless girl walked right in front of me. She was maybe two years old at the most, and she was incredibly cute. She had a thick, fluorescent pink jacket on that had the same tinge of dirt as her face and hands. Her mother was sitting up against the fence in the shade with an infant wrapped in burlap cloth. The little girl asked me for money. Surveying my pockets, I determined that I didn't have any change, but I had large bills and a one yuan bill and a five yuan bill. The one yuan bill was my bus fare back home. I decided against giving the girl money. I walked past. The little girl runs in directly front of me and says something I don't understand. I step to the side to go around her. She side steps right in front of me. I go to walk to the other side of her. She slides in front of me again and wraps her arms around both my legs. Her head came up to just above my knees. She looks at me and starts talking. I don't understand. I say, "I don't have money. I don't have money." Her mother starts talking to the girl. I can't understand. Everyone else is walking past. People are looking at me because I have been stopped there for a while. Finally, I push my hand on the girl's head to keep her in the same place. Holding her still, I step out of her grasp and around her. I start walking to the bus stop again. She runs as fast as she can beside me, but at my walking pace, she can only keep up for five steps. She drops off and walks back to her mother.

A couple steps later, I see my bus. I'm about fifty yards from my stop and determine that if I don't run, I'll have to wait for the next one. I run, hop on the bus, and quickly slide my one yuan bill into slit in the cash box. The driver looks at me and says two yuan. I look left into the bus. Its one of the air-conditioned buses with extra seats that cost two yuan. I have to slide my five in the cash box and sit down.

Johnny told me about a conversation that he had with an old homeless man. Johnny asked him how much he would get in a day. The man said sometimes he could make eighty in one day, but he doesn't get to keep it. The old man told him about the beggar "pimp" who goes around and takes ninety percent of what the beggars receive everyday. The pimp is a big strong guy, and the homeless are old men and women with kids who are weak and malnourished. If the pimp isn't happy with what he gets, he can beat the beggars freely without worry of repercussions. Apparently, this system is the norm for China. I don't present this story to validate or invalidate my actions today; the ethical questions in giving money to homeless people are beyond where I have attempted to reason. I presented this story to show the added complexity to ethical question in China.

I'd like to thank everyone who has let me know that they are reading. I appreciate the compliments, and I'm glad I can share a bit of this experience with you. Continue to write me. I'll try to have more of my exploits and pictures up here as soon as possible.

Stories I've Heard

There are a couple stories I've heard here that I figure are worth sharing. They're all from English speaking foreigners (because those are the only people I can talk to). I want to share them because they either have granted me insight into being here, embodied my experiences and sentiments, or were simply entertaining. I promise to share more as I get them.

This Saturday, I rode in a cab with a French-Canadian named Marc on the way to the soccer game. We were chatting and I can't remember how this story came up, but its the best story I've heard since I've been here. Marc got his job through a recruiter. Recruiters find you a job at a school, handle all the contracts and visas, and take a cut of your paycheck for themselves. Marc's recruiter is actually a government official. Marc left town to go on vacation for a couple days with his girlfriend to go see her family. Marc told his boss that he was going on vacation to this city. His boss misunderstands him and thinks he is leaving his job in Harbin and taking one in this other city. Thinking that Marc is leaving his job does not make his boss happy. Being that his boss is a government official, he can actually make the police do what he wants. He sends the police after him in this other city.

The police find Marc at his girlfriend's house. They come to take him back to the police station. However, his girlfriend's sister has married into a Chinese Mafia family. The Chinese mob comes, holds off the police, and saves Marc from arrest. Marc eventually returns to Harbin, explains the misunderstanding to his boss, and is no longer a wanted man harbored by the Chinese Mafia.

Marc told me another story in the cab that says something about Chinese culture. He is eating at this restaurant, and he finds an inch-long, rusty spike in his food. He takes it back to show to his Chinese friends. He says, "Look what I found in my food!" His friends look at him casually and tell them about what they found in there school lunch in middle school. Their cafeteria wouldn't wash the plates. Their lunchroom workers would smoke when they prepared the food. You would always find cigarette butts in your food. If you were unlucky, you would get the plate that they were using for an ashtray. Needless to say, they were not impressed with his spike.

A Canadian that I met named Johnny has been in China for three years. He has taught in many different cities and just recently married a Chinese girl that he has been dating since the first month he was here. His oral Chinese is great and knows quite a bit about the country. Johnny had a job in the province of Inner-Mongolia. Inner-Mongolia is an autonomous province, so you can make your own conclusions about how much the Chinese government cares about it since it can make some of its own decisions. Most of the province is desert from what I gather. Johnny was helping his school look at job applications, and they would have to throw out all the applications from black people. He said there were black people applying from Cambridge with Masters degrees, and they would still have to turn them down. The reason why is because it is illegal to be black in Inner-Mongolia. He finally asked someone at his school why it was illegal to be black. The person said the law had two purposes. The first was to keep out AIDS. The second reason was because when black people would come, people would stare at them while they were driving and create accidents.

In Lonely Planet: China, the first sentence about Harbin reads, "If a city with more than three million people can be considered relaxing, Harbin is..." My Dutch friend, Mark, met me downtown. It was a Sunday, and many people were out. We were both late getting there because of the traffic, but his bus took a little shortcut. Frustrated with traffic, his driver pulls the bus onto the sidewalk. He starts driving along and honking his horn. People just step out of the way like nothing extraordinary is happening. I think that it was wise that Lonely Planet qualifies the end of their sentence by saying "...at least if you join the strollers and shoppers wandering its tree-lined streets and riverfront promenade."

Teaching, Studying, and Such

I, once again, have not updated in a while. I need to post frequently because its the little things that yield the most poignant revelations, and when I go back and write about several days, I can only recall big events. I also can't promise that these events occurred in this order either, but the general idea is still there.

I went to play basketball again early in the week; Tuesday or Wednesday, I believe. The way we played was different than last time. Once people noticed me playing, they would gather a team and call next on the court. I had not played where people were keeping score as of yet, and we were playing games to five. As I was playing, a crowd slowly developed. After about an hour, the entire half-court was completely surrounded. By this time, I had gotten the attention of a team of big guys. We were playing 4-on-4, and all of them were at least my height. My team was playing them, and the tallest guy decided that he was going to guard me. We went down a couple baskets early. Our team got the ball back, and I made a open jump shot from the wing about two feet inside the three point line. We got the ball back, and I made another jump shot from the same spot; this time the guy defending me actually tired to contest the shot. We got the ball back. My teammate passed it to me at the same spot. My defender backs up and lets me have the shot. I make it again. The crowd watching applauds. We get the ball back; I get it in the same spot; my defender backs off; I make it again; the crowd applauds. We get the ball back again; I get it in the same spot; my defender backs off; I make it; game over; everyone watching goes crazy. I was feeling pretty good. It was an experience that was a lot more fun than sitting on the bench for my high school basketball team.

That evening, I attempted to go downtown and run into some people I had met before like the day before. I got down there, and no one was around. I walked around looking for something I'd like to eat from the street vendors. I got some food, finished it, and started walking toward my bus stop. Then I ran into one of the Australians I had met before named Dane. He was going to meet a friend for dinner and invited me to come along. Given that I was more hungry for company to whom I could talk than food at this point, I agreed to come along but not eat. We met his friend, Dale, and headed out in search of a restaurant. Dane and Dale are part of a big group of eight Australians that are all from the same town. None of them went to college, and they just moved their entire group of friends to Harbin. They're a friendly bunch, but they are definitely here to party. The two of them had a craving for Italian food. We found a Western restaurant, and they both got spaghetti, and we all shared bread, butter (which is a very rare commodity), and jelly. I enjoyed the conversation and watching them blissfully satisfy their cravings. After that we grabbed a beer at a corner store and went to McDonald's for some fries. I also passed on the McDonald's, but it was an odd experience being able to sit down in there and drink a beer.

We left from there to go to Blues. It was quiet because it was a weekday, but there were still a fair amount of foreigners there. I met two guys from the South, and it was very comforting. The first guy was named Jay; he's from North Carolina. We got to talk about the Tabernacle and how great of a venue it is. The second guy was Oren from Texas. He has been in China for over two years, and he is planning on going home in December. I was very interested in what he had to say because he is on the tail end of his time here and he has a different perspective on Harbin because he has taught in rural areas in south China. One thing he said really stood out to me. He said that if he is in Harbin, he might as well be at home. In Harbin, they are trying to live an American life, and they don't do it as well. It would be better to be at home than the poor man's version of home. I definitely understood where he was coming from in terms of his frustration with the level of Westernization in Harbin, but it was also comforting to know that he had been elsewhere and seen places that retained their culture.

Thursday morning I had my first class. The department head of the Mechanical and Electronic Technology Department walked me to my class to show me where it was. When I walked into the door, the class began to applaud. I was stunned. The department head introduced me, and there I was. The class is about twenty-five students; only two of them are girls. One class is divided into two fifty minute sessions. For the first session, I told them about myself. I told them where I was from, what I had studied, how old I am, and the things I like to do. Then I explained how the class would be structured. The mid-term and the final would be worth forty percent each and participation and class work would be worth twenty percent. In other words, I get to arbitrarily choose their grade. I made them fill out an information card for me with their Chinese and English names, age, where they are from, future occupations, and hobbies. When I was in high school, my mother and I would sit together at the kitchen table. I would do my homework, and she would grade papers. Sometimes, I would stop my work to read what her second graders had written and share a laugh with her. I quickly gathered that the writing of my students will be similarly entertaining. I haven't read all the cards but my favorite thing I have read was someone's English name. Somewhere in their English education process, they get to choose a name. Someone chose "Robot". I can't wait to call on Robot in class. Caterpillar, the construction machinery company, heavily recruits students from my school, and my students are being trained to be factory workers for Caterpillar. The vast majority of students are from small towns in Heilongjiang province. Two students are from Harbin, and two students are from outside the province.

Figuring out that most of the students were from small towns made my basketball experiences make much more sense. The only student I had met at this point was Susan who speaks great English and is very familiar with Americans and American culture, so I guess I generalized my knowledge of Susan to student body as a whole. I couldn't understand why I was such a novelty to so many students. When I learned that most of my students were country kids who never leave the university and had probably seen less than a handful of white people in their lives, the crowds I drew at the basketball courts made much more sense.

The second half of class we had a question and answer session. I had planned on standing in the front of the class and just going down rows and make each student ask me a question, and then I would reply and ask them a question. When I gave a ten minute break, students started asking me questions. I told them to wait until class started again because that's what we were going to do next, but eventually, I just sat down in the middle of the classroom and answered questions. Students coming back from break just gathered around. We had the whole second half of class in that format. Most of the questions I was asked I had already answered in the first session, but I guess I went too fast for them to understand. The most interesting question I was asked was if the education system in America is good. I said that its good if you have money. If you have money, you can live in a good place with good schools. If you go to a good school, you have a better chance of going to a good college, and if you go to a good college, you have a better chance of getting a good job. So, the education system is good if you have money, but no so good if you don't, and this expands the general disparity in wealth by effecting the chance of finding a lucrative job. I asked if this was the case in China, and the class went silent. No one wanted to tackle that question. They all looked at each other afraid of what the other one's would think about what they said. I asked the question again. Finally, one of the girls nodded that no, that was not the case. I really enjoyed my first class and thought it went really well for not having a clue about what I'm doing.

When I wrote information about myself on the board, I put my e-mail address and cell phone number on the board. I told them that I knew that none of them have English speaking friends and that I wanted to be available to them to practice their English or hang out. I also said that I would like to be friends with all of them outside class. Later that day I started receiving text messages.

First text message:
Hi, Ryan. I'm Arthur. The first paper is mine. I hope you will be happy everyday.

My reply:
Thank you. I'll see you in class tomorrow.

Second text message:
Hello techer I am your student wang zhi yu I have a question to ask you. Do you like Chinese food? Happy every day!

My reply: Yes, I like Chinese food. I will see you in class tomorrow.

Third text message from Crystal:
Hi! Ryan. I am your student. Welcome to you, you will enjoy staying China. I wish we become real friends.

Fourth text message from Wang Zhi Yu (now Dave):
Ok I like you very much. Welcome to our shool. What are you doing now? I have supper now.

My reply:
I am downtown right now. We should have dinner together sometime.

Fifth text message from Wang Zhi Yu:
Oh thank you very much! Are you free tomorrow evening? My classmates want to have diner with you. Would you like to?

My reply: Sure, tomorrow we will eat dinner.

Sixth text message from Wang Zhi Yu:
Ok welcome! See you tomorrow.

Seventh text message from Arthur:
Ryan,It's much colder in Harbin than that in USA,please wear more cloth. If it can,we'll be very good friend

Eighth text message:
Hello Ryan.I'm your new student. I'm Robot.I'm very like you .your class is very interesting.I think you are a good teachdr.

Text messaging is probably my least favorite form of communication. It takes me far longer to send a text message than it does to just call and say what needs to be said. Furthermore, I have developed a phobia about text messaging after hearing how much my brother had to give my dad for too many text messages in one billing period. However, the Chinese only study English to pass written exams, so there isn't much emphasis on speaking. They are far more comfortable with reading and writing than speaking and listening, so I guess I can suck it up for their sake. I am thankful for their efforts to try to get to know me and make me feel comfortable.

After class, I had plans to go swimming with Susan. The swim was nice. Afterwards she invited me to go with one of her friends to the "meeting square". I accepted the offer even though I hadn't planned my lesson for the next day. When I met with her later, she was by herself. She said that her friend had to study. We took a cab, and when we arrived, I realized we were at the same mall where Chris had taken me the day I arrived. Its called "Hongbo 2", and I asked on the way there if that's where we were going because we were taking the same route and I didn't really care to go. She said that we weren't, so I was in dismay when that was were we got out. I try my best to avoid malls at home, and I would probably rather gouge my eyes out with an icepick than going shopping with a girl. You can imagine my excitement. We got to spend considerable amounts of time in the best stores like the Mickey Mouse store and the Snoopy store. I found out what the most famous Chinese brands are. I did enjoy trying on the largest winter coats in the stores and having the sleeves come down to the middle of my forearm. I also enjoyed when she would try to tell me something was a famous American brand and I got to tell her it wasn't.

We went into a store, and I was wandering around aimlessly. I was sifting through some jeans and to my surprise, found some in my size. I told Susan that they had jeans in my size. They weren't expensive, 65 yuan (a little over $8); I had the money to pay for them on me. She asked if I was going to buy them. I said no; it was just good to know if I could if I needed to. I brought two pairs of jeans, and I think that is sufficient. However, one pair is an old favorite. A hole is developing in the knee and a fairly sizable ventilation system has formed in the crotch. If it spreads, I'll get a new pair of jeans, but until then, there is no reason for me to spend money on jeans. She couldn't understand why I wouldn't buy them. They were in my size. I had the money. I said I didn't need them. She said the same thing, but I had the money and they were in my size. I said I didn't want them. We moved along.

We concluded our evening by going to the McDonald's in the mall. She bought a milk shake; I didn't get anything. I got to partake in another one of my favorite pastimes, listening to girls talk about their relationship problems. I got to hear about all the issues and fights between Susan and her boyfriend dramatically and in detail. I wasn't interested.

I had to come back and wash clothes for the next day of class. Washing clothes with my equipment is quite the task. Just getting the washing machine working required the help of two people. I had tried to wash two days earlier, but I realized that my washing machine was not plugged in. There was no outlet near were it was either. Then next day Diana came by, and I asked her if she knew how to use my washing machine. She didn't. She got one of the workers to come and explain how to use it to me. Diana translated. Ask the worker was demonstrating, she realized that the machine was broken. I had to help her carry a new one into my room and take the old one out. The way it works is I have to pick up the washing machine (its not big) and put it in the bathroom. The drain cover to the shower has to be removed, and I have to run a tube from the washing machine down the drain. The hot water heater has to be unplugged to provide an outlet. My washing machine has two chambers, one for washing and one for the spin cycle. I have to take sopping wet clothes out after 15 minutes in the wash and put them in the spin cycle. Usually after the wash cycle, all that happens is that everything takes on the smell of the smelliest thing in the washer, so a repeat wash is necessary. I'm going to start sorting clothes by smell rather than color that way I don't have several "bad apples" ruining different loads. I don't have a dryer, so I have things draped all over my room. Its the first time I've used the TV since I've been here. Its pretty labor intensive, unlike washing clothes back home. To top it all off, before the washing cycle ends, the washing machine plays the most horrible rendition of "Its a Small World", an annoying song in itself.

I had asked my boss, Mr. Lu, if he knew of any Chinese classes I could take in the city. Since I knew I was only going to have eight teaching hours a week, I didn't want to be bored, and I couldn't think of a better way to spend my time than learning the language. He inquired at a meeting he had with the international department heads of the other schools in the city. Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) and Harbin Engineering University both had introductory Chinese classes. I sent e-mails to both, and someone from HIT e-mailed me back. I went over there Friday morning, and I was delighted to find out that there was a class that would work with my schedule. I would only have to miss one day of class a week, and I would get sixteen hours of class time a week. I was told I could start class on Monday even though classes had already been meeting for a week.

When I got back from HIT, I prepared my lesson for later in the day. My second class also went well. By request, be talked about American sports for the first session. I focused on football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. They were most excited about learning basketball vocabulary. I was impressed by the number of NBA teams that they could name. In explaining a little bit about hockey, I mentioned that hockey was most popular in the North. That lead to me having explain the divisions of America into four regional cultures the North, South, Mid-West, and West and ideas associated with each region. I was shooting so much information at them; there were a lot of blank faces. For the second lesson, I taught about the Beatles. The day before I had been asked about Chinese and American bands (they said "music team" for band at first) that they knew and thought I would know. This lead to me talking about the Beatles, and for mostly selfish reasons, I decided that the second session would be about the Beatles. I gave them some background on the Beatles. I brought in my computer, so I played songs for them written by each of the band members. For the majority of the session, we did a listening exercise with Hey Jude. I played one line at a time until they figured out what the lyrics were. Once we had transcribed a verse, we would sing it together. We made it through three verses. Everyone seemed to enjoy the exercise.

On Friday night, I had dinner with the students who had text messaged me. Yu was the one who had sent me the message. Three of his classmates, friends, and roommates who were also my students also came. They're named Bei, Feng, and the third already had an English name. I thought he said his name was Christa which I thought was an exotic name to choose. Later, I found out his English name is Crystal. I don't have the heart to tell him that its a girls name.

We took a cab to a restaurant somewhere unbeknownst to me. All of the tables were equipped with gas ranges. We ate a dish called huo guo. Its like fondue. There is a boiling pot in the middle of the table. Our pot was divided down the middle; one side was spicy and the other mild. My students ordered a feast. There we plates full of beef, pork, lamb, squid, vegetables, and noodles. It was great. My students laughed at my ability (or lack thereof) to use chopsticks. They laughed at each other's inability to speak English. Every time I would say something, they would huddle up, determine what I said, and decide who would be the best one to try and speak. The three students that didn't have English names asked for one. I named Bei Brad, and Feng Fred, and I couldn't think of a good name that started with Y for Yu. I named him Dave in honor of David Hume.

They ordered beer. For the first round, we all said cheers and downed our glasses. I thought that would be the end of it. Every time I would pick up my glass to drink, everyone would drink too. I'm probably twice their size, and they don't go out and drink. I had to look up the word for drunk in my pocket dictionary before the end of the night.

They were always sure that my plate was full. Someone served me a squid. I knew I don't like squid, but I was going to eat it to be polite. I said to Crystal that I didn't know if I was going to like it. That got everyone's attention. I ate the little squid and smiled and nodded while I was chewing to act like I liked it. Another one got put on my plate immediately. I waited a little while to eat it while no one was looking. Once I ate it, another one got put on my plate. I waited a long time to eat it, and when I did it was cold. I was not pleased and determined the next one I got I would eat immediately so it would still be hot. There were only about fifteen squid; I had met my quota and was hoping not to get any more. Sure enough, I got another one and ate it immediately. Another was put on my plate, and it stayed there.

The next morning I went to Carrefour. I decided to buy an iron because I don't have a dryer. I needed to buy food too, but I didn't bring enough money. I bought the cheapest ironing board and iron along with some good pens and a notebook for class on Monday. Its about a quarter of a mile or so to Carrefour, and it was awkward carrying an ironing board back home. I'm big and white enough; I don't need to hold an ironing board on the street to stick out.

After looking around for our team's jersey on the street without any luck, I ventured to the soccer game. We played a different Korean team this week, but the results were similar. We won 5-2, which means I got to play. It was fun to run around. My teammates gave me better instruction this time, so I didn't feel so lost. They told me to mark this one guy and to be physical with him. Given that I was a foot taller and had fifty pounds on than him, it was really easy to keep him away from the ball.

Afterwards, several players and I went out to one of the player's apartment that is near the university where we play. Things were fine for a while, then the situation got volatile when other people came. I was sitting between two people that were about to come to blows. I kept looking around the room for someone to make eye contact with who thought the situation was ridiculous as well. One of the other players named Mark looked equally perplexed by the situation. When left the apartment, we all went to Hit Bar. I sought out Mark's thoughts on the events of the evening and his experiences in Harbin in general. He has been in Harbin exactly the same amount of time I have been here almost to the hour, and it was interesting to find out that he had reached some of the same conclusions I had about the city. We had an interesting conversation over two BLTs. Hit Bar serves western food. Their BLT was the most delicious thing I have eaten since I have been here. The bacon was cooked on a grill in the same room, and the smell made me want to drool. The sandwich was dripping with mayonnaise. It has really spurred cravings for food from home. The conversation was good too. Mark is Dutch, so he had a different perspective on international politics. He isn't a teacher; he's a Chinese student at HIT. We agreed to go hang out the next day.

The next morning I went back to Carrefour. I had literally no food or water, and I was starving. Going to the grocery store that morning was probably the most excited I've been since I got here. Having my craving for Western food aroused the night before by the BLT, I scoured every aisle in Carrefour. I found cereal. Its like coco puffs; waking up has been a treat this week. I found the equivalent to Pringles and Little Debbies. I bought pounds of fruit and vegetables. I found sliced bread. I got chunky and creamy peanut butter to go with my apple and apricot jam. Finding all this food was a delight.

When I got back, I put up all my groceries and my purchases from the day before. My ironing board was wrapped in clear plastic. When I took it off, one of the legs fell off. The screws pulls straight out of the wood. I had bought the cheapest one without any thought of doing otherwise. I don't need nice things. Everything that goes into my room is getting left behind. But what about the Chinese? Its more cost effective to buy something that's going to last for a little bit more than to have to buy cheap products over and over. Maybe they want whole Pringles instead of the crushed up imitation Pringles that I bought. Maybe this explains their infatuation with brands. With certain brands, you can be assured of a certain level of quality when you buy it. I guess that's the origin of brands being important. You buy a certain brand of hotdog because you think at that company they're not scraping the meat off the ground to make the hotdog. I'm still very skeptical when it comes to clothes though. I doubt the five shirts you can buy at the market for the same price of the one name-brand shirt at the mall will all disintegrate before the name-brand shirt does. I'm in a new place and feeling generous with my interpretations of experiences, so I'm going to assume that they're in a state where most products are shoddy and brands provide a certain level of quality rather than simply a status symbol.

Sunday afternoon, I went downtown to meet up with Mark and walk around. Neither of us has seen that much of the city, so we agreed to wander around together. Mark brought a friend who is enrolled in the Chinese program at HIT as well. His name is Sven; he's Swiss. It was good to walk around and talk with them. They are here for some of the same reasons I'm here, and I don't know if I can say the same about many of the English teachers.

We walked along the river; then we went to Zholin Park. Zholin Park is supposed to be one of the good tourist sites in Harbin. All the locals just walked in for free, but we were stopped and made to pay the two yuan entrance fee. It was very small and bizarre. In the winter, the ice sculpture festival is there, but it was set up like a small carnival for the summer. Everything in the carnival had something to do with guns. There was a little train for kids. It was a short track, probably on about 50 yards long. Instead of train cars, in the front of the train, they had monster trucks with toy guns mounted on the hood, and in the back of the train, the cars were two-seater anti-aircraft guns. An old woman gave a good pitch in sounds and hand motions to ride on these bumper hovercraft with guns mounted on the handbars, but we declined. All the carnival games had something to do with guns. The only things I didn't see with guns were the paddle boats in the small pond, but I didn't get a good look; maybe there were guns mounted on those too.

We grabbed some food after leaving and spent the afternoon lounging in front of the St. Sophia Cathedral. There was a father and son pair of Chinese tourists that approached me and asked me to be in a picture. The dad took a picture of his son and I in front of the cathedral. Sven and Mark said I was the only one smiling in the picture. I was just flattered that I was the one selected for the picture instead of either of them.

My first day of Chinese class was Monday. I was thoroughly overwhelmed. The entire class was in Chinese, and I had no clue what was going on. I didn't have my books yet either. Luckily there was a guy from Yemen sitting next to me who had started on the same day. He had his books, and we managed to figure out what was going on most of the time. That night when I went home to study, things got easier. I felt a lot better during the second class, and I feel like I'm going to really enjoy the class. I just need to spend some time with my students and have them tutor me a bit to catch up.

I have been having dinner with the same students with whom I went to dinner on Friday every night this week. We've been going to the cafeteria at school. I like the cafeteria food because its the dumbed-down version of real Chinese food; it tastes like the Chinese food at home. Its very convenient and inexpensive as well. They have become progressively more comfortable talking to me in English, and they have been very helpful in learning Chinese. Last night, they invited me to come to their room. All four of them live in the same room with two other roommates. Two rows of lofted beds line the walls of a long narrow room. Under each bed is a desk and a locker. That is all the "personal" space they have. They put on a cassette of bad 80s music that I had never heard before for me. We had a great conversation. I asked them about their hometowns and whether they considered themselves rich or poor. They all said that they come from poor families, and somehow we got back on the subject of wealth disparity from class. They said that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and it is a big problem in China. They are all going to get jobs as factory workers for Caterpillar when they graduate, and that is a big step up in their eyes. They asked what I studied again, and there was a dictionary on hand, so they actually understood what I meant when I said that I studied philosophy. They immediately brought up Karl Marx. They had read Marx. I asked them if they thought the government was in line with Marxist thought with the growing disparity in wealth in China. They said no, and I told them that I agreed. They started asking about philosophers, and I made a list of them that I had read. They hadn't read any of them besides Marx, but they knew of about half of the ones on the list. I offered them some of the philosophy they I brought with me even though it was in English.

After dinner today, I showed them my room. I was hesitant because my room is three times the size of their room, and I didn't want to make them upset or discontent in their room. Crystal said I should have a girlfriend to put in my room. We talked about their families and their prospects working for Caterpillar. They will all work for Caterpillar, so I wondered if they would all work in the same factory. They told me that there are factories in Harbin, Beijing, and Hong Kong, and all of them hope that they will get placed in Beijing. They have no choice on where they will work though. They will graduate in the spring of 2008, and the Olympics will come to Beijing that summer. I really appreciate their company and the insight they give me into rural China even though I'm in a rich, Westernized city by Chinese standards. Plus, they don't bring up Mickey Mouse.

Today after Chinese class, all the students and the teacher went out to lunch. Sunday was Teachers' Day (which brought about some interesting text messages), and one of the Korean students arranged for everyone to chip in money for a gift. He invited her to lunch today, and we gave her the gift there. Lunch was delicious; it was some of the best Chinese food I've had since I've been here. The dynamic at lunch was funny. There were two tables. At the other table, they spoke Chinese as best the could because the teacher was sitting at that table, and she doesn't speak any other languages. At our table, we spoke English because the English speakers don't know Russian or Korean, but the Koreans and Russians knew a bit of English. We talked a lot about exchange rates and the cost of goods. Its twenty-seven rubles to the dollar, and it is 700,000 Zimbabwe dollars to one US dollar. Zimbabwe has no currency right now; they are only using checks at the moment. The Russians were curious to know much certain cars cost. Everyone was extremely cordial, as they are in class as well. We also talked about the food and the girls from our countries. The Russians think that American food is bad, but American girls are beautiful. I had to confess that we had our share of ugly ones too.

Well, it has been a task getting this all down, as I'm sure that I was to read. I'll try to do better with more frequent posts rather than long posts. I've been taking some pictures, and I'll put them up soon. Thanks for staying in touch.

Food, Brands, and Basketball

Its been a couple days since I last updated, and now that I sit down to write its hard for me to remember everything that has happened in that time. I think that's because the last couple of days have been less remarkable than some other days I've had. On Sunday morning, I went swimming with a student at the university named Susan (her Chinese name is Li Shu-han). Susan is a extremely forward, aggressive, and blunt person. Maybe its hard to be subtle in a language that you don't really know. We met when she was coming up to where I live to meet Chris. She had gotten Chris' phone number from a student that was in one of Chris' classes. When she came, Chris was in my room helping me with some internet issues. She sat down, and we started talking. When Chris found out that she wasn't in his class and had gone out of her way to get his number, she said, "I am very brave." (Think about it with a terrible Chinese accent followed by giggling and it should be more entertaining.) We agreed to go swimming on Sunday at 9 in the morning.

The pool is not very far from where I am living. When we got there I had to buy goggles and a swimming cap. Everyone was perplexed by my non-Speedo bathing suit. The water was nice. It was the first time I had ever gone swimming for the purpose of exercise. Whenever we would get tired, we would stop and chat for a moment. I was really excited when she brought up Taiwan. She asked me if I thought Taiwan was a country. I said yes, and I didn't see why China cares. I told her that I could see why China would want to get a hold of Taiwan 20 years ago when mainland China was poor and Taiwan was prospering, but now, China is becoming wealthy and has no real need for Taiwan. She promptly informed me that she was a Chinese Communist Party members, and as CCP member, she deemed that Taiwan is part of China. She repeated that a couple times in the conversation, "Taiwan is a part of China." I took that to mean that I didn't understand the history there. It would be like if Long Island wasn't a part of the US; everyone would be like, "C'mon, you're a part of the US." I still don't see it her way, but I guess I can understand a little better.

Susan is from Sichuan province, so I made her show me a good, cheap Sichuan restaurant. On the way there the conversation was interesting. She asked me if I liked Mickey Mouse; I said no, Mickey Mouse is for little kids. Then she showed me her Mickey Mouse bag she was carrying. Then she asked me if I liked Snoopy. Looking to be slightly more tactful with this question, I replied that I had a Snoopy shirt that I really like. She said that she had a Snoopy watch. China may be the place where cultural icons go to die, or at least retire. They have totally embraced everything the West has exported. It seems as though everything is about brands here. My experience with Susan made me think about the first day I was here when I went shopping with Ms. Li. Every item I went to buy she commented on what was the most famous brand; I ignored her recommendations and opted for the cheapest item. The infatuation with brands reminds me a lot of Middle School where you weren't cool if you didn't have the right brand of clothes or shoes. I wonder if people treat others differently given the brands that they are wearing or using; I know that people everywhere judge you based on the quality of your appearance, but I wonder if its something more extreme. China seems to be in an adolescent stage of materialism and consumerism; there doesn't appear to be a filter on what is accepted and what is worth trading with traditional culture, and you can just tell them what is cool. Hopefully, this is just the initial backlash of being sheltered from the West and capitalism and they'll be more discriminate in the near future.

The restaurant we went to was great. It was really nice on the inside. We got a bowl of soup the size of a mixing bowl, a chicken dish, rice, and noodles for 33 yuan. That's just over four dollars. Sichuan food is really spicy, and I was mentally prepared for it. I really enjoyed the food; which is good because I'll be eating leftovers for another week. I took a picture of the leftover chicken along with some other food on my picture site. Susan translated it for me as "saliva chicken". Its quite the appetizing name. Susan talked to me about her boy issues over lunch because I don't know any of her friends. Plus, she had that sort of relationship with the English teacher that lived in my room before me, so she's looking to put me in that role. She has a boyfriend that she fell in love with at first sight, but she is not sure if it will work out. He is doing his graduate studies in another province, and his family is poor and from the country. Her parents disapprove of her relationship with someone of a lower social standing even though he is well educated and will be well paid. Then there is this other guy who keeps persuing her, and she is just using him because he speaks really good English (similiar to our relationship) I appreciated her openness even though our relationship did not merit it. There is a huge gap between us in culture and communication that makes conversation a little awkward for me. She didn't seem to feel strange at all. All in all, I enjoyed the time I spent with her, and we agreed to swim together bi-weekly. It was nice to make my first Chinese friend.

On Monday, I spend the afternoon walking the city. I decided I was going to trek downtown on foot without a map. I figured if I got disoriented, I could ask someone to point me in the direction of the river and I could just walk west downtown from the river. Or if I totally failed in my mission, I could hang my head and take a taxi back home. I didn't realize how far it was. I didn't take note of when I left, but it had to be a two or three hour walk. I'm sure I didn't take the most efficient route, but I was sure that I was heading in generally the right direction. It was good for getting my bearings in the city. When I'm standing on the bus, I'm too tall and can only see the sidewalk through the windows, but walking around the city I got to see all the landmarks and their relationship to each other. When I arrived downtown, it was late in the evening. I strolled along the river in an attempt to kill time until the foreigners came out. I found a quintet playing music with a guy singing. There was a cello, a wooden flute, an accordian, and two traditional Chinese instruments that I have no clue what they were. I had picked up some grilled corn from a street vendor and sat down to listen. Everyone sitting around to listen was older, and every single one of them was staring at me. They were looking and whispering to each other. I was wondering if I had committed some sort of taboo. Other people were eating and sitting the way I was sitting. I was watching the band, and I turned to my left to see two girls with a camera about to take a picture of me. I smiled and laughed, and they giggled because they were busted. They tried to play it off like they were taking pictures of other things in the area too, but really, they were just trying to save face. After the sun went down, I decided to walk to the beer gardens on Zhongyang Diejie where the foreigners hang out. No one was there, so I waited for a couple minutes without any luck. I was walking toward the bus back home, and I realized that I hadn't spoken to anyone all day. It was a strange and lonely feeling.

Yesterday, Chris took me to a bookstore where I could pick out a book for two of my classes. I'm glad he came with me because I had no clue on what I would need from a book for my class. We picked out a conversational book that seemed like it would have relevant topics for tour management students. I'm getting excited about class because I really have no boundaries. I can teach and talk about just about anything I want to in class. I'm ready to see how it goes (and I'm ready to have something to do with my time).

When I got back, I decided to go play basketball again. I must confess that I was withholding information about the last time I played basketball. I certainly drew a crowd and impressed the locals when I played in games, but I kept getting challenged to play one-on-one. Lets just say that some of them bolstered their national pride. Yesterday, I played very well. A large crowd gathered on the court where I was playing. Then, the school basketball team stopped their pick-up game to come watch me play; they cheered for me, and I was quite flattered. I made friends with two of the guys I was playing with, and we agreed to play again today at 4. I'm learning a lot of basketball-specific Chinese. My favorite is "faw-wah" for foul; the other things I've learned aren't fun cognates.

I really appreciate everyone who has sent me e-mails. Please continue to stay in touch.

Tourism

I've had a pretty exciting last two days. I feel like I have accomplished quite a bit. In the morning yesterday, I purchased a cell phone. I was debating on whether I wanted one or not, but I decided it would be the best way to keep me connected to both the locals and the foreigners. Ms. Li came and helped me. And by helped me I mean completed the transaction for me. Although, I did say, "I would like to buy a cell phone" in Chinese. The lady working there giggled and told me that I speak very well. I told her in Chinese that I don't speak very well. Everyone working there laughed. Every time I use that phrase, people laugh. I think its because they're thinking, "Yeah, you're right."

I feel disrespectful for not taking the time to sufficiently learn the language before I came over. I think it shows an expectation of being accommodated by the locals. The only reason I'm getting by is because the people are so nice. I don't think I could have ever gotten away with this in Spain. I'm grateful for their kindness, and I hope to repay them in eventually being able to speak in their tongue.

After buying a cell phone, I went to walking around town by myself. I packed my shamelessly tourist backpack, complete with maps, pocket dictionary, camera, and pen and paper in case of a situation where I want to buy something and numbers have to be written down. On the way out, I ran into a group of kids getting out of school. They were in their little uniforms; they were probably about eight years old. They started talking to me in Chinese. I told them that I couldn't speak Chinese and that I was an American. Once they heard I was American, they started flipping out and jumping around. I guess they assumed I was Russian until then. They had a good laugh. Whenever things like this happen, I don't know whether to feel flattered or harassed. Right now, I'm giving them (or maybe myself) the benefit of the doubt and feeling flattered.

I successfully navigated the bus and the town. I saw everything I wanted to see on the trip and did some wandering as well. All the pictures from the sight-seeing are up on the picture page. It felt good to have a successful trip. I have been so dependent on others and I'm pretty vulnerable, so I was glad to feel some sense of independence. After the sun went down, I went strolling along the river like everyone else in the city seemed to be doing. I stumbled upon a large group of women doing a traditional dance to traditional music. They were arranged in rows and columns, and they had large fans covered in loose orange cloth that would wave when they were moved. The band that played the music was lead by a small, high-pitched reed instrument with a brass bell. The other band members were percussionists; there was a large drum, two sets of cymbals, and a gong. It was amazing; the music and dance were beautiful. Other than the language, it was the biggest experience that made me realize how far away from home I am.

After stumbling upon a nighttime open market, I ventured to the beer garden on Zhongyang Diejie to meet up with the foreigners. Given my stomach problems and not having eaten anything all day, I abstained, even though I was feeling great compared to yesterday. We talked about American politics for a bit, and it was a good conversation. After the beer garden, we went to the club where all the foreigners hang out, Blues. It was packed with all sorts of English speakers, Chinese, Russians, Koreans, and Mongols. It was a funny scene. Everyone was trying so hard to be cool and tough; not a single person was smiling. The trendy Russian dress was also very entertaining. Think white trash. I didn't stay too long, and Chris and I took a cab back. I was asleep shortly thereafter.

This morning I went back to Carrefour to buy some more food. When I was walking in, this girl was starring at me and got hit in the face with the door. If I am being harassed, then that was a little bit of vindication. It was another fun shopping experience. I took my time and looked around a bit more. There were fish tanks where you would take a net and catch the fish yourself. One hopped out into the live turtle cage. You can't question the freshness when you kill it yourself. When I went to checkout, I had some apples with me. There was a problem with them, and it took me a second to figure out what it was. I needed a little barcode to be printed to buy them. After the cashier tried to talk to me without any success, she called for someone else. I assumed that they were going to go run a price check for me. My apples never came back. I also had an item without a barcode. It got taken away as well. The lessons I took away from this experience were: 1) Don't bring items to the cashier without a barcode, and 2) Buy your produce from the street vendors because I don't know how to operate the Chinese barcode printing machine and street vendors don't use barcodes. I couldn't help but to laugh at myself.

Chris invited me to play soccer with the foreigners today. We met up at a place called Hit Bar. After Chris and I got off the bus on the way to the bar, there was a homeless guy laying on his back against the wall. His eyes and mouth were fixed open and not moving. His body was rigid; his feet were caked in dirt; he had large cuts all over his body. His chest wasn't moving up and down. There was a policeman standing around. We both walked right past. A couple steps later, Chris asked, "Is that guy dead?" I said that I thought he was. We just kept walking. A minute or two later, Chris said, "What a crazy world we live in." I nodded.

The walk to Hit Bar wasn't far from the bus stop. On the way there, we walked through Harbin Institute of Technology. I work at Heilongjiang Institute of Technology, and when I tell people where I work, they think I mean Harbin Institute of Technology. There is a big difference in the two schools. In China, universities are ranked A,B, and C. Harbin Institute of Technology is the only A school in the province. My school is a C school. I had assumed that the game would be a match against two teams made up of English speaking foreigners, but when I got there, I found out that the English speakers were playing against a team of Korean university students. Everyone met up at the bar, and we took taxis to another university. We played in their stadium on an astroturf field, and it was the good astroturf with the ground up tires in it. Our team had more than enough people, so I sat out the first half. We opened up a 4-0 lead at the end of the first half, so I got to play the entire second half. I have never played a second of organized soccer in my life, and I got to play in an international competition against a team of Koreans. This was serious business too. There was a ref, and each team had uniforms. They put me at center-back, and the Koreans scored a goal within the first ten minutes of the half. I'm sure I had to have done something wrong. I was just running around trying to get people to tell me what to do. A couple minutes later I got called for a handball. Other than that, I was pleased with my performance. I averted some opposing scoring chances and stole the ball a couple times around midfield. After watching the World Cup this summer, I had really wanted to play, and it was as fun as I thought it would be.

On the bus ride back home, Chris gave up his seat to an old guy that had sat down on the floor. After that, a high school student started speaking in broken English to us. When he found out we were American, he told us, "God lives in America." I told him many Americans think that too. After we got off the bus, we saw a crowd of people surrounding a "little person" that was singing. There was also a group of people doing the same sort of dance and playing the same music as the night before. I could get used to seeing that every weekend.

Check out the pictures and send me some e-mails. I would love to hear from everyone.