A trip to the country side

On Saturday afternoon we all packed into the family roadster and headed to the mountains. Me, Alison, the Wu family, and the boyfriend, LBX, brought our ‘hiking shoes’ [or cheap Chinese sneakers, or white slip ons as for the Wu mama]. We drive three hours to a small village near Badaling [a tourist site of the Great Wall]. The village has maybe five families in it, like 30 people max. We stayed with a family who Wu has known since the days of Nancy Burgoyne [legendary Texan that Wu drove for before the Nelson clan], and has since gone back to this family to stay. The countryside has an exception to the one child policy: if your first child is a girl, you are permitted another chance to have a boy. This family had an older girl, 15 years old, and a younger boy, 9. We brought them our used clothing- from the Wu’s that might mean t-shirts with holes in it, from me that means clothes from my overly fashionable roommate and my Italian friend Anna. So this little cutest farmer family now are some of the best dressed bumpkins out there.

Everything we ate, they grew on their farm. I’ve never had better [or obviously fresher cucumbers]. The food was very yum. And the father was very excited that I was drinking with him [he was drinking rice wine, I was drinking beer]. We went to bed to awake to both families using their quietest ‘inside voices’ [“WU XIA!!!! COME HERE!!!!”] Lovely. And this was at 5 am. We finally got up at 6 to hear, why did you get up so late! You’re lazy! You already missed the fog! It was so beautiful! We’ve been up since 4! Love it. We got on the trail and hiked up to the Great Wall, just a short two hour hike from the village. We went to a part of the Wall that was not restored, no tourists, just us and some photographers. It was BEAUTIFUL and so awesome to be somewhere where most people don’t get the opportunity to go.

In other Really exciting news, I finally have coffee in my home. No more McDonalds! I got the coffee that I won on my mountain bike race ground, bought a little drip plastic cup thing [the one you put over your coffee cup and pour hot water through it] and filters, and now I am so so happy. Cereal and coffee, what little joys in life.

Summer is really marrying the Swiss. She knows Very Little about the country of Switzerland. She knows the population of Switzerland is the same as her hometown in Shandong province. She knows that the size of Switzerland is the size of Shandong province. She knows there are lots of mountains. That’s all she knows. I wish her the best of luck acculturating herself to her new life. She leaves in September [yes that means I need a new roommate, but not sure who].

I have a big bike race this weekend- Shimano is sponsoring a mountain bike race that might somehow be in the city. Not sure how that is going to work. Looking at photos of the female contenders from past years, I will be overjoyed to have some actual competition. That is this Saturday.

I just sent out two invites to view two albums on snapfish. If you didn’t receive an invite, email me at maokelan18 at gmail dot com and I will send you the link.

You too can speak Chinese. A friend of mine just enlightened me to her latest Chinese/ English realization: you all know the word “gigolo” as in the 1980 movie, “American Gigolo” with Richard Gere. In Chinese, if you say the word ‘gigolo’ it means ‘this building’. In pinyin [the way we Romanicize the way characters sound] it is zhe ge lou. Ha!

The doves are released

So Michael joins the rest of the celebrities, where the majority of sane people know he's molesting young boys, but somehow he doesn't go to jail. Stab in the heart to Martha. Anyone have thoughts on this? How about thoughts that the only US news that I write about in my blog is about Michael Jackson? I can be reached at maokelan18@gmail.com
Would love to know what you news readers out there think.

In other news, I'm ALMOST done getting all my photos online. It's been weeks of procrastinating and computers crashing.

Locking my bike up outside McDonald's this am, to get my coffee, and there's a large bus in the right hand turn lane, honking at the many cars ahead of it for not running over the bicyclists and not turning. Not only was the bus honking, but the bus ticket taker [who stands in the middle of the bus and has to be one of the worst jobs this country has thought up] is on the bullhorn yelling at the cars to go! So funny.

Other horrible jobs this country has thought up to employ people: the crossing guard. They stand at each corner [four to an intersection] and hold a flag and blow a whistle, stopping bikers from crossing against the light. They are oh so helpful poeple, yelling at you when you defy the traffic lights and cross anyway [some are posted at intersections where there aren't that many cars, so I go when the intersection is clear, I don't have time to wait for lights], and they tell you to go even though there are still cars bikes buses and motorcycles in the intersection.

A really pointless job is the bus lander. They stand at the bus stops, wear a very official sash, and have a little hand held sign that has their bus number on it. They direct the buses where to stop. As if the bus driver hasn't been stopping at a designated place for 7 years, probably driving the same line the whole time as well. As you can see all these jobs have to do with people management. The bus ticket taker [the person on the bus] not only sells you the ticket, but also helps pack people into the bus, telling them where extra room is, telling them to shift forward, waking up the 30 year old man from his supposed slumber to let an old lady sit down [sometimes they are polite and get up themselves I will add].

Another job, mostly for old people, is the neighborhood monitor. This involves sitting in the neighborhood with up to 7 others and gossiping about whats going on. So, if someone breaks into my apartment and steals my watercooler, the old people will see it and will know that something is not right because every person that enters my building they will talk about. Neighborhood watch. They also wear official looking armbands. Too cute.

China has many people. Somehow most of them have jobs. That's about all I have to report for now... I have to write a quiz [me! a teacher! HA!]

If you’re racing, you might as well win.

Yesterday I participated in a race called the “king and queen of the mountain”. The race consisted of the men’s division, 20+ men, mostly honky’s but some Chinesers, and four women. It was entirely uphill. 10 miles, 3200 feet elevation gain. It took me an hour and a half and I passed my only real challenger at about mile 8, some Russian woman who just didn’t deserve to win. So I had to pass her. You know how it is. Ok enough gloating in my win. But it was nice ride, beautiful mountains, listening to my Genesis [“Turn it on!” thanks bro] and nice to be working out outside of the city. The white men were shown up, depsite their multi thousand dollar bikes, by some young chinese guy who must have weighed in at about 90 pounds [with his bike]. Ha!

I apologize for not blogging more, I have been very very busy and now that I am actually working at my jobs, it takes a lot more time away from writing! How are my jobs?

Hui Ling tugs at the heart strings. I sat down to interview a young man, turning 25 this month, a fellow monkey, who said that after completing middle school he sat at home, doing nothing it seems, until he found Hui Ling and has been coming here for almost two years. As critical as i am of their service and lack of properly trained staff, in the end, these folks have a place to go where people like them, accept them, appreciate them, teach them, give them some kind of work that makes them feel worthy. So that was nice.

I like the family style community that they have here. Last Friday after our staff meeting we had a party to celebrate all the staff who had birthdays between January and June. We ate stacks, drank soda, and the birthday folks [me and six others] dressed up in ridiculous costumes and put on our own version of a Chinese New Year’s Day parade. The Chinese celebrate by being loud. They call it ‘re nao’ which literally means hot [like the word you would use to describe the temp outside] and nao which literally means ‘wrangling at the market’, or noisy, clamorous. It was all great fun. Then we went to a restaurant, ate it up, and then we were all forced to sing songs from where we came from. The Frenchman bravely stood up and crooned out something horrible, Chris sang something Flemish, and it got to my turn and I was like, do you get that I may be outgoing and all, but I just don’t sing in front of large crowds? No. not acceptable. So I sang ‘happy birthday’ and everyone joined in! Such a cheater. So it’s going well. I’m almost done with our newsletter, I’ll send it around when it’s really done.

My other job: I never wanted to be an English teacher

And here I am, teaching it up. Somehow I'm teaching Really basic English, I think that is why it is not my favorite. I get tired of correcting the use of 'the,' the lack of pronunciation of the letter 'v', feeling that my teaching is useless because they have already studied the basics of English during grade school and they think just cuz I’m white I will apply my whitey magic and presto they will speak English. Especially when one of them is always translating what I’m asking [tough questions like ‘how many people are in your family?’] and feeling irritated that the students don't have the patience to listen to me and Think about what I’m saying. But it’s paying for my life as I get screwed over by some janky new salary scheme here at Hui Ling [I’m trying not to be bitter about it]. Commission –based salary for the development office? Sounds unethical to me. But this is China.

The Bergler put forth this question, after reading my travel blog: “what did you all do in these outer provinces?? mostly I learned that the trains suck and Chinese people cant hold in their vomit (which is enlightening nonetheless).
Good question, apparently I didn’t get to that. In the first place we visited, Xiahe, there is a famous Tibetan Monastery, one of the largest, or one of the six most important or something, and Tibetans make pilgrimages from Tibet with babies strapped to their backs and grandma with the cane and their only sweatshirt which says “World Football Club” and somehow get to this high mountain village. What do they do when they get there? They walk around the monastery turning the pray wheels. The next town that we visited was Dunhuang, where we saw these amazing caves that folks have been drawing their art in for centuries.
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/gansu/dunhuang/mogao_grottoes/
http://www.chinapage.com/dunhua54.gif
http://www.chinapage.com/dunhua56.gif

We had some interesting discussions about the finding of these caves, because there was tons of art and manuscripts that were taken by white folks from the caves, so I was initially irritated by the whites for doing that, but then the literature in the museum there goes on to say that if they didn’t take the stuff the Chinese would have stolen it, burned it, or it would end up in the hands of officials instead of in the museum. So a good point was made. At least the whites are preserving their history/culture for them.

In other news, I purchased some moisturizer based on this English on the front of the bottle: “Sheep placenta Essence”. Now that’s an attention- getting. My skin has never been softer!