Lamentation (wo xiang wo jiejie)

'Sometimes, the magic of the past is all we got.

Just you and me at a cross-roads then,

Ain't it funny how we were old friends,

Accidentally thrown together, did we intend

To be that romantic novel, you never thought would end.

And it's the contact of the eye that meets across a crowded room,

And how I kinda wound up the lyrics to your tune,

You say, 'Funny how it feels like, I've known you all my life.'
- Sir Elton John

Being in China has never been as painful as it is on this day at this hour.

Big, I wish I could be there to watch you walk down the aisle and later have a dance with the bride. When I decided to come to China, the first thing I thought about was how I was going to miss your wedding and now I am. Currently, I am sitting in my apartment having just opened a bottle of wine.

At 12 o'clock (mid night here, noon there) I'm going to listen to that awful song Pacolbel's Canon in D, even though I know you won't play it, and I'm going to pour myself a glass of chardonnay that I bought just for the occasion. I'll drink a toast to you, Randy and your eternal happiness together. When, I tear up (which I guiltily admit will happen) they will be of joy for you both.

Were I there, I know all too well that you and I would get a little tipsy, slip away to some corner of the reception and, within view but not ear shot of the crowd, begin to talk about every person in the room in no uncertain terms. The clock tells me I've got a date with a certain dead composer and a glass of wine.

I love you Liz, save a dance for me.

A Week in the Life... the Lost Days

So, I will attempt to update everyone on the events of the weekend in one relatively quick post.

Friday- I taught 6th grade all day. I started the day (five minutes late, shhhhhhiiiiitttt) at Shan Ping Primary School, they kept telling me not to worry about it, but I still felt like an ass. So, I taught three classes there, had some crappy lunch and had a nice long walk to Jie Fang Primary School. The three classes there were so bad, I don't even want to think back on them now to right about them. I hate that school with a passion. I will either not be teaching in that school next semester (which it's almost guaranteed that I will not) or I'm coming back to America early and breaking my contract. Those people can lick my....

After school, I came home and got ready for the company dinner/ drink fest. Unfortunately, the company wasn't going to pay for this whole dinner like last time... Instead, Frank (the owner of the company) came out with us and bought a bottle of baijiu (bI-Gyu, which come in different proofs and is designed solely to instigate mistakes) and a case of beer for the table. That's his idea of not having the company pay for anything. Despite everything, he is one pretty awesome boss even though he's never around that much. After we had some hot pot and Jonah poured beer and baijiu down my gullet, I was pretty tipsy. So then we all decided to go to Dave's bar for more drinks.

I can't recount the events of the evening on the world wide internets but, suffice it to say, the goings on did not leave my fancy un-tickled. If anyone wishes to know what happened, and you do, just send me a message...

Saturday - JESUS CHRIST I WAS HUNG OVER!!! Baijiu is the smoothest 120 proof alcohol on the planet. The next morning, you pay the piper. I attempted to get out of bed three times and I was only successful at 3PM. After that I wanted to only eat peanut butter and go back to bed, which I did, in spades. I had some dinner with Ryan and then went to meet Patrick for a drink. I only had one campari and orange (current drink of choice) and just hung out talking to him while he got faced. I left the bar at 2 AM and had to meet Jonah at 9AM to get my hair cut...

Sunday- Met Jonah in the morning to get a haircut, I woke up at 8, right on time. Then I did that, 'I'm just gonna sit here on my bed for a ......' Woke up again at 8:30, which is what time I needed to leave the house. I threw on old clothes, didn't shower and pretty much ran to the hair place. I met her on time, more or less. We didn't leave that place until about 2 because Winston had to get his hair braided. Funny thing about black people is that they have different hair than Chinese people. Hair that the Chinese find baffling. After they could find someone who could actually do it, it took her about 3 hours to do it. Plus Jonah dye job took ages. In China, you pretty much make a day of the salon.

I really can't/ don't want to relate the whole day, but I didn't get home until about 11PM. In that time, Jonah took me, Kailey, Ashley and April to get our hair did, have Korean barbecue, visit the beach, see an amusement park, shopping ( I bought absurdly expensive wine), street food eating and tea tasting. I was freakin' exhausted but ended the night on a pretty good note. We have plans to go mountain climbing/ hiking next weekend. In the hour before bed, I threw some shit on paper and called it a lesson plan.

That officially concludes the week. I hope this has given you all some insight into my life, though I will admit it's a little odd not knowing who exactly reads this other than Brian, Bryan, and Liz. Then again, I bet it's not too many more than that and I'm OK with that.

Today, I went to Wang Hai, taught some kids and graded homework from Hu Tan students. I had them write letters to Santa. Picture 1, was one of the more creative ones. Some were a hoot, some reminded me of the poor living conditions in China ( from on little girl 'I want a new body because mines is always ill. Can you help me Santa?') but most were just pretty much boiler plate.

Now that I have become more comfortable 'blogging' I hope to do it more often and with slightly more humour. I should be in a pretty good mood this week considering the weekend I had and that I got a package from Grandma today... my navy blue blazer and black top coat!! If you think I sung the song 'My Friends' from Sweeney Todd to them, you would be absolutely correct.

Keep posted for future misadventures, which I have a feeling will be happening; things seem to be going my way.

A Week in the Life... Day from hell Edition

Thursdays suck. Every Thursday sucks a lot. At the end of the day on Thursday, I look back on the day and think 'At least it can't get too much worst.' I find that statement to be true... until seven days later.

I start my day at 7 AM, which is doable but by this time all the early mornings catch up with me and I'm a little grumpy. I must leave the house no later than 8:15 to get to school on time since I have a 45 minutes walk to work, all up hill the entire way. I follow most of the path I take on Monday, but then I keep going for another 20 minutes through a creepy street. (Picture 1) So, it seems that the Chinese government decided one day to build a street in the middle of a neighborhood which was designed as pretty much a 'show street' for foreigners thinking about investing in the area. It has a lot of China's attempt at Western architecture, which is pretty funny (Pictures 2 and 3). In all, it seems as fake and inappropriate as Sarah Palin's VP nomination *Rim shot*. But seriously folks, it's creepy walking through it in the morning since all the buildings are completely empty and the place it meticulously clean.

I arrived at Jie Fang Primary school to be treated with one pissed off English teacher. Yesterday, when Rick came to evaluate me, he and I talked and he asked me to name the school/ situation with which I'm having the most trouble. I told him about how Jie Fang was too far from my apartment, the students did not listen to me, and none of the teachers speak to me. Well, he put in a word to Jonah after she skewered the Head master, the Head master must have reamed out the English teacher, and well, shit rolls down hill as they say. So, I had to be diplomatic in my explanation that I hated her, her friends who teach there, her students and pretty much her entire institution. The main reason I hate is just because... well I just don't like it. Something about the place just puts me in a foul mood and I think I exude that fact which only intensifies the bad situation. Anyway, I was able to make it through my classes alright, even though I was teaching a Unit that the teacher hadn't taught yet, which was impossible. Maybe the teachers in that school should spend a little less time talking about me and teach some English for once.

Anyway, once again I was avoided at lunch (the only school who does that little chest nut). I was making small talk with one of the teachers on the way out of the cafeteria and explained to her how much I was looking forward to the post-lunch nap because I was having trouble with energy in class. She smiled and told me, 'Oh, well, I'm sure you can have a nice nap in the office when we get up there.' After about 20 minutes of the techno music the other teachers thought it would be funny to blast while I tried to sleep, I decided to listen to what they were saying and sneaking a few peaks at what they were doing... In short, I gathered enough to notice that they were just being assholes because I was trying to sleep. By biggest hint was when they all started singing around me, just in case I hadn't noticed the blasting music. Mature. I tried to remind myself that I was there to teach kids English, not make friends but all of a sudden it made sense why the students don't listen to me. They're just treating me like the teachers are. It's amazing how kids have always and will always be able to pick up on things we don't know we're doing.

Anyway, the work day sucked, but as I said, it's always the worst day I've had...until the next one. I got home in time to change my shoes and jacket, do my Chinese homework, and eat a banana and peanut butter sandwich before I had to run out the door to Chinese class. Luckily, my intensive class was canceled yesterday, so I had a bit of a reprieve. I had class tonight and it went alright. I'm still awful, but a month ago I couldn't even say hello in Chinese so and now I know enough to order some fried rice, dumplings, and a beer, so I'm doing OK I guess. Luckily, I had a slightly better evening.

Ryan and I were going to get some food, but before we left the office (where our class is held) I asked Jonah if she wanted to come with us. An hour later, Jonah, Ryan, Kailey, Ashley and I were eating at a private club on the company's tab. It certainly almost made up for the day of teaching. Unfortunately, I was looking forward to a game night with a group of people from work and our new friends (an English guy and his wife) who invited us to their house. They're relatively young, late twenties/ early thirties and are a lot of fun. After the day though, I just wanted to go home, listen to some Sinatra and burn some incense. All of which I'm doing as we speak.

Jonah also gave me another bit of good news! We are having a company dinner like our last one which I documented in yesterdays post. Hopefully, Rick and I can engage in Round Two of the International Drink Off between America and Canada. I'll try to do the States proud against that Kanook. Plus, after I got home, Jonah sent me a text promising me that she would drink with me tomorrow. Boosh! Goodnight...

And now for something completely different!

While I was brushing my teeth I was reminded of a joke that British John told me when he was in town. British John is another teacher who works for our company but works in a different province so we don't get to see him. We trained together in Dalian and he and I got along perfectly. He's from outside of Manchester and has a thick accent and a giant beard (he's sort of Muslim).

Anyway, when he was in town last week we got 'pissed' and started telling jokes. The one I loved went as follow:

So, a family is coming back from a wonderful holiday and they were going along a treacherous mountain road. The family was small, consisting of only a father, mother and daughter. As the car was gong around one of the curves, the father lost control and headed for the edge of a cliff side. In a last minute effort to save her daughter, the mother threw her daughter out the door and cried 'I love you' as the car flew from the precipice.

The daughter was understandable distraught and only sustained a broken leg. She sat on the road side and began to weep uncontrollably and considered throwing herself off after her parents. Just then a local man came to her and asked, 'Lass, why is a pretty young girl like yourself crying so?' To which she replied, 'I'm 17 years old and I have just lost both of my parents. One our way back from holiday, our car lost control and crashed, killing my parents and leaving me orphaned. To make matters worse, I fear I've shattered my leg,' she cried.

The local man gazed at her compassionately, unzipped his pants and said, 'Boy, this really isn't your lucky day is it lass...'

A Week in the Life...Wednesday Edition

It's Hump Day. The only thing incorrect with that monocer is that it implies that the rest of the week is downhill. In my week, it doesn't start going downhill until Saturday at about 4:30, you'll see why as the week continues.

First things first, Wednesday's are usually a breeze, but this one was a little 'special.' I don't know how many days in a row I will say 'This day is a little different than a normal day' before I just accept that every day is a complete surprise and test in adaptability. I started my day at 8, which is the latest I can get up all week. From 8 o' clock on, I had a series of misunderstandings. First and foremost, I must have had a stroke in my sleep because I completely lost reasoning skills. I knew I had to be at school by 9:50, and school is about 15 minutes away... naturally that led me to deduce that I couldn't leave the house any later than 8:40!! I still have yet to understand what the hell I was thinking.

ALL morning, I was running around thinking I was late. I skipped my shower, didn't have breakfast, didn't even make tea in my travel mug, and luckily I forgot my Palm pilot with my schedule in it, HAPPY WEDNESDAY! But at least I was being evaluated by my company today, which also helped me calm down. I arrived at school right in time, sat down at my desk at 8:50... the regular English teacher who helps me in class just looked at me and was like, 'Why you so early today?' I thought at first, she was mocking me for walking in with a minute to spare, so I was like, 'Yeah, I know I'm really late, but I'm on my way to class now.' By that time she was totally confused and said, 'You'll be waiting for a very long time for your class.' Then she sat me down and taught me how to tell time on the watch I've been using for five years. At that point, I hated myself a little.

It wasn't all bad because she and I had a chance to chat about her break and have an apple. I told her about Rick (our Academic Director who is a Canadian who has been teaching in Dalian for about four years) coming to my class and that I was nervous for no reason. Rick is one of the nicest guys I've ever met who always sees the best in people... for some reason that makes me so uneasy. Anytime we're not talking about education, he and I get along amazingly, and even once got into a drinking competition at a company dinner. (Picture 1) Very professional on both of our parts. I didn't even remember leaving the restaurant and I reportedly went to four other bars that evening.

More to the point, the day went pretty well. I got into the groove and had some fun with my classes today. I didn't want to teach from the book because it bored me, so we played tongue twisters and word games; I'm allowed to get away with doing anything I want in order to 'teach' and the school loves it. Rick was pleased with my class (even though it was the worst one I've done yet) and he had mostly good things to say with only a few tips. Really, I was so tired today that in retrospect now, it was all pretty much a blur. I just remember that it was all good and that I love Junior school sssssoooo much better than Primary.

After school I had to go to my office in Sanba to give my passport to April for bureaucratic purposes. Something about residence permits. Afterwords I went for some street food to see the city. In Victory Plaza (Pic. 2), which has the enormous underground mall, I remembered that they had an incense store so I bought some incense and some Chinese art. Got a pretty good deal on both and then came home to enjoy them. I practiced writing my Chinese characters, talked to Liz (High Big!) for awhile and hit the hey. I'm just dreading tomorrow when I have to go to Jiefang Primary all day. To make things better, I have been trying to get moved from that school, so I told Rick today that the school doesn't give me any help from the regular teacher (which is true) and he hit the ceiling. One of the biggest problems in the school is that none of the teachers talk to me, the school is a 45 minute walk away from my apartment and the students can be hard to manage. By the time I made it to the Sanba office in the evening, Jonah had already called the school and bitched to them about my situation and they will have a TA for my tomorrow. That'll make me popular with the other teachers! At least it's my worst school and the only one I teach at two days a week.

The joys of teaching. Cheers!

A Week in the Life... Tuesday Edition

It's only Tuesday... It feels like I haven't had a weekend in months and I've only worked for two days since my last vacation. In all honestly, Tuesday's are not too bad at all. Every Tuesday I teach at two different schools in the Zhongshan District. The first is Lao Hu Tan Primary School and the second in Zhongnan Primary School. All in all, I can't complain too much about Tuesdays for a variety of reasons. For starters, no morning walk because the bus stop is right by my apartment and I start later so I usually leave around 8:15.

The biggest reason I enjoy Tuesdays though is because I love the Hu Tan School. The students try the hardest, they care the most, they are always well behaved and, for the most part, they are actually pretty funny kids. Also, one thing I forgot to mention is that the usual English teacher (the one who teaches each class on the 4 days I'm in a particular school) usually sits in my class. They are there to help, translate, and discipline for me, as needed. At Wang Hai, the teacher usually sleeps and only yells at the kids when they are so loud that they wake her up. She's a great lady, but she gives me complete control of the class. While this sounds good, I prefer to team teach with their usual teacher because the students don't seem to get 'language shock' only hearing English. Hu Tan is the only school in which the teacher and I totally click and work amazingly together. She's an older woman who has quite a bit of Western philosophy under her belt for never having left China. When I turn to right on the board to take a sit of tea, she jumps in and translates (only the words they don't know) to keep them from talking in the down times. At that school, I teach three Primary 6 classes.

Also, today, like most days, I ate lunch with the Hu Tan English teachers. All of the English teachers like eating/ talking with me at lunch just about life. They also usually try to set me up on a date with the 4th grade English teacher, which I have yet to fight. She's 22, just moved to Dalian and is fairly attractive. The only downside is that she's incredibly shy and thus our talks are very short and un-romantic to say the least. You can't make 'Yesterday, I washed dishes' sound sexy in China. Fact. (As a side note, I'm curious to discover the kinds of new readers to the blog I will have seeing as I have used the words 'Chinese', 'shock', 'girls', and 'sexy' in the same blog post. I feel a little sorry for them, disappointed and horny is a bad mix of emotions. Now that I've added the word 'horny' to the internet alphabet soup, I'll have hundreds of hits.)

Anyway, the first picture is one I took from Hu Tan (with means something like 'port' or 'bay' in Chinese) while I was attempting to take one of the awesome coast near the school. Unfortunately, there is some construction going on and the view was blocked. Instead, I noticed during the morning exercise break that the students were all choreographed dancing. Every class had their unique dance routine an old American song from the '70's. I'm not even sure what the song was. Apparently, the school is being reviewed by the Education Board tomorrow and its customary to have a big dance show for them, that's China. I thought it was funny/adorable, so I took a picture.

After lunch I had to forgo my post-lunch nap to take a bus to my next school, Zhongshan Primary. Zhongshan is a horse of another colour completely. The school has only one English teacher that I've seen and her English is very limited. The students aren't as advanced, so its hard for me to have as much fun with them because of the extreme language barrier. Even though I also have two Primary 6 classes in that school, the difference is like night and day between my morning and afternoon classes. For the most part, I'm in and I'm out in no time and I don't stick around. I feel really bad for the school because its rather poor and I know they could be spending their money more wisely than on me. The students aren't getting anything from me but headache. The principal sat in on one of my classes (something which has happened at most of the other schools already) so maybe she'll notice that without the proper basis in language, I'm wasting every one's time. On the bright side, I live within spitting distance from the school, so I have barely any walk home afterwords.

This evening I had Chinese class in the evening downtown in our companies office. As part of our compensation, our company treats all of the teachers to free English lessons twice a week (every Tuesday and Thursday). Everyone but Kailey usually attends. The classes are VERY beginner which makes them great for most of us, but a waste of time for her. During that time she usually just practices her Chinese by shooting the shit with the Chinese staff, namely Jonah. I guess everyone wins.

Class went pretty well, which only means I didn't suck as much as I usually do. Progress I suppose. After class, I went to dinner with Kailey and Ashley at some hole in the wall restaurant. I ate lamb, something I usually do at least three times a week now, and it was amazing. Lamb is one of the few things that I eat that Kailey knows how to order, thus my love of adorable meats has been born out of necessity. The three of us then went to Dairy Queen, I had an Oreo blizzard and then came home to lesson plan for a few hours. I'm teaching at Si Shi Junior School tomorrow, which is my absolute favourite. My Junior 3 (9th grade) class is my saving grace but more about them tomorrow.

As a lark, I decided to look over my attendance sheets to see how many students I had in total... After I added them all up, I came up with a quick list of numbers to explain my alcoholism. Picture 2 is just a picture of Dalian, over which I have earned the following stats:

I teach at 6 different schools (5 Primary, 1 Junior)

5 different grade levels (5th-9th)

My largest class is 70 students, smallest 26 and my average is 46.7

I have 26 different classes totaling 1,238 students. YIPPEE!!

A Week in the Life... Monday Edition

Happy Monday! You know that's something I have never heard anyone say in my life. I have never heard anyone feel enthusiastic about the start of another work week... after today, I've still never heard it. Today was my first day back in a classroom since last Saturday, and I got a little spoiled. Even though I went to bed around 2 AM, I was up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 6 AM to get ready. This is my usual wake up time, though as you'll see later this week, sometimes I snooze it until 6:30. I don't have my alarm clock in this country so I have to use my little Palm pilot alarm. Brian's going to kill me for this, but I'm amazed that that tiny beep wakes me up much better than my alarm at home. I've been torturing myself for years for no reason it turns out; I guess I learned something new in China. Fancy that!

To get to school on time for my first class at 8:10, I have to leave my apartment no later than 7:30 for about a 30 minute walk. The first picture is the Botanical Gardens I walk through every Monday and Thursday morning on my way to school. It's just a park stuck on the side of a hill that people do... well, what people usually do in parks. They walk their dogs (no leashes in China though), get some fresh air, and do tai chi in the early morning mist. The only time I feel really 'in China' is when I see about a dozen Chinese people in the park doing tai chi around sunrise.

On Monday's, I teach at Wang hai Primary School, which is the best rated public school in the area... as they remind me constantly. I'm not a big fan of the school, but the kids are growing on me a little. I teach three classes of Primary 5 (5th grade) and three classes of Primary 6 (6th grade). Today in Primary 5 classes we started with a tongue twister, read a passage from the book, and learned how to use 'going to...' plus a verb to show an intended action. It went alright, though I couldn't care less about teaching today. The most interesting thing about Chinese schools (other than the fact that the students sweep, mop, and clean the entire school in between classes) is that every morning the whole school stands on the field outside and listens to morning announcements and chants about how great their school is and pledge to be good students that day (Picture 2).

After morning announcements, I teach two classes of Primary 5, after which ,around 10 o'clock, the whole school goes back outside (teachers included) and does morning exercises. They also have PE every day, but morning exercises are just the morning pick me up. Also, they have ten minute breaks between each class. It makes the schedule seem very laid back. Even though Chinese school is from about 8AM-5 or 6PM every day.

During the 40 minutes when the school is out doing exercises, some students run around the school cleaning or finishing up homework, I'm not sure what the policy is on this, but I see students still in the school. I usually hear them too because every morning I eat a Swiss roll and then pass out on my desk. Sleeping on the job here is tremendously common and is not at all viewed as lazy or unprofessional. Any time an employee is tired at work, of a teacher has a break between classes they almost always just sleep right on their desks.

After my little nap, I teach two more classes then go to lunch, for which I have an hour and a half. All of the teachers usually eat in the teacher's dining hall and the school provides food. The food sucked today so I just ate some rice. I usually eat with a computer teacher named Mr. Ling who speaks pretty good English. All of the other English teachers are female, and usually teachers of all one gender eat together, so they introduced me to him so I had a lunch buddy. I think he's forced to eat with me, but he's always very nice about it. Sometimes he begs other teachers to eat with us because they treat me like I may pass on plague at any second. That's the 'teaching in the best public school in the area' attitude. Sometimes other teachers join us, but it's rare.

Today however Mr. Ling wasn't here because his 10 month old daughter has been in the hospital for a few weeks and he was visiting her on his lunch break. I feel really bad for him because the first time I met him he talked about his new daughter for about an hour, he was such a proud father. Two weeks later his little girl's in the hospital with abdominal bleeding...

Any way, since he was not there and lunch sucked, I took very little food. It was like Def Con 4 in the teacher's dining hall!! Four teachers came over to me wide eyed, asking me in Chinese and their best broken English why I wasn't eating. They brought the cafeteria cooks in and began to ask me what they could cook for me since I didn't like the food. They would not accept that I just didn't want to eat. Luckily, Mr. Ling arrived and I explained to him that I 'had a stomach ache' and he told them in Chinese, they bought it but still seemed sceptical. At that point, I was almost done eating my rice and steamed bread, so I was over it.

After lunch, I attempted to take my usual post-lunch nap on my desk, but wasn't in the mood. I just sat with my eyes closed in between sending texts to Kailey and Ryan. Then, at about 1, I taught my last two Primary 6 classes about Christmas and Thanksgiving (I just follow the book.) Since the book introduced no new vocab or grammar that chapter, I decided to have the kids sing a Christmas carol. It went OK (see attached video). It was all I could do to not have them sing 'Fra ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra' just for a lark but I thought I'd actually be semi-professional.

After school, I had to go to the post office with Ed (the only American who works for the company and is in charge of H.R., a.k.a keeping us alive) to pick up a package from Grandma (just shoes, no cookies) and then headed home. After I made a pretty simple pasta dinner for myself, I met Ryan downtown for an Irish coffee and to catch up about his vacation out of Dalian. After coffee I took a little walk around the city, hopped in a cab and came home to write this entry. Now I just have to figure out how to add the video I already mentioned. Here goes nothing.... Cheers!

A Week in the Life... Sunday Edition

So, for this entire week, barring some horrible act of nature I intend on giving an account of my average day here because I feel like I'm overlooking things and my other posts are less thrilling than a Jane Austen novel (a sad state of being for certain.) So, today I embark on a week of doldrums... Here goes.

This morning, which started at about noon for me, was the final day of a week long vacation from work. In China, National Day (Oct. 1) is celebrated by most people having the entire week off. I was one such lucky soul. I spent the holiday doing the only two things one can do in Dalian, shopping and drinking. Today, however, was the end of the blissful seven days. Two of my closest friends here (two other teachers from America) Ryan and Kailey, were out of Dalian for the week so I wandered about the city like a bear in a cage, hanging about with nothing to do. At about 10 o'clock this morning I got a text from Kailey letting me know that she was back in town!

I had plans to meet Winston and Patrick (two other teachers) downtown, at a place called Zhongshan Square (see picture above) for an event that happens every week. On Sunday, from about 2-5 o' clock in Zhongshan Square is something called English Corner, in which native English speakers come to talk with Chinese people wishing to flaunt and improve their English skills. Pat and Winston go every week and always have a lot of fun, and I have felt the need to know more than 12 people in this city, so I decided to go.

After I got off the phone with Kailey I got ready and met Winston and Patrick at English Corner. Within about five minutes I had a little crowd of people around me asking me all sorts of questions like where I was from? what I thought of Dalian? what do I do for a living, etc. That was all fun and good because I got to talk to some natives, which happens all too rarely. Then after about a half hour there were about 20 people standing around me as I sat on a bench. One guy, who was mainly listening started asking me all sorts of good questions about American politics, economic crisis, etc. It was nice to not be instructing on the language for once, but more concerned with communicating the ideas behind it. After about an hour, a very old man who had been standing in the back of the crowd and one I assumed spoke no English, but was more interested in just seeing a foreigner (not uncommon here for those who lived in China during Mao's xenophobic reign) made his way up close to me. After I finished answering one of the questions posed, the old man asked me, 'Seeing as how America had a Great Depression in which people were forced to live in tents in public parks and people lost their entire life's work in the stock market collapse and have since often criticised the government's unwillingness to act as a key factor, do you feel that the American people will allow their government to pass this simple bailout as the only measure to fix the growing recession?' (Or something very near that only more comprehensive) I was totally taken aback but from then on, he and I began a dialogue.

Many people carry little stools here, to open and sit if they feel it necessary. This old man, set down his cane, opened his little stool and sat face to face with me for the next three hours asking me questions about American culture past and present. Topics included women's rights, changes to culture brought about by war, slavery, discrimination, Shakespeare, health care, taxes, art (primarily neo-classical and art deco, both of which he found fascinating), governmental authority, the Constitution, American paradoxes (e.g. why does America say they promote freedom but involve itself in the internal workings of other countries? why does America pretend to be impartial while in all but name choosing sides?- the last of which brought to mind the Jefferson quote 'Impartiality is always partial.') as well as an amazing amount of other topics. Thankfully, he also allowed me to ask him a series of questions, which he answered with frank candidness, about Mao's years in power, China's loss of cultural identity, the gradual transition from communist to free market, governmental fear of an intelligent general public, etc.

Some of the stories he told me were heart breaking, such as when he was younger and was not allowed to educate himself by going to college because the government decided he should be a sentry at some nearly abandoned post in some small neighborhood. Luckily, since he had little to do but sit in a lonely box, he surrounded himself with books, taught himself English and from then on studied anything he could get his hands on. At the same time, he bounced from his agonizing past to his hope and optimism for a China free from governmental regulation. I feel that nothing will ever supplant my patriotism and libertarian ideals after hearing his personal history. The only other person around us who felt capable of chiming in was an attractive Chinese girl who often offered a perspective on how the younger generation of China sees their future and relationship with the West. I can honestly say, I finally found some of what I came to China looking for; a fact I didn't realize until I typed this. At about 5:30 Kailey came and met me to get some coffee and dinner.

I did make plans to go back next Sunday to meet the old man and talk more about life. He collects art and antique books from flea markets and said he would take me to find good deals on art while I'm here. I think I've made a friend after my own heart finally. Plus, the attractive 20 something girl said she would be back and, if I wanted, she would help me study Chinese. Some things translate just fine from one language to another, that offer was one of them.

Luckily, Kailey came when she did because I was freezing and we got coffee then found a little out of the way restaurant to get some Japanese food. Kailey is from Texas but studied abroad in China last year where she got a solid basis in the language. She recently graduated with a degree in international relations. Ethnically, she is half Chinese and half Irish, though both of her parents are American. She serves as my tongue in restaurants and my accomplice the rest of the time. However, at this time I renew my objection to talking about those around me on the public world wide Internets. If you want to know more, just send me an IM or Facebook message.

After dinner, which it was more than refreshing to be around her snideness again, I returned home to lesson plan. The past few Sunday evenings I've been going to Pub Quiz in a bar on the other side of town, but tonight I had to lesson plan for the upcoming week since I did none of it over break. This week I have to cover Christmas and Thanksgiving in my 6th grade classes. Honestly, nothing made me more homesick than thinking about how to explain and impart our holiday customs with our families and the things we do (e.g. sing Christmas carols, bake cookies, eat Turkey, watch Football/fall asleep on the couch) quite like reflecting on how I spend my holidays. I mean of course beyond the McFall Christmas tradition of Silence of the Lambs and Chianti. More to the point of studying for finals in the SGA office with a small group of people also plagued with chronic procrastination (i.e. Brian and Levi) as well as snow ball fights, midnight trips to the Dog for a night cap and going to Molly's for a pint and a shepherd's pie in the middle of a blizzard. Hopefully, I got it all out of me tonight and I won't have a breakdown in the middle of drawing my hand turkey in front of the class, I guess we'll see...

As for now, I'm packing my briefcase and listening to Joni Mitchell before bed. Nothing raises the spirits quite like Both Sides Now, eh? Cheers!