Friday night I went to Pizza Hut!! A couple teachers and one of the students went and enjoyed some western food. Bethany and I split a Hawaiian pizza (which I never have at home 'cause Don doesn't care for it. Funny, I have to come to China to have Hawaiian pizza!). From there we went to an American coffee shop where a lot of language learners hang out. A friendly Chinese woman came up to me while I was hanging out there and started a conversation. We (the teachers) were just getting ready to leave, so we (the Chinese woman and I) traded email addresses and she gave me her cel #. I think she's a bit of a "regular" there since a lot of Chinese English learners seem to hang out along with the foreign teachers. Anyway, her English name is Azalea.
The English names people choose here are often quite strange. Some are like Rain, Sun, Spring, July. Others are truly bizarre, like Lost. Thankfully one of the teachers re-named "Lost." I had one girl who named herself Harry Potter!! Others are names that I think they just pick because they sound cool or pretty. In my homeroom I have a "Fairy" and and "Elven" (both are girls). Elven asked me what her name meant.
Yesterday we started the day off around 1:00 going to a Buddhist temple. It was a curiosity for most of the other teachers, but for me it really meant something, being Buddhist. Still, it was weird, because I felt like the temple was more a tourist attraction than a holy place. THere were monks there, it was an active temple, but the energy was very different from Korean temples. People were vary chatty and loud despite the signs with symbols for "shhh!"
Anyway, we were only there an hour, and it wasn't enough time for me. I spent about 15 mins. sitting in the shade with a monk. Just sitting there soaking up the place. I didn't even see all of the actual parts of the temple. I did see one of the "main attractions" though: The Hall of 500 Arhats.
Arhats are sort of akin to saints. In this hall there are 500 gilded statues of these guys and every one of them looks different. In fact some of them were pretty freaky looking. One had these huge white eyebrowns that came down to his knees and he was holding them, one in each hand. Another guy was fighting a dragon and it looked like he was laughing about it. the weirdest one was holding open a hole in his chest, from which was emerging a tiny Buddha.
There's a cool tradition our tour lady told us about, in which you count off Arhats, one for each year of your age, to find your lucky Arhat. I found mine, thankfully he was pretty normal looking. He had a short beard and looked pretty intellectual, actually. Some of them were almost skeletal looking, but this guy looked well fed.
I bought some incense from a vendor outside the temple. Paid 2 yuan (.25 maybe) but I don't know if it's good or not. I gotta try one stick and if it's good I'll donate the bunch to KTC (the Buddhist meditation center I attend in Columbus).
The other problem with going to the temple, other than not having enough time, was the intense heat. Wuhan is known as one of the "3 furnaces" of China, and it's a reputation well deserved. I was pretty beat after just that one hour, and I have been using of the pastel-colored umbrellas for sun and rain to ward off the sun.
But we weren't finished with our day! Next stop was the riverfront area of the Yangze river, which flows through Wuhan. One of the widest rivers of the world, apparently. The waterfront was nice but was totally flooded from all the rain in other parts of China.
My first impression was shock, recognizing a premonition. I had dreamed months ago about a sloping concrete wall that went into the water, and it was in China. That's exactly what it looked like with the water over the banks. Anyway, I officially stuck my big toe into the Yangze River! That's all any of us were comfortable submerging.
I walked a little way down the riverfront, seeking shade. I managed to find a place to sit and was busy mopping my forhead with a tissue when a begger came up to me and held out his hand. I tried to wave him off and use a combination of English and very rudimentary Mandarin, but he just stood there like a statue with his hand held out. This went on for about 5 minutes. I noticed he had a plastic bag with bottles and cans. Often beggers will follow you if you have a bottle of water or juice, to get the bottle when you're done (for recycling money, apparently). I had some water so I sort chugged it and offered the bottle. He nodded "NO" and pushed his handback in my face! So I had to get up and walk away and hope he didn't follow me. (he didn't)
Of course, it was annoying, and in truth I had no pocket change to give him. I would have, but all I had was a 100 yuan bill (about $12.50 - a lot of money here). I said a prayer for him, but that wasn't what he was looking for I think. He kept motioning to his mouth, like "food". I realize that in the States I'm not rich. I'm a grad student with lots of loans and a tiny apartment. But here I was, a foreigner sitting there with a diamond ring on my finger, and a piece of $80 jade around my neck. Compared to most Chinese, I AM rich. It's good to get some perspective.
Beggars here are very VERY insistant and will really bug you, follow you. They assume that you're a tourist with tons of money. Even though we were brought here and our tickets paid for, as I just said, compared to them we do have a ton of money.
Anyway, after that I headed back to where the bus was parked, totally overheated. Thankfully there was a little store with cold drinks and ice cream and some tables with shade. A bunch of our group was already there, and I was at least able to cool down with a popsicle ( a sort of frozen jelly type thing that didn't melt in the heat) and some water.
From there, mercifully, we went on to dinner. We went to a restaurant where we could at least order our own food. When we were in Beijing on the tour bus, they made arrangements with the restaurants we ate in, and every time it was the SAME food. So yesterday we had some variety and some spicy stuff. The Chinese think Americans don't like spice, so they always try to caution us against spicy food. But actually even the spicy stuff isn't as spicy as Korean food, anyway.
One of the dishes was a local variety of fresh water fish, in a scallion sauce that I swear had curry in it. Totally delicious. There were also these tofu dumplings that could easily have passed as meatballs if they'd been in tomato sauce. They had the right texture and everything. The sauce they were in was quite good, though. We ordered asparagus but it never showed up on the table and we found out that in fact they didn't have it. So we never had a substitute vegetable. It was mostly a protein and carbs dinner.
AFter dinner we returned to the hotel, and I was SO exhausted that I just stayed in my room when everyone went back out in the evening. I fell asleep watching Chinese TV around 10:00.
Speaking of Chinese TV - here's a grand case of "6 degrees of separation" only in this case it's only two degrees (or is it one?). One of the teachers (the Chinese American I mentioned earlier) went to theatre school in Beijing. One of his classmates was none other than Zhang Zi Yi, the young girl from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon! Apparently, some of his former classmates are in Chinese TV dramas these days, too.
Today I woke up pretty early, had breakfast and a bunch of us had coffee in one of the teacher's rooms. We decided to go shopping and then have lunch. We went to the Carrefour, which is a French chain of stores in Asia (there are some in Korea as well). Today it wasn't as busy as the last time I went. Plus I knew where I was going and didn't feel so bewildered. From there we went to a Japanese cafe for lunch - the coffee was excellent, if expensive.
And now here I am in the staff room, thinking I will probably go out later in the evening when it cools down. We worked out a deal with the hotel here so that we are on our own for meals on the weekends. It's better so that we have the chance to go off campus.
Apparently some folks found another Korean restaurant that is close to campus, and they have soju there, so I'm hoping to hit that place next weekend for korean food and drink!
Heading into week 3 of teaching, I have a better idea of what I'm doing as far as organizing the time, but I'm still not happy with my listening activiity. It's too tough for them and I never seem to have enough time to debrief it as much as they need. I will rethink that later tonight, I guess.
Missing you all, as usual. Feel free to leave comments. Although I cannot check my blog page directly, Don is posting these entries and he's copying and pasting the comments, so I am getting them, even if I can't respond to them all.
Until next time!
Sent Sun, 25 Jul 2004 09:47:49 +0100 (BST)
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