July 2008 - Where have we been?

Our summer started with a bang, and now more than a month later we have found some down time to catch our breath. So, here's the short version of what we've been up to for the last month:

The first week of July we said goodbye to one our favorite Western city-mates, a young female teacher from Britain. She was here for a year with Project Trust, spending her gap year teaching English at a high school, and she was great. She was always with students and had an enthusiasm unmatched. (Also I consider her to be sort of famous since her parents were Olympic athletes in the 70s/80s and her Dad is on the British Olympic Committee). Well, we met her and her boyfriend at a beer garden for a night of hanging out before they left. Both were headed back to the UK to earn some summer money. Then, even though the gap year is supposed to be one year, she decided to defer again from university to teach English for another year ... in Palestine! Hats off to them. The reason I write this is the amazing story of her boyfriend's health. He was teaching a small town just north of Urumqi, a large city in the Chinese Province of Xinjiang, where there have been some recent problems with terrorism. In any case, he got sick about 4 months before we spoke it him. He had an unknown stomach ailment, which he didn't take too seriously. After it became much worse, he started to see doctors at the bigger hospitals in town, and was run through the gamut of treatments. Antibiotics, other drips, pills, etc. He even had a consult with the best doctor in Urumqi. He said his Uighur friends blamed the Han Chinese food, and the Han people blamed the Uighur food. Everyone blamed it on his drinking lukewarm or cold water (which is bad for your health in China). He finally, after 4 months, hopped on a train to Beijing and was seen at a Western hospital. After various tests and treatments, it was reported to him that he had contracted 6 different parasites, had some internal bleeding, and was basically sedate for a few days while he was treated with more antibiotics, antiparasites, etc. And considering we saw him a few weeks later in high spirits, he was doing pretty good. Luckily, neither Nick or I have had any serious stomach problems (thought I did recently get food poisoning again, see below).

On July 7th, Nick and I walked the 5 minutes to the teaching building to turn in our grades. Then that night at 9:30, our train to Chengdu pulled out. We were on our way there so that I could give a session to the new Peace Corps China Trainees (PCTs). The first session I did was in the afternoon at Sichuan Normal University, and my expectations were met, in that I got more questions at the end than I could possibly answer. My session was called "Introduction to Model School and Developing a Syllabus for Model School." That's a fancy way to say I had to tell them what to focus on and how to start planning lessons for their 3-weeks of model teaching. By the end they had about 50 questions like "Will we be pair teaching? How many students will we have? What level will they be?" And this, of course, was still being decided, as the lovely volunteers students were still being recruited. But they performed wonderfully at my general planning activity, and many of them are experienced teachers, so they really surprised me with their great ideas. Actually, in this group of 38, 19 are over 50, and 14 are transfers from other countries. The average experience level of this new group just blows our group away, as some of us were just out of college.

Anyway, the next day we went over to Chengdu University to do the same session, and got pretty much the same results. Nick and I had dinner with our host family one evening as well, which was really great. We talked as much as we could, about the Olympics, Nick's dramatic weight loss, and their cute little dog. Since last year, our host sister got married! She was introduced through a friend to an army guy who works up near Urumqi, and they were married. They will wait until next summer to have to ceremonies: one in Chengdu and one in Urumqi. I am hoping to attend the latter, as it is more exotic, I have never been, and it could more easily be incorporated into post-service traveling.

After Chengdu we went to Leshan to see our friends doing their summer teaching project. After we had made plans, we found out that all 38 trainees as well as some Peace Corps staff were heading down there as well. One other volunteer said that we could stay at a vacant apartment next door to his, so we thought that would be a great plan. I was starting to develop a sore throat, so I needed some rest. However, about half way through the excruciatingly hot night, the air conditioner broke. The small bed in the stifling room became like a jail cell, and I stopped being able to sleep at all. I opened the windows in hopes of relief, but only managed to let in swarms of mosquitoes. In my tired and sick stupor, I had forgotten that I did pack bug spray. So, I just got up and sat on the couch in the living room waiting for dawn. At about 8 AM, I called the Peace Corps doctor because I thought that I might actually pass out from the pain. I stumbled out with Nick to get some antibiotics and eat a pineapple ice pop that numbed my throat a little. That day I rested, and in the afternoon took a walk. Nick and I were able to hang out with our friends, and go to see the Big Buddha. Nick was the first customer of a new coffeeshop. We took the bus back to Chengdu, hung out at Starbucks, and then got on the long, un-airconditioned train back to Tianshui.

We had about 3 days at home before taking a bus up to our Summer Project. I think I spent all the time at home doing laundry.

We arrived at the bus station here at 5:30 AM in hopes of buying 6 AM tickets to a city northeast of us called Xifeng. Sold out. After whipping out the Lonely Planet to consult how we could get to this mandatory and meticulously planned teaching project, we bought tickets to Pingliang, about 2/3 of the way there. Then we proceeded north on the most unfriendly road I have ever seen. We went through mountains, tunnels filled with smog that seemed endless, and then we hit the dirt road. It took 7 hours to get to Pingliang. We ran off, bought tickets to Xifeng, and got a short lunch of beef noodles. Then back on the bus - the ride was nicer, but seemingly interminable. Four hours later we arrived, and by this time riding on short buses through the countryside had gone from quaint and picturesque to boring, hot, and claustrophobic. At least our suitcase made it there on the top of the bus. Luckily, one of my students was on our bus, so she was able to give us the key information that the 3rd bus which we had to take did not depart from the East bus station, but from the North bus station. Getting on the final bus was a blur, but we pulled into our final destination (a town called Qincheng) at about 7 PM. After a mere 13 hours of bus travel, we were done. Before our ride could arrive, a wild storm surprised us with driving rain, high winds, and confusion. Our driver for the 2 weeks showed up, and took us to the hotel.

Our teaching project lasted for 10 days. We taught English lessons in the mornings and teaching methods in the afternoons. The morning classes were about 30 students, separated by the levels that they taught. The afternoon sessions were done in a stuffy large hall with no way to block out the light, so powerpoint was a bust unless it was 80-point black font on a white background. No joke. You could get about 6 words on each slide. After the project, we went to Xi'an to enjoy the culture, good food, and sleep. Overall it was a great trip, but it had some big ups and downs. Here is Nick's summary:

some of the high/lowlights of the trip so far might include: learning to play a couple of new drinking games, alison puking on the sidewalk from food poisoning, taking our first sleeper bus (you really can sleep on them, but it's just about the least comfortable thing ever), alison getting to skype with her dad a couple of days before deployment, finding dennis p- on facebook, having a guy find my wallet on a bus and run to give it to me, drinking espresso in TWO CITIES, being criticized on our official evaluations for my "stomach and moustach," getting to play with some of the cutest babies in china, seeing reruns of growing pains rebroadcast with chinese dubbing, KTVing "hip hop" by dead prez at our summer project talent night (complete with sagging pants and blue bandana on my head, aunt jemima/tupac style), and hearing a student say "oh, michael jackson, isn't he a nigger?"

I did actually puke on the ground outside a restaurant. Then, after 2 days of rest and eating only bananas and crackers, I was good to go. But I still couldn't eat the lamb's blood soup served to us at lunch one day.

Right now we're back in Tianshui, relaxing and planning for the next big trip: Shanghai, Datong, Xi'an, and Guilin. With my sister!! She and a friend arrive in 4 days, where we will meet them at the airport with a craftily made sign waving.

I'm sure you all know, but the Olympics have begun with a bang. We didn't really know what to expect going into the opening ceremony, but it was truly spectacular. Lights galore, culture to excess, good music, and fireworks of all kinds. We had a British friend over to watch it with us, and she was somewhat funny in admitting that she doesn't know how London will pull off anything like that for the 2012 Olympics. She mentioned that it seemed like this 2008 Opening ceremony was so serious and sort of sober - British people could never take themselves that seriously. She ran through a few things that might show up, but none of us could think of more than some traditional instruments, some traditional dances (think "Lord of the Dance"), and some standup comedians. My hope is that the opening ceremonies in 2012 will really showcase the multicultural nature of the Western world.

In a recent report put out by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center (which is great - check it out), they give some statistics comparing the US and China. The number of Chinese-Americans numbers in the millions, and the number of US citizens that have sought Chinese citizenship is ... "N/A." I don't think foreigners can even become citizens here. And I wonder how many other countries this is true of.

So, look forward next time to hearing of the trials and hilarious moments with family in China -