Murdo

Okay, it's Tuesday night here in the U.S. so I've officially been back stateside for one week, one hour, and 37 minutes....38.... Tonight, I find myself in a place very different from where I was one week, one hour, and 38....39 minutes ago. As a few of my friends have pointed out, I DID promise that I would continue to blog for a while after my return to keep everyone posted about all the fun effects of a little thing called, "reverse culture shock." Reverse culture shock is as it sounds - returning to your home culture after being immersed in a host culture for an extended period of time. It includes getting used to all of those little things that you may have forgotten or have since formed different views or expectations about. My reverse culture shock hit me immediately as I entered the Chicago airport upon my return. The first thing that I noticed, as I stood in line for customs, was that I could understand everyone. My brain was swimming in a stream of conversations, all of which I could comprehend perfectly! About 2 minutes after this dip into the realization pool I forced myself back out of the water and onto the surface as I decided that the aforementioned conversations were not particularly interesting or worth listening to. Maybe that's a little harsh...

Throughout the past week here are some of the other things I've been keen to notice:
* All of the grass and how everyone in Iowa has huge lawns!
* The lack of people. As we drove into Marshalltown on Tuesday night, I found myself wondering how and where I would go about finding a street food vendor in a neighborhood that seemed to be void of any life at all.
* The cravings. I awoke at 5 a.m. one of my first mornings back and could not shake a craving for my favorite noodle restaurant in Tianjin.
* Sleep cycle. Mine has been, to say the least, a bit off-kilter! For the first few days/nights I slept for about 4 hours at a time, whenever I felt like I wanted to, no matter day or night. Now, I am sleeping mostly through the night but still waking at about 5 a.m. and still feeling like I am going to fall down a flight of stairs at about 2 p.m.

Since I have been back I have been doing a lot of contemplating about the next step in my journey and what that might look like. I've been visiting with friends and family. I currently find myself on a road trip, just me and the open road, to Wyoming and Colorado. Which brings me to my title, M-U-R-D-O. It's "funny" where life leads sometimes. One week, one hour and 55...56 minutes ago I was in a bustling city of 9.5 million people, loving every minute of it. Today I look at my surroundings and see Murdo, South Dakota...a rinky-dink town...one of those towns that if you blink as you pass it, you won't even know it's there. One of those towns where there are no places to order a pizza, no restaurants, and only a tiny family-owned supermarket where you can buy a "Lunchables" for your dinner. One of those towns along the highway where you get stranded for the night when you think you have super-woman powers only to be shown that a rest is sometimes needed for a jet-lagged body and soul. One of those towns where even the fancy rental car in the parking lot outside your hotel can't drive the 11 hours needed to find solace in the mountains - or to take you wherever your soul may long.

One week, two hours, 6...7 minutes...

Tick Tock Tick Tock...

I apologize for not blogging lately but this past week has been one of my busiest in China! Unfortunately, the busy-ness is all in saying goodbye to the people that I have spent this year with. I have been eating out with different classes, meeting friends for ice cream in the afternoon, and playing games into the evening. With each "see you later" comes hugs, tears, and an unbelievable amount of gifts coming from my students who want to give me something to remember them by. If only they knew that they are unforgettable...


I fly into Cedar Rapids this Tuesday, July 15th at 6:43 pm and I am unsure of what my emotions will be at that time...excitement to see my friends and family I have missed this year, sadness for the end of an unbelievable year, or just extreme fatigue (actually, I think the last one is a guarantee!) This will probably be my last post coming from China but I will likely continue to post for a while once I'm back in the states with some reflections and thoughts as I adjust to being back. Thanks for being faithful readers this year! I can't wait to see you all!!

The Great Wall's Disappearing Act

As you can tell from the previous post, I had some friends visiting me last week! We had a good time and did a lot of things, including a trip to the Great Wall on my birthday! The section of the wall that I take my visitors to is called Huang Ya Guan in Jixian and it has quickly become one of my favorite places in China. It is a large section of the wall that can be hiked across; full of ups and downs, watchtowers, renovated parts of the wall along with the ancient sections and it takes about 3 hours to hike across it. The best part about this section of the wall is that the air is fresh and there are virtually NO people there - unlike the rest of China! It's amazing to be at this great landmark of history, trying to imagine what it was like to build it, sleep in the watchtower or stand guard at one of the thousands of viewing points.

This past week, though, I've seen something that I have not witnessed in my 3 previous trips. The wall was gone! The mountains surrounding the wall were gone, the watchtowers were gone and, on a few occasions, my friends were gone! All of this had disappeared into a cloud of...well, a cloud... It was one of the foggiest days I have ever seen and my friends can testify that I almost burst into tears when we got to the top and were unable to see the beautiful sights. At one point Dietrich climbed a small slope about 15 feet from us and we lost him completely. At that moment we decided that our imagination would be useful in a situation like this and we made the best of the fog, actually having a wonderful time! By the end of our hike, the fog had lifted a bit and we could see the outline of the wall. Check out the pictures below to see that yes, the Great Wall of China may be seen from space and may be able to keep out invaders but match it up against a cloud and it's certain to lose...

Marco... Polo!

The fog has lifted!

The students who came with us - Florence and Dragon.

Guest Blogger: On the Road Again. . .

The perspective of Emilie, Dietrich, and AmyA . . . We've been on the road again and we just can't wait to get on the road again (Not true. We could handle a few more days in China with our good friend Shan.) We've been hitting the road via planes, trains, taxis, foot and the most adventurous bikes. Each of those road trips had a guaranteed adventure or two. The theme of the our trip quickly became "Expect the unexpected." Some of our unexpected travel stories include. .

Planes: Heading to China, our stand-by flight from Japan to Beijing was chuck full which kicked the three of us off. . . Needless to say, it was a little stressful as we navigated through the airport late at night without Japanese money, language skills or a way to contact Shannon. We lost a day with Shannon but gained a day in Japan and we made the most of it.

Bikes: We finally arrived in Beijing to the priceless welcoming hugs from Shannon. We hit the tourist spots and Shan served as a great tour guide. Despite almost hitting and being hit by several bikes on our pedestrian journeys we all voted to rent bikes and see the city. Riding a bike in a city of 14 million people with a front wheel coming treacherously close to falling off would put any RAGBRAI-er to shame, but we would highly recommend Beijing via bike!


Trains: After two days of Beijing touring we conquered our greatest feat. . . the train! Don't be fooled the train itself was not scary, however, the 'loading' process was devastating. The three travelers with bags in hand and Shannon were corralled with approximately 1,000 other individuals headed to Tianjin. We were overwhelmed with these thousands of Chinese moving slower than molasses with the departure time quickly ticking away. There were points in the people jam in which we thought the overpass bridge may collapse.



Honda Civic: After a one of a kind meal at a hot pot restaurant (a boiling pot of broth with a variety of added vegetables and meat balls), we ventured to an evening spent singing at KTV (similiar to karoke in the US) with two of Shannon's students and a cute brother. We crammed 7 people into a compact Honda Accord. We aren't quite sure if the random horn honking was to signal 'get out of the way', 'hi...how are you', 'I'm coming', 'watch out', 'I'm here...don't walk in front of me', or just a common reaction from the driver. Needless to say, each taxi or car we took was filled with adventure.


Walking: Some of the best moments were experienced while on foot throughout the city of Tianjin. In conversations with Shannon's beautiful students, we learned what it really means to be Chinese. Their passion for life and love for friends was apparent in every conversation. It was so amazing to see the love of the students who have become Shannon's Chinese family and who she will miss beyond belief upon arrival back in the U.S. We were so blessed to meet each one and to hear their stories.


Each of these forms of transportation lead us to the most amazing dining experiences. From dumplings to rice bowls, we've gotten a good mix of Chinese food. We soon learned eating is not only an American past time but also a very big part of the Chinese culture. We are proud to say we never had to resort to the plastic forks quietly hidden in our hand bags and have officially mastered the art of using chop sticks.

As we hit the road to our last meal in Tianjin...Zai Jian! (one of our 4 conquered Chinese terms).

Shannon, an English teacher? No more...

This week wraps up my final week of teaching writing in Tianjin. I'd have to say it's bittersweet...I didn't enjoy teaching all that much but I adore my students. They are a source of complete joy for me as I live in this foreign country.


Since I was required to turn my grades in last weekend, I knew that I wouldn't be formally teaching this week, so instead we just had some fun and celebrated making it through the semester! We played games: I taught them "Have you ever...?" where they had to change chairs when they could answer "yes" to the questions. They thought this game was absolutely hilarious every time they had to get up and move and in some classes we played for nearly an hour! In every class I had one or two students who thought they were so clever to ask questions like, "Have you ever been to America?" or "Have you ever had blonde hair?" or "Have you ever taught English writing?" Needless to say, I ended up in the center of the circle quite often. :) I also taught some of them the card game, UNO...this is a card phenomena that could easily spread throughout China! Another activity we did was English tongue twisters. This was hilarious as they attempted to say, "Unique New York" or "Toy boat" 10 times in a row, very quickly. We had a lot of laughs together this week. Finally came picture mania, we took a ton of pictures in each class. I will miss these students immensely.


Two of my classes touched me most this week. In each class I gave a little farewell speech: stay in touch, stay motivated, support each other, laugh together, etc. and in my favorite class one of the students stood up with a response and spoke on behalf of their class. He said that because of me, they will no longer be nervous to talk to a foreigner, whereas before they would never have opened their mouths. He said that I taught them so much more than writing...'sniff!' The other story comes from my last class: when I dismissed them to go they all stayed put in their seats, just looking at me. I finally asked them if they were okay and they started talking amongst themselves and asked me to have lunch with them. When I said we would find a time, they stood up to go. They didn't want to leave unless they knew they would see me again! The sincerity and genuineness of these students will remain with me for the rest of my life....


Tonight I'm heading to Beijing to pick up 3 good friends from college - Amy, Emilie and Dietrich - and we are going to explore Beijing and Tianjin for a week! I'll try to post once while they are here!

June's Birthday Bash

June is birthday month among Jian Hua folk! There are 5 birthdays this month (including mine!) and so we decided to have a birthday bash yesterday to celebrate. We started out the evening by eating dim sum. This is a Chinese cuisine that is most popular in Hong Kong and southern China. When ordered, a wide variety of small dishes are chosen (similar to Tapas...) so there is much to choose from! Cindy and I created the lovely spread seen below...


After dinner the cupcakes came out and the birthday group was sung to. In this picture, please take note of Zhou Jun, who is sitting next to me, and also the expression on my face. As we were told to blow out our candles, I hesitated for once second and in that second Zhou Jun blew out my candle before blowing out his. Hahaha...see the joy on his face?!?! Also pictured are Joel and Beth.


With our full tummies we went out into the sticky, stuffy humid weather and walked to a park nearby. This park is the gathering place in Tianjin for tons of people, especially in the evening. Usually there is spontaneous dance, roller blading, kite flying, Taiji (martial arts), and countless other surprises happening all around a huge square. Last night we stumbled upon the biggest exercise class I've ever seen. I am not exaggerating to say that there were 300+ people gathered on the square moving and shaking to some very annoying techo music. We waded through the people and eventually, of course, we joined in - for about 30 seconds and then the attention became too much to handle. See Natalie and Cindy dancin' it up below.


One thing we noted about the dancing was that there seemed to be no requisites in dress for this event...in fact, one girl was wearing tiny white high-heeled shoes and a skirt! I made a comment that you would only catch me in those shoes at a wedding, yet here she was exercising in the park!!


These last pictures were not part of the birthday bash but I felt it necessary to include them in order for me to redeem myself! Several months ago I posted after I had made some hideously ugly dumplings. I gained my 'face' back this weekend as I made dumplings again and actually had (a few) good ones!!

The Olympic Mascot - Fuwa

These cute little characters are seen all over China in every way, shape and form you could imagine! I even saw them painted on a huge jet plane the last time I was at the airport! They are the mascots for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and they have become a huge hit around China. Their names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini which, when put together, says "Beijing Huanying Ni" or "Beijing Welcomes You." Each Fuwa represents a popular Chinese animal - the fish, the panda, the Tibetan antelope and the swallow (with the exception of the red one who holds the Olympic torch.) As you can see, they each represent one color of the Olympic rings. They are also associated with a certain personality, cultural inspiration, sport, and ideal. If you want to read more about what each one symbolizes you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuwa or http://en.beijing2008.cn/spirit/beijing2008/graphic/n214068254.shtml
Personally, I think these are a brilliant design and I would say they have done their job of generating excitement, worldwide.

A recent turn of events, though, finds the Fuwas at the center of a hugely superstitious debate. China has witnessed a rough year with a lot of major, global incidents and because of this, many people are beginning to question the "good" of the Fuwa. Here are some examples of the so-called "Curse of the Fuwas":

• Nini (green) has a kite on her head. Kite flying is a tradition that comes from Shandong province where a train collision occurred.
• Yingying (yellow) is a Tibetan antelope - enough said?
• Huanhuan (red) is the Olympic torch. The torch running has caused massive problems all over the world, especially in a certain European country...
• Jingjing (black) is a giant panda. Pandas come from Sichuan province - the earthquake.
• Beibei (blue), the fish, is innocent so far...BUT...torrential rains and flooding across the country might be enough to do her in...

So...what's the consensus? Innocent...or Evil?? :)