Trip to Freedom's Home

Yesterday was Qingming Festival, as we did not have any classes, my student, Freedom invited me to his home in the countryside, near the town 天北 (Tian Bei). He wanted to show me the countryside and introduce me to his parents', as well as his mother's cooking. I think in this past 24 hour period, I've gained 5 kilos from all the food that she made for us.

Life in the countryside is pretty simple, but its also strenuous. There's always things to be done around the farm and the house, but the cows have it pretty easy. They just plop themselves on some hay and eat all day.We spent the afternoon, walking around his small town and I met a cute, old family friend who lives in this pretty cool mud/straw house that he built. I was excited to help with dinner and make some dumplings. But after a few minutes, it became evident that I was more of a hindrance than an asset. Freedom's mom made the most impeccable dumplings and mine came no where close to her's. Also, not only did they look funny, many of my dumplings did not survive the ravaging effects of boiling water. Though, they still were tasty.Freedom and him mom.

Can you pick out the ones I made?

The stove in the kitchen is connected to the bottom of the house. Since there's no central heating, the heat from the ongoing fire in the stove heats the tiled floor, which heats the room. It's an innovative system, so I was nice and toasty on the floor as there was literally a fire under my bed.

Freedom's parents were incredibly nice and always giving me food and inviting me to come back whenever I had free time. In fact they were trying to be hospitable and offered me a beer today, with breakfast! I politely declined and replied that it was too early (8am) for beer. However, evidently, it was not too early for "kegs and eggs" for one of the bus passengers today on the ride back to Jilin.

We took the 2pm bus back to Jilin, and there was a man who was obviously drunk standing in the aisle of the bus, keeling over. He eventually got a seat, but then proceeded to vomit in the aisle. It REEKED of this crappy alcohol called "bai jiu," which is this home-style liquor that smells just awful, especially after its been ingested and then regurgitated. We vacated the bus and I was so disgusted with the whole mess that we ended up walking and taking a cab the rest of the way home.

The episode of vomitus did not ruin the day and a half trip and it was a great adventure into the countryside.

替考 Replace Test

I was having dinner with a student of mine the other day, and we were making plans this coming weekend because we have Friday off. Its Qing ming (清明节) Festival, which is also known as, Tomb Sweeping Day. This day is for remembering and honoring ones' ancestors, which includes visiting their tombs.

My student invited me to his home in the countryside, but we have to come back on Saturday because he has to take a test. I prodded a bit and found out that the test he's taking the test for someone else! The non-test taker works at a company and is looking to get a promotion. In order to accomplish this, he has to take a test and pass to get a certificate to help him obtain this advancement at work. He is paying my student to take the test for him since it is in English and my student's major is English. Here, they call this 替考 (ti kao), which literally means replace test.

I was pretty amazed at this underground business, but then again, I was not that surprised because cheating on tests is rampant and everyone and their mother manages to sneak in a crib sheet or blatantly take someone else's paper in the middle of the test and copies it (this happened in my class last semester).

It was actually very amusing. I went up to the student and said, "Oh, where's your test paper? Are you finished with it already?" She was a little verklempt but managed to spit out a few lame questions about Thanksgiving, hoping that I didn't notice that the boy behind us had her test paper. I let it go since I don't want to fail the students out of school.

Anyhoo, back to this 替考 business. It pays well, compared to the living standards here and I thought, oh my goodness, I would rock an English test (not that I support cheating, but I get easily excited). But then, I found out that there's a translation part. Um, yeah, I'm going to have to pass.