Chinese Wedding (婚姻)

On Saturday, I had the privilege of accompanying my friend, Jenny, to a colleague's wedding. It was a pretty dreary morning, rainy and cold, but I was excited to see a Chinese wedding. The wedding started at 11:18Am; I am assuming ending in '8' because this is considered a lucky number, as in Chinese, 八 (eight), sounds like 发（fa), which means prosperity.



Jenny and I strolled up to the front of a restaurant, with our umbrellas in hand, waiting for the arrival of the lucky couple. There was a stand with firecrackers dangling from the top bar and a crowd of anxious wedding attendees armed with tubes filled of confetti.

The doorman lit off the firecrackers and we were all cheering for the couple as they stepped out of the car. The shiny confetti shot all over the happy couple and drifted on the wind towards us, covering us. Then all of a sudden, Jenny exclaimed, "ai! those are not my friends!". We were waiting for the wrong wedding party!

We quickly exited to the restaurant half a block down, finding 'our' lucky bride and groom. It was a good thing that we went to the wrong wedding because we had missed the grand, noisy entrance of our couple.

This wedding, like many other Chinese weddings according to Jenny, seemed pretty low key to me. There was an MC who ran the show and introduced the bride and groom, said some nice things about them, like how pretty the bride was and how lucky the groom was. There was a quick ceremony, officiated by some woman, and then some speeches by the parents and their bosses. Then, instead of a wedding procession, there was a dizzingly fast marching of food to our tables.



The wedding banquet was great and while did not consist of many options for the ovo-lacto-pesco-tarian, I was quite stuffed upon exiting the wedding which ended in a record short time, at 12:30. I think its the shortest wedding I've ever been to in my life.

National Holiday Triology: Part 1: Yanji

I've returned to Jilin after a week of travel to Yanji, Tumen, and Chang Bai Shan. Its been a great, but tiring week; as soon as I stepped out of the Jilin Train Station, it felt good to be back 'home.'

I last reported that on the beginning of our journey that I was going to stand for 7 hours. This turned out to be a rumor and all three of us ended up finding a seat amongst the passengers. So sadly, I didn't build any character, but I was well rested and pleasant upon arrival.

We arrived in Yanji and started the short trek to our lodgings. As we passed the buildings, dodging cars in the streets, I definitely was reminded that we were in China, but also it felt quite different from Jilin. Since Yanji is the capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, all of the signs are in Chinese and Korean. Furthermore, there is a huge Korean population in the city, which contributes to the mix of Korean/Chinese food everywhere.

The afternoon was spent exploring the city. We found a park which sadly had animals in minuscule cages. There was a tiger and a cheetah, right next to each other, with barely enough room to walk around. The cheetah was pacing back and forth, which Matt and Kevin said was probably due to the poor animal's suffocating space causing him/her to go crazy. I was quite disturbed by this maltreatment, so I suggested to come back later in the night for Mission: Liberation. I was reminded that these carnivores are probably famished and would eat their liberators; Mission: Liberation, aborted.

Dinner was spent at a Korean BBQ place which was fun because we got to grill our own food. It was analogous to roasting smores over a campfire, but instead with meat on a stick and in my case garlic cloves and fishballs, which I tried to order more of after the first batch. However, each time I tried to say, in Chinese, 'fish,' then 'white fish' while motioning my hands into a ball formation; and then I gave up because instead of a frozen, half spherical fishball, I got donkey and then some funky fish skin thing.

In my typical clumsy fashion, I was jumping up on to a step and proceeded to trip and gouge my knee on the corner of the step. That pretty much ended our night on the town and I tended to my gushing wound which I think looked alot worse than it really was and I'm glad to report that I'm healing well with no signs of infection.

Computer on the Fritz

Yesterday, my computer became angry with me and now is refusing to cooperate. I believe that the fan that cools it down is broken, which has caused my computer woes. Thankfully, my friend Matt is letting me use his laptop.

Thinking that it could just be the fan, I emailed the COMIS, the UVM computer experts, asking about what I could do about a faulty fan. I couldn't believe it, but they responded with "We can send you a loaner and the shipping material to send my broken one back." I was flabbergasted. At first, I thought maybe they assumed that I was in China, MAINE, not China, the country. So I replied clarifying that I was 1/2 way around the world. I just checked my email and they said it would be possible, but that they'd double check.

The COMIS dept gets an A+ for dedication to UVM medical students!

The other night I went out to dinner with 2 Korean friends, Ashley and Joo, and my friend Kevin. We went to a Si chuan place and we think that a spice they used in the dish gave us awful nightmares. Kevin dreamed about helping Harry Potter escape from quite large spiders, while I was trapped in a house and couldn't escape.
Eating out has been an interesting experience, mostly because we say "chicken" or "tofu" in Chinese and are presented with something much more complicated than our one word ordering. One time, we ended up with this delicious tofu dish, so we had the waitress write it down in Chinese and we showed the slip of paper the following week at another eatery. That was amusing.

But its somewhat frustrating and hilarious because I think that I'm saying the word correct, but I can't get my point across. For example, I asked for garlic, da suan, I thought I had the tones right, but we ended up getting toothpicks! Go figure.

Also, I just found out that I have been telling our friendly food servers that "I am a vegetable." No wonder I've been getting quizzical stares. I thought that "Wo shi su de" meant I am a vegetarian, but my 2 Chinese friends told me that the translation is more "I am a vegetable." (I forgot to say Wo shi chi su de) Or if I said, "wo chi su de" it just means I eat vegetables. And so what? You eat vegetables, big deal. I think my attempts at the vegetarian language have been futile as I have either been making ridiculous statements or saying obvious things. Nevertheless, I haven't gone hungry so we must be doing something right.

2 things that I found surprising here is that the Chinese eat a plethora of potatoes and that there are large Muslim populations in China. I wasn't expecting potatoes to be a popular thing here as I never really ate alot of potato dishes growing up. Also, people around here really do eat dog. My friend Jenny last night enjoys it and eats it a few times a year.

First day of Teaching

Yesterday, I had my first teaching class with doctors. I arrived to class 15 minutes early so that I could get situated and make a seating chart. I was sitting down when 2 women walked in and they were shocked to see me sitting at the front of the classroom. And then, no one else came. *tear* I only had a pair of students for my first class ever.

I made the best of the situation, quietly discarding my prized seating plan, and started off with trying to clear the confusion about why a "youngster" was teaching them medical English. After that road bump, the class turned out great. They introduced themselves and then I went into my life story.

My original lesson plan was based for...well, let's just say, more than 2 people. So I jumped into anatomy and practicing saying all the different body parts/organs so that they could practice their pronunciation. From what I gather, they want to be able to teach in their respective fields to English speaking medical students. Also, there are more than 2 people enrolled in the class, I think more will show up tomorrow.

For lunch, Kevin, Eric (Chinese guy who speaks English well, studied abroad in Alabama for 2 years), and I went into Jilin downtown for some homemade noodles (la mien). We each had a big plate of food with drinks and it came out to be 20 RMB (a little less than 3 dollars!)! The cost of living here is super cheap.

The bus ride home was a bit disturbing, we passed an overturned motorcycle with a huge crowd surrounding the rider, next to a mini-mac truck with a shattered windshield. I think the guy was still alive with massive injuries, but Kevin thought the guy probably died. Either way, this is a testament to the chaos that ensues on the roads here. People go ridiculous speeds to pass on the road, there are cars trying to cut in, pedestrians are playing "frogger" with the cars, and they definitely do not have 'the right of way.'