Lost in Beijing

After a fun, freezing two weeks, my mom took off from Beijing; it was great traveling with her. We haven't had an adventure for quite a while; we had a mini-adventure in Maine, visiting Acadia National Park; but, the last time we had an extended vacation was when we went to visit my sister in Seattle and popped over to Vancouver. On the brighter side, my friend Letizia, was coming the same day as my mom left. She, my other 2 friends, Kevin, Jenny and I planned to travel for a little over 2 weeks, making our way, overland, from Beijing to Hong Kong.

After seeing my mom off, I checked in the status of Letizia's flight and found out that it was delayed for 3 hours, so instead of getting in at 5, she was supposed to arrive at 8pm. It was only 10 am, so I figured I would head back to Beijing and return to the airport in the early evening.

On the bus, I was pretty psyched because I met a guy from Valencia, Spain and was able to practice my Spanish, or rather see how much Spanish I had forgotten. I kept hitting myself because a stream of Spanish would leave my lips but then Chinese would randomly pop in and I would get flustered. I was a little concerned for the guy since he spoke NO English and did not understand Chinese at all. Granted you can point and motion but its pretty difficult to maneuver around the city not knowing Chinese or English.

Speaking of maneuvering around the city, around 5, I was on the bus with Kevin and Jenny, when all of a sudden I got a call on my cell and was shocked to hear Letizia's voice, telling me she was lost somewhere in Beijing. I instantly felt horrible because I thought that I had misunderstood her flight status and she had arrived on time, also because she was lost. Its daunting to be lost in a city where you can't speak the language and not understand any of the signs around you.

She found a super nice guy to help her and call my cell phone. We managed (as in Jenny and the nice man) to figure out that we were serendipitously heading to the same area on the bus. So I went to the bus stop and knew the licence plate of the bus she was coming in on.

I waited and waited and finally the bus came. I ran up to the stream of people exiting and I saw a girl with long brown hair with her back turned to me so I started screaming out "Letizia! Letizia! Turn around Letizia! I'm right here!" Everyone was giving me odd looks and finally the girl turned, and it was not my friend.

I was super worried and I got a call from her fiancee telling me that she was at some bus station. I had no clue what to do, but after a while, I figured, what the heck, I'll just take a taxi to a few bus stations and look for her. I was envisioning the scene out of "Adventures in Babysitting," where the friend is stuck at the bus station, although Letizia doesn't wear glasses and would not try to pet a "cat."

But alas, I went to two bus stations, both of which were closed. After 5 hours of waiting and searching, I decided that I should just head back to the hostel and thinking of a new plan. In the back of my mind, I was freaking out, thinking that she got kidnapped and sold into some sex slavery ring.

Tired, hungry and freezing, I returned to the hostel and when I was mumbling for the room key, the receptionist asked if I was expecting a friend and pointed to a name on the guest list. I was SO SO happy, there was Letizia's name. I ran to her room and gave her a HUGE hug.

Letizia had managed, after a few hours, to find some girls to call the hostel so that they could write down the name and address in Chinese characters because no one understood the English and pinyin (the phonetic spelling of Mandarin).

It turned out she had changed her flight, but I didn't check my email to know that she was coming in earlier than expected. On top of that, she was waiting for me on the other side of the street that I was stationed at, because she ended up taking a taxi and got off on the other side. I think that this is one of those situations where we'll look back and laugh. ha...ha...hmm, not yet that humorous.

Anyhoo, I can't get enough of the Great Wall so the next day we went to Ju yong guan, which has a pretty steep incline. I'm just in complete awe of the wall and love the physical challenge of climbing it. Beijing Part Deux pictures aca

Jenny, Kevin and Letizia

Letizia acting out what happens if you over-exert yourself and you have heart and/or brain disease.

D'oh, not yellow scarf

So I have been going around China telling people the wrong Chinese name. When I first got here, I was unsure how to say my name in Chinese, but I remembered how to write it. I wrote it and the 3rd character caused some confusion, so they said maybe that's the traditional character and you should just use jin "金."

Now, I just found out that its actually the first 1/2 of the character which is supposed to be quan "銓" So my Chinese name is 黃思銓. When it was 黃思金, my students laughed because it sounds like "yellow scarf."

Anyhoo, 銓 is my great-grandfather's name, so my name means "thinking of quan", thinking of my great-grandfather. I am glad that this is the correct name because the meaning of 金 is gold so I thought that my name meant: "thinking of gold" and that is totally not me, I'm not thinking of being rich all the time. I'd rather be thinking about my family and heritage.

The Mom Chronicles: Beijing

After I arrived in Beijing, I booked it to the Laos Embassy to get a visa because in February I am meeting Carolyn in Cambodia and we are making our way through some of the SE Asian countries. The security at the Laos embassy was very small compared to the U.S. Embassy in Shenyang. I just showed my passport and walked into the Embassy, filled out some paperwork, paid the fee and was given a slip to come back to reclaim my passport 2 days later.

Compared to what my friend, Alec, had to undergo for an Australian visa, it was effortless. I met up with Alec for lunch to catch up, as he is temporarily living in Beijing for a job. He is from Jilin, and his English is superb. He got a scholarship to study in England, which is very competitive. The program doesn't start until later this year, so he was planning to go visit his friend in Australia. He had to fill out a bunch of paperwork and go for an interview. Even though, he explicitly told the government officials that he already had plans to go to England and was only going to Australia to travel and had no plans of staying, they told him that he still might decide to stay and not go because the cost of living is cheaper than in England.

I felt bad that it was relatively easy for me as a US citizen to have the opportunity to visit almost any place that I want to, whereas he had to go through a whole ordeal, including flying to Shanghai for an interview, and still got rejected.

Anyhoo, I met up with my mom later that day and was very excited to see her. That evening, we walked to a row of night snack stands. They had everything from scorpion kabobs to stinky tofu (my fav!), called chou dofu (臭豆腐). Stinky tofu doesn't exactly elicit a mouth watering response, but its comparable to stinky (expensive) cheese.

On a side note, the character for stinky has an interesting explanation. The top character of chou is zi (自) which means "self" and the bottom part is da (大) which means big. So put them together and you have "big self" or someone who is arrogant: 自大. So no one likes anything stinky (besides stinky tofu and cheese) and no one like anyone who is arrogant, thus the character for stinky is combined from arrogant: 臭.

Eating a fried eggplant kabobMom signing the word deer and happens to be eating some too!

The next few days involved seeing all of the major sites of Beijing. We went to Tiananmen, Temple of Heaven Park, the Forbidden City, Lama Temple, a Tibetan temple and some other places. Everyday was cold, I am a wimp when it comes to negative Celsius weather, so I was always bundled up. At least our hotel room had heat!

On new year's day eve, we ended up joining this Chinese tour, which ended up being a disaster. I was warned beforehand about hokey tours, but I thought that it might have been legit. We went to the Great Wall, which was great but then they schlepped us around to places that tried to sell us jade, Chinese medicines and the deal was that the tour operators gets money from bringing in tour groups and makes a commission off anything that is purchased. C'est la vie. At least we made it out to the Great Wall.

New year's eve, we went out for a wonderful dinner. My mom was SO excited to see frog on the menu and she hadn't eaten it in ages. I'm not quite sure where I stand on eating amphibians, but I am sure that I wanted my mom to be happy, so we ordered it and I managed to eat a leg or 2. Beijing photos are here. Our chilly adventures continued the next day with a flight to Dalian...

Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?

Tonight, my tutor and I were discussing that this Thursday is Thanksgiving in the U.S. and my plans for the day. Then, she asked me, "Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?" So in my very basic Chinese, this is what I managed to spit out:

"Many years ago, the Europeans came to America. They did not know how to cook, so they were very hungry. The people living in America, before the Europeans came, knew how to cook. They helped the Europeans, so they did not die, so they gave many thanks. Now, families come together and eat a whole lot of food, and give thanks for what they have."

It was pretty amusing rendition of the first Thanksgiving; nevertheless, I think I managed to get the point across.

Recovering...

Earlier this week, I came down with a nasty bug and was out of commission for a few days. I'm not quite sure of the origins since I'm pretty sure it was from a meal, but no one else became ill. Regardless, I was definitely not feeling up for class and had to cancel two periods and then be loopy for most of my Tuesday afternoon class.

While I did not have enough energy for class, I did have it in me to lie in bed and catch up on Project Runway Season 3, from last year, since I hadn't seen most of shows, as I was cable-less. I also managed to learn a children's Chinese riddle, which I attempted to recite, in Chinese, to my students in my loopy state, which did not go over well. My student asked me if I was speaking Chinese.

I think its so interesting that even though we, more or less, have the same animals all over the world, we have different animal sounds. For example, in the Chinese riddle, the frog says, "呱呱呱" (gua, gua, gua) which is different from how Americans view the amphibian's vocal contributions to pond life.

Also, at the beginning of the "semester" with my seniors, when they found out I spoke Spanish, they said, "oh, I hear that there are many beautiful Spanish songs, can you sing us one?" Unfortunately for them, I conceded and sang them "De Colores" which I successfully butchered. Regardless, there's all sorts of farm animal noises that stray from our conventional cock-a-doodle-doos and high-pitched peeps. Anyhoo, De Colores is a catchy tune, which you can hear in the movie "Romero," a powerful, life-changing film about Oscar Romero that takes place in El Salvador.

Surgery

I just learned how to say "surgery" in Chinese, 外科 (waike), no worries, I did not have to utilize my dictionary because I was in the hospital. So, dorky me thinks this is so cool because a literal translation is 'department of out.' In other words, the department where things are taken out, which believe you me, surgeons, more likely than not, want to do. 外科, pretty nifty, eh?

In other news, I am halfway done with my teaching marathon. I think between prepping for class, teaching, going to Chinese class, Chinese tutors, and studying Chinese, time has evaporated quickly. Its challenging to teach 5-6 different 2 hour lessons each week and while I already had a great deal of respect for teachers, it has grown exponentially.

For those of you interested: Project Runway Season 4 starts on November 14th. Its a fabulous show that showcases up and coming, talented fashion designers. Its interesting to see the process from the challenge to the sketches to the execution of a garment. Plus there's, of course, great drama and humor. I won't be able to watch it on TV, tear. However, I think I'll be able to find it on Chinese Internet. Hooray!

我 叫 黄思金

Okay, I just figured how to use the pinyin-Chinese program on the computers here in the Internet cafe, with the assistance of Jenny.

I'm ecstatic of this new discovery because its another conduit for me to study. I'm also ecstatic because this keyboard does not have any spittle on the keys. The other day, I was writing an email to my sister, but every time I would begin a sentence or use a proper noun, my left pinky felt wet. At first, I ignored this sensation, but then after a few minutes, I wondered what the heck was going on. I looked down at the shift key and it was covered in some food particles in a small puddle of someone else's saliva. How pleasant.

Anyhoo, I wrote: 我 叫 黄思金（Wo jiao Huang si jin) which means "My name is James Huang" Well, my surname is Huang which means yellow. Then, si jin means to think of gold, which I guess means that I want to be rich or think of being rich, which is not really the case, but its a lucky name, I think.

Chopstick Faux Pas

Oh my! I've had a penchant for leaving my chopsticks upright in my dish, which is a no-no here. By leaving them sticking up in my food, I am imitating the scene of incense burning at a funeral, which does not bode well for my meal-mates. Kevin always points out whenever I do this, stating, "James has a death wish for all of us". I can't help myself; it's more convenient to rest them in my food, but then again, I enjoy my friends' company. For more big travel no-no's, check out this article.

Speaking of chopsticks, the other night, the four Jilin guys and my friend, Jenny, were out at a dumpling (jiao zi) restaurant, which by the way, is our most favorite food. As the steaming dumplings were being placed on our table, amidst the pre-packaged dinnerware (showing that everything has been sterilized), beer, and condiments consisting of garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, and hot sauce, each of us were prepping our little area for the onslaught of dumplings. We've all gotten into the habit of mixing Chinese and English, Chinglish (analogous to Spanglish). Thus, I wanted to say, "Where are my chopsticks?" so I said, "wo de kuzi zai nar?". Everyone gave me a funny look, and I realized that I said, "Where are my pants?". I figured if I didn't know where those were, I shouldn't be in public.

马马虎虎 （Ma-Ma-Hu-Hu）

I've learned the bestest phrase the other day "ma-ma-hu-hu" (马马虎虎). Literally, this means horse-horse-tiger-tiger, but in conversational Chinese, it is used as describing something as 'so-so.' When it is used to describe a person, I believe that it means 'sloppy' or 'unkempt.' I've been finding great pleasure in repeating this phrase; I think the novelty will wear off soon, but in the meantime, everything will be 马马虎虎.

For those bibliophiles out there, I highly recommend these two books: "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards and "Eats shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss.

The first novel is poignant story about a doctor in the 60s who ends up delivering his wife's twins and deciding to send away one of the infants because she is mentally retarded. The novel then whisks you through the parallel lives of each child and their families. It's wonderfully descriptive and a compelling story. I couldn't put it down and literally stayed up until 2AM to finish it.

"Eats Shoots and Leaves" is a light-hearted, humorous and much needed book in society today. Its a great crash course into the sometimes frightening, yet extremely interesting world of punctuation. I get excited about things that sometimes raise eyebrows; however, this is a fun way of learning! Aren't you afraid to use semi-colons? I've always been apprehensive about plopping ';' into my writing. Fear not! This book breaks down the mystical dots, commas and whatnot into easy-to-understand language. Plus, I learned that Starbursts used to be called Opal Fruits, who knew!?

And we have water, hooray!

During the past 1 1/2 months, on random days, our water supply has been cut off. Not to worry, its usually only for a day; we get advanced notice, either from our American buddy, Fr. Jim or from the front desk staff which undoubtedly leads to confused looks on both of our parts and repeated explanations. Its actually quite amusing as the dates and times always are in flux. It's always a pleasant surprise when you go to wash your hands and poof!, water flows out of the faucet in jetting spurts.

I've become accustomed to these water blackouts and the night before, I fill up my small tub of water and hope that the water comes back on. We've even named the first flush of the day a freebie since there's water stored in the square thing (I forget what it's called, or did I even know the name before).

Over the weekend, I learned how to play Chinese Chess (xiang qi) and Ma Jiang, both fun games and challenging. Chinese Chess involves tanks, cannons, elephants, rivers and more! The game is analogous to Western chess in terms of specific pieces having special moves and whatnot; but, I feel its a bit more complex and tricky.

Also, I have discovered that I am replacing Spanish brain cells with Chinese brain cells. For the life of me, I could not remember how to say "there!" in Spanish (Ahi) and all that kept popping in my head was a resounding 'NA!' Ugh! I'm not sure what to make of my waning Spanish ability and my growing Chinese. Nevertheless, I think if I immersed myself in a Spanish-speaking community again, I'd rejuvenate mi espanol!

Settling in

Its been 2 weeks since I've arrived and things are beginning to become familiar and I'm inching towards somewhat of a routine.

I usually schlep to Chinese language class in the mornings, if I don't have to teach. Otherwise, I'm either preparing lessons for my medical English class or constantly writing Chinese characters, hoping that they imprint on my brain. I try to go for a short run every other day, usually by the Song Hua River, which has some beautiful scenery and is an escape from the polluted roads.

Most meals are eaten out, as my culinary skills are not being employed. Its fairly cheap to eat out and the food is great.

I'm enjoying teaching immensely. Whenever I arrive to class, I have bounding energy and the 2 hours fly by. The classes here are usually 2 45-minute periods with a 10 minute break. Also, it helps that I'm teaching medical English, so I find it all very interesting. On Friday, I gave out some American candy, Jolly Ranchers, so that my students wouldn't fall asleep during my lecture on Hypertriglyceridemia. They enjoyed the candy, the lecture, not so much.

While I was studying Chinese this morning, I discovered another quirk in the language. So apparently, the same character can have 2 totally different pronunciations, for example, in English imagine if you said bank, but it could mean post office depending on the context. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it clearly enough, but that's representative of how difficult this language is! Or its my shoddy explanation skills :)

Anyhoo, some more pictures of us at dinner and at the Park:
Kevin, Me, Elena, Natalia (Russians), Matt, Ashley, and Joo

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.

Tone deaf

Tonight, I had my Chinese lesson a bit later than normal, at 7pm, because of my trip earlier today and my teacher had obligations until 4:30pm. We definitely got off to a bad start because her transport time between her first bus to the Sky Train then to another bus was 2 hours . I sort of laughed because I feel like in those types of situations all you can do is laugh, but I don't think she appreciated my humor. D'oh! So I think she was a bit grumpy and then I started to be a bit combative.

One of my problems in the Chinese language is the ˇ sound. One is supposed to drop their voice low and then quickly go to a higher pitch. My problem is that I think I raise the intonation of my voice, when in reality it is monotone. This frustrates my teacher, which frustrates me because I think I'm doing it correctly and think she's bonkers. However, I think she may be right.

I often think of Cranium in these situations. Its a fabulous game if you are not familiar with it. There are 4 categories that challenge all 'parts' of your brain: spelling, trivial pursuit type questions, artistic and performance.

There was one time that I was playing and picked a card from the "star performer" category. I was given the task to whistle a song, I can't remember which one, but that doesn't matter. As the other team flipped over the timer, I started to whistle with all my heart. My teammates sat there bewildered, not having any clue of what was coming out of my mouth. See what happened was, in my head, I thought I was fluidly moving between musical notes, but in actuality everything that flowed through my pursed lips was monotone.

So I think I might be a little tone deaf, which does not bode well for my Chinese intonations. As my bad pronunciation continued through our lesson, we became increasingly agitated with each other. To the point where we were arguing about the colors of my shirt. My response in Chinese to her color question was that "this shirt is dark purple, light purple, and white." She proceeded to tell me that my shirt was dark blue, grey, and not white. We argued for a few minutes before our respective language barriers (she speaks a little English) shut us both up and we moved on.

Who do you think was right?


(James, wearing a dark/light purple and white shirt with Wei En)

Day 2 of Chinese Lessons

Oy vey! I spent a few hours today with my teacher and am quite frustrated with the whole process. Nevertheless, my family is getting a few chuckles out of my mispronunciations. For example, today I was learning how to say "Do you have vegetarian food?" But instead, I mistakenly asked "Do you have any pajamas?" My cousin, teacher, and auntie were laughing quite hard. I told them "I might go hungry, but at least I'll be warm at night!" Actually, my teacher was quite concerned with my inability to say 'vegetarian food' and that I would starve, so she was thinking about having me say that phrase in a different way until I finally caught on. The reason that things can go awry in Chinese is that there are 4 tones, so 'ma' can be said 4 different ways and each has a different meaning (mā, má, ma (w/ aˇ over it), mà). Its actually not so horrible, its just taking me a while to figure things out. But I am learning things that are important to my survival in China, like "I am a vegetarian" and "What color is this?"