A Chinese Rendition: The Fairytale

A few of my classes were a week ahead of all the others so I decided to do a lesson for them on fairytales. I started with the basics (which they knew) – prince, princess, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc. Then I asked them to create their own fairytale. Well, I got some pretty hilarious stories. See below:

MY FAVORITE: “Long long ago, in a distant land called Karleneland a prince lived in a tower. He was very sexy and beautiful. He lived with a bad dragon. The prince wasn’t allowed to go out of the tower. One million years later Duck, another prince, who was very cool and handsome found the tower and the sexy prince. He fell in love with the prince. So, Duck went to the tower and fought with the dragon. Finally, the dragon killed Duck and married the sexy prince.”
Did you think this was a mistake? Did the students mean a princess was locked in a tower? NOPE. They meant a prince. It’s a homosexual love story. Yeah…my thoughts exactly.

And another: “Long long ago in a big house a girl was born but her parents died and her grandmother was very bad. She sent the girl to an enchantress and the enchantress was also very bad. The girl became a butterfly then she met a prince. She followed the prince. The prince was very surprised because the butterfly spoke to him. She told him all of her experiences and the prince was very angry. He found the enchantress and beat her. Then the butterfly became a girl and they were married and had a very good life.

There’s more: “Long long ago a prince and princess lived together on a small island. One day the prince got hurt and a witch was him so the witch helped the handsome prince. After a month the prince got healthy. During this time the prince fell in love with the witch. At the same time the witch loved the prince very much. So, the prince dropped the princess and went to another country with the witch.

Randomosity

There are many amazing things about China. It is truly a completely different world here. The smells are different (some not so pleasant), the air is different (sometimes not so clean), the people are different, the land is different, the animals, everything. I must say though, my favorite aspect is the random, completely spontaneous things that happen. Here are a few examples:

Example 1: The week I returned from my vacation, Joan called me and said there were some teachers from another school in Youxian that wanted to take us to dinner. So, I agreed. We went to dinner with a group of random Chinese educators and were then asked to go to their school to “meet their students.” Yeah, ok. Apparently, in China “meeting the students” means walking into a class of 50 completely unprepared and asked to give a lesson about the US. After my “lecture” we were invited to ktv and dancing with the headmaster, a few teachers and a group of students. Naturally, we agreed. KTV consisted of a lot of beer, singing My Heart Will Go On (I’m now a pro) and dancing to really strange Chinese techno.

Example 2: Again, this occurred at KTV on a random night. Derek came to visit Joan and me for the weekend. We decided to at least attempt to find a cheap ktv. We walked into this hotel/ktv. When we excited the elevator there was a small group of men waiting to go into their room. I simply said “Ni hao” and then we were invited to sing with them! As it turned out, it was a group of investors who were being taken out by a Youxian government official who used to teach English. So, again we sang My Heart Will Go On and drank a lot of free beer. This was an amazing night because Noel, the government official/ex-English teacher has a daughter at my school. He is extremely nice and has offered to help Joan and me out anytime we need it. He even offered to take us to a few places around Youxian that are very famous.

Example 3: Last night. Joan and I went to dinner at a restaurant in town. We go there for 2 reasons: Joan likes the food and I like the men who cook the food. As we are eating two young guys walk up to us and start asking us about the meal. As it turned out one of the guys was the boss of the restaurant. They sat down with us for 20 minutes and in their broken English and our broken Chinese we found out what was good to eat at the restaurant, exchanged numbers and were asked to go to ktv later this week.

Revived

Well, like Oliver Twist Untamed has been abandoned for quite a while. Time to give her some water and watch her grow. I’d like to say I was busy dissolving the cultural and linguistic barriers between the U.S. and China. Or maybe that I’ve been spending all of my free time volunteering at the local orphanage. Perhaps I was studying the language of the great country I’ll be living in for the next year. I’d like to say one of these things is true. Unfortunately, the sad truth of the matter is I’ve created my own personal prison within my spider infested apartment. What keeps me locked up you may ask? The simplest answer would be copyright laws (or lack thereof). China’s inexistent copyright laws have allowed me to create an American utopia full of vampires, sex, plastic surgery and the occasional theoretical physicist (AKA True Blood, Nip Tuck, Entourage and Big Bang Theory). Furthermore, youku.com (China’s version of youtube) is another amazing example of China’s inexistent copyright laws. I can watch anything I want (currently loading Titanic). I even get to watch the CW’s Vampire Diaries. Lame, I know but I love it!

So, while I wait for Titanic to buffer I’ll take a few moments to tell the 7ish people who actually read this about my vacation. Because I am a special foreign teacher I got extra vacation days. My school was only closed for 4 days, but I was off from the 30th until the 11th. I went with a small group of people to Chengdu and Xi’an. To get to Chengdu I took a 19 hour train ride. Luckily, we had soft sleepers (the most elegant way to travel by train). It was a small room with 4 beds, a table and a love little window. I took the initiative to download the majority of season 2 of True Blood so our little posse watched 8 hours of Vampire sex, took 1 hour for dinner, and then went to sleep. We woke up in a beautiful city of 14 million people. The first moments in Chengdu were extremely scary. As we were leaving the train station I realized I didn’t have my wallet…or my passport…or my debit card…or my id…Like the idiot I am I keep everything together. So, two of us rushed back to the train praying it hadn’t left yet to search for my lost items. THANK THE LORD, after looking for a few minutes in our room someone found it. Major catastrophe avoided.

Everything about Chengdu was amazing. The weather was great, the air was (surprisingly) clean, and most importantly there were PANDAS!!! Lazy little bastards, but cute as hell. We didn’t eat much Chinese food because there was this amazing Tex Mex restaurant with real ground beef, real cheese and real margaritas. Quite pricey but totally worth it. Chengdu also has a large Tibetan population so we got to try some of their local dishes. Let me just say this: Tibetan food is absolutely heavenly. They eat a lot of Yak which is delicious. Somewhat gamey, but amazing none the less. Besides, I just like the idea of saying I ate yak.

I left Chengdu with one thought: I want to live here. Sorry, fam. Next stop, Xi’an – home of the terracotta warriors. Travel during national week is a pain in the butt. The trains are packed and it’s very difficult to get a good ticket. We were lucky enough to get hard sleepers. The train ride was 13 hours long. Hard sleepers are interesting. There are no doors or rooms in the car, only a bunch of bunk beds, 3 beds high. We all got top bunks. So, the first problem was actually getting up to the top. I’m 5’8 or 5’9 and I had to reach to even touch my bed. The Chinese people were looking at me like I was crazy because I couldn’t figure out how to get up the makeshift ladder. The major problem is that the bed is only about 2.5 feet from the ceiling. So, once you make it up the ladder you have to shimmy down the bed and just lay down the entire time because there isn’t room to sit up. Just imagine a coffin. Yeah, let me tell you that was a fun ride! Actually, it wasn’t that bad. I took some ambien and went to sleep. When I woke up at 5 am we were pulling into Xi’an.

I didn’t like Xi’an. Number 1, it rained the entire time we were there. Number 2, I was sick for the majority of the trip, and Number 3, the people kept trying to rip me off! Thus, I won’t spend much time on this portion of the vacation. I saw the terracotta warriors which I interesting for about 5 minutes. Highlight of the trip: Budweiser and Subway.

Jiubujiang National Park

So, today Joan and I decided to visit some of the local landmarks. Trip one: the bus station. I walked to the counter and asked for 2 tickets to Jiu Bu Jiang, a town about an hour from Youxian. A Youxianian (if that is what they are called) recommended the place to us. She said there was a huge lake and natural caves, etc. The ticket woman said a bunch of things which I didn’t understand, but amounted to go outside and catch the bus across the street. Somehow we actually managed to find the rickety little bus she spoke of and match up the characters. And we were off, Joan watching Firefly as I was engrossed in reading Pride and Prejudice. Oh, Darcy how I love thy. Trip 2: When we got to Jiu Bu Jiang I asked for the lake and was subsequently directed down the road. Well, apparently we are the only two people stupid enough to walk to the lake because it was about a 2 mile trek uphill. But alas, we arrived. It was absolutely breathtaking (see my pictures on Picasa). We approached a group of Chinese and asked (in broken Chinese) how much it cost for a boat tour. 80 Yuan (about 15 dollars) for a 2 hour tour on the river. For some crazy reason, we assumed there was a scheduled time that the boat departed, but as I am quickly learning schedules are simply inexistent in China. Joan and I took a romantic, private tour of the lake for 2 hours. When we returned to the dock we asked how to get to the waterfall and natural bridge. I’m still not sure what they told us, but we just kept emphasizing that we did not want to walk. After 10 minutes, we decided to give up and take our chances walking. Luck for us, they saw our distress and a man was kind enough to offer us a ride on his motorcycle. Trip 3: Now, apparently foreigners simply do not visit this town. As we crawled onto his motorcycle his friends started flashing their camera phones and treating us like we were famous. When we got back into town the man pulled over and ushered us into a small (and quite shady) shop. He then paid for a photographer to take his picture with us! And thus, our day ended.
Tomorrow another adventure when Joan and I head to the metropolis of Changsha to buy bootlegged dvds, real milk and enjoy a meal at Pizza Hut.

THE BIG F*CKING SPIDER IN MY APARTMENT

No time for typing a clever message here...and if there are grammatical mistakes or something doesn't make sense, there are a couple of reasons: 1). My hands are shaking because I have a freaking fear of freaking eight-legged freaks (aka SPIDERS). 2). I just sprayed bug spray for about 5 minutes without stopping...and it was in an enclosed space. Thus, if I get sick in the next couple of days its poisioning. OH MY GOD! I freaking hate spiders. Look how big that one is. It would not die! Its still sitting in on my floor albeit it's dead. I'm still scared to death to get near it. And where the hell did it come from? Where the hell is the whole the size of a tennis ball in my apartment that would allow such creatures to make a home with me???? I need answers! Perhaps i'm being dramatic. If you think so, F you! Spiders freak me the hell out. And this one is hairy! Do you see??? Seriously. I cannot handle this. If this is the future of my time in China, my ass is moving back to Georgia. No...New York City. In my three years in the city never once did I see a spider even close to the size of this one. Someone please check on my tomorrow...or as soon as you read this. I might be dead...For now, i'm leaving my poison filled apartment in search of a few much needed 600ml beers.

Service Project

The volunteer before me began an English library in the extra bedroom of the apartment. I have taken over this duty and would like to start a book drive in Thomasville. Currently, I have about 500 books of varying level. I’d like to get more books for the average 4th – 7th grader. The kids here love Harry Potter and other teenage series books (I think the Marked series would be good). Anything about sports would also be good. I also think it would be nice to get some English posters and/or maps for the library. If you have any ideas or would like to help me get this started in Thomasville, let me know!

Je ne sais pas

So, last night Joan and I decided to go to a bar for a few celebratory drinks. After walking around for 2 hours we realized there simply isn't a bar in Youxian. I even asked a group of Chinese men "Jiu ba zi na li? BU KTV! Wo yao pi jiu." (Translation - "Where is a bar. No karaoke. I want beer.") Apparently, to the chinese a bar means ktv because that's where they sent us. After my small nervous breakdown we decided to buy a beer on the street and get foot massages. Got the beer and went to the foot massage place, which was full. So, instead we opted to sit on the side of the road drinking our ice-cold pi jiu. Next thing we know a car of guys stops to talk to us and from the little I was able to understand, invite us to dinner. We freaked out (they actually spoke a little English!) and decided to pretend that we were French! Now, I have no idea why two French girls who only speak a little English (part of our lie) would be in Youxian, China, but we went with it. Joan and I both studied French, but neither of us could remember anything besides je parle un peu anglais and je ne sais pas.