Current state of affairs:

So, just to update everyone on our general condition:

 

-We have been in China for a month and five days.

-We have eaten rice every one of those days.

-I (Kristal) have been homesick for 3 days

-We have been teaching for three weeks. Matt is starting his fourth lesson tomorrow.

-I have not once even blow dried my hair. It's going to be so healthy since I wear it curly everyday!

-We love the food here. Dong'an chicken is a party in my mouth (in more ways that one)

-While the food is awesome... there is only so much variety when everything is stir fried, Olive Garden will probably be my first stop when we get home. 

-We have learned how to say chow mien like real Chinese people, Americans butcher that one. (chow me(as in I)-n, not chow main)

-We can see blogs, and pictures on blogs. We can comment on some blogs, and it's totally random which ones. And Trachelle, Beth (that's Seven Peaks Beth) and Sydney, I found your blogs and I have been reading, but I can't comment or add them to my side bar... just thought you should know.

-We cannot get on facebook, but we still get email notifications about comments and such.

-In the last two weeks, we have lived on seventy dollars. And that includes bus fare for two weekends of traveling to other towns (about two hours away). And, we didn't even feel like we were going cheap style... it just lasted that long.

-We eat breakfast in our apartment (oatmeal... blessed day) and then we go out to eat for the other meals.

-Our power goes out almost daily. Sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours.

-We miss everyone!!! Get skype so we can chat!

Sleepover, China style

We have everyone in our group up for church, and since it's a two hour bus ride (if all goes according to plan... aka, no flat tires) they all came up Saturday so we could party. Matt and I do have a spare bedroom, but what's the fun in that? We just pulled both of our mattresses into the living room and everyone just kinda slept where they fell. It was sweet. But don't worry, we made the single boys sleep on the floor, away from the single ladies. Fun times... we really are so lucky to have such awesome people in our group. It's amazing how fast you become close with people when you are the only English speakers around!

A sight for sore eyes...

Our town is small. We are the only foreigners here. I don't think anyone here has seen more than three Americans together... ever. So you can imagine the looks that we were getting as we wandered the streets of Dong'an, just the eleven or so of us? Matt and I were hosts for church this weekend, so everyone came to our house! We also played America vs. China. We rocked them... and then we got sick of rocking them, so Wayne (our friend) started doing commentary. It's great being about to talk about people when they are standing right there. (we didn't say anything mean, but I doubt that a teenager would appreciate being referred to as 'sweaty boy')

Does syrup have sugar?

Contrary to my former belief, they have cake in this place, and it is delicious! It was one of our friends birthdays this weekend so we went down to celebrate and his school bought him a cake and it was sooo good. The frosting was like whipped cream, so it was really light tasting, um um good. Can you see the tomatoes on there? The whole top was just so beautiful, and those dark wisps are chocolate.

Pretty Bridge

This is in Ling Ling, our friends town. I thought it was very pretty.

We'll laugh later...

Sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's funny later. The bus blowing a tire was funny. Waiting forty five minutes by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere was funny later. When things are funny, I take pictures... when bad things happen, I don't. Then I wish I would have because it's funny later.

 

Allow me to explain.

 

Ordering food with my students 'helping' us, not funny. Getting a steamed bun with two weirdly breaded, paper thin chicken patties and cucumbers inside, funny LATER. I even had my camera... but no picture. Sorry folks, but I was just too hungry and too disappointed in my students selection of food to take a picture. I shall try harder in the future to laugh sooner... so that you can look at the pictures. (you want to know something sad? They had pictures of BEEF hamburgers with CHEESE on their menu. But do they have hamburgers? Nope. Curses. There seems to be quite a bit of false advertising in our town, as this is the second time we have seen pictures for foods that are not served.

 

*Side note: I love the food here, now that we have found good places to eat. I also would love to just have something different. I would probably kill a chicken for a lasagna right now. (I don't think they believe in cheese here)

Cuz the kids don't lie

The adults try to be nice to us, and not stare too openly, but the kids have no shame. They just look at us like we are crazies. I was taking a picture of this kid, and I guess my flash scared him/her (it flashed a couple of times before taking the picture) because he/she started to cry... ya... that was sad. I looked at this picture later and he/she does look SCARED to DEATH. But isn't he/she cute? (the reason for the he/she is because I am always so confused. We eat at this place almost everynight, and everynight I change my mind as to the gender of this child. Either way, they are super cute!)

Back in the States

My friends let me come with them while they did the photography for a wedding! It was super nice of them, and I had a lot of fun and realized I have a lot to learn. I just wanted to put one up... just because. I like weddings. Hopefully I am still allowed to blog about things other that China?

Birthday Cards!

It was my baby sister's birthday on September 11th, and I wanted to send her a card, but having heard of the unreliable mail system (and not knowing where to send the letter from in the first place) I just decided to just make her an awesome one.

 

She opened up the attachment while I was talking with her on Skype.

 

confused: "What? I have never been to the Great Wall."

 

Well, what can I say. If it's your birthday, I will make all your dreams come true.

 

I don't think she appreciated it.

 

But, if you like, for 1 yuan I will also photoshop your picture onto the Great Wall! (very good price, just special for you! Good quality!!!)

Chinglish

When we get together with our group, we all like to talk about funny things people say to us. I just thought I would throw a few out there for ya.

 

Chinese English teacher to American English teacher at lunch: "According to my imagination, we would all sit together and drink beer!" Man, we love to say 'according to my imagination' now.

 

Mr. Beard (our Chinese English teacher) to Matt at lunch: "It's is acceptable for Krish-tal to not drink beer, but for you Ma-shoe, it is UNACCEPTABLE! You must learn to drink!"

 

Chinese English teacher talking about their school: "This school is number 3 in all of Hunan... Maybe, number 2... Maybe, number 1!"

 

A student in my class: My English name is Hanver!

me: Okaaaay, Hamburger? (they are crazy hard to understand sometimes)

Hanver: No! H-A-N-V-E-R! I created it myself, it is 'handsome' and 'clever' combined!

(usually I don't allow such strange names, but I couldn't argue with that logic! Plus, it was very American to just create his own name I think.)

 

Mr. Beard finishing a telephone call: "That is all, bye-bye." Click

 

Mr. Beard, also on the phone with Matt:

Mr. Beard: The headmaster would like to invite you to dinner.

Matt: Okay, what time?

Mr. Beard: Await my call.

Click

 

I love it. I also have noticed that they always will try to write English things on products (kinda like we write things in French on hair products to lead the consumers of America to believe that French people use this product) and I still try to make sense of their translations, like I am just reading them wrong or something. For example, our water cooler says: Create utilitarian life's beauty. I may just stink at English, but that makes zero sense, but of course it takes me reading it about five times to remember I am in China, and nothing makes sense.

 

Well, that is all for tonight. We are about to call into our Branch to have a special fireside with Elder Oaks! He is in China and is speaking to just our Branch! It's really cool (especially coming from Land of the LDS) to know that Church Headquarters TOTALLY knows about our Branch. We have the biggest one in the whole world (land mass wise) because it includes all the members that are in China that are not living in Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong (where they have enough members for branches). Pretty spiffy eh? It's really neat.

 

You know what else is awesome? We (foreigners) are called ex-patriots. I think that sounds pretty cool. I just know that because ex-patriots are not allowed to meet with Chinese Nationals even if they are members, which is too bad but I just feel lucky that we are allowed to meet!

 

Basketball

All you have to do in this country to be a hit is tell you students that you like China and the NBA. They love it here! Matt has been going to play basketball with the students a lot, and they all think that he is 'very good!' but I think they get goodness confused with height sometimes... (Matt agrees too). I usually go sit and watch, listen to audio books, take pictures and people watch.

My Students

Here is one of my classes (sorry about the blurry part, I think there was chalk dust on my lens). Each class has about 70 students, and I have 20 different classes a week so I don't think there is a prayer that I will remember all of their names. They all LOVE pictures. Sometimes, when I am standing outside the classroom they will sneak pictures of me on their camera phones, and when I see them do this I make one of them come stand by me so I don't feel like a doofus... then the whole class is there and golly gee they don't really believe in personal space in this country because they all nearly trample me trying to fit into the picture. It reminds me of the kids in Mexico that always loved to have us takes millions of pictures of them.

 

I have a favor to ask of all of you. If you have contact with any sort of high school aged student, I would really LOVE to start a sort of pen pal email type thing. Like I said earlier, I have a mass quantity of students... so, I don't know if it will happen but I want to email some Chinese teachers at my brother's and sister's schools and see if I can enlist their classes. It would be really simple. If you send me their email addresses, I would give them to my Chinese student (or students if they are willing to write more than one) and then they could email them as much or as little as they want. I would only have girls email girls, and boys email boys (I have been thinking a lot about this, and that seems best). So, if  any of you have any sort of contact with any high school aged kids, I would love your help! Email me (kristalthepistol@gmail.com) or leave a comment!

For Robin

My friend Robin requested that we eat something weird for her. So, this isn't really that weird but I thought that I would post some pictures of what I am talking about when I say that they give you the WHOLE chicken... it's kinda weird eating drumsticks with chopsticks, or picking a tiny bits of meat off a piece of chicken rib cage. Then there is the ever present feet and head... so weird. This chicken was Dong'an chicken and it was actually pretty good!

 

*Side note: EVERYTHING in this province (Hunan) is spicy... I like spicy, so that's fine, but it's weird that everything leaves that tingly feeling on your lips. Everything. Even when we say 'bu la', or not spicy. When we walk down the streets where people are cooking we try not to breathe in the air because it BURNS your throat if you get some of the fumes from their pans of cooking food. And your eyes start to sting and you lose all sense of direction and you start to feel dizzy and see your life flash before your eyes and you wonder why you ever came to a country with no salty crackers... okay, so that was a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point. Also... sorry, you can probably tell that I am a little bit obsessed with food right now. I would probably kill someone right for a big slice of homemade bread (of any variety) with some BUTTER on it (there is noooo butter to be seen, even at the store with Peanut Butter). I do like the food, but man, the cravings for stuff that you can't get are never ending. My name is Kristal, and I am a foodaholic.

I think I want a China baby

The kids here are sooo freaking cute. We walk by this particular pair of girls nearly ever day and we are always greeted with 'Hello!' and a cute little wave, and they usually run after us for awhile. Are any of you kids up for adoption??? (name that movie)

I want the 'chiper chicken'

Wow, eating here is SOOO freaking cheap. People told me about it, and I thought they were making stuff up. I would like you to guess how much all the people in the above picture ate for... the bowl of noodles is what Matt and I ordered and the others got either that or a fatty plate of pork fried rice. Okay, does everyone have their guesses? Okay, so there isn't a prize, but giveaways are the new 'must do' for bloggers (and since I AM everyone's favorite Dong'an residing blogger, possibly the only one) I think I may just give away a copy of Quick Slaughter sometime in the future. Granted, the mail system here = not very reliable... so you may have to wait ten months...

 

Anyways, the total cost of the meal was 24 yuan! (7 yuan= 1 dollar) soo, just over three dollars! My bowl of noodles was 2 yuan, AND I couldn't even finish it. Saweet. I have no more motivation to even try cooking here.

 

*side note: This is why I LOVE Sundays because we spend the whole weekend with these fabulous people! Matt and I are totally and completely alone in our city so it's always fun to get together!

First Day of Classes

I don't have any pictures (sorry) but I think I will take some tomorrow. I had my first classes today. Four of them, and I was done by noon which is saweet. But anyways, here the teachers move from class to class instead of the students. So I walk into class, and they all applaud. For like two minutes. I was smiling so hard (you know how sometimes you are just so amused by what is happening, but it's not a laughing situation? That's how this was, I was just smiling hard) So that was w-eird. Then, I said 'Good morning class" and they all STAND UP in UNISON and say 'Good morning teacher!'. Man, it was great.

 

In my last class today I was just standing there awkwardly waiting for class to start (usually during the breaks, the kids go stand outside, but I think they were just excited to meet the new foreign teacher so they were all seated in their desks... yay for me) and they all had their cell phones out and they were taking pictures of me, just from their desks. It was crazy...

 

Yeah, for a person who usually prefers to blend into the background, this has been such a change. Everywhere we go we have people staring at us, and saying 'hello' and then giggling when we say 'hi' back. It's really intimidating to be walking through campus and see that you are totally the center of attention(especially when there are tons of peeps around).

 

Just another side note, Matt and I teach twenty 45 minute lessons each week. And they are all the same. Basically, I teach the entire sophomore class and Matt teaches all the Juniors. We have a bazillion students! And, did I mention that those twenty lessons are exactly the same? Man, I was bored just today teaching the same thing four times (and I changed it a little for practically every class.)

 

Anyways... I'll post pictures of my student tomorrow, I don't feel nearly as weird taking pictures of them now that they took so many of me.

 

Peace out folks! Eat something delectable and American for me tonight!

Around Dong'an

We have been receiving threats to our lives lately from avid fans of our blog who demand to know more about our lives in China (okay, so by fans, I mean our moms). Oh but to have fans...

 

Just kidding.

 

Anywhos... I hate not being able to arrange my pictures (aka having a string of pictures at the top and lots of writing at the bottom, but with the way I have to blog, I don't have a choice) so I am going to do lots of posts, with just one picture each. Hopefully that doesn't drive you nuts. So, I will post this last, so that it will show up at the top of my blog (my apologies to those on googlereader that might start with the bottom posts)

 

Check out the view

This is the view we see through the windows in the stairwell of our apartment, and it's basically the same as the one from our balcony (yes, we are high class citizens here) but if you just think about the haze as a nice morning fog instead of the constant cloud of pollution, I think it's quite pretty.

Walking around

This is a cool bridge. Pretty self explanatory I would say.

the Chinese Equivalent:

This is an example of the kind of stuff you can buy on the streets, this is fried bread sticks. Basically, like churros in Mexico or scones in America (or whatever place really invented scones) but alas, China does not roll them in cinnamon sugar or coat them with honey butter. They are just there. And Matt and I were happy to eat something that tasted familiar.

Student Housing

This is one of the students buildings. There is always laundry hanging out to dry in people's windows (we have a cool cage around our window, and I think it's so our clothes don't fly away). I'm not positive, but I don't think there are ANY dryers in this country. That really doesn't bother me except with socks, I don't like putting them on when they are all crunchy from hang drying.

at the school...

You see this sort of cool Chinese architecture everywhere (go figure) and I have decided that I will know I have lived in China long enough when I am not so excited to see this kind of stuff. This is a gazebo in one of the school's courtyards.

Quick Slaughter

We were attending church at our friends house in another city and they showed us this awesome DVD they had bought... Look closely, and see if you can tell whats wrong with this picture...

Answer

Isn't that the funniest thing ever? Man, we just about died laughing, and apparently, none of the scenes on the back of the movie are even in the movie... I love China.

Fast Food a la China

Let me tell you what I am having the biggest problem with in China. Food. I know, it sounds so ridiculous, but if you think about it, food is important! Like, you die without it! So, no more mocking me. The reason it's stresses me out so bad is because I don't know what to eat. I'll eat the food here, but most of it I haven't enjoyed, and thus would not order of my own free will and choice. At the grocery store all the labels are in Chinese and have little cartoon animals on them, making it impossible to tell what you are actually purchasing. Right now I wish I knew as much Chinese as I knew Spanish, and my espanol was a little limited. (at least I knew how to say 'bathroom'. The other day I had about 20 Chinese people around me trying to figure out what I was saying.. Matt... you shouldn't leave me on my own like that!)

 

Anyways, to the point of this post... food stresses me out, but I have found an 'emergency' eatery (eat this when all else fails, or special occasions). Yesterday we went to Dicos. We had never heard of it, so we assume that it's a Chinese fast food chain. Wild! Man, I was so happy. We got ice cream, and french fries and Matt's chicken sandwich even came on a bun! I only specify because mine did not come on a bun, in the typical sense of the word. Mine had a rice patty. I didn't even realize from the picture, but sure enough, it was sticky rice formed into a bun! It was the craziest thing ever and Matt and I laughed really hard. But it was pretty good actually!

 

PS I don't really know if my posts lately have made any sense. My apologies. And also, I can see pictures now! You can stop all the worrying I know you were doing.