*@!*#!!!&$ YEAH!
09
May 12
Stabbing Pains in My Chest
I was eating my usual bowl of mixian this morning, when a careless slurp landed an oily red stain on my outfit. Noodle stains have happened before– they’re certainly one of the occupational hazards of this China gig– but I’d continued with my usual business, confident that the stains would come out later when I did my laundry. Nope! Turns out my friend’s washing machine treatment equates to a limp shake in innocuously cold water.
(Oh, how I miss the days when charitable custodians in my dorm building would give me stain-busting advice; and how I really miss the days when my charitable mother would just bust the stain for me.)
My unstained tops are dwindling, and my Teacher Outfits struggle to hit the “professional” look even without unpleasantly colored blotches, so I felt the imperative to nip this stain in the bud. I rushed back to my room to locate one of the “4 Tide to Go pens” that TFC had advised us to pack. (The number had sounded a wee dramatic at the time, but now I was giving silent thanks that American values include excess consumerism.) I then proceeded to poke violently at my chest until the stain was swallowed up by a large circle of Tide to Go.
I’d like to credit this dignified scene to being a teacher (constant onslaught of pen stains, chalk stains, dirt stains, stains stains stains) or living in rural China (slurpy noodles everywhere, legit spin cycles nowhere), but really I need to own up to the fact that without charitable custodians or mothers by my side, I’m a bumbling, just-out-of-college, wannabe adult.
In the middle of all this, while I looked like I was lactating from a third nipple, my teammate came to the door; he immediately backed away, “Hey, I– never mind– I don’t wanna know, I don’t wanna know…”
27
Apr 12
T.G.I.H.D. (Thank God It’s Hump Day)
Something that China has snatched coldheartedly from me I’ve learned never to take for granted is the unassailable, unbreachable joy of Fridays.
The reason is this: When there are holidays, such as the upcoming Labor Day, our school system usually tries to make up the missed days. By making us work through the weekend. Whereas Fridays used to mark the glorious start to a weekend, I now know that they can also stand in as the grim midweek point.
The first time this no-weekend thing happened was for a Teachers’ Day-plus-Moon Festival break in the fall. I was unfazed at the onset, which was a silly n00b mistake. Eight- to nine-day marathons of waking up before dawn, uncomfortably inhabiting Teacher Outfits, and taking the sensory assault of 800+ shrieking, stomping, scheming kids are a reality slap with the proportions of… something like this. By the time we reached our actual weekend, I was wishing that our vacation had never happened. I found myself thinking very grumpy thoughts like “why do we celebrate Teachers’ Day” and “holidays are fascist”.
There are several variations in how the Education Bureau goes about jerry-rigging our vacations.
- Take a bunch of days off, then work through Saturday and Sunday all the way to the next weekend. This was the situation I described above. The tail end of vacation tends to be tainted by a Last Supper vibe.
- Work through Saturday and Sunday, then take a bunch of days off. We did this for our recent Tomb Sweeping-plus-Third Month Festival break and it was lovely. Looking forward to vacation adventures served as my beautiful dazzling light at the end of the tunnel.
- Work through Saturday and Sunday, then take Monday and Tuesday off. This is what we’re doing this week for Labor Day. Riddle me this, what’s the point of working two extra days and then taking exactly two days off? We can do the arithmetic; our weekend merely shifted over.
There is no other explanation.
In light of this “vacation”, I’ve concluded that the head of the Education Bureau is either the pointy-haired boss from the Dilbert comic strip, or a branding genius. Let’s go with the latter, because I have some more innovations to suggest:
- “School renovation”: dissemble the buildings, then reassemble them two blocks down the street
- “Nutritious lunches”: serve a balanced variety of vegetables and protein, by frying them in a pool of oil. Oh, wait, they do this already.
- “Performance bonus”: withhold my 2000 RMB paycheck, then reward me an extra 2000 RMB next month
- “Improvement meetings”: pull me out of class with no forewarning, to press me for anything– no, really, there must be something– that could possibly be impeding my teaching. Ah, yep, they already do this one as well.
All griping aside, I’m entirely serious when I say that this has led me to cherish TGIF Fridays (as opposed to their bastard siblings, TGIHD Fridays) in a way that never would’ve happened back in the States. If there’s been one constant theme to this colorful and capricious experience so far, it’s been an ever-growing appreciation for the mundane things in life. We half-joke that TFC is two years of progressively lowering our own expectations for standard of living– but the truth is that this experience is giving me a much clearer sense of which ”necessities” qualify as Nice To Have versus Need To Have. I find the Cold Stone Creamery Paradigm very helpful in navigating these deliberations: “Is (mainstay of my lifestyle) a Like It, Love It or– oh baby– Gotta Have It?”
I want an electricity sundae topped with running water.
This experience is also giving me the conviction that 99 percent of America’s TV commercials and Facebook updates can be reappropriated verbatim as a First World Problems meme.
11
Apr 12
Tender Loving Cholesterol
Recently I expressed to some friends my craving for gummy bears and “anything that would emerge from an American vending machine.” These kind, very intelligent, very good-looking friends responded with remarkable care packages.
In the end I received over 7 lbs. of gummy bears. I’m so lucky to have friends who value my happiness over my nutrition.
09
Apr 12
Resurrection! (Of My Blog)
It’s been a long time since I last posted, and this is one of those cop-out entries where I try to dazzle with photos rather than actually write. Or as English teachers and writing instructors love to say, instead of telling the audience, I’m going to be showing. Anyway, I’m laying out photo highlights from my thrilling escapades (indulge me) in China and Southeast Asia over winter break. Prepare yourself for a pleasantly mindless scrolling experience.
Alternatively, you can check out the brilliant black-and-white pen illustrations that my friend and trip-mate Geoff drew, one for each day that he was on the road.
(In case you’d like the one-sentence synopsis of what’s happened since my last entry more than five months ago: I unexpectedly lost my internet connection for the rest of the semester, spent my blissfully long break maxing out the limits of my American passport pages as well as my affinity for cheap travel, returned to my school and taught a month of the new semester, and now I’m on my Tomb Sweeping-plus-Third Month Festival break.)
CHINA
Kunming
Traffic was the local specialty that I tasted most abundantly in Yunnan’s capital, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as what I’d encountered in Cairo.
Misnavigating to Salvador’s Coffee House led to a late-afternoon detour through Yunnan University.
MYANMAR (BURMA)
Mandalay, Amapura and Sagaing
Typical transportation: a converted pick-up, monks cruising on the back.
