Writer. Traveler. Tea Drinker.

Look close, through the trees.

There are so many famous giant stone statues in the world. The Sphinx in Egypt is one, the carved building front in Petra is another. We hear about all these wonders and marvels as they are featured in movies, documentaries and on the cover of National Geographic.

But there is one stone marvel I had never heard of before. It is not only a huge stone carving, but the largest Buddha in the world. As it was located in Leshan, only 2 hours outside of Chengdu, I knew we had to see it.

We had no idea what to expect as we walked up a wide staircase carved out of stone. When we got to the top we looked out and saw our man. (See picture on the right. It actually took us a minute and was a shock when we realized that was a head!)

The Giant Buddha (or Dàfó in Chinese) is an amazing sight. He is over a thousand years old, and over 200 feet tall. He is carved on the side of a mountain and overlooks the convergence of 3 rivers.

The Buddha is the brain child of a monk named Haithong in the year 713. The water was very rough in the area which killed many fisherman every year. The local people thought there was an evil water spirit so Haithong thought to build a Buddha statue that would eliminate the spirit and protect the fisherman.

He begged for money for 20 years before he could start building and as soon as he had a wad of cash some local officials approached him demanding the money. The story goes that instead of giving them the money he single-handedly pulled out his eyeballs saying, “You may have my eyes, but you can never touch the money for Buddha!” The official, thoroughly freaked out, left immediately and Haothong started his project. I don’t know if that story is true, but they have a statue of him near the top of the Buddha (right near the small cave he lived in) and he does look pretty bad ass.

The Buddha took thousands of people and 90 years to build. Haithong didn’t live to see it completed but amazingly it had the desired affect. When it was done the waters calmed and the fisherman were safe from the spirit. Of course, it might have had a little something to do with all the extra rock being thrown into the river as the Buddha was carved, therefore eliminating the hallows on the river bed giving it a smooth bottom. But who’s to say really.

The Buddha was also carved with some impressive skills. There are some hidden internal drainage systems to protect it from erosion. There are 1021 buns in his coiled hair each individually made and attached seamlessly. The ears look like stone but are actually wooden, covered with mud. Somehow, they managed to affix these flawlessly as well.

Alongside the cliff is a very steep staircase that you can climb down. They say in summer and holidays it takes over 2 hours to get to the bottom due to the crowds. Luckily we went in the middle of the week so we were down in less then 10 minutes. All along the walls there are carved Buddha’s and other Buddhist figures to add protection to the area. A lot of it is eroded now, but it was neat to look at.

But the Buddha isn’t the only impressive thing. In fact ancient villages, temples and gardens have been built in the area. We walked around for hours, stumbling upon a small ancient fisherman village (which is now home to souvenir stalls and little restaurants) crossed an amazing bridge and found ourselves at an ancient Buddhists temple complete with burning incense and yellow robed monks. There were also burial chambers, caves to explore and some amazing quiet natural spots (which I hard to come by especially in a tourist spots.)

The ancient fishing village

We stumbled upon this amazingly beautiful bridge while trying to find a temple.

All in all, it was an amazing area and one I highly recommend you visit if you find yourself in the area. We didn’t go out in a boat so I found this full picture of the Buddha on Wikipedia. For us it was impossible to capture the full figure so well because of our small camera and our close distance. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you….dafo!

I had a few humble goals for this month-long trip and as of today, I have accomplished almost all of them! And it hasn’t even been a week yet! Here’s a quick run down with photographic proof that I have achieved these goals:

Goal #1: Seeing Giant Pandas.

Yep. And they were cuter in real life then I could imagine. I’ll write a little more about this later so all I’ll show here is a picture:

Chengdu is the land of the “giants’ as in addition to the Giant Panda’s, we saw the Giant Buddha. I’ll write more about him later too, but just know that when they say Giant Buddha, they mean giant:

Goal #2: Being Forced to Speak More Chinese.

Of course this will continue as the trip goes on but I had to make a call to a Chinese person and yes, they understood me at least a little. We hired a driver for our trip to the Giant Buddha and when he dropped us off, he gave me his phone number because he was going somewhere else to park (and nap). So when we were ready to go I had to call him so he could pick us up. Well, it worked! When he picked up the phone I didn’t really know how to introduce myself except to say, “I’m the foreigner!” which he totally got right away. I also said, “Right now, we are going to the restaurant.” (Which is where he dropped us off.) He of course said something back to me which I didn’t understand but I gave the Chinese affirmative grunt and hung up. (People aren’t big on saying goodbye.) Phone conversations are the hardest because you don’t have any hand gestures to help you figure the conversation out, so I’m pretty proud it worked.

Goal #3: Eating a Hamburger.

This was the first goal I achieved upon arriving in Chengdu. Here is a picture of me enjoying my first hamburger in over 5 months. Yum, yum. What was even better is that I am enjoying the hamburger in a restaurant/English language bookstore which was very exciting as I was able to buy a book as well.

We ate some other western food while here as well. I had an English Breakfast (you know, the baked beans, eggs, toast etc.) at the hostel. I realized, as I got a little container of butter with my breakfast, that that was the 3^rd time since I’ve been in China that I’ve eaten butter. The first time was when we made mashed potatoes with a friend, and the second time was when I made Christmas cookies with another friend. It’s amazing as butter is such a staple of my diet at home yet I haven’t really missed it all that much.

And we couldn’t resist going to a highly recommended Tex-Mex restaurant. This was probably the most satisfying meal I’ve had in a long time. I got a steak and cheese and man oh man was it ever good. Gooey, big hunks of meat. Delish! And we topped it all off with a hot fudge sundae for desert.

Chengdu was a great city despite the weather being very cold and the city having major pollution issues. We saw all the big sites and rode our bikes around most days. We also hung out with a bunch of other travelers and it was great to talk to other English speakers. What was surprising was the many of them were in their mid 30’s too. You always imagine backpackers to be in their 20’s but it turns out many of them had careers, got tired of the status quo and wanted to see the world for awhile, which I think is very admirable.

Here are some pics from our time in Chengdu.

Instead of the tradition ear warmers, the old men in Chengdu had these novel little ear socks to wear. If I had seen them in the store I would have bought a pair immediately, but I'm guessing it's something the wife knit for the husband.

Sichuan Province, and Chengdu in particular, is known for it's many tea houses. They are not the formal tea houses you might think of in Asia, but rather just big areas where you get some tea leaves in a cup, a thermos of hot water and you are allowed to stay all day. Many people bring a bunch of snack and a pack of cards and spend the hours just chatting, playing games, and enjoying the tea.

This is a rebuilt "old" street outside the Wenshu Temple. While it was touristy, with lots of knick-knacks and expensive restaurants, it was still fun to look around. And they best part was they had a "snack street" where lots of little yummy food was available. We spent a lot of time in that section sampling the goods!

While I was in line for some Japanese type dumplings (yes, much of our trip was about food if you haven't figured that out yet) Ryan stood on the corner of the shopping district to wait for me. While the pedestrian only shopping streets can be a bit too much at times (with famous high end brands) they are still a fun place to check out as much of the town gathers in those areas and there is a lot of activity.

I should also add that I was able to avoid most of the spicy Sichuan food by eating street food, asking for food “bu lada” (not spicy) and having some western food. In fact, in over 5 days there were really only one or two dishes that I couldn’t eat because of the spice.

When I first came here, I assumed that all of my students would have no siblings. After all the government one-child policy began in 1979 and most of my students were born in the mid-80’s.

So I was surprised when my students started talking about their brother and sisters.

“You have siblings?” I would ask.

“Yes,” they answered, some as many as 2 or 3. Roughly about half of my students have at least one sibling and some even more. (Chinese people sometimes call their cousins “brother and sister,” so I made them clarify when they said they had siblings about what they really meant.)

So I was thoroughly confused. I mean, all we hear about in the west is stories of girl babies being given up for adoption (or worse) so the family could try for a boy, right? If everyone can only have one-child, then how do so many of them have siblings? Where they all breaking the law?

It turns out that the one-child policy should have an asterisk after it because there are a lot of exceptions:

• If you live in the country and your first child is a girl, you are allowed to have another baby.
• If both parents are only children they are allowed to have another child.
• The policy only applies to Han Chinese and not the ethnic minorities.
• The policy only applies to mainland China and not areas like T1bet, Hong Kong and other special districts.
• And of course if you are rich, you can just pay a fine and have kids to your hearts content.

All in all, only about 35% of the population is restricted by the one-child policy and in fact, based on the population of china, the current ratio is closer to 2 children per family rather than one.

And here’s another slightly controversial opinion I’ve come up with since living here: it might not be such a bad policy.

Before you jump down my throat, hear me out. I’m not saying it is a good thing and it has certainly caused, and will cause, problems such as human rights violations, gender imbalance, an aging population etc, but there are so many people in China right now it boggles the mind.

Think about it, China and the US are about equal size. (They tie for third largest country in the world. Which is bigger depends on if you count all the bits and pieces owned by the government but not the official country). The population of America is about 300 million. The population of China is 1.3 billion people. That is a full one billion more people in roughly the same amount of land.

It boggles the mind to think about, and even being here and seeing it, it boggles the mind. I don’t think I fully understand what 1.3 billion people mean. But I do see small signs of it.

For instance the nearest big city to us is Hangzhou. We live about an hour away. There is a local bus that runs express between our town and the city. It runs as soon as it fills up which is about every 10-15 minutes. Every 10-15 minutes all day long every single day about 80 people per bus go to the city. That is hundreds and hundreds of people everyday. (And that’s just a normal day. During the autumn holidays a students told me the buses were sold out for 3 days straight!)

Okay, I can hear you thinking, but that’s from a small area to the city. Of course lots of people go to the city. What’s even crazier is that the reverse trip is exactly the same. In fact one weekday late at night (not a busy traveling time) Ryan and I had to wait for 3 buses to fill and leave before it was our turn (and the line was huge behind us). I mean, this bus is the equivalent of Boston to Nashua, N.H., which runs maybe once a day and it isn’t even half full at that.

If the population was allowed to grow unchecked I think there could be a lot of problems. Not just with environmental problems (I mean 1.3 billion people are making enough pollution as it is) but with issues like famine, adequate healthcare and other infrastructure type services to take care of so many people.

It might sound like I’ve “drunk the kool-aid’ but issues like this make me realize how little we actually understand issues of other countries. In our media all we hear about it the high death rate of baby girls, forced sterilization and other terrible thing. But there are two sides to every coin and living here has given me a deeper understanding of the other side not just on this issue but on lots of other issues in general.

It’s a big old complicated world out there.

This website will be pretty quiet for the next month as we are packing up and heading out while we are on holiday break from school. We’re traveling “old school” style which means that we won’t have a laptop so I don’t expect I’ll be able to do much updating here until we get back. (There are a few more blog posts scheduled for this and next week, but after that you’ll have to wait till I get back.) I will be checking my e-mail though, so if you want to get in touch with me, just click on the ‘contact’ link.  You can also leave comments on here too.

This will be our first time breaking away on our own and seeing more of the country since we got here over 4 months ago. Since it is winter we decided to focus our trip in the southern and western part of the country where it will be a little warmer. It was hard deciding exactly where we wanted to go since our usual style of travel is spontaneous. But, with the Spring Festival national holiday approaching, things only get more expensive and full the longer you wait so we booked all our hostel nights in advanced for the month. (Think of Thanksgiving and Christmas travel problems combined and then multiply it times a billion people.)  We’ve also figured out all our transportation needs and we’ll be taking one flight and three 20-hour train rides all across the country.

We will be doing a lot of different types of things, but here are a few events on our itinerary that I am really looking forward to:

Seeing Giant Pandas. The first place we are traveling to is Chengdu and the main reason is because of the roly-poly black and white cuddle monsters. The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is home of most of the giant panda babies born today (and of course their mommies and daddies). For 1000 RMB ($146) you can actually have your picture taken while standing next to a giant panda, but considering that is about one-quarter of our monthly salary we are going to skip that. They do, however, have a picture opportunity with small and more raccoon looking red panda which I think I’m going to partake in. (For a mere 50 RMB, how could I not?!)

I’m actually sacrificing a lot to see the panda as Chengdu is located in Sichuan Province. As everyone knows, Sichuan is famous for its fiery hot cuisine. As not everyone knows, I cannot handle spicy food. I don’t mean I don’t like it, I mean my body will not allow me to eat it. The second even a hint of a pepper enters my mouth I get a major case of the hiccups which won’t go away until the food is no longer in sight. But I’m willing to suffer a 5-day case of hiccups just to see the pandas.

Walking down 1000 year-old cobbled streets. The last stop on our trip is 10 days in Guangxi Province. This is a region of (supposed) unparalleled beauty with famous rice terraces, tiny ancient villages and limestone peaks everywhere you go. We have given ourselves plenty of time to explore the small villages, and cultures of the ethnic minority groups that live there. This is also the part of the trip that I think we will have the most trouble with the language the most as getting to these small villages takes a lot of bus transfers and walking on unmarked roads. So our time in this area will really test our mettle.

Being forced to speak more Chinese. You would think living in a small city where no one (but some of the students) speak English would force us to learn Chinese. We’ve learned a little (like food words) but overall it is surprisingly easy to get by without much knowledge. But we want to learn (and will take classes next semester) and we think traveling around with no one else to rely on will force us to learn and speak more Mandarin. I’ve started filling a little pocket sized notebook with useful words like “Long Distance Bus Station” and “Tomato and Fried Egg.” I’m not expecting to come back semi-fluent or anything, but maybe with a slightly bigger vocabulary. Of course while Mandarin (or Putonghua as they call it in China) is the official language many people speak their own dialects that sound completely different and I’m not sure we’re good enough to tell the difference. So I might come back thinking I’ve learned some new Putonghua words but really they are dialect words. But anything is good I think when learning a new language!

Eating a hamburger. Yes, it’s true I am that pathetic a person that I am really looking forward to eating a hamburger (and maybe some Italian pasta, and possibly a burrito as well). I have not had a real hamburger for over 4 months and it is the type of western food that I want the most right now. There just isn’t much available where we live and when we go to Chengdu in particular I know there is a big expat community and the restaurants to feed them. Our Lonely Planet lists a restaurant that has burgers and it will be one of the first stops we make.

Will these things be as fun and exciting as I hope they will be? Will I find and eat an actual hamburger? Well, you’ll just have to sit tight and wait. I’ll be back in a month!

A week ago, as I was picking up a package at the international office I was told there was “good news.”

“We want to move you to a nicer apartment!”

The thing is we already have the nicest apartment so I was immediately suspicious. “We’ll talk about it later,” I said and ran back home to tell Ryan about it.

Well, a few days later we found out what was going on. The dean of the university wanted 2 nice apartments across from each other for one big family. Apparently while there were many available apartments there were none that were located on the same floor. Of course seeing as how we are foreigners, and seeing as how no one lived across the hall from us the dean decided that out of the dozens and dozen of apartments he wanted ours.

Cultural Difference #1: In China, if the dean asked you to move apartments you would do it without making a fuss or saying anything. In America the first thing you do is get offended.

And we felt offended. I mean are we of so little importance we can just be moved at the whim of the dean? Do they think they can push around the foreigners? Do they not care that we just signed another contract to stay another semester?

At first we said no way, and that we would talk to the dean to tell him ourselves that we wouldn’t move out of our super sweet apartment just so his friends could move in. Hell no! But instead of the dean we ended up talking to our dean, the one in charge of the international office.

We knew this situation was rife with cultural land mines we knew nothing about. In China there are very strong influences of “face’ (like saving face) and “guanxi.”

Guanxi is the social network between people something along the lines of our “owing you” culture. You know: “Please come to my boss’s mother’s funeral with me. I’ll owe you!” But here it goes much deeper than that. It’s hard for me to describe because I don’t understand it myself but you begin acquiring guanxi with people at a young age and it builds over time. You use guanxi to get a good job, to find a suitable husband/wife, to succeed in every part of your life. The more powerful you are, the more guanxi you have. And while it is very important in the business world the idea of guanxi is for all people regardless of class and is a central idea in society in general.

Cultural Difference #2: With our slight understanding of guanxi were we making our bosses “lose face” by refusing to move? What would that do to us in the future? Also, if we did move would it earn us guanxi? Could foreigners earn guanxi?

So we had lunch with our dean, a guy who has been very nice to us over the semester. He has a good grasp of English and has traveled and worked in western countries enough to know that we might not have been happy about the move. In fact, he told the dean that we would decide for ourselves and we could say no. (A concept that I think is unheard of if we were Chinese.)

We also asked our dean to be straight with us. Face and guanxi are not spoken concepts here, but rather underlying cultural norms that people act on without being obvious. For instance students won’t answer questions in class (unless you call on them directly) because if they get the answer wrong they lose face. Also, a teacher won’t admit they are wrong, even if they made an error because they would lose face. Also, if the teacher makes a mistake and a student catches it then they will never say anything because of face again. It can get very confusing at times!

So we asked him straight up to tell us what was going on. He admitted that yes, guanxi was involved in this situation and they would lose some face if we said no to the dean.

Cultural Difference #3: In America if you do a personal favor for the boss just because they ask it makes you look like a kiss-ass or brown noser. In China, if you don’t do the favor you look rude and demanding.

Of course we don’t want to embarrass anyone but we also don’t want to get screwed. So we agreed to at least look at the other available apartments with the possibility of us refusing to move.

The first apartment we looked at was disgusting. I won’t go into detail but let’s just say no way, no how, not ever.

The second apartment was located directly above us one floor up. It was the same layout, the same decorations, the same appliances. Even the curtains and the blinds were the same style.

Finally, after 2 days of talking and negotiating we said that we would make the move. (We thought briefly about holding out until they bribed us with two ipod touches but decided against it. Ha ha!) We looked at the apartment on a Friday and by Tuesday we were all moved and settled in.

The funny thing about our new apartment is everything is identical, yet slightly different. The lighting is just slightly different, the bathroom tiles are crooked in a different way and the hooks are in the same place just 2 inches above or below. It is almost creepy like someone went into your house and changed teeny tiny things. But give us a week and I think we won’t even notice anymore.

Our old apartment:

Our new apartment:

So there we had it, our first real sticky cultural situation and I think we managed it well. We stood up for our values without being too pushy and obnoxious and learned more about our temporary homeland and how things work.

We see lots of funny examples of Chinglish but we keep forgetting to take pictures of it, so this post will be a little shorter than I’d like, but it’s still funny nonetheless.

We saw this sign outside Grandmother’s Kitchen in Hangzhou. It is an upscale small chain restaurant that has a giant menu in both English and Chinese. It was like the Chinese equivilant of the Cheesecake Factory. The whole place had an upscale feel to it while not being overpriced or too fancy. That’s why, walking out of the door and running into this sign made us laugh.

Here is a brand of chips that they sell in the school store. To be honest, I’ve never eaten them but I’d be willing to try their ethnican taste sometime.(Although is this any worse then the ramen noodles in American that are “asian” flavored.)

And this one isn’t bad chinglish, it’s just bad naming. I have no interest in eating a brown turd colored food with a name like that!

The first day we arrived at the university we now we live we woke up early and took a walk out the Big West Gate (dà xī mén in Chinese). This is what we saw:

It was a big shock that first day because it seemed so dirty and so foreign. Later, we were told that last year it was a paved road, but over the summer they decided to upgrade it so they tore down buildings, tore up the pavement and have been working on it ever since. Kind of.

For the first few months we saw a lot of work being done. They dug a huge hole down the center of the street, laid a pipe, brick and rock, and then filled in the hole. They did a ton of work in a short time and we fully expected the road to be done by Christmas. Yeah right. They haven’t touched it since.

But regardless of the state, we have come to love the West Gate road. The street is filled with teeny little eatery, shops and markets that we go to on a daily basis. The school is located on the outskirts of town so if you miss the cafeteria eating times and don’t feel like biking into town, the West Gate is the only place for you to get something to eat.

In addition to the teeny restaurants are little food carts. Everyday, usually around 2 p.m., vendors begin wheeling their carts up to the gate loaded with food. They stay until they get tired which is late into the night. (The other night after KTV one vendor was still out there at 1 a.m.!) There are stands that make fried dishes with meat and veggies, there are fruit stands, women selling steamed taro in giant rusty barrels, grill stands with meat and veggie on a stick, people making giant savory pancake/burrito type things, a roasted nut salesman (the local specialty), and many, many more.

In fact, the food stand lineup is constantly changing, which is good for us. The first few months we were here it was nothing but fruit, fried noodles and stuff on sticks. It was okay for a little bit, but we did get tired of it. (To be honest, I am still uncomfortable with the sanitation level of the meat on a stick so I eat it rarely. The meat just sits there all day uncovered in plastic case. Also, since the stands just basically park on the side of a dirt road there is no running water and dirt covers everything, so overall it is a pretty filthy place.)

Gradually though, we have seen some new faces. Some haven’t interested me much, (like the guy who had a plastic box on the back of his bike filled with chicken feet, heads and guts, or the people that sell a bowl of gelatinous goo that you can add sugar and other flavorings to) but some have been very, very good, like the fried bread people which is our new favorite.

nom nom...

Also a sort of festival atmosphere has arisen. Students realized they could set up a little table outside the gate to sell stuff. It’s mostly little chotchkies but new people go out almost every night so you never know what you are going to see. Some of my students have even gone out to sell little notebooks, cute socks or hand warmers.

So we love going out the West Gate. (Except when it is raining and the street is a giant mud puddle, then we avoid it.) We’ve almost forgotten how run down and derelict it is. That is, until the other day when we took a walk during the day.

I guess they are still planning on upgrading the road and the buildings so they have started tearing down some of the shops and the street looks pretty awful and third-world-ish. We almost forget that we live in China sometimes as we get more comfortable living here, but then, every now and then it sneaks up on you and you realize, oh yeah this is a long ways from Peterborough New Hampshire!

I don’t want to brag or anything, but we just found out that the students voted Ryan and I as the top 2 foreign teachers. Okay, I lied. I do want to brag.

Yes, those of you who know me too well might be wondering why I mentioned Ryan at all. You know that I’m egotistical enough to not mention him, especially if I was voted #1. So it is with my head hung in shame that I admit that Ryan was actually voted number one, and I was number two. We were very, very close though. (He got a 90.5%, I got an 89%.) I have my own theories about this (I taught classes where kids had to actually do work while he taught almost all oral english) but you can be sure that Ryan won’t be letting me forget this anytime soon. He’s already taken to calling me “Number 2.”

In all seriousness I’m super excited about this and it makes me happy that the students like me as much as I like them. My rough teaching philosophy is if you have fun learning you will only learn more. (This philosophy is similar to my writing philosophy which is: If you have fun writing it, people will have fun reading it. ) I think my little philosophy might be working.

I’m definitely not going to rest on my laurels for next semester and being voted so highly only makes me want to work harder and make sure that in all my classes I engage and challenge my students and give them a chance to gain confidence and learn more. Plus, let’s face it I really want to be number one and wipe that smug smile of my loving husbands face!

I knew this day would come. I tried to avoid it as long as possible, but like going to the bathroom on a squat toilet it could not be avoided while living in China: I went to a KTV.

KTV? I hear you ask. What is KTV? I’ll give you one hint. The K stands for karaoke.

In 1998, when I lived in Los Angeles, I went to a karaoke bar once and swore I’d never do it again. Since it was LA, and everyone wanted to be “discovered” only the tanned, skinny and serious sang. I was with a bunch of (drinking) friends, and after enough liquor we convinced my friend Narducci to get up and sing. He sang Tom Jones 1971 classic “She’s a Lady.” He sang it as a cross between a drunk college kid and, well, a howling dog.

We thought it was hilarious, but the karaoke regulars were incensed. Not even a minute into the song and they came over to our table. “Get him off the stage,” they hissed. “He’s embarrassing.” None of the rest of us sang after that.

I know that Karaoke is big in Asia, and I know they are just as serious here in China. That’s why I didn’t want to go. But it was fellow teacher Lynn’s birthday and last week in China so I agreed to go do whatever she wanted to do. And she wanted to KTV.

We had spent the early part of the evening having a party at our place, then drinking at a bar. (Well, they drank, I had green tea.) It was probably 10 in the evening when we arrived at KTV. Luckily they don’t sing in a bar here in front of a large crowd. Instead, your group gets its own room and you are free to be as loud, and as off-key, as you want.

When we entered the building it looked like a lobby of a nice hotel. We checked in and were led down a hallway with many dark doors. We opened one of the doors and went in. The room itself was a perfect size with a long leather couch across one of the walls. The room was dark, with a little laser light show shooting down from the ceiling and a giant screen TV in front. There were 2 microphones with long cords so you could sing standing up in front of everyone, or sitting down on the couch. Next to the TV was a touch screen which you could pick all the songs from.

They brought us drinks and snacks and left us alone for the next 3 hours as we wailed away. From all my protesting you would have expected that I didn’t sing at all. Yet I surprised even myself when I found myself grabbing the microphone on the second song of the evening. (It was Yellow Submarine. I mean, how could I not, right?)

The funniest thing was the videos. Sometimes the actual video of the song would play like with Britney Spears songs.

But more often then not it would be a video of a random collection of scenery clips as the song played, or movie clips. While I (and others—I never sang alone) sang a Phil Collins song they showed clips from the Keanu Reeves movie “Walk in the Clouds.” Another song had clips from an old black and white war movie. It was very funny.

But my personal favorite was the Beatles videos. They didn’t have the real videos, or even scenic clips. Instead, they had 4 guys that sort-kinda looked like the Beatles singing along as well. It was good enough for us not to notice during the first 2 minutes of a song, but bad enough for us to be cracking every song after.

Many of the Chinese people with us tried to be serious. I got to hear a lot of popular Chinese music, which was nice, and Lynn and Morten even tried singing along with a Chinese song they kinda knew.

Fun Fact: While simplified characters are the official written characters of mainland China, all Chinese karaoke songs are written in traditional characters. (Making it that much more difficult for foreigners to read.)

We ended up staying for 3 hours until the workers practically kicked us out. (They were standing by the door with brooms and garbage cans. It was a Tuesday night after all.) I was pretty worn out by that time, and very, very sleepy, but all in all I think KTV is not as bad as I feared. I won’t be doing it again anytime soon, but I have learned to not be so afraid after all.

Cultural note: While the KTV we went to was very “on the level” the word KTV girl is synonymous with prostitute. I mean, you get a warm dark room with a nice couch so I can see where the connection is made. I know a few foreigners who walked into less reputable KTV’s and very quickly realized there wasn’t much KTV’ing going on.

Because there is no heat in the building here, despite the near freezing temperatures at times, students have to come up with crafty ways to keep from freezing. One tried and true way is the water bottle. They are popular here (as boiled water is readily available at every dorm and building) and you will often see a tell tale bottle shape cloth clutched in a students hand.

But what is really the rage these days in the water bottles newer, hipper, electric cousin, the hand warmer! I bought one myself last week and I love, love, love it.

It’s round, filled with water (or “special water” as one of my students told me) and has a little electric socket on the side. You plug it in, a little red light comes on, and in 8-12 minutes you have an almost boiling hot hand warmer. The cloth on the outside keeps it from getting too hot but it feels really good. It also stays warm a surprisingly long time, maybe over an hour, and it’s fun to jiggle and mush it about.

I especially like the very fashionable casing. Here is a little detail:

And who says there is a copyright infringement problem in China?!

The thing is they are really cheap (as in breaks a lot) and potentially dangerous. When we bought it the woman told me I had a week to return it if it broke that quickly. (Okay, she “told” me, I looked at her confused, she tried again, I looked at Ryan. We blinked, took out the dictionary, watched her write what she wanted to say down, she said it again. We looked confused. She put the paper in our dictionary and kind heartedly laughed and told us to have a friend read it for us. Well, that’s what we got from body language anyway.)

It’s been more than a week, so I feel like I got a good one, but my students did warn me to be careful as they are known to explode as well.

I’m dying to dissect one of these, just to look at its innards, but as best as I can tell on the inside is just a metal heating rod that is fed by the electricity. It’s that simple.

I really like using it. We have heat in our bedroom so technically I don’t need it, but like most people my hands will be freezing cold even if the rest of me is warm. Sometimes I’ll heat it up and just leave it next to me warming my hands on it every so often when I need it. I’ve also used it to warm my bed up before I get in. I resisted getting one of these for so long, not really sure why, but I kept seeing so many students sell them I finally caved in and bought one.

When in Roma after all…