All right everyone, I know that it has been a long time since I last wrote, so I’d suggest you prepare a drink or two (whatever suits you – I’d pick coffee, except that it’s so hard to find real brewed coffee here), put on your reading glasses, and get all nice and comfy – this is going to be a long one. Everything up to now has been pamphlet-sized – this is going to be a novella. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I promised last time that I would talk about Christmas, so let’s start with that. I’d hate to break a promise. The week of Christmas I didn’t have to teach any classes – they were left open so that I could finish my finals if I needed the time. I had to finish finals in three of my ten classes – the other classes watched a movie or were cancelled if they met on Christmas or the day after (Boxing Day, if you aren’t from the USA.) I say that they watched a movie, since I offered each class the same choices – Mission: Impossible, Shrek, The Truman Show, and The Princess Bride – and each class chose Mission: Impossible. I kept the choices the same since I figured it was a fluke – surely one class would want to watch Shrek… apparently not. I spent Monday and Tuesday watching M:I .in the morning (four times in two days) and the nights grading the listening test finals that I had given to my graduate students the week before. On Wednesday I finished a final with my continuing education students – they were the best and the brightest of my students, and I gave them a conversational final – each student would come to the podium and we would talk for five minutes, and then I would give them a grade based upon their listening and speaking skills. It was much easier to grade than my listening tests, and it seemed less subjective. The listening tests were not well designed – I had to decide how correct the answers were – 50%, 60%, 20% - not just if they were right or wrong. But I digress.

After classes on Christmas Eve I went out for lunch with Mike. On the way back to my apartment, my cell phone rang – it was Mel, letting me know she was sick. I stopped at the store and bought some water and Ritz crackers and dropped them off on my way back to my apartment. I spent the rest of the night grading listening tests and well, that’s about it. I may have spent some time cleaning – my sister was visiting that weekend – but I doubt it. I honestly don’t remember; it was over a month ago.

Christmas morning I awoke very early and called my Grandma Lubbers – the party was going on and I had to call to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. After that I went shopping for Christmas presents – I had a party at the Brassers later in the day. No, I didn’t take the time to prepare earlier – I had a couple of hours to spare, and it all worked out ok. I had lunch at KFC – it was the first time that I’d had KFC in China and it was an experience and a half – it’s like stepping into a pseudo-high-class restaurant –everything is clean and the staff is friendly. ‘Twas very strange, even for Beijing. After that I went back to my apartment to warm up – it was a very cold and blustery day. A few hours later I headed over to the Brassers – they were having a Christmas ham (a real ham, even) and other Christmas foods. We exchanged presents – I received a sweet chair from the Brassers and they received an assortment of stuff from yours truly. After dinner, presents, and a little celebration, I had to leave – Stephanie was having a party of her own that night and I’d promised to stop in. The party was a good time – all the foreign teachers stopped in and the party went long – well into the night. I left early, since I had one final to finish the next morning.

The next morning – Boxing Day, if you prefer – I called G+G (Grandpa and Grandma Hulst) to wish them and the rest of the family a Merry Christmas. After that I went to finish my finals – I had four students that I needed to grade, and after twenty minutes I was finished with my classes for the semester. I believe I went back to my apartment and went to sleep. I don’t think I did anything else worth mentioning, so I’ll skip over it.

Saturday I awoke early – Mike and I were planning on taking a bus trip to the Great Wall. We walked over to the bus stop and waited for about an hour. After realizing that the bus wasn’t coming, we headed over to the terminal to wait inside a bus for about two hours. After losing almost all of my patience, the bus left for the Great Wall. Mike and I rode on a sixty passenger bus with about 5 other Chinese people (including the tour guide.) The tour guide did not speak any English, thankfully Mike speaks Chinese pretty well. We headed to the Thirteen Tombs, a pass in the Great Wall, and eventually to Badaling (though we didn’t really get off the bus at Badaling.) Because it was a private tour bus, we stopped at everything of minimal interest on the way to the three stops. This trip should have taken about four hours, but it took about nine hours. It was quite possibly the longest nine hours of my life. The tombs were interesting for about five minutes or so – the best part was the Chinglish on the signs which were placed about five feet apart all through the tomb area. The best was, and I quote, “Please according to priority for visitage.” It must be a deep truth; I don’t understand it. There really isn’t anything else worth mentioning – it was a nice day for photos and being outside, but I was preoccupied since my sister was arriving later that night.

Ok, let’s move on to Xinjiang Province. I went to Xinjiang Province (Xinjiang can be loosely translated as Western Regions) on my “vacation” (really week three of my seven week break.) I stopped at Urumqi (the capital of the province) and Kashgar – a major stop on the Silk Road. Xinjiang Province is an interesting place – the majority of people belong to a minority group known as Uyghur (pronounced Wee-gir – insert joke about Eminem here – we always did.) Uyghurs look nothing like Han Chinese (undoubtedly what you picture when you conjure an image of Chinese people – they look close to the stereotypical image of a Chinese person, though not exactly, of course.) One could say that Uyghurs hate Hans, since the Han people have been settling in Xinjiang in droves for the past twenty-five years or so. The government encourages the settling and development of Xinjiang, and this upsets the native Uyghurs – they are not happy with the local government. The local government (run by the Hans) has declared the Uyghur way of life unsanitary and have been knocking down the Uyghur housing and rounding up the people who complain as terrorists. There have been protests in the past and the region has had problems with stability – though no foreigners have been targeted in the recent past.

There is an underlying tension in Xinjiang, and it divides both of the cities that I visited. There is a Uyghur part of town and a Han part of town; the Han section is modern and feels a little like Beijing. Step into the Uyghur part of town and you feel like you’ve jumped back in time at least a thousand years, maybe more. All the houses in the Uyghur part of town are made out of straw and mud and sometimes pressed earth. There are modern conveniences, but they are few and far between.

We – Jared English (a friend from college who works in Beijing,) Jason Sigsby (one of Jared’s former roommates and colleagues,) and myself, left for Urumqi early on Friday morning (the 16th of January.) We arrived at the Beijing Airport early – too early to remember the time. Early, very early. There weren’t too many problems in the airport – I made it through security without setting off the metal detector, but Jason wasn’t so lucky. His belt set off the detector, and the security lady de-belted him with an amount of flair that surprised all of us. The flight to Urumqi took 4 hours (almost due west of Beijing) and the plane had video games as well as a highly edited version of Pirates of the Caribbean (all of the scenes that had skeletons in them were cut – so essentially the last half of the movie was gone.) Upon arriving in Urumqi, we had to wait for about an hour or so to claim or baggage – efficient Urumqi ain’t. As we waited we kept placing bets as to when our luggage would come down the chute, and after placing bets for the fifteenth time, our luggage arrived. Stepping outside was painful – it was incredibly cold and dry – it hurt to breathe for the first few minutes. We flagged a taxi and were taken for a ride – it took us over an hour to get to our hotel – it only took ten minutes the other times. The hotel was really nice, in fact it was a five star…and it showed. Everything was modern and the staff were actually helpful (which is impressive for China – there is absolutely no concept of service over here…it is a strange, strange country.) We wandered around the city after dark, and found out that there aren’t enough taxis in Urumqi – we had to wait for at least a half hour before an empty taxi drove by and stopped for us.

The next day we went back to the airport and left for Kashgar – it was an hour and a half flight (due west) from Urumqi, yet it’s in the same province. Kashgar is really close to some of the “stans” – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It’s also pretty close to India. It was one of the main stopping points on the Silk Road back in the day. After we checked into our hotel – the fabulous Qinibagh Hotel (we were the ONLY people staying at the Qinibagh during our stay) – we headed out to explore. We stopped at a little restaurant decently close to our hotel for lunch, and sat a table close to the door. The waiter/cook/owner walked over, and Jared ordered some yan rou tang (lamb soup) and nang (it’s a type of bread.) The w/c/o said, “rice?” Jared repeated the order again – same response from the w/c/o. So we had “poloo” - rice stir-fried with carrot, pumpkin, a huge chunk or roasted lamb, a few small shards of bone to slice up your tongue, and sometimes raisins or pomegranate seeds. We ate this frequently in Kashgar – it seems to be a staple of the Uyghurs, and it is pretty good. After lunch we headed down a street that was lined with hat and knife stalls. Since we seemed to be the only foreigners in Kashgar at the time (it’s a huge tourist spot in the summer,) we attracted a crowd wherever we went. We walked past a large number of fruit stalls which sell a variety of dried fruit – Xinjiang is known for its fruit, and quite a few open-air butchers who had their wares hanging right on the street. It wasn’t as unsanitary as it sounds, since it was colder than a meat locker outside. I even stumbled across a few blacksmith and carpenters who were working their craft the old fashioned way. We also walked through Old Town – the Uyghur suburbs, for lack of a better term. I can’t do it justice, so I won’t try – you have to see it to believe it. After that we went to a really bad museum – it was the most unimpressive and boring thing that I have ever seen, and I’ve driven through Northern Ohio at night…

On Sunday we went to the Sunday Market, the largest open-air market in China. Salespeople come from all over China and the ‘stans to sell their wares, which are primarily spices, knives, rugs, hats, and fruit. Everything else under the sun is also sold here, though in lesser quantities and varieties than the previously mentioned items. Mohammed (a curtain salesman who worked at the Sunday Market, spoke almost perfect English, and was very friendly – we’d met the day before on the street) led us around the market. When we’d seen all that we wanted to see, he suggested that we go to see the livestock market outside of town. We agreed. I’ve never seen so many sheep, goats, donkeys, and horses in one place before. We browsed around for a while (thankfully there weren’t any camels, I’d have purchased one if there were any present) and eventually wandered out of the sales area to watch blacksmiths shoeing horses. Eventually we grew bored, and Mohammed suggested that we visit a cemetery that wasn’t to far away. It turned out to be the most interesting part of the visit to Kashgar, at least as far as I was concerned. The cemetery was immense, and the customs (as explained by Mohammed) were very different from the western set. I won’t go into them here. After that we headed back into Kashgar and began a general mosey back towards our hotel. That night we took a right out of the hotel instead of a left (left led us to the rice? place) and after a two minute walk we were smack in the middle of the Han part of town. We had “Chinese” food for supper instead of Xinjiang food. There are three things you should know about Xinjiang food: no pork (because the Uyghurs are followers of Islam,) no rice (it’s too cold to grow it in Xinjiang – they eat nan, wheat bread, or laghman, wheat noodles, instead,) and the food is hallucination-inspiring, tongue-numbingly spicy. It was a nice change of pace, but I couldn’t eat it everyday.

Our plans for Monday had us taking a trip to one of the borders to look into one of the ‘stans, but due to inclement weather – it was winter – we were unable to get anyone to take us even remotely close. So we went back to the hotel and decided to go back to the Sunday Market - that’s its name, it is open every day, though more stalls are open on Sunday. We acquired a few more souvenirs, and wasted time – we were ready to leave. There isn’t much to do in Kashgar during the winter, since all the tourist attractions are outside of the city and the routes were closed due to snow. That night we went to a Mongolian hotpot joint for supper and I had squid by mistake. ‘Twas the highlight of the day.

Tuesday we left the Qinibagh Hotel behind (good riddance – it was bad, and not in the as time passes my disgust will fade away way – I’ll stand by that feeling ‘til the day I die) and went back to Urumqi. The Kashgar airport left a bad taste in Jared’s mouth – the lady in charge of the airport tax was late, and we had to wait for her to arrive so that we could pay the tax and consequently proceed through security. Jared was chosen by Jason and myself to wait in line for the tax. Why they don’t include the tax in the price of the tickets was a deep question that Jared pondered as he waited; I know this because he kept repeating the question until we arrived in Urumqi. We also rhapsodized about songs for Urumqi on the flight back – we’d adapted “Rock the Casbah” into “Rock the Kashgar” – but Urumqi left us stumped. We checked back in to the Hongfu, and settled in. Eventually we left and explored Urumqi – we found an Islam import store called Istanbul that had all kinds of interesting foodstuffs – like Naibao – a Whopper-esque candy that was really good – good enough that Jason bought at least five pounds of them in bulk. Tuesday night we went to a park that had ice sculptures – bears, dragons, elephants, camels, castles, etc. Jason rode an ice elephant for a pretty sweet picture; when he dismounted, we noticed a large crack had developed in elephant’s tummy region. We moseyed a little faster at this point. We also discovered that the park had a skating rink.

Wednesday morning we went skating at the park, or rather I tried to skate while Jared and Jason skated – the largest skates available were still to small for feet. After two hours Jared and I headed back to the hotel; Jason skated for six hours or so. We had been invited to dinner by the Executive General Manager of the Hongfu – he was from Canada, and we happened to be the only English speaking foreigners staying at the hotel. He’d been in China for fifteen years, and had many stories to tell – especially about the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. After dinner Jared and I headed down to People’s Square at about eleven-thirty for the best fireworks display I have ever seen. Nothing in America comes close (Wednesday was the eve of the lunar new year, and it’s the Chinese equivalent of Christmas.) We were in the center of a large square – maybe a quarter-mile to a side. People were lighting firecracker and rockets around the perimeter, and the mortar tubes were maybe 50 fifty feet away. Fireworks were going off all around and directly overhead – it was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. I didn’t know where to look or what to focus on. It was truly awe-inspiring.

Thursday we took it easy – nothing was open, since it was New Year’s Day.

Friday we went to Tian Chi – a picturesque lake in the middle of a mountain range near Urumqi. It’s a main tourist draw in the summer, and in the winter, when the lake freezes, you can ride horses on it. Or if you prefer, you can take a sleigh. There is also a tube slide – sort of like a bobsled track, but not as steep or as much fun. It was beautiful. We ate lunch in a yurt (it’s a big tent that the Tajiks – the people who live around Tian Chi – used to live in.) It was horribly overpriced and the food was awful, but I can now say that I’ve eaten in a yurt. We relaxed for the rest of the day.

Saturday was spent relaxing – we had a western breakfast which was the highlight of my day (this was the first western breakfast that I’ve had since coming to China.) We also purchased large quantities of souvenirs in a last minute purchasing attack. Other than that, we didn’t do anything worth mentioning.

Sunday – we packed up, said goodbye to the Hongfu, and flew back to Beijing.

Since then I haven’t done anything except write this. Most of the other foreigner teachers are still traveling – Stephanie is back, but I haven’t run into her yet. That’s it for the moment – I’ll do this more often from here on out, because this took too much time to write. Later.

Unkie Tom, this one’s for you

Well, it is the New Year, and my sister, Sandy, is here in Beijing visiting with me. She’ll be here until the 6th of January. She’s taking a nap at the moment – she hasn’t fully adjusted to the time difference and so we are taking it easy today.

She arrived on Saturday night, and after an uneventful ride from the airport, we settled in and took care of the most important thing – my Christmas presents. (We also caught up on the activities of everyone and everything in Holland and the US in general.)

On Sunday we went to church, and afterwards met with Jared and his cousin, Susannah (she was visiting him over Christmas.) We went to Lido to buy DVDs and for lunch, and eventually made our way to Silk Alley for Sandy’s first taste of Chinese bartering. Now, I can’t say what we purchased – it might have been presents, it might not have been. All you need to know is that we haggled out excellent prices for everything that we bought. Later that night we went to Mike and Christie Brasser’s for dinner and games.

Early Monday morning Sandy and I met Susannah (Jared had to work and asked if Susannah could accompany us on Monday and Tuesday.) and we started our whirlwind tour of Beijing. We started out at the Forbidden City – we went through it at an incredible pace (with Roger Moore as our guide – he narrates the audio tour) and after that we headed to Jingshan park – it is a park directly to the north of the Forbidden City that has a big hill in the middle. The hill was made from the dirt, rocks and debris that were removed to create the moats around the Forbidden City; it also gives a very picturesque view over Tiananmen Square and the F.C.

At this point we went to lunch with Christie - we had an authentic Chinese lunch of baozi and jiaozi (steamed dumplings and filled steamed buns.) After lunch we went to Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) and spent a few hours wandering around the park – it’s gigantic, to say the least. After we had seen most of the sights – the echo wall, the processional bridge, etc. – we went to Hongqiao Market. This market is known for its pearls, but it has everything under the sun.

Once we had finished shopping (bartering, really) we met up with Jared for dinner. After a very random dinner (we had eel, fruit salad, celery and lily root, and sizzling rice) we went to see an acrobatics show. The show was excellent – contortionists, unicycles, and the Leaf-Men (guys should not wear leotards, especially ones with strategically-placed leaves.) It was impressive and disgusting – people should not bend those ways or have such a great sense of balance.

After that, we went our separate ways. On Tuesday we started later – at 9 am – and began by heading to Tiananmen Square to view Mao’s body (we’d missed it on Monday, and it’s one of those things that you have to see if you’re in Beijing.) I didn’t get to see Mao, since we all had bags, which aren’t allowed in the mausoleum and someone had to guard/hold the bags. After they had seen the Cat – as Mao was known – we headed to the Lama temple. It’s the largest Buddhist temple in Beijing, and there are a whole lotta Buddhas in the temple. There is even a 18m tall giant Buddha in the very back of the temple. It was interesting, but not too terribly interesting – there were only a few signs in English.

After lunch we headed to the Summer Palace. We took a bus, and it took a long time to get there. Once we arrived, we moseyed down the Long Corridor – a covered walkway that is over a mile long, is covered with painted scenes, and runs the length of the lake. We ended up at the Marble Boat and then headed around the backside of the mountain and scaled the rocks up to the top of the palace. Scale probably isn’t the right word, since there were “steps” carved into the rocks, but it was steep and slippery. After we finished there, we went back to Jared’s apartment to wait – he was at work and we were tired. When he arrived he was bleeding – he’d fallen off his bike and scraped his hands and knees. Once we got him patched up, we headed out to a Mongolian hotpot restaurant. Mongolian hotpot is a very involved means of eating – you personally stew meat, vegetables and noodles in pot that is on your table. Sandy and Susannah didn’t seem to terribly enthralled with this, but they survived.

After dinner we went to Houhai – a bar area in Beijing that is built around Houhai lake – and cruised the scene. We ended up in a club listening to DJ Leaf do his mix. A live band came on after a while, and Jared requested a song. When the band got around to playing the song, they invited Jared onto the stage to sing with them. He did. The club had a deal going with their “specialty” drink, which tasted they way rubbing alcohol smells. So we each had one, and that was more than enough.

Wednesday was spent at Fuchengmen Market, a large market that has everything anyone could ever want (well…) Sandy bought a sweet blanket – heavy, warm and fleecy-good. I have one, and Sandy had latched onto mine. So I made sure that she acquired one of her own. We also bought quite a few presents, since Fuchengmen is THE place for good presents.

We went out to a Korean barbeque joint for dinner – Sandy, Mike (it was his going away party – he left on Friday), Mel, two of Mel’s friends from Shanghai, and yours truly. Korean barbeque is some of the best food on Earth – the meat and veggies are cooked over coals directly in front of you – tasty-good. After dinner we went to Sanlitun (a different bar street – the main one, in fact) and met up with Jared and Grace (one of Jared’s friends.) We spent New Year’s Eve in Durty Nellie’s Irish Pub listening to a Filipino band play covers of Pink Floyd and U2. Eventually the bartenders threw handfuls and handfuls of glow sticks to the throng. There was a countdown to midnight (though I’m pretty sure that it happened fifteen minutes after midnight, I might be wrong, but I doubt it.) We headed back to campus after one, and had to climb the stairs (fourteen flights – the elevator shuts down at midnight.)

Thursday we slept in and eventually ambled down to Wangfujing (the main shopping street in Beijing) and window-shopped for awhile. We stopped in at the chopstick shop and the foreign language bookstore and bought a few sets of chopsticks and reading material. After Wangfujing we headed down to the Friendship Store to see the real deals – real jade and pearls and antiques. It was enlightening. That night we went to dinner at Ashtray – a local eatery of decent edibles. Sandy was impressed with my ability to order and express myself in Chinese (well, not really – ask her for details.) After dinner we went back the apartment, watched a DVD, and went to sleep.

Now, I know that I promised more on Christmas, and I will – next time. I promise.

‘Twas the weekend before Christmas…

It’s finals week here at Beihang, so I’m going to keep this short – I don’t have time to go into any great detail about the past week and a half. I’ll give a three highlights, and fill in the gaps at a later date. I promise.

1. I went to RBT (a pseudo-western tea house popular here in Beijing) on Tuesday with Mel to study and practice for our Chinese class. While we were sitting and chatting, VoL’s Skin came on over the PA system. I stopped and stared for a few minutes (ala the Desperado-guy from Seinfeld) and eventually managed to compose myself – it was surreal.

(For those of you who are unaware of VoL – VoL is an underground Christian folk rock band that is virtually unknown, which is why I included this note. The song Skin is about Vincent Van Gogh, his insanity, and his supposedly lopped off ear.)

2. I spent last weekend planning out my listening test (final for my graduate students) It was by far the most stressful forty eight hours of my life (so far) One thing I didn’t think about - and I should have - was that I would have to grade the finals at some point in the near future. Rather than make it multiple choice (easy to grade, cause it’s either right or wrong) I decided to make a fill-in-the-blank style test (hard to grade – full of grey area.) Each test takes about ten minutes to grade. That doesn’t sound so bad, but remember that I have 437 students in these classes. That’s only 73 hours of grading. Oh well.

3. Last night I received my first Christmas gift from Christie Brasser – a huge ornament with my name written on it. It’s large enough that it dwarfs my tree – the tree hangs on the ornament instead of the usual way. It’s large enough to be used as a Christmas piñata – do I dare to start a new Christmas tradition? Yes, I believe I do.

Have a merry Christmas, y’all

Hello Y'all,

It's been awhile since I last posted; I apologize. I have been busy enough that I had to prioritize my tasks, and unfortunately this didn't rank very high. Tonight I acquired a new type of internet card, and it seems to work great - maybe my internet problems are behind me (so it'll be easier to blog) - only time will tell. I composed this piecemeal over the last few weeks, and I haven't taken any time to check for continuity errors. Sorry.
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I've been playing nurse for most of the floor this past week – those who are sick have come down with a pretty nasty case of food poisoning or possibly a mild case of the flu. I've been to the store at least twice a day to acquire Ritz crackers, Sprite and water as well as a few other necessities. I have my rounds to check on everyone, and they all have my cell number in case of emergencies (such as running out of water or Ritz crackers.) I'm not just being nice – I hope that they will reciprocate when (not if) I get sick. There is nothing worse than being sick and alone, except being sick and alone in a place where you can't communicate with most of the people – including all of the doctors in the on-campus clinic.

That's how I spent most of my week. Here are a few non-nurse highlights for your reading pleasure...

Monday
Five of us on the floor decided to do a Secret Santa drawing to spare the pain of buying gifts for everyone and to place a cap on the value of the gifts given. It took us an entire hour to draw names – someone always ended up with their own name. It became Kafkaesque after the first four attempts (Beijing tends to amplify this feeling,) and everyone was pretty quiet until we succeeded. After we had drawn names, Mike mentioned that his stomach was cramping, and I was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. Mike, Mel, and I had eaten lunch together at a little restaurant outside of campus, and we had shared the same dishes...

Tuesday
At 2 am my cell phone rang – it was Mel, calling to let me know that she was horribly sick. She wanted to know if I was sick as well. I said, “no,” and went back to sleep.

That night I went out to dinner with Jared and Mike Brasser (a different Mike than the one mentioned before) to a little restaurant that the foreign teachers of BUAA call “Ashtray.” I don't know why it has that moniker – it just does. On the way to our table I noticed Stephanie and Anne (both foreign teachers at BUAA, and both from Australia) were sitting at a table on the other side of the restaurant. I waved, they waved back, and I headed over to my table. The food was really good – some of the best that I've had in China. We went our separate ways after dinner, and I headed back to my flat to do a few lesson plans and to record myself reading a few articles for the College English magazine.

Wednesday
Taught my classes, they went remarkably well, and I spent my afternoon lazing around my apartment. I also took a little time to clean, if I remember correctly. I went out to a pretty sweet restaurant for dinner – the meal was served on a gigantic piping-hot cast iron plate. It was more food than ten people could eat (there were two of us – Mike had decided that he was feeling a bit better.) About half way through dinner a random bug fell from the ceiling and landed in the middle of our dish. After pointing it out to our waiter, we left – the meal was gratis. Went back to my apartment to do lesson plans – on the way I ran into Mel, who was apparently feeling much, much better. She apologized for the late call, and informed me that both Stephanie and Anne had cases of food poisoning from eating at Ashtray...

Thursday
Taught my classes – the students didn't seem to want to be there, and it was a teensy bit exasperating – I spent most of the time cajoling them along. After classes I did a little grocery shopping (snacky foods) and went to the internet cafe to check my email and send a few overdue replies (I'm about a month and a half behind, in case you're wondering.) I had my new Chinese class at 4 pm – it moves about twice as fast as the other class I was taking, plus it is taught by a teacher who speaks English. The teacher of the other class did not. I also signed up for a class on writing characters – it'll meet on Wednesdays. After class Rob, Mike, Mel, and I went back to “The Bug” restaurant – we sat in a private room (the walls had been spray-painted gold – China chic) on the third floor. We didn't see any bugs. The meal was still pretty good, though Mike left halfway through – he was having premonitions – stomach cramps and a bily taste in the back of the mouth. We drank two one-liter cartons of this funky carrot-pumpkin-mango-apple juice with dinner and were shocked to discover that each carton cost 45 kuai each (that's enough to buy 10 gallons of apple juice, which is what we had ordered.) We all vowed to never set foot in “The Bug” restaurant again. Afterwords I went back to my apartment and watched a DVD.

Friday
So tired – so very, very tired. Went to class, came back, took nap, went to dinner at Ashtray with Mel, came back, sat on couch and stared at the wall for a bit, and then went to sleep. At least I'm honest. Oh, wait – between the nap and dinner I wrote a few (43 by my count) Christmas cards/postcards – to the Grands and my former workmates at Repcolite. Made plans for phase two of the Christmas card campaign.

Saturday
Went to the Forbidden City Concert Hall at 2 pm to buy tickets for that night's performance of Handel's Messiah. It took an incredibly long time to find the concert hall, since it was hidden deep inside a park directly west of the Forbidden City. After buying tickets we (Mike – he was feelin' better - and I) braved the art students that hover around Tiananmen Square and headed towards one of the museums on the east side of the Square – the museum is showing an Egyptian exhibit which contains all of the relics of King Tut. When we arrived, we were sad to see that the museum closed at 4 pm, since it was 3:54 by my watch. So we wandered around doing tourist-type things – snapping pictures of people flying kites, talking to art students, bartering for things we neither need nor want in the Qianmen Market (southwest of Tiananmen) and making a general nuisance of ourselves. After a while we went for dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we had “Beijing Burritos” - hot pulled pork in plum sauce with spring onions served on tofu pancakes which are rolled like burritos (hence the name.) Very tasty, once you figure out how to roll a burrito using chopsticks – it's quite a challenge. Once we finished, we headed back to the concert hall for the Messiah.

The Messiah was excellent – it was performed in English (the Chinese version was performed the next night) by a chamber orchestra, a full choir, and four talented soloists. Mike had never heard a live version of the Messiah performed before that night, and he was impressed.

Sunday
Went to BICF, met Jared and the Brassers, and we went to the Outback Steakhouse for lunch to celebrate the birthdays of Mike Brasser and myself. It was good, very good. Jared and I had a drink-off (using Fanta Orange – we tied on the amount) since they actually had free drink refills. Mike and I received presents aplenty – I received the Beatles Anthology DVD set, a boxed set of Lu Xun's works (Lu Xun is a famous twentieth century Chinese author,) and a tiger-striped toilet seat cover (from Jared.) The food was good (and Western) and there was actually too much – everyone left feeling uncomfortably full. Mike and I even managed to finagle free ice cream, since it was our birthdays (also strange for China, or so I heard.)

That night I went out to eat with most of the foreign teachers to celebrate my birthday, again. I was still pretty full, but the celebration was for me, so I did my best. I even had birthday bread – we ordered “cake” from the menu, but what appeared was only mildly cake-like. It was a large round loaf of fried sesame bread. It was really tasty, but it wasn't birthday cake. We had a lot left over birthday bread, and I was forced to take it home.

Monday
'Twas my birthday. I had leftover birthday bread for lunch, and I taught my classes. After classes the other teachers and I went out to a “cafe and bar” for birthday libations. It was a pretty good day.

Tuesday
Not sick yet, but I was getting there. Didn't do much of anything except teach class and sleep. I did find out that Mike (the teacher) had gone to the on-campus clinic since he hadn't been feeling well – he was diagnosed with an inflamed intestine – he's not allowed to eat anything except plain bread and rice for the next 3 days or so.

Wednesday
I felt happy and healthy – and it showed. I found out that my finals will be finished on the day after Christmas (all the other teachers won't finish until Jan 12 or so. It's the joy of teaching all spoken English classes – writing classes have later finals than the spoken classes. Mel and I went out to dinner at Ashtray – everyone else was still under the weather...

Thursday
Taught my classes. Didn't do anything else worth mentioning. Still not sick, though all the other teachers have been.
I am tired, and I think I'll be going to bed early tonight.

I have had a good 36 hours (as of 10 pm.) I think I'll explain in reverse chronological order. Why? Because I can.

3 hours ago – present
Compiled, processed, edited, and arranged this blog (also updated my gradebook while I was on the computer.) I had Godfather III on for background noise.

3 hours – 5 hours ago
Walked around the Alien's Street Market – it's an indoor market in the CBD (Central Business District – due east of the Forbidden City) in which the majority of the sales clerks speak Russian and Chinese rather than English and Chinese. I bought a tiny little Christmas tree and a few ornaments – my goal is a reproduction of the sad little Christmas tree from the Charlie Brown Christmas special, and I think I'll achieve it. Also checked the price of ice skates – I can skate on the pond in the campus common (when it freezes, of course.) I noticed a lot of leather goods – this seems to be the place to get “quality” leather products in Beijing.

5 hours - 7 hours ago
Ate an early dinner + transit time. 'Nuff said.

7 hours – 11 hours ago
Karaoke at a KTV club in the New World Shopping Center – this was strange. I've done karaoke in the US – late at night in front of everyone in a smoky bar that has vintage 70's décor. But here, karaoke is done in a small private room – no drinking, no harsh smokiness, no vintage 70's people (or décor.) Everyone takes it very, very seriously. I went with Jared, Mike, Christie, and a bunch of people that I didn't know – students at Tsinghua University who attended a seminar that Mike gave – one of them won a gift certificate to this karaoke place from Mike's company and invited M+C (and anyone else they wanted to bring.) It was an OK time- I didn't know many of the songs, but Jared and I did an excellent rendition of “In the Jungle.” (I know I'm biased.) I sang the melody, he did the oweemoways. We're thinking about competitions – as seriously as people take karaoke here, there have to be quite a few.

13 hours -11 hours ago
Got up, got ready, and moseyed over to the NWSC. Once again, 'nuff said.

13 hours – 22 hours ago
Sleeping. (It was good – I hadn't been sleeping well)

22 hours – 28 hours ago
Hung out in my flat – moved furniture around, did the rest of my lesson plans, waged war against the grime and bacteria in my bathroom, (it was really, really bad – but it's operating room clean now) and watched Godfather II. Received a call from Tang, the editor of College English. He asked for a hard copy of what I'd submitted earlier.

29 hours – 28 hours ago
Had a tasty supper of Mongolian hotpot at a nice restaurant – by myself.

32 hours – 29 hours ago
Walked to IKEA – it was a beautiful day, I didn't even mind the hour it took. I bought a rug, hangers, a shower curtain, and a bunch of other things that I didn't really need.
Took a taxi back – my spoils were too heavy to carry back on foot.

34 hours – 32 hours ago
Went to the head editor of College English's office at noon to drop off an essay that I'd been correcting and submit my own version of it (on a floppy disk – I wasn't going to handwrite out a hardcopy.) The door was open just a little bit; the lights were on. No one else was in the Foreign Language Department; everyone was at lunch. I walked into the office – he wasn't there. I put the envelope containing the document and my floppy disk on the desk, and walked to the door. It had shut. (All doors in the FLD lock when shut, and you need a key to open them – the knobs don't have a latch.) I reached for my cell phone and realized I didn't have it on me. So I sat down at his desk and waited until people returned to the FLD after their two hour lunch. Since he had numerous pencils and pieces of paper on his desk, I composed a little poem to vent a few frustrations while waiting for my eventual rescuers. I'm going to included it – it isn't finished and I make no claims about whether or not it's “good poetry”, you may read at your own risk.

My smooth predilections were brought to a halt
by a student who claimed it was all my fault
that she wasn't learning anything worth knowing -
the things I was teaching appeared to be flowing
in one ear and out the other – not sticking or stopping.
I opened my mouth and prepared for the flip-flopping
of her opinion since my expressions weren't guarded -
offend your teacher in China and you'll be awarded
a failing grade. But she wasn't finished (just flustered -
probably checking to see if the courage she'd mustered
had melted.) stating, “I think we should do more speaking in class
and less listening.” Shocked - I should have waited, let it pass,
and let my internal censor work- and inspired, I said,
“then you should speak – so far today I know I have led
well, tried to start three discussions, but class was silent -
were you just tired or bored or did you not know what I meant -
were the directions confusing, did I go through them too fast?”
But she didn't answer my question – she let it go past
and stood there smiling,

36 hours – 34 hours
Taught my last class of the week; received conformation from Patricia (my boss, who was sitting in on my class as part of a study) of a rumor that I'd heard from Stephanie (from Australia, the other foreign teacher in the grad program.) The rumor? That our classes are finished on December 20 instead of January 10 (which is when the other programs and foreign teachers finish – suckers.) Since the last week is the final exam, I have three weeks to teach, a week of finals and then a paid six week vacation.

This past week has been hectic and sleepless; the details are all a blur. So I won't do this chronologically - I guess I'll have to do this stream-of-consciousness style. It might be hard to follow; it might be easy. I won't know (it will make perfect sense to me.)

I have gone to Wangfujing once a day for the past three days – Thursday to see if Matrix Revolutions was still playing (in English, with Chinese subtitles rather than dubbed Chinese with English subtitles) at a little theater hidden inside one of the two gigantic malls on Wangfujing Dajie (Dajie = Street) . It was. So most of the foreign teachers and I went to see it on Friday. The theater was modern, but the staff kept dragging gigantic strings of balloons from the back of the theater to the emergency exit at the front of theater. It was a little distracting and disturbing (where are they taking all those balloons?) We even attempted to track down the balloons after the movie, but alas, the balloons had disappeared. Saturday I went Christmas shopping, and I started out on Wangfujing. After a bit of browsing and a minor bit of hassling by “art students” (younger people, usually females, who wait on the street and sweet talk tourists into buying crappy art at ridiculously high prices – usually by claiming that a famous and obviously printed painting is their own work. They always claim to be students who need to sell their work to afford to attend school, and their ploy seems to work on tourists.) I moved onto the hutongs surrounding the Forbidden City. Hutongs are loads of fun – people yelling, “hallo – looka, looka!” at you as teem with the masses past their stores, kids barely able to walk trying to stick their little hands inside your pockets when they think you aren't watching, and no set prices on anything. I needed a “man-bag” to hold all my junk (map, Chinese-English dictionary, water bottle, etc.) that I might need when I go out and about, and I saw a nice North Face backpack in a shop as I teemed along. The first quoted price was 8 times what I ended up paying (after ten minutes of hard bargaining) and I still paid more than I should have. Of course I paid much, much less than I would have in the States, and I don't feel cheated, so I did well.

I taught my first twenty hour week this past week, and it did not go very well. 'Twas a long, long week, and by Friday it showed – I felt a little punch-drunk. Some classes are easier to teach than others, and some are just about impossible. Thankfully this semester is almost over – just six weeks to go. According to my boss, I'll be teaching Ph.D. candidates next semester, because I've been getting good reviews from some students that I'm teaching now. Students let you know what they think about you and your teaching methods here, there is absolutely no mincing of words. It's refreshing, as long as they say good things about you to your face.

I had another case of food poisoning this past week, but it wasn't anything that Immodium couldn't handle – more of an inconvenience than anything else. I can't wait until I finally adjust to the food here. I caught myself calling my flat “home” yesterday, and that's supposedly the sign of being settled (according to Mel and Mike, who were quoting an “written thingie – what's the word?” “Article?” “That's the word” written by “???” - it took them thirty minutes to agree that they didn't know who wrote it or where they'd seen it. So if any of you would like to come teach in China let me know – I can assure you that you're qualified.)

My life has simmered down at the moment; I need to start planning where I am going to go on Spring Festival ( a month long break that starts sometime in January – I'm not exactly sure, and getting details out of anyone here is almost impossible.) I welcome suggestions, if you have any.

On Sunday I attended the morning service at BICF, and afterwards went out for lunch with Jared and the Brassers at a little restaurant not at all close to Dongzhimen (a subway station.) I'd thought that you were never more than 500 feet from a restaurant when you were in Beijing, but I was proved wrong. We had to walk for at least half an hour before we stumbled across the little (tiny!) establishment. The food was spicy and good. After that I went back to my pad to prepare for my lessons – the topics for the week were food (grad students) and traveling (undergrads.) My feet had been sore for about a week; I took the time to examine them and found that I had some of the largest blisters that I have ever had – they were under old callouses. After a half hour of playing podiatrist, my feet were happier. I had purchased a thick wool pile (I used to call it shag, but my British neighbor, Melanie, took the time to point out what shag means in Britain. I won't go into it here, but it isn't good.] rug from IKEA that is more comfortable than my bed. I've contemplated sleeping on it, but it is a little too small for me to fit on comfortably. It is great for sore and tired feet, and it knocks the echo out of my room. I ended up hanging out with Melanie and Mike (from Nevada, teaches spoken English at the flight school, and is here only for one semester – his college has an exchange program with Beihang, so he gets credits for teaching here.) We watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, if I remember correctly.

Monday was typical – I have three classes on Monday – two in the morning and one at night. I do not have enough time between classes to go anywhere fun, so I reviewed my Chinese, cleaned my apartment, did laundry and lazed around before my night class. I also dropped off my first recordings at the editor's office – I had spent about three hours on Saturday and Sunday recording myself reading articles from College English onto a digital recorder. After that I was pretty bushed, so I went to bed early. That night at around 2 am, I was awakened by a noise – it sounded like someone was slamming a door. It went on and on (for about 5 minutes or so) but I did my best to ignore it, figuring that it was coming from my downstairs neighbors. The walls on my floor are soundproofed – I can't hear anything that happens on my floor, but the floors are not soundproofed – I often hear noises and conversations from below when I am in bed. So I figured it was no big deal and went back to sleep. I found out later that the noise was from students banging on the secure door on our floor (you need an RF fob or a password to get past the door and onto floor 14 – the door is designed to keep uninvited students off the foreign teacher floor.) The students are foreigners as well (the ones banging in the door were from France and Korea) and they live on floor 13. Their heating pipes had burst, their apartment was flooding, and the shut off valve was in Melanie's apartment. Apparently the hot water is pumped up through a separate set of pipes (one set for each apartment on the 14th floor) and then flow down to each apartment directly underneath. So I control the heat of everyone underneath me – if I shut the valve, everyone underneath me will be without heat The heat wasn't on yet – the maintenance people had been pressurizing the pipes to make sure they were okay.

On Tuesday I taught my one class, and then went to the Xizhimen (a main subway stop – it is a transfer station) area with Mike – he knew of a great DVD store where the prices are small but the selection isn't. I bought 25 DVDs – though 20 were in the 007 box set, and we ended up going to a jaio zi bar for dinner. Jaio zi are boiled dumplings that are usually filled with pork or beef and vegetables. Thanks to a slight language barrier (although Mike is almost fluent in Mandarin) we ended up getting enough jaio zi for ten people – it turns out that this place sold jaio zi by weight, so mike ordered one kilogram instead of one serving. I did my best, but that's just too much, even for two hungry foreigners.

I woke up early on Wednesday – I had a meeting with Prof. Zhang at nine about the classes that I was picking up from Ben (the teacher that left.) We discussed my schedule, and worked out times for my two new classes – their original times conflicted with other classes that I was teaching. I still have every afternoon free, but now my mornings are packed full – I have classes from eight to noon every day except Tuesday. After the meeting and my class, I went to Hepingmen market – it is an art market, and I bought a few posters and scrolls to put on my otherwise bare walls. Hepingmen market is a pretty sweet place – you can find every type of artwork imaginable and the supplies if you'd like to do it yourself. It's worth visiting if you're in Beijing, though it is a little touristy.

Thursday after my classes I went to Wangfujing (the main shopping district in Beijing)with Mike and Rob (teaching writing and oral English at the Freshman village, off campus – all freshmen are off campus, since Beihang is actively renovating the entire campus. Next year the freshman housing will be done, and they can move back onto campus. Rob is from Florida originally, though he taught in Hunan province last year.) Our goal was to visit the Foreign Language Bookstore, and we succeeded. I purchased a few novels and an excellent Chinese – English dictionary. Time was precious, since I had an accountability group that night with Jared and Mike Brasser. I'll be heading back to the bookstore when I have plenty of time to browse. On the way back to my apartment the light rain that had been falling all day began to freeze and eventually turned to snow. Branches fell from trees and all vertical surfaces were icy and slippery. Apparently Beijing doesn't see much snow or ice in the winter, and I am the only foreign teacher at Beihang who has experience walking on ice (Rob and I were the only ones who had seen snow before this storm.) Everyone, foreigners and natives alike, were walking around so slowly and hesitantly on some of the most textured ice that I've ever seen.

Friday I had 2 classes – one was with my new class, and the other was my largest class of grad students. The power was out in all the classrooms, and it made the rooms rather dark and sleepy. After class I went to the internet cafe, since the internet service that I have in my room has been kicking me off after about five minutes online. I met Jared at six pm – we went out to dinner and then to the theater. We saw The Diary of Anne Frank. It was performed in Chinese by a Chinese theater troupe. Since my knowledge of Chinese is limited (I know maybe thirty words) the two hours I spent in the theater seemed much, much longer – five years or so, I'd say. The acting was high school quality, and there was no set per se, just a few chairs, a sofa, a bed, and a table. The sound effects were the worst, though – at one point the actors hear the Nazis outside, and from the sounds we heard, there must have been at least 2000, all running in place. So it was pretty much a waste of my time.

I spent most of Saturday lazing around, watching Bond movies while working on my lesson plans for the upcoming week. I went out to Pizza Works with Rob for lunch – Pizza Works is an all you can eat pizza place, and they have all you can drink draft beer. It's a wonderful place – the pizza was good, the beer was okay. The pizza had very little sauce, and everyone seemed to pour ketchup on top of their pizza. I don't know which causes the other, but I tried it ala ketchup, and it wasn't terrible. I went out for dinner with Jared, M+C, and four other people that I didn't know. I do know them now, but since I only know their first names, I'm not going to record them here. We ordered too much food – we had 15 dishes (as a general rule, you order the same number of dishes as there are people present.) The food was really, really good – some of the best food I've had in China. After dinner we went back to the Brassers and played Cranium and a little Dutch Blitz (it's a card game – I hadn't heard of it before Saturday. It's fun in a world domination kind of way.) On the subway back I encountered the drunkest person that I have ever seen. The car was almost empty, and he was lolling and rolling around on the seat. This was strange, since everyone here is concerned with face, and being drunk on the subway is a great way to lose it. Also, he was all alone- this was the first lone drunk that I've seen- they're always in groups here. He got off at the first stop, and I was left wondering why.