one month in...

I’ve been in China over a month now. In many ways it’s a lot like Cambodia. You can throw chicken bones on the floor, wear clothes that don’t match, spit on the street, and drive however and on whichever side of the road suits your fancy. In a lot of ways it’s different, there are roads, and cars, women wear high heals, and everyone has a washing machine. Sometimes this combination throws me off. I have sort of compartmentalized my life into Cambodia and America. For example, staring, in Cambodia I’m a foreigner and everyone stares so I’m used to it. But I’m used to it when I go to an open air market with a mud floor where people are throwing fish at me. Not so much in.. say … an international airport. Or WalMart. China does have a plethora of locations where vendors are enthusiastic about their wares in a more outdoorsy kind of environment, by the area of the city where I live is not one of those. Because it is so developed my brain goes into America mode, where large numbers of people staring at you mean you’ve probably broken some important social convention. I definitely don’t get stared at nearly as much here, but because of the setting it is still very strange to me. Also, I work mainly with other Americans. They are wonderful people, but being American they kind of assume I know how Americans are supposed to act and to be honest, I’ve kind of forgotten. It’s not that I’ve completely forgotten, when someone goes to shake my hand I don’t bow to them or recoil in terror, I’m just very unsure of my social skills. These were never really my strong point before, and two years in completely different culture hasn’t helped. When small children hear more than on language growing up, they will usually be able to speak both languages and distinguish between the two, but if they hear the languages mixed together, they become language confused, unable to distinguish grammar and vocabulary of the languages. I think I have become culture confused. I’m sometimes not sure what is appropriate; I do or say something and then realize that isn’t something you can do in Western culture. For example while I would never call a person I know fat, I will sometimes refer to overweight people as fat in the same way that I might refer to someone who has brown hair as a brunette. Luckily most people here can’t understand me and if they could they probably wouldn’t mind. But this tendency does bother foreigners a bit.

So aside from this sort of reverse culture shock I’m doing well. I’ve picked up some Chinese, enough to go shopping, order take out, and refuse offers of peach flavored condoms. However, I still don’t understand the majority of things that are said to me, so depending on the level of importance I can say I don’t understand, or use elaborate sign language, or simply smile and nod. That skill has come in quite handy over the years.

So China. I live in Kunming, which is surrounded by mountains. There is virtually no place in the city where you can’t see mountains. There are a couple WalMarts, a German equivalent of a Sam’s Club. There are a couple of lakes and several beautiful parks. There isn’t a lot of old, however. They tear down any building over 50 years old and build new ones. People can actually own their own homes, but if those homes are more than 50 years old the government will tear them down. Kunming is by far one of the nicest places in China. It is a very wealthy town, especially the area where I live. I do admire the Chinese devotions to the aesthetic. This is a new development, in the past all the building were the same sort of industrial design. But now almost every apartment complex (and there are lot of those) can be distinguished by it’s own unique colors. The upside of everyone having a job is that you have get creative in giving people jobs to do. There are sweepers everywhere. They sweep every inch of roadway, including six lane overpasses. Sometimes you see people scrubbing road dividers. There is a definite if not love then appreciation of nature. They go to great lengths to ensure greenery is everywhere. A lot of this has to do with the government’s energy reduction campaign. But like all countries, it is dealing with modernization. China is now a first world country, as the 60 mile traffic jam outside of Beijing proved, but it conflicts with a lot of cultural values. It is basically, like America, a nation trying to balance it’s love of nature with it’s love of tall buildings.

A typical day for me in China goes a little something like this:
My alarm goes off at 6:30, but it’s still dark, so I am unmotivated to move.

I finally get up sometime before 7 and have breakfast, usually yogurt and fruit

At work by 8:00, molding young minds. *Read: trying to get them to put periods at the end of their sentences.I have 6 students, Koreans, a “Canadians,” (Canada only requires one year of residency to get citizenship, so a lot of Chinese move there for a year, to get their kids Canadian passports, people with Chinese passports can’t attend international schools), Japanese, and some who are have parents from two different countries. While I only have 6, I work with all of first grade, which is a lot of fun. Some kids speak 3 or 4 languages, some are new to China, it’s a really diverse group.

I try to pack a lunch, but that doesn’t always happen. They have Chinese and Korean lunch at school.
Chinese food is a lot of meat and veggies stir fried, the rice is just a filler, eat at the end of the meal.
Korean food is basically spicy pickled cabbage called kimchi that is used to season everything. The other day there were kimchi burritos. If you are ever offered this particular dish, it would be a good time for you suddenly develop a burrito allergy.

There are usually meetings after school, so when I get home I play with my cat and listen to music to recharge my brain.

In the evenings I make dinner, or go to dinner with friends, or go to the park, or watch tv online.

That’s pretty much my life.


In the exciting news department I just bought my ticket to go the US for Christmas! I’ll be there from the 19th – 29th.