In Kitty Heaven

This is Curiosity, my cat. We call her Curio for short (which in the dictionary means "piece of work" and that she is). She is twenty years old and I didn't think cats could live that long! My mom didn't want to break the news by email, so she called me from the States this week to tell me that my cat had gone to kitty heaven. It was such a sad day! For all of you who don't like cats I know you're thinking, "she's just a cat." But, not this one. This one was special.

When I was seven or eight years old we lived in Pennsylvania and my kitten had died, probably because I forgot to feed it one night (at least that's what I thought, and I felt so guilty thinking that the poor kitten's death was on my head). So, that week when my Sunday School teacher asked if there were any prayer requests I told my class about the loss of my kitten. The Sunday School teacher was so touched that she later told my mom that they had some extra cats and could give us one to replace the kitten. They already had a name for her (which is where Curiosity comes from) and she was a year old, but she was mine. Nineteen years later she was still mine. I hope someday I can find my old Sunday School teacher again and thank her for such a precious gift! For the last five summers before venturing off to college or China I would say goodbye to that cat, thinking it would surely be the last time. But, no, no. This time I didn't say goodbye, just cuddled her and told her I might see her soon, even though in my heart I knew it would be the last.

Curio and I had a special bond and for years I was the only one she would come to. In her old age, though, she became more affectionate with others. We were so surprised one day when she crawled into my dad's lap because he was the last person who tried to win her affections (he's still bitter about her peeing on his couch back when she was a young'un, and rightly so). For years she would sleep next to me at night. But, her haven was the outdoors. In her later years she didn't have claws or teeth but she still managed to bring "gifts" to the door in the form of mice, moles, and rabbits. She would beam as if she were so proud. One time she got stuck in the street sewer when we were in New York and it took several hours trying to get her out. After some of the fights she got with other animals and the fact she lived so long brought new meaning to a cat's nine lives.

Curio lived a good life and she lived it well. She was quite the world traveler as she moved with us from Pennsylvania to New York to Georgia to California to North Carolina. She traveled on two cross-country airplanes and she hated cars. She had two litters of kittens and outlived four dogs. At the end she couldn't hear, which means she thought you couldn't hear either and would meow as loudly as she possibly could. You could hear her meow crescendo from across the house. Dad used to make fun of her, but she didn't care. She didn't like the dogs either and instead of them chasing her, she would chase the dogs. They just wanted to be friends and didn't understand her desire for space. Of course, if a dog's nose was constantly up my butt I'd want some space too!

My grandma always tells me that when you get a pet, you get them for life. It's not something you can just change your mind about six months later. Twenty years is a long life. If it wasn't for my mama's constant care, she would have been dead a long time ago. After the vets put her to sleep they all signed a sympathy card, which was touching. She's in happier places now :)
Curio lives on in our hearts. Such a sentimental and cheesy thing to say, I know, but she was family. This is my tribute to her.

Of the Chinese New Year, Evil Spirits, and Good Luck

For today’s journal assignment I had students write about this topic: “During Spring Festival (the 15-day celebration of the Chinese New Year) there are a lot of traditions that talk of good luck, fortune, and happiness. Why are these things so important to the Chinese people?” I got a whole range of answers, and while most didn’t answer the actual question I was pleased to see how they took it to explain some of their traditions. For example, if someone dies, not only does it bring bad luck for the year, but there is a three-year mourning period in which the three Spring Festivals following you are not supposed to put the red banners on the door as is the custom (if you do put up banners, they will be white, to show everyone that they are still in the mourning period). Most of them referred to the way firecrackers were set off in the old days to drive away the evil spirits (they kept saying "the old days," but how much is this still a belief in modern China, I wonder?). There was one particular evil monster they were told about as children, named Nian, and the firecrackers were meant to scare him away. Not only is red the color of happiness, it also helps scare evil spirits away as they are afraid of the color. Evil spirits apparently are also afraid of lights, which is why on New Years Eve the family turns on all the lights in the house. They also take time to clean the whole house on the eve of the New Year, as this wipes out the bad luck from the previous year. They place coins in dumplings and whoever gets the dumpling with the coin gets good luck for the year, as do they if you eat a chicken foot. The word for "fish" and "surplus" have the same pronunciation, so they place two fish in the middle of the table and have the saying that “every year we have fish (surplus)” to mean that every year they are prosperous and have good luck When asked WHY they do these things, the students simply said that it’s what the generation before did. One girl talked about how it is what the ancestors passed on, and being that ancestors are so important in Chinese culture this does make sense.

I'll let them explain it to you:

“Our country has a long history, about 5000 years. So, we have lots of valuable customs. We treasure our customs because our ancestor have passed them from one generation to another. We must keep it as the most important thing and give it to our posterity. In fact, our traditions have great happiness. A group of people sits around the table and talk about our family from long ago. We consider our tradition as our habit. Every year we hold the same festival until now, maybe for thousands of years. Our ancestors had generated it to us. We should treasure it.” (Amy)

“Spring Festival is the most important festival to the Chinese. It is not a tradition just because it was Chinese life. In the old times, China had very many people, you know. We didn't have as much ability as modern people. So, every day was very hard. Because there were so many people we did not have enough clothes, food, and so on. People had to save a lot of food or other good things for the winter. In the winter, many people will die. Old people didn’t know why, so, they think there was a monster called “Nian”. In order to dodge the monster we should put red banners on our doors, and in order to scare it we should light the fireworks. For next year we will eat dumplings- they look very much like money. So, we have these kinds of traditions. In order to live.” (Martin)

"During the Spring Festival, most people would wear their new and beautiful clothes- it symbolizes a new beginning in the new year, leaving the old and unhappy thing behind. In ancient times there is a ghost called “Sui” He always affected people’s lives and did harm against people. Then the manager who charges the sky (?) gives money to the people in order to get rid of the ghost. Then that traditional custom passed down called “Ya sui qian” by descendants. It means "pass the ghost". So, many people woud give and receive money during the Spring Festival. "(Sonya)

So much talk of red banners on the doorpost and the passing of the ghost reminds me a lot of Moses' charge to the ancient Israelis on the eve of the last plague, and the forecast of the future lamb that would bring a real New Beginning.

Kashgar Comes to Siping

Who would have thought? Kashgar, a small town on the very edge of northwest China, a hop skip and jump from the "Stan" countries (Pakistan, Kazakhstan, etc.)...and Siping, a small town on the edge of northeast China just a few hours from North Korea. Together in one place. :)

The other night I ran into my friend Jason going to dinner with some Chinese teachers and I joined them, knowing they were going to a Muslim restaurant. Most Muslim restaurants in China are noodle places run by the Hui people, another minority Muslim group in China. So, this is what I was expecting. Instead they took me to a Xinjiang restaurant! I walked into the restaurant and was overjoyed to see familiar atlas silk (see above) on the walls and familiar replicas of Uighur instruments from Xinjiang. Not only this, but the owner told us that he and his family are from Kashgar!! There is a woman there about my age, maybe a little bit older, along with a little boy, a mother, and a few men. We ordered way too much food and they probably already think that we Westerners eat too much, but that was mostly because I kept messing up the order and rather than taking back the food because I didn't want them "losing face" I kept adding to it. Oh well. It's fun to look at a menu and say to the waiter, "you choose! what's good here?" My favorite plate is called "Da Pan Ji" (translated literally to mean big plate of chicken) and Nan bread. I hope to make this a weekly visit to begin forming relationships and maybe get help with some Uighur language skills.

On the other side of things, while some of us were in Tonghua this weekend (a small town literally 30 miles from North Korea where some of our friends live), we chanced upon a rather large mosque. The men cooking barbecue in front of the mosque were wearing the familiar doppas (caps) and were from Xinjiang. Of course I just had to go talk to them. They were a little hesistant talking to a woman, and I wouldn't have tried if the other American guys weren't there with me. One of my American friends with us was trying to buy this chewy kind of candy from the one of the Xinjiang men. He thought he heard 2.5 kuai (about 30 cents) per jin (half a kilogram), but when he went to pay for the 2 jin he ordered the man told him it was 60 kuai!!! (almost eight dollars!) When my friend tried to explain that he had misunderstood him and couldn't get the man to come down, the man got so mad that he grabbed him by the shirt and looked like he was about to punch him in the face. That was the end of that visit as we all tried to slowly meander out of the situation. The man saw us later that day and was glaring at us. It was an honest misunderstanding on the part of my American friend, but was also deceitful on the part of the man- eight dollars for candy, are you crazy?

So, we get the best of both worlds.

Sheep Butts!!!

"If Your House Was on Fire..."

I want to let you hear from one of my students named Syen (he picked his own "English" name, can you tell?). For the journal free-write of the week my writing students were asked to imagine that their house was on fire and they could only save three things. All of the students had the same answers and said they would save their photos, money, cell phones, etc. or they would explain steps they would take to get out of the fire (China's version of "stop, drop, and roll."). And then there was Syen's:

"If one day I wake up in the middle of the night and my house was on fire, first thing I'll take with me is my clothes. The reason is that I don't want to be naked outside at all. If I naked run out the house, I must be snapped on the front page! The second thing I'll take is my cell phone. I have to text somebody or call someone for help by my cell phone. Also, it's very hard for me without cell phone. My girlfriend is waiting my messages. The third thing is my homework for Miss Sessoms. Though it was a fire accident I don't wanna lose my points! If there was a fire, I'm very glad my dog has already died for many years ago. If it was still alive, because it's crazy, it must will be burnt. I can not take it with me as one of the three things."

:) :) :) :) :)

Hengyang Favorites

I think I dug myself into a hole. So, to remedy that I want to highlight:

“Reasons why, even though I am loving it in Siping,

my heart is still in Hengyang.” :)

• Familiar locals: corner store guy, regular restaurants “out back”, the fruit lady, gatekeeper in his pajamas, giggling motorcycle taxi drivers at the bus stop, shoe shine ladies, copy people, Muslim noodle, the electricians (why do we need a committee of 6 to fix my sink?), the man who brings us our cooking gas (one time disappeared with the gas tank and didn’t come back for a month!), should I go on?
  
• Mrs. Kuang. She was our waiban (foreign affairs office) and was like a grandmother to us. She has been working with foreign teachers for twenty years before she retired last year! While at home last term I was able to interview a woman who had been a teacher at our school in 1986! We found that while a lot has changed in Hengyang over the space of 20 years, we were able to share delightful stories about this precious woman.


• The students. Oh, the students. There was one particular class (class 6!) that came over quite regularly- cooking, playing games, cooking, watching movies, cooking. Cooking parties usually lasted for at least four hours! :) :) My time with them was precious! One night one of the girls was having a birthday party in my apartment and her brother got locked in my bathroom because the lock had jammed. Forty-five minutes later we had exhausted all efforts and my teammate ended up hacking down the door with a butcher cleaver. :) She kept saying this was a birthday she’d never forget. :)
• The Elephants Upstairs. This is what I used to call my two guy teammates who lived on the floor above me. Whenever students were over it sounded like there were large elephants upstairs. I loved that sound because it meant the presence of people having a good time. One time one of the guys who lived directly above me was teaching the students the tango or some cha-cha-cha in his apartment- "party through the roof" takes literal meaning here :). I miss the sound of the elephants.
  
• Learning about true community. I have a real family there and leaving them was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Ever. It has been a joy walking with them in their journeys and learning from their questions and insights into Life. They know who they are.
• The fact that they don’t speak standard Chinese and glory in their own Hengyang dialect (this may seem like a contradiction from why I like Siping, but you will discover that China is a land of paradox). Deep hearted laughs when we attempt to say a few words in their heart language make it so much fun! I laugh because on a bus, anywhere, everyone is yelling (yes, yelling) into their phones because they can’t hear each other…and neither can they understand each other because every other phrase is yelled “Huh? Huh? Shenme? (what?). Ah, the character of that place!


• The eight-year-old boys who come marching up the stairwell and banging on Ekren’s door as loud as they can to ask if he would come play baseball with them. I love arguing (quite logically, I might add) with one of the boys about silly things :)


• Team dinner nights- during my second year in Hengyang we started team nights that became like a potluck. Not much organization, so sometimes we’d end up with some of the most random combinations, or all five of us would come with dessert. :) :) The next year we got things together and had some of the best dinners ever- all the more true when you’re attempting to make western food in China, especially with ovens the size of toasters :) . Sometimes you have to be creative. :)
  
• The food. Before I came to China I never ate spicy food, now I find myself missing Hunan’s famous spicy cuisine. I miss the guys on the team having a contest as to who can withstand the most spicy in hot pot restaurants.
  
• The fact that there is NO central heating. I do not say this lightly. Because it causes one to reflect on what’s REALLY important. When we are stripped to the bare necessities what are the things that really matter? It means you have to sit closer together to stay warm, it means you always have people in your home because the more people the warmer, both in body and in heart. It allows you to truly empathize and brings solidarity. It is why I really appreciate something simple like the heat that much more. While I enjoy the “luxury” of the north (even though it’s bitterly cold outside until May), I would love to brave the southern winters again :)

While my heart is in Hengyang, I’m also learning to love Siping, and anticipating life in Xinjiang if that’s where I am to be…and I’m realizing that I don’t have to define favorites or choose one place over another- each has unique characteristics that cause me to love the whole of China that much more. :)

Top Ten Reasons Why Siping is the Place to Be

Let's try this one more time. :) I have a webblog now (a few weeks ago I began one and then China conveniently blocked the whole website-- figures :) ), so if you want to hear China stories in a more up-to-date version, feel free to read and leave comments here. I affectionately call this site The Story of My Journey.

Top ten reasons why Siping is the place to be :
10. It’s never boring in ol’ Siping. With a large team of 10 adults (plus one honorary member) and three children, there’s always stuff going on- hanging out with the guys at Korean barbecue or Chinese hot pot, or studying with the girls, or watching movies with the gang like “Akeelah and the Bee” (a must-see for all you feel-good movie fans- this spelling stuff is hard!), or watching Sonny and Robb play Scrabble with more intensity than I’ve ever seen… :). This week we began placing our bets on March Madness, which, according to Seth is the best sports team event ever and according to Sarah is just dumb. We have made our predictions and placed our bet (an entire $1.25, ya'll!!) and after the first round I am winning! Sorry, Duke.
9. Creativity of the students. Especially in their writing. I am teaching Creative Writing this year (Hooray!). Teaching paragraph formation and how to write research papers can be boring (yes, we all had to go through that back in the day) and mafan 麻烦(troublesome), but creative writing, now that’s something to write about… :). Stay tuned for some of their published entries!
8. When it snows here the “man power” comes out. Even horses help. Everyone just grabs a shovel and starts clearing the highway. There are no snow plows here. Not in “dry” Siping. Spare shovel, anyone? Now the snow is melting and we have rivers (yes, rivers) of mud here :).
7. They speak standard Chinese here (meaning their Mandarin is easiest to understand). Apparently, the most standard speakers in all of China! I can actually understand what the screaming fight at the market is about! Still can’t understand most of what people are saying, but “Hakuna Matata!” Instead of learning a local dialect (because there’s not really one), I can concentrate on Mandarin—with added Norwegian, Russian, Korean, and Japanese words (for my colleagues). :)
6. Benefits: Fridays off from teaching! (and Saturday and Sundays too), we have a maid who cleans our floors and brings hot water to our door every morning, and we are treated very well by the waiban 外办 (foreign affairs office). The other day he (the waiban) stood with me at the police station for 2 hours (!) helping me get my resident permit! They would say it is just their job, but it’s so much more than that! Also, you can take a taxi anywhere in the city for only 5 kuai!!! (60 cents)
5. Probably the nicest train station I’ve seen in China! I nearly fell over when I saw that at the train station they made people stand in line single file when waiting to get their tickets checked! People just don’t do that in China (which isn’t bad cuz they’re cool about it). Now they have “voluntary stand-in-line day” on the eleventh of each month. They even have mascots in Beijing that run around saying “stand in line, stand in line” to encourage preparation for when all the laowai 老外 (foreigners) come to town for the Olympics. Which I think is funny :)
4. Lesson planning together. Even after four years of teaching, I still don’t know what I’m doing. At all. We have little groups. For example, those who teach Creative Writing meet in a group, plan together, delegate responsibilities (one person makes the worksheet, another makes all the copies, etc.) and are all on the same page. At first I though this would kill my individuality, but no, no. It just allows for me to be a better teacher.
3. The endless supply of things, like from Mary Poppins: Seth’s endless supply of coffee and energy, and Jonny’s and Sonny’s (you’d think their names would rhyme, but they don’t—funny thing about English) endless supply of funnyness on situations, as well as Josiah's endless request for "funny stories" (he's 5 and apparently our stories aren't funny enough).
2. Playing “Twister” with the Chinese students was one of the most delightful things I’ve ever done! Hee hee! Left hand green, ya’ll!


And the #1 reason why Siping is "da bomb!"--
There’s central heating!!! Oh, you have no idea! No more writing on the board with gloves, no more heated blankets at night, no more torturous trips between the bedroom and the hot shower, no more five layers, no more hot chocolate (okay, we have to keep the hot chocolate because it's chocolate!), no more dropping chopsticks because our numb fingers cant' get around them, no more...well, until April when the central guy who controls the central heat turns it off. Snowing? No matter, heat goes off in April. Blazing hot in October? No matter, heat comes on. I'm not one to understand it, but I'm warm now :) :) :).
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Haven’t had a chance to meet many students yet, but when relationships begin to happen, I know that they will be at the top of this list. They always are.