I’d like to offer some kind of excuse for why I can’t seem to keep up with a blog. Maybe a good enough reason is that I don’t really do it for myself—more to keep other people updated. And the last month or so I just haven’t been very good at keeping anyone updated on life here. I could also argue that my internet isn’t that great and that the place I live likes to block stuff on the internet all the time.

 

Now it’s already the end of June and I’m sitting on my couch in my mostly packed apartment. The last few weeks have been crazy. June showed up with 90+ degree weather and some amazingly smoggy days. It’s also been hectic to clean out my apartment and pack up my life so I can move in the fall. I’ve accumulated a lot in the last 3 years so that’s part of it. The other part is that most of my “stuff” is in Asia now, not in the States.

 

Recently, I was able to make a quick visit to the campus I’ll be living on next year. It was a great trip and I am really looking forward to the changes that will come next year. For the first time in my Asian life, I’ll have a “shoilet” in my apartment. (That’s what we affectionately call the Asian style bathroom). There isn’t a tub, just a shower head on the wall (so everything gets wet when you shower). I have been a little spoiled in Beijing and now I will have to buy a squeegie in order to have a dry life next year. Once I hit my campus in August, I’ll show you what life is like there.

 

The end of the year is always a little bittersweet. Teaching (especially teaching a foreign language overseas) can be very exhausting and by the time you hit the last month you are just ready to have a break. Things at my school this semester have been a little tension-filled as well, so I’m ready to leave that behind. There are so many other things though which are hard to say goodbye to. I love my teammates and they’ve become family to me. I know them so well and I’ve spent such an intense, intentional year with them. It’s strange to know that when I return in the fall, they will not be returning with me (although, two will still be in China so I’ll get to see them sometimes).

 

We fly to the States on Tuesday June 30^th and I’ll be there until August 7^th. I hope I’ll get to see some of you while I’m there for the summer!

 

 

The Guardian is doing an awesome series of articles on China that are worth checking out. There are a lot of different kinds of stories so browse around and educate yourself about what's going on in the world

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/china-at-the-crossroads

Sometimes there is a fine line between our perception and our reality. It’s been interesting to live here over the last few weeks as “H1N1” becomes a buzzword worldwide. I’m still trying to grasp onto a balance of perceived threat versus actual reality.

 

Recently, a local college student was faced with a few dilemma’s. She was invited to be a tour guide around the city for some people coming from a university in the States. Unfortunately, she was informed by her school that she might not be able to stay in her dorm if she was going to be interacting with people from the States. She was also told by some of her friends that they wouldn't be spending time with her anymore if she was willingly going to be around people who “could possibly” be hosting the dreaded virus.

 

A couple weeks ago, there were some visitors in from the States who had come to see a friend. They passed the check points at the airport and assumed the rest of their time here would just be tourism and fun with their friend. Later though, someone from their flight apparently showed signs of sickness and everyone on their flight was tracked down and put into quarantine. They spent the remainder of their days here at a hotel that was being used strictly for quarantine.

 

I read an article today about a married couple that was coming here to participate in a wedding. Their flight schedule happened to include a layover in the Cancun airport for two hours. When they arrived there they were checked by airport security to make sure they were healthy (and they passed through just fine). When they arrived at the airport here they were immediately approached by officials and quarantined, even though they didn’t have a temperature or show any signs of sickness. They were told that their passport stamp from the layover in Mexico made it impossible for them to enter the country without being quarantined first. They asked if they could simply get on a plane and go back home but were told they could not. They spent seven days in a hotel in the middle of nowhere being watched and worried over. They missed the wedding.

 

As an outsider, it seems a bit extreme to go to these kind of measures when the virus isn’t even an issue here at the present time. Then I started thinking about what happened several years ago when a respiratory virus killed people all over the country and seemingly threatened to wipe out a huge percentage of the population. Hindsight is 20/20 and maybe the officials are just trying to keep something similar from happening again.

 

A few weeks ago our school passed out an announcement about the virus that was giving advice for how to prevent it. It talked about cleanliness and other similar things. The kicker was the comment that suggested one to “stay away from crowds.” I live in a city of over 16 million people and the population density doesn’t really allow for you to avoid crowds. I can only imagine the panic that would occur if this flu started to spread here.

 

Apparently, fear is powerful.

That sometimes we stalk people and take pictures with them too.. because when a girl is wearing a shirt like this one... you've gotta capture it because it isn't as funny if you just tell it as a story.

I hope whoever made this shirt knows just how funny it is..

There are a lot of foreigners in China. There are also a whole lot of Chinese people. If you think about the ratio of Chinese nationals to foreigners, it's probable that a huge chunk of the people here have never seen a foreigner. There is another chunk that have seen a few in passing but never talked to one. It is the minority, I would presume, who interact often with foreigners.

Because of this, many people are very often excited to see foreigners. So what do they do when they see us? They shout "HELLO!!" and chuckle..  they stop us and ask to get a picture with us... or they try to give us their phone numbers and say they'd love to practice their English or teach us Chinese. Many more just watch us and stare.

You might not realize that this is my reality here. It would be easier if I blended in better.. but I have several things working against me in this area: my light-colored hair, my "big" eyes, my "big" nose. Those are the things people always comment on. I wish I would've kept track from the beginning how many people I've taken pictures with over the years. It would be a scary amount. I have no idea how many photo albums I'm in all over China as the token foreigner that somebody met.

I have some proof...

On my recent trip to Taiyuan, we went to a local park that had some random rides. We gathered quite the crowd around the one place... they just wanted to watch the foreigners do crazy stuff.

Last time I went and got my hair washed, the girls at the place got really giddy and wanted tons of pictures. While my girl was drying my hair, she had her friend grab her cell phone and take a picture of her doing the foreigners hair. We also got a huge group shot afterwards because they were all just so excited they had spent an hour with a bunch of foreign girls.

It's hard to understand this sometimes because I grew up in a diverse place.

I'm starting to understand it though because I stare at people here too. Especially foreigners-- seriously, every time we're out and we see one we whisper to each other "oh my goodness.. there's a foreigner!!"

There isn't a lot of anonymity here. Makes you realize how important it is to be a Light.

Four of us went to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia for our little May holiday vacation. It was quite the adventure. We left school pretty early on Thursday so we could get dinner before our flight. The new terminal in Beijing has a BURGER KING and a STARBUCKS! Such a nice treat. We got to the airport and our flight wasn't on the departures board-- yikes. We were told "maybe it is delayed?" and were sent to check-in. Our flight was delayed because of weather in Hohhot so we had lots of extra time at the airport. We boarded our 50 minute flight and were up in the air soon enough experiencing a little turbulence. They announced that we had 20 minutes until we landed so we all started getting ready for that. About ten minutes later, they came back on the intercom and said that "Due to weather in the area, we are being re-routed to Beijing." ...Uhhh.. that's not really what we were hoping for. So we turned around and went back to Beijing. We stayed on the plane and sat on the runway for at least an hour.. nobody seemed to care. If we were on a plane in the US, people would've been freaking out and getting a little angry. The locals on the plane here though just took it in stride and didn't get upset at all. We eventually took off again and there was much rejoicing when our tires actually hit the runway in Hohhot. Too bad I don't get the miles for flying there twice!

For the national holiday on Friday, we rode bikes out to the mountains for a picnic. This was one of the best days we've had all spring. It was about a 15km ride. We had to stop at one point to get someone's tire fixed. There was just a few guys set up on the side of the road with all their gear to fix stuff-- and apparently they live in that little Gehr.
 
When we got to the mountains we were amazed by how beautiful it was. The path into the park was lined with trees and lilac bushes..so gorgeous. The blue sky and the green trees were just so phenomenal.


The hike up the mountain was fun. It gave us a great view of the city and the local area. There were some wierd views too though. This huge "lion" statue was definitely special. And back behind that there is a huge section of houses that look like some US subdivision-- out in the middle of nowhere...a little bizarre.


We rode around the city too and Becky and I took a walk around one day too-- we found this gem. I would love to know what the word "Salubrious" means..   and I'm pretty sure I'd love to live here since there is a "group of healthy men" there apparently


Something else we found on our trek around was people selling some random stuff on the street. I think I've mentioned before that it appears as though anyone can sell anything anywhere here. This little station wasn't manned though so who knows if you pay or it you can grab it and run.

Our trip was only 3 days but we had such a great time. We had a coffee night on Saturday and a bunch of students came over to hang out. We had some awesome conversations and there was also a little scary story time, impromptu rapping and a little interpretive dance. Quite the event. It was great to make some new friends and just get some fresh air in another city!

We had "Sports Day" at school this week and it was actually pretty entertaining. For most of the morning, different classes competed in races around the track. It was really great to watch how enthusiastic the kids were as they ran and also to see their classmates being supportive. The students would line the side of the track and scream out "Jia You" with every ounce of energy they had. (Jia you means "add oil" and it's what they use to cheer people on). My favorite thing to watch was the students who would gather at the finish line waiting for their classmates to reach it. Most of the runners would get to the end and collapse from exhaustion. There were always two students waiting to pick up their friend and help them walk it off. The way that the students were there to support each other was such a beautiful thing to watch.
More pictures to come...

I've never tried out the health care system in Asia before this year.

When I was in Thailand, I went to the hospital for a post-food poisoning visit. I had contracted a nasty virus from food poisoning and spent a good chunk of my time in Thailand feeling miserable and medicated. The doctor asked me some questions and gave me some antibiotics. Thanks Thailand.. for being so very thorough.

Recently, I had a nice little visit to the western hospital in Beijing and I was really impressed by how nice it was and by how much cheaper it was to get a million tests run. They didn't find anything wrong with me which made it mostly a waste of my money but at least I know I'm not hosting some nasty parasite.

This morning I had the joy of going to another clinic.. the official clinic for Foreign Experts. This is where you go to get paperwork done for your visa. Since I'll be changing provinces next year, I have to go through my visa/residence paperwork all over again. The locals here are very particular about their paperwork. Everything gets stamped and signed more than seems necessary. If you don't have things done properly you risk having to do it all over again (which is a whole lot of "ma fan" -- trouble).  Doctors in the States always question why you need certain tests and why everything has to be done a very specific way... when you get your health paperwork done in the States it usually doesn't get done correctly on the first shot. To avoid all of the drama and the cost back in the States is well worth your time. So this morning I went to the clinic with my two teammates who will also be staying in China next year. This was the easiest, quickest thing I've ever experienced in China. Things here are usually either a) difficult or b) confusing..  or something the scary C) BOTH. We had to fill out a little paper about our health history then we visited a few different rooms to get stuff done.
Station One: Blood drawing- one little tube that took about 30 seconds.. very good nurses
Station Two: EKG- actually really funny-- they don't use sensors that stick to you.. it's little suction things that instead get you wet. Result- 78 beats per minute.. is that a little fast? I think I was a little weirded out by the room I was in and perhaps that sped it up.
Station Three: Chest x-ray.. taken by the biggest xray machine I've ever seen (not that I've seen a lot)
Station Four: Blood pressure (seriously,  they had a whole station just for that)
Station Five: Height and weight-- they had this awesome machine that is digital and uses some crazy censor thing to check your height-- it said I was 163 cm.. with my shoes on..   no idea how tall that is
Station Six: It said "ENT" on the paper-- but all they did was have me do a little eye test and she looked in my throat for two seconds...  not a very thorough check-up. And since when do your eyes come under the "ENT" category?

We were in and out of all of this in about 20 minutes which was nice and it was less than $100 to get it all done!

Everytime we went into a different room I was wondering what it would be like to have that kind of job..  to sit in a room by yourself and just check people's blood pressure all day. And the thing is.. everyone who comes there is foreign, so many of them probably don't speak Chinese. I can't imagine having a job where you do only one thing over and over and you can't even talk to the people you're doing it to. I think I'll keep my job.

And hopefully there won't be any more health checkups in the near future.


         

Recently, I spent three days in Taiyuan visiting my friend Tanya. I added a bunch of photos from that trip:  photos.valeriedolby.com

So check them out!

I always tell my team about these chinese face masks I love to use. I thought I had described them accurately but apparently I hadn't. Jocelyn bought us each one to use after we had team dinner last night. The girls were all shocked that they had to put an actual mask on their face (not just some liquid that would solidify like a normal mask would). These look a little creepy when you see them in real life. At one point, my neighbor stopped by and was humored by how ridiculous we looked so he told his family and some of them came over to check it out. This ended with their youngest son asking if HE could try one out. Nice.