Utopian Society

Well I'm home. This is my final blog post until I travel again. I have to say, it's weird. Maybe because this time I'm not just "visiting", but this is actually going to be my reality for awhile, and that's making it difficult to adjust to the States.

Things I won't miss about China:
- Fireworks. At any time of day.
- Risking my life everyday to and from work. Thank you traffic/construction hazards.
- Lack of quality control. Finally I can depend on stuff, for the most part, not breaking or being already broken!
- Chinese business mentality. The idea that everything revolves around money. It's really hard to do anything for goodwill when someone is always trying to make a profit.

Things I'm looking forward to:
- Reese's and bagels and just yummy food that does not create "China tummy".
- Children not peeing on the sidewalk.
- Grown men not peeing on the sidewalk.
- Toilets in public areas. Restaurants, malls, parks. (No more squatty potties!)
- And for that matter, toilet paper at the toilets in public areas.
- Driving!
- Dancing!

So, I've done a little bit of traveling, and I always try to take the best things from different places with me. Of course, that's not always possible. But if I were to create my own little Utopian Society, perhaps on my own island, these are definitely the things that I would bring with me from each country ... (There's a few more on China, but I also spent the most time there out of any country)

China:
- Shopping Carts. All four wheels are slippery and make it easy to slide around people, instead of having to lift up the back of the cart in order to maneuver. It really does make a difference!
- Hair Salons. You get to lay down for a 15 minute head massage while they wash your hair. And there's even a little pillow for your head. PLUS your hair is stays straight for about 3 days, which is pretty exciting for the humidity out there. Alice and Shelley are laughing here. I think they were a little embarrassed that I took the picture.

- Local produce person who slices the pineapple for you (and other things, but I mostly just buy pineapple). I never eat the pineapple if I have to cut it myself. The guy will also slice it up into bitesize chunks, but I thought it looked really cool like this.

- Ayi. My cleaning lady. All the ayis are magic, I swear! How they can keep things spotless in China is beyond me! There's so much dirt in the air that settles daily on the floor. It's SO hard to keep clean!!


Mexico:
- Food
- Music
Enough said.

Guatemala:
- Xela Pan. It's the bakeries, especially up in the city of Quetzaltenango. Best bread, no question.

Germany:
Architecture. Unless the houses are built on the colorful hillsides of Guanajuato, Mexico, I think all villages should be built like the ones in Bavaria.

Vietnam:
- Scarves. Especially all the kinds of unity scarves. So much material. So colorful, and so warm!

- Coffee. Best cup of joe I've ever had.

Cambodia:
Buses. Their long distances buses have attendants that serve fresh baked goods. And the TVs play karaoke.
Tuctucs. They're like open air motorized carriages. They're zippy, and refreshing. Nothing like the blue boxes of death in China.


Cambodian tuctuc.

 

Chinese blue-box-of-death.

 



So that's my list. Do you have any to add?

How to Export a Dog from China ***Edited***

Because you know, this is a topic that I think you will all find useful someday.

1. Perseverance. When they say no ... Start asking for options.
2. When they say there are no options, start suggesting options.
3. When they say no to all your options, look around the room. There are likely other foreigners there who have experienced and bypassed a similar problem.
4. If there are no foreigners who have experienced your problem, wait half an hour. Undoubtedly, one will come.
5. When securities guards laugh because you're back for the 5th time, give them a good humored smile. Even if you're annoyed, they will be able to bump you up in the line.
6. Enjoy it when your taxi driver hums, whistles and sings, when he sees that you're stressed. And remember how sweet he is when he follows it up with a belch or other bodily noises.
7. Even if you feel like a burden on others (friends, locals), always accept any help. You're going to need it.

And for the actual list of things you need to do. I'm actually considering sending what I write to the airlines and animal hospitals. This seems to be the standard procedure from all the other hospital visitors in Shanghai, but for some reason it's not all written down in one place, so just when I thought I had done everything, I kept getting new surprises. And when China makes you wait to do most things until 7 days before you fly, it can become quite stressful to get everything done!

1 year - 1 month before you fly

1. Check with health and immigration websites about the country you are flying into. Make sure you comply with their standards too!
2. Complete initial health check. First call authorities and find out what pet hospitals will be approved by immigration. For flying out of Shanghai, the only approved hospital for immigration paperwork is ShenPu Pet Hospital. If possible, have all medical-ness done with them.
3. Get your dog vaccinated for Rabies. If possible, also have him micro-chipped at the same time. (If you live in a rural town like me, the microchip was not possible at the same time and had to be done in Shanghai).
4. If you did not get your vaccination at the "approved state run hospital" make sure you have a transfer document that says that an approved hospital has looked over the documentation. Always have a red stamp on it when you're in China!

***If your dog does not get the rabies vaccination at least 30 days before you fly (but within a year of your flying date) you will have to wait a month.

7 days before you fly:

1. Take your pet to the ShenPu Pet Hospital in Shanghai (or whichever ONE hospital is approved for doing immigration paperwork.)
2. Specify if your dog will be flying as carryon, baggage, or cargo (there might be different paperwork).
3. If you have all the right documents (blue pet passport book, rabies vaccination with a red stamp and any transfer documents necessary) the pet hospital will fill out all paperwork the for the Animal Healthy Certificate.
4. This was also the time when I got my dog micro-chipped since it wasn't available at the rural hospitals.
5. Ask about any natural anti-anxiety medicine that your dog can take for the day of flight.

5 days before you fly:
1. Pick up Animal Health Certificate at immigration and customs office.
2. Bring it back to the Pet Hospital.
3. With the health certificate, the pet hospital will fill out all necessary immigration documents.
4. Because I shipped by dog through Air Cargo, I had to bring all the original paperwork to the Air Cargo office.
5. Ask about day-of procedure at the airport.

Day you fly.
1. Hopefully all goes well!! If your dog is baggage or cargo, confirm at the gate that a pet has been loaded onto the plane. If your dog is to anxious, he might not get loaded. And it would be awful to get on the plane and fly to your destination, only to find out that your dog is still in China.

Weekend of Awesomeness!

Just to give you an idea of how exhaustingly awesome this weekend was ... by Sunday afternoon.

1. I took a nap in my bed.
2. I was woken up and then took another nap in my bed.
3. I had dinner and then slept on the bus to Ningbo.
4. I slept during the Chinese ballet performance.
5. I slept on the bus back from Ningbo.
6. I went straight to bed and for the first time in many weeks, my alarm clock actually woke me up.
Not only that but when it did wake me up, I looked over at Jett and he actually avoided my eye contact. He wasn't even ready to get up either!

These are the signs of an awesome weekend that actually started on Thursday.

Thursday:

We had a competitive league game with refs and linesmen and everything. I actually took a guy out with a tackle that left my entire right shin bruised. Not a peep from him. But anytime he comes into any kind of contact with one of the guys from my team, he is flopping on the ground like a fish gasping for air, only he's not gasping, he's yowling in "pain". Grrrrr. I hate it when they act. The Chinese watch too much European football. Either way, after the game we may have bar hopped a little. Foosball is quite popular so each bar has a table.

Game 1: Bobo annilated me.
Game 2: I was up 5-0 and somehow Bobo still came back to win it.
Game 3: It was back and forth, 5-5 then 6-5, then 6-6, and then 7-7 ... all the way to the end. Each time I got scored on, some Chinese dude literally tried to shove me off the handles and indicated to himself as if he could do it better. More GRRRRRRR. So I shoved him back each time. And in the end I actually beat Bobo 10-9. Victory!!!!!!! That Chinese guys was so impressed, he no longer wanted to play Bobo, but challenged me instead. There was no way I was saying yes. Dingbat.

Friday:

Good bye dinner for myself, Lara, Dana, Erich, Dodo, Matt, Julie and twins. Basically those of us leaving from our friend group. It was lovely, but a late night.

Saturday:

We went to the Hepe property for some camping! Hepe is a German toy company that makes toys out of bamboo, so naturally they have their workshop in the bamboo forest. Many of the stalks that you see are actually only 3 weeks old or younger. Bamboo grows FAST!! So the joke is, be careful where you pitch your tent if you don't want to be impaled by morning. Here's setting up camp and getting the fire started.



 

Shortly after setting up the tents, some Chinese ladies came wandering through the forest and actually picked up one of the tents out of curiousity. Lara and Kate swiftly went over to take our tent back and started miming sleeping. That really cracked them up.

 



 

 

 

And then getting the camping creature comforts ready ...

Hamock

Fire

Food!

 

 

Lara made some collages. All of the ladies wearing our Decathalon tank tops. Singing around the fire. And lots of insects!



 

The next morning in all our gloriousness.

 



Morning hike at the lake with Jett.

I think he's going to love the Pacific Northwest.

 

Sunday:

 

After we arrived home, Lara and I went straight to bed.

Around 3 pm Shelley and Alice arrived to make Shelley's birthday dinner. They took one glance at the two of us and sent us straight back to bed. We woke up to this Chinese feast:

 

 

And afterwards we attended this Chinese modern ballet about traditional marraige. This was particularly interesting to Lara because Alice was translating for her. Alice is engaged so she was able to compare the traditions that will happen at her own wedding. Shelley was translating for me ... until I fell asleep on her shoulder about 30 minutes. If you know me, you know that when I'm tired, there is just no chance of me staying awake. Sleeping Beauty!

 



 

 

And some videos if you're truly interested:

 

 

 

 

Twas an awesome weekend. Thus is the nature of the last few weeks of school. We're all exhausted but there's just too many "lasts" to experience ...

Chinese Cupping

Here it comes ... the end of the year. Just a month away. Today I received this invitation from Tio and Tia (Uncle and Aunt in Spanish) for a goodbye dinner this Friday for all of us who are leaving.

From L to R: Lara, Erich, Dana, Dodo, Me. At the bottom is Julie holding Munnin and Matt holding Huggin.

The end is near! It's something we've all been feeling, so I've been making an extra effort to do a couple of things that I haven't done in China. And that includes Cupping! As I understand it, Chinese cupping is a method for taking toxins out of the body. Also, in a humid climate during the winter when you can feel the cold "in your bones", cupping is a way to get that moisture out. Depending on what kind of spots you have, you can also tell what's wrong internally. I don't have any pictures of myself at the place where we did it, but here are some of the boys:

1. Use fire to heat the air inside of the cup.

2. Suction it to the person's back. (This actually tickled a lot)

3. Leave it for 10 minutes. (And then it stung)

4. And now you are bruised!

I got it done on Friday night. This is Saturday night. 24 hours later. You can see lines starting to form in some of mine, which is quite strange.



And Sunday night ... you can see that one on my left shoulder (reflective picture in the mirror) is starting to spread outside the circle. It is also cut in half. Wierd!!

So I talked to one of our TAs. What does this mean?!
She said the ones on my shoulder are darker, and that shows that I have tension in my shoulders, maybe from carrying something heavy all the time. I'm pretty sure it's just natural tension that my dad has combated all my life by asking me to drop my shoulders.
The spreading of the bruise on my left shoulder could be the sign of an injury from a repetitive motion. That's pretty interesting since I do have an injury from 5 summers working at Premier Graphics doing the same thing every 3 seconds for 10 hours a day. It's a small sharp pain that I have in that shoulder. I went to the chiropractor once for it, but I didn't think it helped so I decided to just deal with it.
The TA is very experienced with Chinese medicine. One time she did cupping on her shoulders every day for an entire week. But the last day, she didn't have any dark circles. She explained, "All the toxins are gone."

Anyways, it was an interesting experience but one I will not likely do again. I was incredibly lathargic the entire weekend (even though I drank three times the amount of water that I normally do.) And I couldn't lean up against anything because I had gigantic bruises/hickeys over my entire back.

The end of the year is full of crazy events and I'm trying to pack in as much as I can with just a hint of sadness knowing that it'll be the last time.

Jett however is living the American dream. Born on the streets of China, and he's heading to America! We're both very excited.

Here is playful Jett:

And Jett after being playful Jett:

The Chinese Tourist

After my time here with the Chinese culture ... I found this article SUPER interesting and spot on. I don't often come in contact with the Chinese tourist outside of China, but I have definitely tried to envision the Chinese outside their own culture, and this is definitely how I picture it.

The nice thing is, this article isn't blaming anyone, offers solutions, and accepts the fact that there are many exceptions. American tourists on the whole aren't exactly the most polite people either, but the Chinese behave so similarly that people in the tourism industry can definitely target behaviors and be prepared with solutions before the Chinese traveller even arrives.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/travel/chinese-tourism-impact/index.html

Mint Chocolate Cake

We've been writing penpal letters all year with a school in Illinois. Recently a new batch of letters came and one student expressed his love for Mint Chocolate Cake. This left most of my students a little confused as they have never heard of mint, since all green flavored things here are either green tea or seaweed flavored. I brought up pictures of common yummy mint snacks, but still nothing clicked. This is the only thing I could say on the subject. (And I think many of you have heard part of this analogy):

When I first got here, and we found something similar to ice cream, I got so excited! The green flavor with small black flecks looked most promising and normal. But alas, it was not mint chocolate chip ... it was green tea flavored. Imagine biting into chocolate cake and expecting yumminess but it tastes like red beans. That was the extent of my disappointment.

My students were flabberghasted by the idea ... but understood that mint is typcially delicious. Now mint is not my favorite flavor (it's actually the favorite flavor of most of my friends), and cake isn't my favorite either. But I thought this story would go nicely with my birthday weekend pics. My momma sent some Ghirardelli brownie mix for my birthday *cake* accompanied by candles and decorative frosting. I'm not a HUGE fan of birthday parties (but you probably already knew that), so my best girlfriends Shelley and Alice came over early to decorate the brownies. Then it promptly turned into May the Fourth be with You/Cinco de Mayo festivities.

Alice and Shelley decorate.

 

   

Erich drinking strawberry a strawberry margarita.



Sunshine ... in more ways than one.

1. First, the temperature is easily soaring close to 90, and gotta love that humidity! Since everything except our classrooms are open air, skirts and tank tops are actually the necessary dress code. But I didn't think about it when as redhead, I decided to wear the purple breathable tank top and green skirt that my Mom and Dad got for me in Port Townsend last summer. Kate claims I'm wearing the Little Mermaid's color scheme and now she follows me around school humming the sound track wherever I go.

2. In other sunshine news, we went to the Sunshine School. Most schools here are not setup to include students with disabilities in the classroom (including ours), so the government set up the Sunshine School. We've worked with them before on International Day and for other projects. So when a performance by their students came about, we jumped at the opportunity to attend.

First ... there were many speeches, all in Mandarin. Some I could pick up tidbits, but most were in a dialect I didn't understand. But worse that than was the bouquet of flowers that was so giant, it covered anyone that was speaking at the podium ... Look carefully and you can see the top of her head.

 

 

Next we enjoyed a dance by some clowns and a small mouse. Our crowd went wild for the dangling arm robot. 

Later the students came back to work with our moms and my friend Dodo. The moms (and Dodo) have been going every Friday to teach English. The setting is the birthday of XinXin, the talking strawberry.

(Video to come ...)



3. Other sunshiny moments have just been a great time in class. Since we have been studying constellations and the stories of Greek Gods and Goddesses, I decided to read aloud a fake tour guide book for Ancient Greece.

Now I have yet to cover gender rights so the girls were surprised and slouched more and more as I read about all the things they couldn't do, like go to school, go to plays, act in plays, play sports .. yada yada. As I continued reading, one of the boys said enthusiastically, "I really like this book Miss Lanham!" And I kinda just wanted to bop him on the head.

Later as we reviewed the Olympic games, the girls asked earnestly, "Can we attend the Olympics?" I scanned ahead and informed them that they could. They started cheering excitedly until I read the next sentence. "It says here that the Olympics are a great place for young girls to find a husband." Silence from both genders.

I continued to read that married women were not permitted to attend the Olympics, and they all pointed at me and said, "Miss Lanham, you cannot attend!!" I looked around in shock and said, "But I'm not married!" And they disagreed. "Yes you are!!" I'm normally not this bluntly honest with my elves but I said, "Don't get me wrong, I would like to be married someday, but I have to ask ... If I am married, where is my husband?" I got several responses:
- In your house (all the time?)
suitors)
- *dramatically points to the sky* In the stars! (and actually most of the constellations that we are studying do NOT have happy endings, like Chronos eating all his children. So I would prefer my husband not be in the stars.)

Last the tour guide informed us of the dos and don'ts of Ancient Greece.
Do: Wash your hands before you give a toast to the Gods.
Do: Wear a chiton.
Don't: Use the street as a bathroom.
I started laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. That last don't is a daily occurance in Beilun. The men don't even turn away from the street. You could see the looks of confusion on the elves' faces like, what's wrong with that?

So, so many things.