"i think that man just propositioned you!"
we get a lot of stares here, especially sue (sophmore from notre dame) and i because of our light hair (and my pale skin which, i'll have you know, is an ASSET in china), but one man on the street came up and grabbed my arm and started talking to me in chinese. this prompted the other sue (49 years old, looks/acts like 35) to make the statement above, although i do think that it was an overstatement. for the most part here men are very respectful. as tim told me, they're scared of western women because they don't know what to do with the extra body mass. it was a little creepy though when the (male) tailor who was fitting me for a dress (silk! twenty dollars! i love it here.) told me that no, the dress wasn't too tight because it's more TRADITIONAL that way and it showed off my "good body" [winking and laughing with the other customers]. he must have seen the cookie-porn pictures of me which, by the way, i do not appreciate. i thought i TOLD tim that they were private. ha. i hope you all are thouroughly creeped out now.
ok new subject. it's typhooning here right now, which is sad because the other english teachers and i were supposed to take an overnight trip to a beach island, and stay in a villa (which could also mean beach shack) with that and meals paid for by the college. one of my students told me there are jellyfish and mosquitos and that the water is dirty but i don't care, i just want to lie in the sun. which is a cardinal sin here.
the other day sue and i had lunch at a girl named melody's house. she's graduated from college and hopes to go to grad school in the US, and the best way for her to get noticed and get enough money for it is to do well in this national english competition (the younger level of which one of my students just won, thank you very much). her mom cooked us a big huge lunch, and showed us how to make dumplings, and wouldn't let us stop eating. and after bobby the priest and sue left i stayed to help melody with her speeches for the competition. we ended up sitting in her living room and talking for a long time, about everything from her ex-boyfriend to the differences in chinese and american expectations for women. she's a biology major who is about to get an article published. i asked her if she went to the US to study whether she'd stay abroad or return to china, and she said that her family all tells her that she should get away from china, but she feels that she would be more useful in her own country...it was sad and i guess inspiring in a way to hear her say that. as modernized as china is becoming in some places, the presence of restrictions is constant. there is always a uniformed boy in a red badge sitting at a table outside my apartment building, watching everyone who passes by. surfing the net is hard because some sites (like diana's livejournal, that little capitalist) aren't avaliable. the jewelry stores are full of mao - mao in gold, mao in pearls, mao etched into the inside of shells. and the worst times are when my students say things that i know they're repeating from memory that have been drilled and drilled into their heads...like their hatred for the japanese, their "opinion" that US schools are rule- and work-free, and that american women are "not very modest."
but besides all that, i've met some wonderful people here and i'll be sad to leave them, but with names like mapleleaf, snow white, dragon, melody, and wordsworth i doubt i'll forget them soon. ok that's enough corniness for tonight.
ok new subject. it's typhooning here right now, which is sad because the other english teachers and i were supposed to take an overnight trip to a beach island, and stay in a villa (which could also mean beach shack) with that and meals paid for by the college. one of my students told me there are jellyfish and mosquitos and that the water is dirty but i don't care, i just want to lie in the sun. which is a cardinal sin here.
the other day sue and i had lunch at a girl named melody's house. she's graduated from college and hopes to go to grad school in the US, and the best way for her to get noticed and get enough money for it is to do well in this national english competition (the younger level of which one of my students just won, thank you very much). her mom cooked us a big huge lunch, and showed us how to make dumplings, and wouldn't let us stop eating. and after bobby the priest and sue left i stayed to help melody with her speeches for the competition. we ended up sitting in her living room and talking for a long time, about everything from her ex-boyfriend to the differences in chinese and american expectations for women. she's a biology major who is about to get an article published. i asked her if she went to the US to study whether she'd stay abroad or return to china, and she said that her family all tells her that she should get away from china, but she feels that she would be more useful in her own country...it was sad and i guess inspiring in a way to hear her say that. as modernized as china is becoming in some places, the presence of restrictions is constant. there is always a uniformed boy in a red badge sitting at a table outside my apartment building, watching everyone who passes by. surfing the net is hard because some sites (like diana's livejournal, that little capitalist) aren't avaliable. the jewelry stores are full of mao - mao in gold, mao in pearls, mao etched into the inside of shells. and the worst times are when my students say things that i know they're repeating from memory that have been drilled and drilled into their heads...like their hatred for the japanese, their "opinion" that US schools are rule- and work-free, and that american women are "not very modest."
but besides all that, i've met some wonderful people here and i'll be sad to leave them, but with names like mapleleaf, snow white, dragon, melody, and wordsworth i doubt i'll forget them soon. ok that's enough corniness for tonight.