riverwalk

Classical music beside the river on a cool autumn day. I sit beneath a willow tree watching the city pass me by, soaking up sounds of the people in the pauses of Mozart, Beethoven and Pachelbel. I couldn't spend another lazy morning cooped up in my apartment working on various things like cleaning or grading papers. I had to get out. I needed to BE in China today, to wander around the city. I've neglected the city. I took a break from writing beside the river to have a "conversation" with a freckle-faced old lady who had wicked-awful brown tartar and beautiful laugh wrinkles. She was very fond of yelling questions in Chinese 3 inches from the edge of my nose and then expelling her hot, rank breath through laughter at my incomprehension. The liquid from her nostrils collected in a pool around the mole above her lips. She greatly enjoyed hitting my shoulder and laughing when I told her repeatedly that I couldn't understand the words from her wrinkly mouth. I did finally understand a couple of her questions and was able to answer in mispronounced, one-word answers. Realizing the hopelessness of carrying a one-sided conversation with a boring foreigner, she resigned to watching me write in my journal a detailed description of her in all her glory. As she got up to leave, waving goodbye with her hand in my face, I realized the definition of her smell: the whelping box whenever my family's dog births a litter of pups. I think she just helped her dog deliver puppies and then decided to have a conversation with a foreigner about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Favorite Quotes from Students

We played a Question and Answer game where the answers and questions get mixed up together to produce funny results.
Q: Why does me look so fat? A: Because I'm lonely.
Of course the class erupted in a roar of laughter. Now, the girl who drew this question and answer pair was not a fat girl, but she wasn't a stick by any means. So for self-esteem reasons, I let her draw another question. Q: Why do I feel sad today? Seriously, the girl had no chance of redemption.
The administration changed the day and time of one of my Oral English sophomore classes...and didn't bother to tell the students. Those that did show up for class played the same game previously mentioned.
Q: Why the dean doesn't inform us the change of the time of our oral class? A: Because you are not the person that I like, I didn't mean to hurt you.
One student, either sucking up to me or consumed by my enrapturous beauty, wrote this: Because you are greated by angle, they sprink the moonlight in your hair golden and starnight in you eyes of bule. Everybody want to close to you include the stars.
I believe the spelling errors add to the poetry, don't you?

Best quotes from my freshmen:
"I want to be a soldier so I can protect my lovers...........and my friends."
"Nice to meet you. My English name is American."
Me: Okay, you can take a break.
Class: NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
I'm not even joking. The entire class was upset that I was making them take their mandatory break of 5 minutes. They actually wanted to continue learning!

Chinese Proverb

If a foreigner is trapped in a bus, everyone will stare and not bother to help.

Sleeper Bus

I can honestly say I've slept in worse places, but I walked away from that bus with too many black, sooty spots on my clothing. Though traveling through city lights brought me back to those times I fell asleep in the backseat of my parent's car, I don't think my back enjoyed sleeping on a slant and my feet were a little hesitant to rest inside a dark hole. Jes was in the middle row, that's right, there were three rows on this bus. The Chinese like to economize their space.
One more thing: you know me; I'm pretty adventurous. I take great pleasure in the absurd. I'm fairly strong when it comes to smells, seeing things most people don't want to see and doing the "backwoodsy thing". I've dealt with a lot of stinks from port-a-potties to outhouses to squatty potties in Africa, Japan, Thailand and China. I've always been fine: I go in, do what I need to do, and then I'm done. No problem. But...I have never, ever experienced the smell of the squatties at the bus stop. I actually had to coach myself through while holding my breath and trying not to cry. The fumes were so strong my nose, throat and eyes were burning. It wasn't merely manure stink; it was decaying corpse stink. I will never complain about any other toilet...unless it smells the same as this one.

National Day Vacation

The eight-hour bus ride to Yichang began with our two Chinese mothers bidding us farewell. After driving the winding mountain roads, we stopped at a Chinese style "truck stop." Fog settled on the mountain, making it impossible for our driver to see more than two or three feet in front of him, which is quite dangerous when traveling curvy roads atop a mountain. But we made it safely and met with our newfound American friends.
Three-gorges dam: really not that impressive, besides the fact that it's maybe the largest feat of engineering as far as dams are concerned. It's fairly massive in size, but I prefer natural beauty to concrete monstrosities.

on being a celebrity

Where do I begin? Who knew after a month in China, I'd be a superstar? Walking onto the high school grounds where I had my gig was like walking into another world, a world where I'm famous, where the crowds go crazy screaming "Hello" and "I love you." One could go dizzy from the waving, the screaming, the jumping out of sheer excitement. And I'm sure if they knew my name, they'd chant it. Plumes of dust swirled about in the night air worsened from the stomping and shuffling of feet, squeezing and pushing to catch a glimpse of the foreigner. And I hadn't even performed yet. Once escorted to the V.I.P. section, we were immediately flocked with paper, pens and hands requesting our autographs. The crowds cheered as they announced me to perform. Three chairs on a concrete playground in the midst of a half-rectangle of high school students; this was to be my first real taste of stardom...HA. On the left, Jes held the microphone for my voice and on the right, Barbie, a 3rd year English major, held one for my guitar. During my songs, students ran to the middle decorating all three of us with glow-in-the-dark necklaces, garland and flowers. In between songs, more students would run up and tackle us with hugs and kisses, all the while shouting declarations of love. Right before what was to be my last song, a rather large boy came barreling towards me saying "I Love Youuuuuuuuuu!" He slammed into my guitar resting on my thigh, knocking the wind out of me in the process. As I sought to catch my breath, he kissed my cheek with his sweaty little lips.
At the close of my performance, a deluge of students attacked us removing the previously bestowed necklaces from around our foreign necks. The school officials escorted Jes and Barbie through the mass of bodies, leaving me to fend for myself. With the guitar in one hand, I attempted to sign autographs with the other. The students were close to me on all sides and more were approaching. I feared my borrowed guitar would be smashed. Behind me, a hand grabbed the guitar. I turned to see Barbie's boyfriend with the case, but soon he and the guitar were out of sight. All I could see was hundreds of faces shouting, bodies pushing and pressing. I could not move; I was sucked into the mob. The forces outside the circle caused us to move as one, slowly, with many stumbles. The only thing I could do was laugh at the oddity of the situation, and laugh I did. Soon, we began to lean to the right...leaning...leaning. Just when I thought that was the end, that I was about to fall and be swallowed up into the crowd, a hand grabbed my elbow with enough force to pull me from the human blob. I looked up to see the saving face of Jessica. As the school officials used their physical strength to push the little monsters away, Jes and I made it to the parking lot where our "carriage" awaited. (a.k.a. Jes and I squished together into the passenger's seat of an S.U.V.) Oh the irony of being a celebrity.

Magical Bus Tours Part 3: The Traffic Strikes Back

I made the ghastly mistake of hopping on a bus during rush hour. We reached an intersection which was in complete standstill. What was usually a two-lane road with a middle lane that served as a passing lane became a five-lane free-for-all. There were cars on either side of us attempting to travel in various directions: vehicles coming towards us on the right; vehicles trying to pass us on the left; and vehicles going towards the vehicles trying to pass us. The driver apparently was accustomed to this time of day for upon reaching said intersection, he turned off the engine, stretched back into his seat and lit a cigarette. If only I had made such preparations.