Enlightenment, one post at a time...

Enlightenment, one post at a time...

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Spring is here!

(Well, almost.) Last week, we had about 5 days of absolutely beautiful weather, temperatures in the 70s, sun, and cool breezes. So wonderful after the cold and rainy crap we've been having for weeks on end. It's been a little cooler lately, but we've had far less rain so it's tolerable. Although, it's funny how people from Guangdong think that any temperature below 80 is cold. A couple of weeks ago, we had one day were the temperature got up to about 82 degrees, which felt pretty warm to us. I went to class wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and afterward one of my students approached me looking very concerned. She said, "Uh, Miss Hutte, I think you should wear more clothes!" I told her I was fine but after the fact I thought to myself, "It's like 80 degrees outside! Why are you wearing a winter jacket?!" You see it all the time with little kids, too. It'll be 75 degrees and parents will have their children all bundled up like it's freezing outside. Don't they feel really hot? Crazy...

The other day, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather, so we went into Shaoguan and visited Zhong Shan Park in the city center. Flowers were blooming and trees were sprouting new leaves. We walked around the park, and found a public building where a group of elderly Chinese men were playing traditional music. They invited us in and gave us tea and peanuts while we listened to them play. As we sat, a few more visitors came and went, some of them joined in with their own instruments such as the erhu (a Chinese string instrument). Chinese traditional music is quite beautiful, and this group of guys really knew what they were doing. A lot of traditional Chinese culture has been lost in the last 100 years, so it was nice to just sit and enjoy a little slice of it.

Collin recently bought a basketball, so we've been getting outside and practicing a little, plus it's good exercise. I've lost 25 pounds since we've been here, and I'd like to lose at least 15 more, maybe 20. It's so much easier to lose weight here since there are far fewer tempting foods. But I'm trying to train myself to eat better and get more exercise, and so far it's paying off. We'll see how that goes...

A couple of weekends ago we had some of the foreign students from Panama over to our place and we all played a game of poker. I never thought I would like poker, but it's actually pretty fun. Now if we were playing for real money, that might change things a bit, but so far we've only been using Monopoly money. We opened a bottle of Chinese red wine (which turned out to be surprisingly good, considering most Chinese wine isn't the greatest), and I put on some Latin music for the Panamanians, which I think they really enjoyed. It's really interesting how much more in common we have with them than we do with most Chinese people. I think most Latin cultures, although different than American culture, still share a lot of the same characteristics as ours. Chinese culture is just so different from American culture, sometimes it's difficult to relate to people here, even if they can speak English. But we have made some really great friends here, don't get me wrong.

A few weeks ago, we went to one of the cafeterias for dinner. This one happens to be at the opposite end of campus from where we live, so it's a good walk, but the food is better than some of the other cafeterias. On our way back, we decided to stop at the mobile phone store where we had bought our SIM cards when we first arrived in Shaoguan back in September. Now, I had heard through the grapevine that our picture was on the wall inside the store, but I never thought much of it and had never seen it for myself. But I do remember that when we had originally gone to the store to buy our SIM cards, the manager and employees basically treated us like rock stars, giving us free stuff and taking pictures with us. So it was no surprise that our picture might be hanging up inside the shop, but Collin and I wanted to see it for ourselves. We just assumed that it was probably a little 4x6 photo on a bulletin board. Not really that interested in seeing it, I waited outside while Collin went in to take a look. Through the glass door, I watched him as he looked around for the picture, and then stopped with a look of disbelief. He looked at me though the door and motioned to me with his hands, "Come here, it's HUGE!!". I thought he was joking, but when I walked inside and looked to my right, there on the wall was a giant two-foot wide poster of our picture with the owner of the shop. They had turned the picture into an advertisement, and in both Chinese and English the poster explained that when "foreign friends" came to visit the store, the owner assisted us and provided us with our mobile phone needs. We looked at the poster, and then we looked at each other and burst out laughing. Our picture is being used as an ad for a mobile phone store in China! As we walked home, we could not stop laughing, and we joked about claiming some royalties from the use of our picture! Ha!! Only in China...

Last Friday was April Fools Day and I played a little prank on my morning classes. At the beginning of class, I told them that the foreign language department made a new rule that I must give all my students a very difficult exam to determine their English skill level. I also told them that if they didn't do well on the test they would fail the class. Some of them looked pretty scared and some just plain confused, until I shouted "APRIL FOOLS!!". At that point, they all laughed and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Most of them already knew about April Fools, so they understood the meaning of the joke, and we all thought it was pretty funny. During the break of my second class (we have a ten minute break in the middle of the class), I went outside for some fresh air and told Collin (who was teaching next door) about my awesome prank. When I walked back in the classroom, a few of my students looked at me with utter horror on their faces, pointed to my head and screamed, "WHAT IS THAT??!!!" I immediately freaked out, thinking there must be some sort of heinous creature in my hair (like a spider, I HATE spiders) , and I started pawing frantically at my head to get it off! My students still looked on in terror, and so I thought it was still there, and I completely panicked, furiously brushing my head with my hands! Only a few seconds later did I realize what was going on, and they yelled "APRIL FOOLS!!", and burst out laughing. I thought I was going to have a heart attack, my heart was beating so fast. Not only that, I was totally defeated. I had fallen for the joke, which was ironic since I had JUST told Collin how awesome it was that I fooled my students. Yes indeed, I am gullible. But my students got me, and they got me GOOD. I had to congratulate them for that.

I'm posting this through email, as our VPN hasn't been working lately.  (Blogger is blocked in China.)  So, hopefully this post looks normal. If not, I apologize. :)

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