The End of India

The long-anticipated follow-up...sorry it's taken so long:

The last night of my stay at the home was our talent show, and it was pretty excellent. We had two age categories, and a monetary prize of 100 rupees for each category (a little over two dollars, which is a pretty significant sum to the girls...the oldest girls get an allowance of 30 rupees/month), plus everyone who participated got a little chocolate bar. It was way fancy. There were an amazing amount of different talents displayed: singing, dancing, styling hair, cooking, acting, etc. Anjali and Sahina (7 and 6) sang "You Are My Sunshine" and thereby won first prize in the younger age bracket hands down with an immeasurable amount of cuteness. There were a few sore losers, but the aftermath was generally lighthearted, culminating in a huge spontaneous dance party, since we had gotten the speakers all set up for the show. Everybody danced, although the visiting Yale volunteers took a little persuasion. It was a marvelous way to spend my last night.

We left for Goa early the next morning. We had heard that there was a bus that went straight to the Nizamuddin railway station in Delhi, so we went to the bus stop and just asked every bus that stopped if they went there. It was way easier traveling into Delhi with my duffel bag than it had been the other day when I had taken my big rolling suitcase into the city to drop off at the Udayan Care office. Fun fact: there was a monkey in the railway station. It didn't belong to anyone, it was just a monkey. Welcome to India.

The train ride to Goa was 30 hours, which sounds awful but actually it was awesome and amazingly relaxing. I had a ticket for a middle bunk, but I traded it for an upper bunk, and promptly got into my bunk and passed out. We were so tired that we were happy to spend the entire trip horizontal. Eating sitting up was a little awkward, but we were sleeping almost the entire time so it was okay. The meals were complimentary and frequent, although I learned after the first one to always take the vegetarian option because the meat is a little bit sketchy.
I was bracing myself for some sketchy train bathrooms, but they were actually pretty nice (there was soap! it ran out halfway, but whatever, it was there in the first place) although they possessed the charming feature of Indian trains in that they were mainly holes emptying out onto the tracks. Nice.

We could tell we were arriving in Goa because when we looked out the door between cars, it was all palm trees and other green leafy things. We arrived in Margaon, which is in central Goa, so we had to take another bus to get to the beach. Before we left, Elysia and I had formulated the following game plan for our arrival in Goa: bum around on the beach and see if there was anywhere that looked like a good place to stay, then stay there. The only downside was that since we went straight to the beach upon our arrival, we were still carrying our bags
in the most obviously touristy fashion possible, so we were set upon mercilessly by people trying to sell us things. This eased up after we had found a guest house and weren't looking quite so newly-arrived. The guest house was a little damp and mildewy because of the monsoon, but they brought us a coconut with a straw stuck in it! Who can complain about that? One other really nice thing about the guest house where we stayed in Calangute is that there was a little restaurant place on the beach in front of it which had chaise lounges. We were super wary at first, and asked several times to make sure that they wouldn't charge us for lying on the chaise lounges, but not only was it free, the restaurant guys also shooed off any sketchy men who looked like they might be loitering to stare at the white girls in bathing suits. It was marvelous. So for two days we lay on lounge chairs on the beach reading our books while being waited on by nice little Indian men who chased off creeps and brought us cold beverages and dried off our chairs with towels after any spurt of monsoon rain. If that doesn't sound fabulous already, keep in mind that since it is the off-season, we got our room for about a third of the peak season price, something along the lines of two American dollars per night.
Although our personal beach featured our friends who ran off the sketchy men, the rest of the beaches did not. At one point we were being tailed by some guys, at which point Elysia and I pretended to stop for a while so they would be forced to walk past us to keep up their act. They stopped soon after, and waited for us to keep walking so they could keep following us. At this point, we suddenly acquired a friend: a random beach dog (these are not so uncommon) decided to walk along with us. At first I was not entirely comfortable with this; what if the dog had rabies or tried to bite us or something? But then the dog proved its friendly intentions by getting between us and the sketchy guys and keeping them away. They kept following us until I finally broke down and told them off in a loud and angry fashion, but the dog stayed. We walked several miles, all the way up to the end of the beach, and the dog stayed with us. The next morning we went back to that area of beach to get breakfast at a certain restaurant, and once again the dog showed up to walk with us. We were leaving Calangute right after breakfast, and we saved our canine friend some bacon for a parting gift, but by the time we were finished with breakfast, he was gone. It was a little bit sad, but Elysia and I reasoned that he had been called off to go guard some other foreigners.
We spent the better part of the afternoon riding buses, but finally we arrived in Palolem, a little fishing village in the southern tip of Goa which Elysia had deemed from comments on the Internet to be the best vacation spot in Goa. Important fact about Palolem: it is full of hippies. While Calangute is more of a tourist spot (according to our travel guide), it is more popular with Indian tourists in the peak season. Palolem was populated with hippie Westerners, even in the off season. It was strange, after spending so long in India, to see so many white faces in one place. It sounds racist to say that I was glad to see so many white people. However, really it was just relaxing to feel for once like I could blend in after enduring so much stress during my stay due to my nationality and the color of my skin.
In retrospect, both Elysia and I agreed that we wouldn't have minded just going to Palolem for an entire week, even if it meant seeing less of Goa. The beach there was insanely beautiful, and not just that, either. Unlike any beach you've been to, this one featured cows!















I really wasn't kidding when I said that cows are everywhere in India. The beach is no exception.
Besides the gorgeous beach and the cows, Palolem also had a number of nice little restaurants and guest house where, since it was the off season, we bargained down our nightly rate to 125 rupees, which is a little more than a dollar per person per night. There is no way I could have afforded this kind of vacation anywhere else, but India, although flawed in many other areas, has prices that pretty much can't be beat. We spent the rest of our week there, strolling on the beach and reading during the day, in the evening relaxing at some restaurant with good food and drink. Goa is famous for seafood - what you saw the fishermen catch in the morning was your dinner at night. So good! We developed a habit of ordering drinks to fill the space before our dinner came, which resulted in a couple nights of slightly tipsy girl-bonding. (important lesson: alcohol+sunburn=double dehydration. watch out) We had made friends with some cute boys who we met at the bus station after arriving in Goa and then ran into again in Palolem, and we were staying in the same guest house as them, but we never ended up looking for them to hang out in the evenings because we were having too much fun ourselves to be bothered!
Although there were many Westerners in Palolem, it seems that the locals were still not quite adjusted to them. The tourists on the beach were all white, and all wearing Western-style bathing suits, so we felt pretty comfortable in our bikinis. However, one day towards the end of our stay, one of my sandals broke, so we hustled back to the guest house without bothering to put anything over our bathing suits. The guest house was just steps away from the beach, so it didn't seem like a big deal; however, we had only gotten maybe 25 feet before some local men started hassling us, yelling out "how much?" and then when we didn't answer, "twenty dollars?" Fortunately I didn't hear their words at the time (Elysia informed me a few seconds later), because at this point in my stay in India I was completely fed up with the disrespect that Indian men showed to Western women, and if I had heard it at that exact time, I was ready to physically attack the men and kick them where they'd regret their words the most. But we were too far away when I realized what had happened, so instead I just thought angry thoughts back in our room and plotted the deeds of violence I would do to the next man who so insulted me. It's funny to think that I was so riled up, but the constant disrespect I felt towards white women had just accumulated to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I was so ready to leave and get back to a country where I wouldn't be judged so much by my race.
On the day that I left Goa, I tried to call my airline to check if my flight was on time so I could let my boss back in Delhi know when I was going to be arriving to pick up the rest of my luggage from the office. I found a pay phone at a travel agency, but every number I called was incredibly unhelpful. I called the airline, but then they tried to tell me that I should call some other number. When I called the other number, nobody picked up. I realized that the first number was the person I was actually looking for, but when I called them back, they just pretended not to hear what I was saying and then hung up on me. At this point, I had had enough adventures abroad. All I wanted was to go home, and the person on the line who could give me the information to send me on my way was being actively unhelpful. I felt so frustrated and defeated that I just sat next to the pay phone and started to cry. While I sat there in the travel agency feeling miserable, the man behind the desk noticed my unhappiness and asked what was the matter. I showed him the printout of the receipt for my plane ticket, and using his magical travel agent powers, he just went online and found out that the plane was on time. Although I had countless negative encounters with sketchy and disrespectful Indian men, the kindness of the travel agent redeemed my faith in humanity a little and reminded me that I couldn't make a complete generalization.
From the time I left Palolem, it took me about 40 hours to get back home. First I took a bus to Canacona, a slightly larger town in Goa with more buses running to Margaon, where I had to catch the shuttle to the Goa airport. On the third bus, I saw the airport out of the window, but the bus didn't stop. I thought that maybe it would drop us off somewhere else near the airport, but after it kept going for a while I realized that perhaps I had been misled to believe that it was just a shuttle to the airport. The next time anybody called for a stop, I grabbed my suitcase, got off the bus, and started trekking back in the direction of the airport. I must have walked a couple of miles with my suitcase, ignoring the stream of whistles and catcalls from passing cars at the strange sight of a white girl walking down the road with a suitcase. I made it to the airport in plenty of time, however, and waited wearily for my flight. After getting into Delhi, I took a prepaid cab from the airport to the Udayan Care office where my luggage awaited. The airport cabs are supposed to be outbound only, but I bribed my cabbie to take me back to the airport, and to the international terminal this time. I had left Palolem around 1 pm, and it was now the middle of the night. I changed my clothes in the Delhi airport and packed up my stuff for the flight. My flight left after 3 in the morning, so I waited several hours in Indira Gandhi airport, which I must say is the most awful airport I have ever experienced. It was hot and crowded and I never quite felt safe. I was glad to get on the plane, and even more incredibly relieved to arrive in Helsinki for my 5-hour layover. Although I wasn't home yet, getting to Finland was almost as good as being back in the U.S. Everybody was so friendly, nobody stared at me for being white, and there was very delicious chocolate for sale. I spent the remainder of the euros I had changed on the way over on chocolate, and curled up on a couple of airport chairs to sleep. My plan was to only sleep while it was nighttime in New Jersey in order to fight jet lag in advance. It didn't work very much, but it was worth a shot. Anyway, my experience in Helsinki was extremely positive, and I would definitely consider going back to Finland simply based on my experience in the Helsinki airport.
Another 7 hours or so, and I was coming in to JFK. I looked out the window at Long Island as we came in, concentrating to see streets and houses and cars as the plane got lower and lower. I waved to Pu Danni, even though I don't really know precisely where on Long Island he lives. Close enough. There was a long line to get back through customs in New York, and then more time spent waiting for my parents to come pick me up. I was worried that I was waiting in the wrong place, because they weren't there when I arrived, like I had expected. After some time waiting in the airport, I went outside to where the cars pull up, and soon enough a familiar van came along. I was surprised to see that even Josh was there to pick me up from the airport instead of back at his house in Baltimore! The westbound traffic out of JFK was kind of gross (it was rush hour, so what do you expect), but after 2 hours or so we finally got back home. It was a long, 40-hour trip from Palolem to my house, but it was so, so good to be home.

Hangry

Raphaelle occasionally mixes words up a little when she speaks English, particularly "angry" and "hungry." However, this is really rather appropriate, as we find that the two feelings often occur in conjunction with one another. For instance, yesterday we had 6 students from Yale visiting the home, and at dinner they had their own table with a plate of fresh tomatoes and onions. Neither the children, the caregivers, or the other volunteers were given fresh vegetables. Ironically, the visitors didn't even want to eat the tomatoes, as most of them had only been in India for a few days and they still had the traveler's fear of raw fruit and vegetables instilled in them. We normal volunteers, on the other hand, have enough experience to know that it's probably not as bad for you to risk sickness from eating raw vegetables as it is to not have them at all, and when we saw that the Yale students had tomatoes and weren't even appreciating them, we felt a little bit hangry. Elysia and Raphaelle sat at the table and stewed for a bit about the unfairness of the situation, but I took some action about it in the form of going over and asking "hey, aren't you gonna eat those tomatoes?" Upon receiving their permission, I took a few tomato slices, after which Elysia, realizing that the tomatoes were remaining completely unclaimed by the Yale volunteers, went over and politely absconded with the whole plate. We who had felt so deprived reveled in our newly won fresh vegetables. My improvised wrap of chappati and beans was dramatically enhanced by a few tomatoes. Elysia ate whole slices with reckless abandon, caveman style, like she would never have another chance to eat tomatoes again. We felt slighly foolish and still rather annoyed but at least temporarily triumphant, and the hanger dissipated, at least until the next inevitable slight in our continuing line of kitchen-related conflicts of stinginess...

Other things you should know

I've decided to take a trip to Goa for a couple days with Elysia at the end of my trip, so my time in Delhi is rapidly coming to a close. The weeks go by soooo fast here. I figured I should add any other pertinent information about India now in case I don't get another chance to post while I'm here. For one thing, you may have known this, but they don't use toilet paper in India. Instead they use water and the left hand. This is one of those things that I try not to dwell on, especially in conjunction with the thought of all the small children I encounter on a daily basis, whose washing abilities sometimes leave a bit to be desired. Also, Indians don't nod when they mean yes; instead they waggle their heads to the side. At first this is confusing, because the same gesture would indicate ambivalence in the West, but you catch onto it slowly. Also, people tug on their ears when they are saying sorry, which is a reference to the way that people are physically reprimanded by being pulled by the ear. By pulling your own ears, you are demonstrating penitence by enacting the punishment on yourself.
One of the things that really strikes me about India is that it's actually pretty close to how I would imagine it in my mental stereotype. The women really do wear saris on a daily basis, many men wear the traditional skirt-like dhoti, and there genuinely are cows and wild dogs and monkeys and elephants roaming around in the street (the elephants less so, but still). Rickshaws are a common mode of transportation, although there are a lot more motorcycles than one might think. The one thing that's different is that I don't go around eating chicken tikka masala and naan every day...that kind of stuff is more of restaurant food. Probably I can eat some in Goa. Eating meat, what's that about?
My big project for the end of my stay is the talent show that we're organizing for the girls. They've submitted so many different kinds of talents to perform; it ought to be a good time. Raphaelle, Elysia and I plan to open the show with a combination act where Raphaelle twirls juggling balls, Elysia drums on her stomach, and I play the nose flute. Yeahhhhh. I'll see if I can get in a few more workshops/activities with the girls in the mean time. Curiously, there is actually a group from Yale at the home at the moment. They are only in India for 9 days, and they are also taking trips to Jaipur and Agra, so they're only actually at our home for like 2 and a half days. We incumbent volunteers have been questioning the point of coming to volunteer for such a brief time, and it's a little annoying that the organization is bending over backwards to do special things for the Yale group while trying to make us change our plans around it. Whatever, the Yale kids themselves are very nice, so I bear no grudge. I'm just happy to spend my last week of time with the girls and get lots of good things done and then have some sweet times in Goa with Elysia, living in huts on the beach and drinking fruity things out of coconuts and whatnot. It should be some super relaxing time, although any potential relaxation will probably be canceled out by the fact that I'm flying back from Goa to Delhi, then chilling in the airport for 6 hours until my 3 am flight from Delhi to Helsinki, where I have another 6 hour layover before my flight home...33 hours straight of travel, in total. I might be a little crabby coming out of that, so be prepared. Also be forewarned that I am probably not bringing anybody presents because goodness knows I already spent too much money in China. Whatevs, it will be nice for me just to be home.

Monsoons and Meetings

So the monsoon, after taking its sweet time getting here, has finally arrived, and its a little bit messy. It's nice because the rain cools things down, but there are problems with flooding in a lot of areas, and we got positively soaked coming in to Delhi today for the Mentor Mothers meeting. The Mentor Mothers work with the children in all the homes, and we get together to discuss all sorts of things, but today the big issue that was weighing on the minds of the three of us didis was the behavior of the permanent authority figures in our home. We try to encourage good health and hygiene, but the head Aunty refused to acknowledge or deal with the dead rat in the kitchen when we pointed it out. We try to work with the girls to solve their problems in a peaceful and constructive fashion, but Uncle advocates slapping the girls when they are disrespectful, and worse, the Aunties beat the girls for wetting the bed (which is a problem for some of the older girls as well). It's not like they're wetting the bed on purpose; surely it's a result of all of the emotional trauma they've been through, and beating them is only going to traumatize them more, in addition to the original humiliation of wetting the bed. We can't communicate much with the Aunties, who speak next to no English, and they ignore our input anyway. I think that since they are in the home all day, they can get very controlling over their small domestic domain, and view us as intruders. Uncle is easier to communicate with, but he is still a firm believer in corporal punishment. Fortunately, today at our meeting we were able to communicate our concerns to Dr. Modi, who is the head of the organization, and she is totally receptive to our input and really awesome, and she got right on the phone and gave Uncle the what-for. She is planning to have more workshops to train the caregivers and everyone who works in the homes in proper conduct (although they already had some where they were all taught not to beat the children, and look how much that helped). It's kind of frustrating to be a only a short-term volunteer in this kind of situation, but hopefully the organization can derive some permanent benefits from the concerns that we've raised. Next on the list: attempting to organize a talent show for the girls! Should be a good time.

The Girls

I don't have much time to write because I'm just biding my time in the Internet cafe waiting for Raphaelle and Elysia to come back from the railroad ticket office, but I haven't even gotten to the most important and most interesting part of my experience here, which is the girls in the home. We've been reading some of their files lately, and their backgrounds are really unbelievable. One girl's father poisoned her mother so he could marry another woman, then abandoned the child, who was taken in by a woman in her village who basically kept her as a little household slave and wouldn't let her go to school. On a trip to Delhi, the woman abandoned the child in a railway station, where she was picked up by the police and transferred to the guardianship of Udayan Care. That was a year ago. Now, she is 10 and in the first grade at school (having no previous education), and is a bold and charismatic girl who reminds me of nobody more than Sophie Mitchell, for you Pattenburgers. It's amazing for us to see how resilient some of these girls are, considering all that they've gone through. Many of them are not technically orphans, but have parents who are incapable of taking care of them, like the three small sisters whose mother is terminally ill and whose father is serving a life sentence in jail. Others ran away or were taken by the police from abusive homes. With all of the traumas they have been through, most of the girls have turned out to be absolutely lovely people. One one hand, they are terribly unfortunate in that they lack the love and care of a mother and father, but on the other hand they are amazingly lucky to have landed in Udayan Care, which provides them with education, counseling, and health care superior to that which probably 99.9% of other Indian children receive. The amazing second chance that Udayan Care provides for these children only makes it more painful when we see some of them fall through the cracks, wasting second and third and fourth and tenth chances, the opportunities of a lifetime, by rebelling against the discipline of the home, refusing to go to school, skipping class to meet boys, etc. It's frustrating because, as short-term volunteers, we don't have enough time to really get to know the girls, understand them, and gain their trust so we can hope to nudge them back on the right track

A Day in the Life of a Didi

This is what it is like: I wake up before 8 basically every day because the sun shines in my window. I go downstairs and catch the tail end of breakfast while the girls go off to school (the last ones leave at 8ish). Breakfast is some random starch...often chole (a fried flat bread thing), but we've also had vaguely toasted white bread and some kind of chopped up thin noodle thing on occasion. Once there was egg; that was exciting. The girls pack a snack to take to school, maybe another piece of chole and some potatoes. While the girls are at school, we three volunteers (me, Elysia, and Raphaelle, who I am going to refer to henceforth as "the didis") have some tea, take showers, run errands, wash our clothes, and plan things to do with the girls. A few girls won't go to school, but they are not allowed to leave the premises, and we honestly have no idea what they do with themselves all day. The rest of the girls get home around 2 or 3, change out of their school uniforms, and have lunch. Lunch is rice, chappati (a toasted flatbread), dal (lentil stuff), and something else, maybe a vegetable or some yogurt-based soupy thing. After lunch, we help the girls with their homework for a couple hours, then play with them or hang out with them or whatever. Sometimes we take the younger girls to a nearby park, but often it is too hot to play outside much. At maybe 6 or so we have a snack, probably milk and this hard sweetish bread thing that the girls dip in the milk to make it soft, although I think there were mangoes once, but I didn't pay much attention because that was the time when Asmani had gotten hit above the eye with a cricket bat and we had to send her to the hospital to get stitches. There is a little more down time until dinner, which is at 8 something, and generally consists of chappati and maybe a little something left over from lunch. Ponder for a moment the starch-overload of a dinner we had the other night: a mushy mixture of rice and potatoes, eaten with an aloo paratha (flat potato pancake-thing). We don't have meat, as most of the girls are Hindu and many are vegetarian; and some of them don't even eat eggs, so we don't have those much. Yesterday at lunch we had a thing that looked excitingly like chicken, but it turned out to be made of cornmeal or something. Oh well.
After dinner the girls gather their school uniforms off the clothesline and iron them for the next day. Even the littlest girls do their own ironing, as well as washing their own dishes. The girls also are in charge of cleaning their own rooms, cooking dinner, and cleaning up in the kitchen. On one hand, they are remarkably responsible, although on the other hand, I'm a little dubious as to how clean the dishes get when a 4-year-old is washing them, especially because we don't have hot water. It's a wonder the girls are in such good health, considering the potential for disease spreading in a 42-girl home, as well as their rather unbalanced diet.
The girls are all responsible for putting themselves to bed, and although they don't have any enforced bedtime that I'm aware of, they go to sleep at pretty reasonable times anyway because they get tired. The really little ones can barely manage to stay awake for dinner. Last night the littlest one was outside the kitchen crying, so I brought her in and sat her on my lap to have dinner, and she conked out completely before I could get her to eat anything. I had a short adventure trying to eat completely one-handedly while my other arm held a sleeping 4-year-old, and then I put her to bed. It's good that the girls are trained to be so independent in taking care of themselves, but the little ones aren't completely up to it sometimes, and the "aunties" who are the permanent caregivers in the home honestly aren't motherly at all, they just discipline and oversee operations. The other night the little one wet her bed, and while Raphaelle was trying to talk to her about it, an Aunty came in and slapped the little girl in the head and then didn't wash her sheets that day either. Discipline is one thing, but being so harsh with such small children really can't be particularly good for them or even particularly effective, I shouldn't think. The little girl has enough trouble in her life as it is.

My placement

On Monday morning when we were going to our placements they asked me where I was going and I said St. Jones boys' home and they said no you're not. And it turned out that instead I was going to an all-girls home, and it was the same placement as Raphaelle, one of the French girls who seemed like she liked me the least and who had expressed plainly her desire to be alone in her placement. Nice. But I guess since the time I lent her my computer Raphaelle had decided that I wasn't all bad, and I had resolved to get along with her since we were going to the same placement and going to be roommates, and once we got to the home and interacted with the girls it was a great bonding time, because we were commiserating over our shared experience, and we've both been really nice and accommodating to each other. The biggest thing, though, is that when I see how completely sweet and loving and genuine Raphaelle is to the kids, I have to love her, and I think it applies vice versa as well. When I mentioned to Morgan, one of the volunteers who was here when we arrived, that Raphaelle and I hadn't exactly adored each other a couple days ago, she couldn't believe it. Anyway, everything is fabulous now. Morgan and the other volunteer, Elysia, are great, and the girls are just unbelievably lovable. I'm so glad I'm here. Some of them are a little shy, but they are all really sweet and affectionate.
There are 42 girls from ages 4 to 20 at the home (they don't like to call it an orphanage and will get upset if you do), which is called Jagshanti Ghar and belongs to the organization Udayan Care, if you'd like to google it or something. It's a really nice home, actually, very clean and well-kept-up. The girls are amazingly responsible and do basically everything for themselves. They take turns on "duty" cooking meals and cleaning up, and they dress and bathe themselves and iron their adorable little school uniforms and do their homework dutifully and really don't seem to require any nagging. The whole place runs like a well-oiled machine. It's amazing. There are a few adults who oversee things a bit...the dude in charge is named Brigadier something-or-other (he's a former military man), but he goes by "Uncle," and he is rather stern, from what I hear tell of him. There are a handful of guys who guard the gate, and a handful of women ("aunties") who hang around as well. Besides "Uncle" and the "aunties," the girls consider everyone in the home to be their family, more or less, and they all technically have the same surname (Udayan, after the organization). The volunteers all go by the handle "didi," which is Hindi for older sister, and is a constant refrain around the house. The little girls call the older ones didi as well, so when someone yells "didi!" several people might respond, like if you yell "Mom!" at a family picnic. I love it.
The volunteers don't have much in the way of concrete duties at the home, but we eat with them and play with them and help them with their homework and give them positive feedback. "Didi, my English assignment, 30 out of 30!" or "Rebekah didi, look, my drawing!" There are so many girls that sometimes they pull us in a zillion different directions at once, because everyone needs the didi's undivided attention. It gets a little exhausting, but it's fun, and at least the volunteers have each other's company for when we want to just hang out. Morgan is leaving on Friday, which is really too bad, but the other two girls will be here even after I leave, so we're guaranteed to always have a little adult company who can speak English, unlike the aunties.
The one thing that I'm still having some trouble adjusting to is the heat/humidity, which is insane and oppressive. We take 2 showers a day, and I still always feel like I'm marinating in sweat. Morgan says that eventually I won't notice it, so I really hope that's true. The power died this morning at like 5 something and our fan went off and I woke up because it was so hot. Ayyyy. We don't have hot water, but nobody cares. Seriously, there are two knobs in the shower, and they both say C, which I think is fabulous. We can't actually use the shower head, because like 5 drops of water come out of it, so we use the tap and shower out of a bucket. It's honestly kind of nicer than in the hostel where our shower head was broken off and the water just poured out of a pipe in the wall. There are also, like, no washing machines in India that I am aware of, so we all just hand wash our clothes in the bucket and hang them to dry on the balcony. Clothes dry in no time here...maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's like 100 degrees? It doesn't even get cool at night. Maybe 80s if we're lucky. We've been waking up early a lot for various activities (we went to a meeting with people from the Udayan Care office and volunteers from the other homes yesterday, which was interesting) and are amazed at how much we're sweating when it's only 7 am. Fortunately we have a big old machine at the home that dispenses filtered, treated, and most importantly COLD water, which is amazing, and I feel so much better that I'm not wasting the money and plastic to drink bottled water all the time.
Anyway, I'm off to see if there's somewhere in the vicinity where I can get a water bottle for myself so I can have drinkable water at night, because they lock the doors to the stairwell around midnight so I can't even go down to the kitchen to get water. Also it would be a horrendous hazard if there was a fire, but the lack of access to water is a more pressing issue for me. Last night I didn't have water at dinner because all the cups were in use, and I forgot to get some later, and when I went to bed I was dying of thirst and swore that I would get a bottle asap.

cheers,
Rebekah the sweaty

Difficult Times in Delhi

I thought China had prepared me for going to India. I knew India would be dirty and polluted and disorganized and have disgusting weather, just like Beijing. To a degree, my experience in China has served me well. I was prepared to deal with any level of toilet nastiness that this country could throw at me. I was expecting people to try to scam me, but I was ready to be shrewd. I knew that the deliciousness of Indian food in general would not guarantee that individual samples of it would be well made. I knew that prices might be dirt-cheap, but quality would be equally low. I was ready to be patient with the chaos and accept that maybe I would have to go through roundabout channels to get things done.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t thought very much about a couple of key things about travel, one being that having fun while traveling depends largely on the people you are traveling with. I hadn’t really given much thought to the other volunteers who would be in the same program; I had really just viewed this trip as something I was going to do individually, and for me, being alone is usually excellent company. There is no chance of conflict, no difficulty making decisions, no fear of inconveniencing anyone else. However, here I am not alone. I share a room with two other girls, and two more are also staying in our same apartment. We have to hire a driver to get much of anywhere outside our local shopping center, and since that is expensive, it means sticking together. Of the five of us, the other American girl and one of the French girls are very nice; friendly, modest, and easy to get along with. However, the other two French girls, while always polite, can sometimes be very friendly, but sometimes have an aura of disdain and cliqueyness. They make fun of Rajan, our silly little coordinator, sometimes even when he is present, although, not being able to recognize French sarcasm, he remains blissfully unaware. I can tell by their attitudes that they are saying the same kinds of things about me behind my back...or potentially to my face, in French. The way I dress, my tone of voice, the way I wave my hands and make faces when I speak, all of my silliness is a cause for disdain. I felt it at first, but tried to write it off as paranoia, just an awkwardness caused by language barriers, but the third French girl acknowledged that my suspicions are correct. Apparently they think I am mocking them with my whimsical tones of voice, or something. I long for my family, the Goonies, MIF, my Beijing friends, anyone who appreciates silliness.
But feeling unappreciated is not the only unexpected difficulty of being in India. I know I mentioned this before, but the huge difference between India and China, the difference that I knew was coming but didn’t think about too hard, was the language barrier. In China, knowing Chinese enabled me to get around, to be self-sufficient, to uphold my dignity by proving that I wasn’t just some stupid tourist to be easily scammed. Even at home, my knowledge of Spanish earned me some credibility at the diner when the busboys realized I understood what they were saying if they talked about me to my face. In India, language barrier shouldn’t be a problem, because people speak English, right? India was a British colony! Yes, but...even when people do speak English (while they don’t always, or at least not well), they also speak languages I don’t, which gives them ammunition. In China, knowing the language was my strongest defense. Here, the shopkeepers can conspire in my presence to rip me off and I can’t understand them. I have no way of knowing what the multitudes of sketchy men are saying to each other as they stare. Even the French girls can mock me to my face. What in China was my strongest weapon is gone, and I just don’t feel like I can get much respect without it.
This is only my first week, so I am still in the language/culture orientation phase. My actual placement starts tomorrow. According to the information I was sent, I’m in an all-boys orphanage, but after arriving here I’ve been getting a sense of general disorganization and unsurety about the placements, so I honestly can’t be sure where I’ll actually end up. Two girls who just finished their volunteer placements stayed here last night and told me a bit about the program. Neither of them got put doing the things that they requested, and their “homestay” was a nightmare. When they attempted to complain about the homestay, the program coordinator was rude and uncooperative (they found out later that he was actually the son of their so-called host parents). I’m not supposed to be in a homestay, but still...they said that the place where they were both teaching was kind of a hostile environment, because the teachers resented them for coming in. The English teachers couldn’t even really speak English themselves, but were insulted to have a foreigner come in and supplant them. The only rewarding part, they said, is knowing that you’ve helped the kids. Everything else was a horror story. The girls were even considering filing a suit against the organization. They said that people were constantly pressuring them for money, and that none of the money we paid for the program actually made its way to places that needed it. Good thing I brought a suitcase full of markers! But Rajan tells me that they had too many volunteers last time, so they had to put them in placements other than the ones they wanted, and that that bad host family was more of an exception than the rule, and that 8 of the 12 volunteers he interviewed recently are really enjoying themselves and not filing any class-action suits or anything. So! I’m just going to wait and see, and pray that I don’t end up the kind of situation the other two girls did. In any case, I’m sure it will be a character-building experience...

India at a Glance

Natural resources: dirt, chaos, sketchy men, wild dogs
Time: 9 ½ hours ahead of EST
Number of hours Americans still have to wait after the new Harry Potter becomes available in India: 3
Current average temperature: probably 95 or so
Humidity: 75894723584728572319%
Ratio of men to women: 10:7 (according to Rajan)
Cute children asking for money: zillions
Random power outages per day: 3 or 4, maybe
Cows in the street: yes
Unusually colored boogers: see April 18th's entry, Everything You Wanted To Know About China (But Were Afraid to Ask)

This past week I’ve spent just acclimating to India and sightseeing. We spent the first four days in Delhi, then went to Jaipur and Agra for 2 days. I’ve already forgotten where exactly we went in Delhi, but my main impressions were that Delhi has got some pretty sweet architecture. Beautiful temples and serene gardens are in sharp contrast to the noise, dirt, and chaos of the city in general. We saw a Baha’i temple today that was shaped like a huge white lotus with 27 petals! It looked kind of like the Sydney Opera House, only more symmetrical.
Another salient aspect of our sightseeing experience was the constant attention we got from Indian people. Unabashed stares and constant requests to take pictures with the white people – shades of China! Only here I had more people ask to take pictures with me in one day than I did in my whole four months in China. At several places we developed crowds of men who followed behind us, and, any time we stopped, would seize the opportunity to come ask for pictures. It was kind of a bother, because when I’m sightseeing I’d like to move slowly and stop to admire things and take pictures, but when there’s a crowd behind, you have to keep moving or you’ll be accosted. Arrrr.
The trip to Jaipur and Agra was definitely a good choice. Jaipur had a couple of pretty palaces-of-something-or-other, but what we liked more than palaces was the amazing rooftop restaurant we went to after lunch and the bazaar we went to afterwards. There was tons of pretty stuff, and my China-honed bargaining skills did not fail me; I succeeded in buying some skirts for less than half the price the French girls paid for them, and I got the design that was longer and made of nicer material. I am highly satisfied. Another interesting feature of Jaipur: camels and even a couple elephants on the road! (in addition to the usual cows) Agra didn’t have any elephants, but there were monkeys! Agra was actually kind of ghetto compared to Jaipur, although it contains the Taj Mahal. Seeing the Taj was the main reason for going on the trip, and it did not disappoint. I hope my pictures came out all right. I forsook getting the new Harry Potter at its release time in favor of going to the Taj Mahal, and I’m not sorry. I bought the new HP that night anyway, and I’m done with it now. I really wish I had someone here to discuss it with!!!!

Achchha

At my mother's request, here is how to pronounce it: ah-CHAH! the ch is aspirated.

India!

So I'm in India! I'm staying in an apartmenty thing for the first week while I have language and culture orientation, and we have wireless, which is super. It's me and another American girl and three French girls, plus our coordinator Rajan and our adorable cook. The first day I didn't even leave the apartment because when we weren't having our little introductory class, I was napping soooo hardcore, but today we went out to a big bazaar and it was a lot more interesting. India is a lot like China, but people were accosting us even more. I was a little bit tired of it, but I didn't know any good way to tell them to go away in Hindi like I could in Chinese. I feel like when you can speak the language, the vendors treat you differently, and it's easier to maintain your dignity ("face," if you will) and not get frustrated. I couldn't actually buy anything at the market either, because I hadn't gotten an opportunity to get and local money, but it's probably better if I wait a little bit to get a better idea of how much things should cost before I go buying anything. I try to translate rupees into kuai because I figure things should cost about the same in India as in China, but I think things are even cheaper here! Although I really need to cut back a bit on the shopping because I spent sooo much money in China ahahaha.

It's disgustingly hot and humid here, although it hasn't rained once. Weather.com is a liar! It's been saying that there are thunderstorms every day, and I was like okay makes sense, it's monsoon season, right? But so far it's been a lie. It's definitely humid enough anyway, though. We don't have air conditioning, although there are ceiling fans in every room. Still, it gets oppressively hot sometimes. Our shower doesn't have hot water (I feel like there might be some way to unlock the secret to turning it on, but I don't know what), but it really doesn't matter because I wouldn't want anything but a cool shower anyway.

We're playing English/French Pictionary and it is a pretty silly time! I am picking up bits and pieces of French along with the Hindi that we're supposed to be learning. Yesterday we learned basic small talk (hello, nice to meet you, etc) and today we learned question words and pronouns and numbers some adjectives and basic sentences. Rajan says maybe tomorrow we can have verbs. I am excited. Our favorite word is sukriya, which means "thank you very much." "Nice to meet you" is also super fun to say. Apse milkar achchha laga! I wonder how similar any of this stuff will be to the Sanskrit I'll be taking in the fall. Yay Indo-European languages!

p.s. - how awesome is the consonant cluster chchh in achchha ("nice")? very awesome.

Fabulous Times in Finland

I happen to be in Finland at the moment, although only for another hour or two...I'm on my way to Delhi and have a big old layover in Helsinki (it's totally on the way to India!) so I'm just chillin' and absorbing some Finnishness. The first thing I noticed was that the little stick figure women on the women's bathroom sign are wearing short little skirts instead of the traditional large triangular dress. Those scandalous Finns! Since I can't leave the airport, I can't go to a sauna or see moose or anything, but fortunately the airport is full of Finnish people, who keep speaking Finnish, which is super fun to listen to. I even successfully pretended to be a Finnish person! I didn't think I looked Finnish, but I talked to a Finnish girl on the plane over and she said she totally would have thought I was Finnish, so with my clever disguise and use of the lone Finnish word in my vocabulary (kahvi, which means coffee and which I learned from listening to the stewardesses on the plane), I bought coffee at the airport coffee shop! The woman said bunches of things to me in Finnish and I guessed that she was telling me how much the coffee was, so I used my mad skillz to read the price off the little screen and pretend that I'm totally familiar with euros and definitely don't have to squint at the little numbers on the coins to tell how much they're worth, no sirree! She thanked me in Finnish (at least I'm presuming she said "thank you," but she could have been saying "go away" or "grapefruit" or "bring me the fish of your brother Raoul" for all I know) and I left to find milk and sugar, highly pleased with myself. I think I like Finland. Maybe I will visit some other time and stay for more than five hours. And now, I am off to buy a little Finnish chocolate and head to my gate, and this post is, shall we say (you knew it was inevitable)...Finnished.

Wrapping Up: an Overview of China

First, a list that took shape in my head but never made it to the blog,
Things that the Peking University campus has but yours probably doesn't:
-a lake that belonged to the emperor
-beer/hard liquor in the cafeterias
-dog meat in the cafeteria, for that matter
-intense bicycle traffic
-monks
-20,000+ Chinese people

I didn't arrive in China with many expectations. I didn't really know that much about China before I went, and I knew that I didn't know much, so I just tried to have a good attitude and be open to new experiences. And China was certainly full of new experiences and discoveries for me. Through a lot of coincidence, I ended up volunteering at a migrant school and helping organize a fundraiser. I grew to love bargaining. My spoken Chinese went from basically nonexistent to highly functional. I traveled thousands of kilometers into the West of China. But I also witnessed China's failings firsthand. I saw domestic violence in public, people who survived by eating out of trash cans, and kids who the government refused to educate. Many times I heard people defend the horrifically backwards mindsets still prevalent in modern China by invoking their nation's long and glorious history, as if China's historical achievements negated the fact that Chinese people are still racist, sexist, and a long way from free. Before my trip, when I mentioned that I was going to China, most people responded with some comment about the Chinese economic boom and how useful it ought to be to know Chinese in the business world. Well, I never intended to go into business, and now that I've seen what it's like, I wouldn't go investing in China either. By putting American money into China, we're just perpetuating the current order. The more America depends on China for trade, the less power we have to stand up to China and take effective measures to stop its human rights abuses. The Chinese economy may be progressing swiftly, but the government is not progressing with it, and the educational system certainly isn't either. I can't think of many things more dangerous than a nation with lots of economic and political power but very little education. China is full of crises: of population, environment, ethnic conflict. The gender imbalance borne out of the One Child Policy is creating a national surplus of young men, which could be put to convenient use if the political tension between China and Taiwan ever came to a head...war is one solution to a population problem, right? China has so many issues, but I love it in spite of its flaws. Chinese people en masse can be rude and annoying, but individuals are rarely anything but pleasant. It's a fascinating place, the food is delicious, and the shopping is insanely cheap. So of course I'm going back...it's just a matter of when. Hen hao.

The End

My last days in China were pretty frantic, overscheduled ones. All of a sudden it became apparent how many things I still needed to do in the short period of time I had left in China, and everything took longer than I expected, so a handful of things just never got done. I spent a lot of time doing last-minute shopping and making sure I had presents for people, plus some last-minute bonding. I packed here and there, in between events in my busy schedule, or at 5 am before going to sleep. I don't think I slept more than 3 hours in a row that last week. On my last full day in Beijing, I ran errands on campus, went out to lunch with my tutor, got my hair braided into multicolored dreads (multicolored string in the braids - no dyed hair here), got a facial and massage, and went dancing with my Hanyu class. I had to wash my new braids 3 times to get the smell of smoke from the club out of them, which is maybe why they didn't last as long as I might have hoped...

On the morning of the 30th I went out to brunch with Richard, Casey, and Pei, and then enlisted one of our familiar cab people to take me to the airport. It was raining, I hadn't gotten decent sleep in ages, all the goodbyes were stressing me out even further, and I honestly just wanted nothing more than to get on the plane already. As much as I love China, I was ready to come home, at least for a little bit. This Saturday I'll be leaving the country again, this time to volunteer in an orphanage in India for 5 weeks, and once again I find myself stressing out trying to squeeze lots of activities into a short period of time. The adventure never stops!

Finally

Got some things achieved today, the main ones being a) getting my passport back from the Indian Embassy with a nice Indian visa inside and b) eating really wacky street foods at Wangfujing. For all the aggravation I went through trying to get ahold of the Indian Embassy to find out if my visa was ready yet, it was amazingly easy to get. It took, seriously, about 10 seconds. Silly times. I went shopping at Silk Street and got pretty pink presents for people, and made some salespeople seriously unhappy, a reliable sign that you've gotten something for the cheapest allowable. In the evening we went to Wangfujing snack street, and ate lots of weird things, including dog, scorpion, sparrow, snake, and sea mushroom. They were all okay, although everything was fried and overly salty, and it was really hard to get to the edible part of the scorpion through the exoskeleton. Also the vendors were totally the most obnoxious ever, and they spoke English, which is somehow so much more annoying than being hassled in Chinese. One time four of them were simultaneously telling me at the tops of their lungs that I needed to buy some fruit on a stick, and they wouldn't take no for an answer and wouldn't stop yelling no matter what I said, and I finally just turned around and yelled SHUT UP at them, which didn't have much effect, but I felt better. Later I yelled it in Chinese, which was also satisfying. Seriously, they were the most loud and obnoxious vendors ever, even worse than the ones who come out and grab your arm. One of them kept not listening to our order and putting in things we didn't want and being super annoying, and we yelled at him like 3758429758392 times, and at the end he asked for my phone number. Seriously, these guys just did not get it.

New CIEE summer students are here! They seem pretty nice, but they will never be the old CIEE crew. What can ya do. Doesn't matter, I'm leaving on Saturday anyway!

Rain

Rain is good:
-cools things down
-takes the pollution out of the air

Rain is not so great:
-makes all the benches wet so I'm forced to wander for hours without sitting down
-China doesn't exactly smell better when wet


Today's other notable features, besides rain:
-last Sunday at my Beijing church
-lunch meeting with migrant school people. Discussed goals for program; realized that promoting things like creativity, imagination, leadership, and self-esteem are pretty much alien concepts in the Chinese educational system. slash society.
-long mission out to the other side of town to pick up my suit, which I discovered needed more alterations. Couldn't leave market because it was raining, so I wandered around for a couple more hours and let some sweet little Chinese gals at the food court talk me into ordering twice as much food as I actually wanted to eat. Resisted end-of-day laziness and made the hour-plus trek home using only public transportation and my own two feet. Cabs are for wimps. Consequently, currently cannot move/feel feet so well
-read 183 pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned because it was lying around Casey's room. Remembered that I like to read books for fun
-stayed up past 3 am for no discernible reason

Whatever Else I Did This Week

Oh! On Wednesday Pei and I went to Women's Street, which is a super non-touristy and totally authentic place where lots of actual Chinese women buy their clothes. The only problem with it was that the clothes were, for the most part, ugly. You see Chinese people wearing kind of silly things, like a shirt made of two fabrics that clash with each other, and it doesn't faze you because hey, it's a Chinese person, and it's kind of cute that they tend to dress like refugees from the lunatic asylum. Today on the subway I saw a man dressed in nice slacks and what looked like leather business shoes, but when I looked for real I saw that they were, in fact, black leather business-shoe-shaped sandals with navy blue socks under them. Ahhhhh. But anyway, it's rather endearing in Chinese people, but realistically I know that I can't buy these kinds of clothing because a) I could never wear them in the States and b) they look pretty stupid on me anyway. If I dressed all cutesy like a Chinese person I'd just look like a huge overgrown 12-year-old. Whatever, Women's Street had some delicious street food so we were happy. That night we went for dinner with Jooree and Kim and their new roommate, and afterwards we got this amazing almond dessert, but the restaurant it comes from was so packed that there were no tables, so we talked the waitress into bringing it outside to us, and we ate it sitting under a tree and then just took the bowls back, which in my opinion was nicer than eating inside anyway.

Thursday was my last day of classes, so I spent the morning taking my last opportunity to bond with classmates and teachers. I'll probably hang out with my classmates some more next week, but I don't think I'll get the chance to see my teachers again and I loooooove them! They are sooo cute! So that was a little sad. But in the afternoon Pei and I went back to Ya Xiu to get our suits fitted, and that was pretty cool. Afterwards I went to the English Corner office to hang out with those guys a little bit, and they were looking at the receipt from my suit and reading the comments written in Chinese about my figure, primarily the part where the tailor wrote about how my butt stuck out. There are little diagrams that they circle for figure type, with stick figures that have lumps in different areas to indicate a hunched back, a beer belly, etc, and I totally got the "booty" one circled. Take that, Asians! I know you are jealous. Tomorrow I am going back to pick up the suit, so hopefully it turned out awesome!

On Friday I went with Pei to the Summer Palace, which is really near Bei Da, but I had never gone. It was insanely hot out, and we were both tired, and we climbed a big old hill at the Summer Palace and then were super tired and felt gross so we didn't stay long, just went home. I decided then that I didn't need to make such a huge effort to get to Beijing's other random historical palace/temple places, because when you've seen a few the rest get kind of boring, let's not lie. We're going to go to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen one more time, though. I think I was going to achieve something Friday afternoon, but then I took a nap instead. Also I tried about 5857829734589472389574392857 times to get in touch with the Indian Embassy to find out if my visa is ready yet because it really ought to be, but they haven't contacted me, and they are kind of a pain in the neck to contact because their phone always says it's busy or call failed or just rings and rings and rings and the one time I finally got an answer he wouldn't tell me anything because I didn't have my receipt number since my receipt was in my room and I was calling from elsewhere. It's been very frustrating, and they're closed on weekends, so I can't do anything about it until Monday. It had better all be managed nicely when I call on Monday, because I'm leaving the country on Saturday and kind of need my passport back. I still haven't registered my new residence since I have no passport, so I'm still technically living in my new apartment illegally, but it shouldn't be a problem unless I manage to get in trouble with the law within the next 7 days.

Today I woke up at 7 something to embark on a journey to the Liulichang art market with Pei Pei, my faithful shopping companion. I bought some arty things and we had some amazing tea and met an adorable tea-selling lady who we talked to for a long time before I realized I was late for meeting the other volunteers to head up to the migrant school. I hustled there and tried to call the girl in charge, but I couldn't get ahold of her, so I just went by myself, figuring they had left without me. When I got there, however, I found that none of the usual volunteers had come after all, although there were two new girls who came to help out, so we did painting and clay and musical chairs and it was pretty fun. There were little migrant babies today!!!! They were soooo cute and one was sooooooooo fat, I loved it. I played peekaboo with the babies and made faces at them until they laughed. It was super educational. Mostly today I just played with the kids and occasionally, while watching a couple of them play their little connect-5 game, abetted the smaller child a little bit. The little guys never spot the diagonal ones. I love my migrant kids! We took some group pictures because it was my last time, although I don't think we managed a single one where nobody looks kind of goofy. See for yourself:















In the evening I ate in one of the little restaurants on my street, where after 2 weeks I am still a novelty item. One of the guys came out of the kitchen on a break, and upon seeing me commented loudly to the waitresses "hey, we've got a jinfa!" (lit. a gold-hair) It annoys me when people talk about me in Chinese in front of my face, although fortunately I have a well-practiced "hey, I know what you're saying, buster" glare that I'm not afraid to unleash in appropriate situations. It depends on whether people are nice in the way they comment on my waiguoren-ness. Today at the migrant school the mother of one of the little babies was telling the baby "say hello to ayi ("auntie," a form of address kids use for grown-up women)! Ask her how her hair is so yellow!" The baby didn't say anything (small children tend to stare at me and clam up), but it was awfully cute. On the other hand, sometimes when I buy things and I ask how much they are, the salesperson won't even speak to me and will just hold up the number of their fingers, which I find slightly insulting. Even if my Chinese was terrible, at least you'd expect me to know numbers, right? Grah. Oh well, China isn't going to stop being horribly prejudiced and un-PC and completely into judging based on appearance any time soon, so might as well get used to it.

Things My Wal-Mart in Beijing Has That Your American Wal-Mart Probably Doesn't

-Jellyfish
-Whole pig carcasses
-Garlic dish soap (I guess it kind of makes sense; you're just going to eat off them later so they might as well be garlicky)
-Connection to a subway stop
-Baby peeing in trash can
-One curious phenomenon in China that is found in Wal-Mart but also all over is the habit of requiring the ladies who give out free samples to promote a product to basically dress up as the product they're promoting. Not that the Lipton tea girls dress up as cups of tea or anything, but they wear bright yellow dresses the color of the Lipton box with company logos on them. I've never seen a person handing out samples who wasn't a) young and female b) dressed up to match the product packaging c) in a miniskirt and sometimes also color-coordinated go-go boots. I kid you not. I don't think I could deal with dressing up every day to be color-coordinated with, say, a bottle of Minute Maid, but I am not Chinese.
-"tasty tuna tidbits"...packaged like a candy and unrefrigerated, so I really don't know what they could possibly be like:


















(I just got major deja vu thinking about blogging about tuna tidbits, but I'm pretty sure I've never done it before)

and conversely, Things Your American Wal-Mart Surely Has But My Beijing Wal-Mart Is Sadly Lacking:
-whole-grain bread

When I get home I am going to eat bread with so many grains you won't even be able to think about them all at once!! Living in China isn't the best for me nutritionally, I'm afraid.

Shopping-induced Satisfaction!

Today I went with Pei to Ya Xiu Market to get suits made! We went around and picked out material and designs and got measured and bargained it down and had a pretty super time. I love shopping with Pei because she is so good-natured and silly that it keeps me from getting shopping stress. Yay! We went to a bunch of tailors, and ended up both getting approximately the same suit, 3 pieces (jacket, pants, and skirt) for $100 American. And it's going to be tailored to fit; beat that! We are going back on Thursday to have them fitted. See, I may be spending buckets of money in China but at least I am getting a lot of bang for my buck, right? Today I also bought long shorts and a skirt with lots of colors and a short denim skirt that seemed to be the only one that wasn't obscenely short but I had to bargain really hard for it because it's True Religion (which, for those of you who maybe aren't as up on your really expensive American fashion, is a really famous and expensive American brand) and the girls who were selling it to me were SO CUTE. They wanted a high price, and I gave them my highest price, and they wouldn't agree so I walked away, and as I walked further they called out lower and lower prices to me until they were 10 kuai above my asking price. I didn't want to pay the last 10 kuai (can't lose face!), but they were like come on come on it's just 10 kuai, give us 10 more kuai so we can go buy ice cream, don't you want us to have ice cream? And they were so adorable and had been so nice that I really did want them to have ice cream, but I didn't want to give in to pay the extra 10 kuai. I got it for my price in the end after we agreed to buy some more stuff, but I still felt a little bad. I wanted to get them ice cream!

Ya Xiu was so much fun that Pei and I had to tear ourselves away at the end. We were in this little stall that was full of clothes that were walking the fine fine line between AMAZING and ABOMINATION. They were so crazy that they were kind of awesome, and we sort of wanted to buy things but they were so expensive it was making us sad. Bu hao. Oh well, there are lots more cheap and wacky clothes still out there. Hooray!

Tonight we had chuanr night and went to this place where we ate lots of food on a stick, including (my immediate family members will appreciate this more than most, for Bill Cosby-related reasons*)...CHICKEN HEART! It was pretty good, really. Better than congealed pig blood on a stick, even. Jealous? Yeah, you know it.

*Start smearin' that Jell-O!

Tomorrow after class will be more shopping adventures with Rebekah and Pei Pei! We are going to scour every market in Beijing for the prettiest of clothes and the awesomest of bargains before we leave!

Nao le ban tian

To both my amusement and my annoyance, the good ol' Chinese government Internet censor has started blocking my blog again. I can still access Blogger.com to post, but it won't let me view the blog in its public form, nor do I have any method of reading the comments. So, please continue to post comments (it makes me feel so happy and important!), but be aware that I won't be able to read them for a little bit, so if it's anything I should know before I go back to the States you might just want to drop me an email or Facebook or whatever.

Speaking of Facebook, I've posted our homemade skin whitener commercial there, but for those of you who are not Facebookly endowed, I got a Youtube account for the sole purpose of putting it in this blog, so I hope you're happy.



We are pretty much amazing. Can't you see why I'm sad to leave these people? I just realized today that I only have 11 days left in China! As much as I'm excited to get home and see everybody, I also really don't want to leave. I'm so happy with my friends and my teachers and my classes and my neighborhood and my general life in China, and there are so many things I realized that I need to squeeze in before I go. For one, I have to get the ding dong Indian Embassy to finish processing my visa so I can have my passport back, since I can't register my new residence without my passport and it's the law that foreigners have to register all changes of address so the government can keep track of them. We waiguoren are tricky like that. I called the Indian Embassy the other day, and had a conversation along the following lines:
"Hello, I've got a question about my visa"
"Okay" [pause, unintelligible comment to another person in the office]..."Sorry, there's nobody here right now"
"But you're there! I'm talking to you"
"I'm afraid you'll have to call back tomorrow morning"
"But...but...ah, whatever"

That wacky Indian Embassy. I'm sure I'll get it out of them eventually, but I'm going to be a busy busy girl for the next 2 weeks. I made a list of all the places I still have to go (Summer Palace, Women's Market), things I still have to do (eat scorpion, get acupuncture), and things I still have to buy (Beida T-shirts, more pearls). On top of my touring/shopping schedule, I will no doubt be having a couple of farewell dinners/parties to work around next week, not to mention figuring out how to pack all the stuff I've bought in this wonderfully cheap country.

Note: If you were wondering, the title of this post means approximately "hustle and bustle for a long time." It's pretty much going to be my life theme for a lot of the immediately foreseeable future.

A Week That Went By Too Fast

I spent a lot of time this week recovering from last weekend's No-Sleep-Fest, wasting my days napping almost constantly and then not being able to sleep at night until unreasonable hours. It's a vicious cycle. I don't remember much from Monday-Wednesday...I went to Metro (think German Sam's Club) on one of those days and got a humongous container of peach juice (which I finished in about 1 day) and prepackaged sliced Gouda cheese(!) and chocolate and a fan to supplement my apartment's air conditioning, which unfortunately is only in the living room and doesn't affect my room very much. I had a heck of a time buying the fan, because I kept wanting other types of fans that were on display, but then they wouldn't have any more in stock, and they wouldn't sell me the display model, so the salesladies were trying to dance around the issue by directing my attention to fans that weren't out of stock (because like 2/3 of them seemed to be), commenting on how pretty they were so of course I wanted that kind. I found this to be at the same time delightfully evasive and also very silly, because a fan's prettiness is really not its important asset, and I told the salesladies as much. The fan I got in the end was decent, but it was probably my 4th- or 5th-choice fan after the ones I wanted more were sold out. Oh, China.

I decided to go on a quest to eat at all the sketchy little restaurants on my street, and with the help of my trusty pal Richard we discovered that the one right outside my gate is rather superb and a little more cleanish than it looks from the outside. A fly landed in our fish-smelling pork when we were almost done, and the waiter brought us a whole new dish of it which we were too full to eat, so I got a nice box of leftovers that made me very happy the next day at lunch. And dinner. Today we tried another little restaurant with Pei, and it seemed like the food was probably usually pretty good except the particular things we ordered. Everybody's else's food looked so tasty and ours was so sad! Oh well.

Thursday night was the big fundraiser party for Zigen Fund, which is the organization behind the migrant school that I volunteer at on weekends. The venue was really nice and the whole thing came off quite well, I thought. I was assigned a station at the welcome table, where my duty was basically to schmooze with people who came in. It was pretty fun, and a good outlet for my vast reservoirs of personal charm, of course. I think we netted about 10,000 RMB, which isn't so bad for an event run by extreme amateurs. Also our little informal choir did a short performance, which was fun. Go team! Feichang hao!

Friday night was Julie's last night in town, so we went out to the most ridiculous buffet everywhere. For 180 RMB (about $23 US), you get unlimited amounts of basically any kind of food you can think of. Sushi, sashimi, all kinds of seafood, dim sum, Taiwanese food, colorful salads, ox-penis soup, beef stomach, roast duck pizza, all sorts of crazy stuff, plus various juices, slushies, milkshakes, wine, etc, all included, not to mention a wild variety of fruits and desserts. It was insane. If I had known what a buffet it was going to be I wouldn't have eaten for like 2 days just so I could have room for one of everything. Seriously, it was ridiculous. Wooooo!

On Saturday I spent my afternoon volunteering at the migrant school. The school that a lot of students/teachers come from was having a field trip, so it was a small class. The woman I usually work with wasn't there, which was too bad, because I love her! Instead I was working with some young dude who apparently felt compelled to practice his English by relentlessly hitting on me, which was a little bit annoying. We didn't have much of a scheduled activity for the kids for a change, so we just took them outside and organized games for them. We played a little bit of Red Light, Green Light and then some of that kind of tag where only one person can move and if they tag you then you can tag people too but you can't move your feet, and I totally won a round despite my impractical shoes, so I felt super nimble because I'm pretty much a geezer compared to these kids. At night we went out to what is ostensibly the only Vietnamese restaurant in Beijing, which also happened to be slightly expensive, with rather small portions of completely unauthentic Vietnamese food (not that I know a lot about Vietnamese food but this is what my compatriots informed me) and the slowest service ever in the entire world. It was a silly time, but the rest of the night was good. We hung out around Houhai and rented a boat to go rowing on the lake. When we were waiting around debating boat rentals, a bird pooped on me. Eww. Actually it wasn't that bad...at least it didn't get in my hair. I thought it was kind of funny, really.

Rowing was super! It was me, Pei, and Richard, but there were only 2 oars and somehow the 2 people operating them could never go at the same speed as each other, so we were always going in circles, but oh well. Pei and I amused ourselves by singing loudly and not very well, to the great confusion of the Chinese people on other boats. There were a couple of times when Richard looked like he wanted to throw himself overboard, but fortunately this is China and no humiliating friends are as bad as the sketchy, sketchy waters of a Beijing lake.

Today the little international choir that I sang with at the fundraiser had a picnic at Beihai Park (to hang out together before most of the choir leaves China in the next month or so), and we all brought food and drinks and Christian brought a guitar and we sat on the grass and picnicked and sang and occasionally danced as well. This got a lot of looks as well as some Chinese people taking pictures of us, particularly because you're not really supposed to walk or sit on the grass in Chinese parks as far as I can tell, and there was even a little rope around the grassy area, but nobody yelled at us so whatever. Some people had brought music, so we sang all sorts of random songs until it was dark, when we marched out of the park singing the choir's arrangement of Goodnight Sweetheart in the most harmonious fashion. It was all kinds of fabulous.

That reminds me a little bit of some other time this week when I was walking down the sidewalk just outside campus listening to something really catchy on my iPod, and I was dancing a little bit as I walked and a man rode by on a bicycle and turned completely around to stare at the crazy waiguoren for a really long time and I was sure he was going to crash into a tree but he didn't. Which reminds me of another time when I was riding in a cab along the same road and I saw a man and a woman fighting next to a parked car with another man in it, and the woman was pushing the man and they were yelling at each other until the man got tired of being pushed, I guess, and went and laid down in front of the car so it couldn't go anywhere. I was quite curious as to what sort of situation it was, but unfortunately I couldn't hear/understand the contents of the argument. China is such a silly place.

New Digs

If you should happen to be walking south on Yiheyuan Lu, and you pass the KFC outside the southwest gate of Peking University, go around behind the bank with the big red 24-hour-ATM sign, climb the fence, and cross the parking lot to the little alley in the back, you'll find yourself in a completely different world. This is a world populated by small dirty children gleefully eating food on a stick and shirtless men with dark leathery skin, incomprehensibly thick accents, and few teeth. The street is full of fruit stalls and vendors selling all manner of delicious street food. At night, it seems that the entire population comes out to congregate, chatting and relaxing together in the smell of roasting lamb. The sides of the street are lined with crowded little convenience stores and sketchy little restaurants, and if you walk down a bit, right before the slightly larger convenience store across from the print shop, you'll find one particular restaurant with a few dirty plastic tables outside. It looks sketchy, but you'll find that the food is not only harmless, but in fact amazingly delicious.

I would know, because this is the street where I live.

It is quintessentially China, and I am, to my knowledge, the one and only white person who lives there or even goes there at all, even though it's within spitting distance of the University and its many foreign students. Consequently, when I walk down my street, people tend to look at me as if I had two heads. When I ride my bike, they look at me as if I had two heads, tentacles, and a grapefruit for a nose. Who knew those wacky foreigners were even able to ride bicycles?

I've been spending a lot of time in my new digs since the rest of CIEE left, mainly because the last weekend so thoroughly exhausted me that I've been spending a lot of time in recovery. My new apartment is highly satisfactory, especially the GLITTERY BLUE SINK, which is without question the awesomest feature of the place. I'm also really excited to have a kitchen and a washing machine, although neither of them is blue and glittery. My apartment is further spiffed up with the light-up speakers handed down to me by Paul when he left, which are being put to excellent use in fueling my personal singalongs and dance parties, and which I plan to pass on to the new CIEE summer students when I leave. Share the love!

It took me a little while to get the hang of certain things...opening the confusing lock on my door, knowing where to put the trash when I want to take it out, remembering to turn on the hot water before I go to take a shower...but I'm living quite comfortably now. My roomie is in the states renewing her U.S. Permanent Residence Card, so I've grown dangerously accustomed to my solitary lifestyle of constant singing, silly dancing, and loudly talking to myself. I might have to tone some things down when she gets back.

The Last Weekend

On Wednesday it was Jin's last night before she had to leave, so we all went out together to TGI Friday's and then afterwards there was this foreign student band playing at D-22 that Jacqui wanted to go to but when I got there they were done playing so we just walked home and got ice cream.

Thursday after class I went shopping on a fairly successful mission to buy things with silly English on them. It was a zillion degrees, and I ate like 3 ice cream cones over the course of the afternoon. Ice cream is like nature's air conditioning! Ahaha don't be surprised if I've gained weight this semester.

Thursday night (I think this was Thursday night; my memories are really muddled) I went out to dinner with Jacqui and Pei and Casey and we went for Xinjiang food, which was pretty tasty. The best part was when I was taking a big drink of water and out of nowhere I sneezed this MONSTROUS sneeze and I covered my mouth with my hand but it still didn't prevent me from kind of spraying Casey and Pei and it was so funny (that might sound mean but seriously it was pretty hilarious) and I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe or swallow or talk I just had to laugh because it was soooo out of nowhere plus Jacqui was laughing (of course she was laughing, she didn't get sprayed) and when Jacqui laughs I can't help laughing too. Later that night we went to Pepper, which is kind of a chilling and chatting place, but if you're my CIEE friends then after a while you get tired of chilling and start dancing around everywhere and
making the fuwuyuan bemused and slightly uncomfortable, because what do you do with a horde of silly dancing people? Pepper has the best fuwuyuan; they're really friendly and adorable. Hen hao!

On Friday I don't even know what I did during the day...some packing, maybe? My schedule has been so weird recently that I'm all jumbled up. The only thing I can recall is that for dinner we went to Korean barbecue. Our table ordered a whole pig and a whole cow, and that was only like half of it. It's a really meat-heavy kind of food, but it's pretty fun because you grill it yourself on a griddle over this pit of hot coals that's set into the table. Mmmm. After dinner, we all went out to Studio 54, which is a club that was previously owned by Sue-Li's uncle, so her uncle has guanxi (read back a few posts if you forgot what that means) with the current owner, which allowed Sue-Li to pull some strings to arrange a special party for CIEE and co. A whole bunch of CIEE students and friends went, and for 100 kuai we could have all sorts of unlimited beverages, and we could bring our own music if we wanted to listen to something special and it was a pretty nice deal. We danced and played and drank and played and danced until around 2 am, when the unlimited-drinks-for-CIEE deal ended and we all went back to Pepper to hang out with our favorite fuwuyuan. They are the best! The one fuwuyuan Sky who is my particular pal was trying to teach me how to do that thing where you open a fan all in one swoop by flicking your wrist, and at first I kept getting it wrong and just throwing the fan at the floor by accident but then I learned how to do it right and now I use it to impress all my friends, hen hao!

We were at Pepper until really late, and then Eva and I decided we were hungry for sandwiches so when everyone else went home around 5:30 am we went to Lush (the American restaurant that's conveniently open 24/7) for like another hour and we ran into other CIEE students there and me and Eva and Sue-Li were there until like 6:30 or so and then we finally got a cab home but I didn't go to sleep because my roommate was leaving the next morning at 11 so I stayed up and talked to her and then went to sleep for like an hour and a half before waking up to help her with her luggage and send her off. I gave Quynh a little present as she was leaving and she was like you little jerk you know how huge my luggage is already! Mahahaha I'm sneaky like that. For reasons I don't recall, I didn't go to sleep after Quynh left either. I think I packed? I think the sleep deprivation has been affecting my memory. The remaining people on my hall all went out together for dim sum in the afternoon, which was delicious. The best part ever was when we ordered chicken feet and it was Vanessa's first time trying them and she would take a teeny little nibble and then make little whimpering noises and in the end she ate like 3 molecules of it and was like okay someone else can have the rest. If you've never had chicken feet before, they're not bad or anything, but they don't really have any meat on them. You just kind of eat the skin and then spit out the bones. It's a silly food.

Saturday afternoon I took a much-needed nap, and in the evening we went out to a super-fancy restaurant where the menu was all, like, lobster and truffle ravioli in a red pesto sauce and such. We got amazing gourmet food and a bottle of champagne because it was everybody's last night and it still only ran everybody $20-something American, on average. China rules. During dinner, the electricity went out for no reason, and it was kind of cool because the light was just from the candles on all the tables, and everybody was kind of confused, but we pretended like the lights were out on purpose and started singing Happy Birthday (you know like when they turn out the lights to sing Happy Birthday so you can see the candles on the cake), not that it was anybody's birthday, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. The waiters wished John a Happy Birthday on the way out, so I guess we were credible. Then we went and got mango ice cream! It was fabulous.

Saturday night was a lot more chill, because everyone was really tired and still had to finish packing and we just wanted to hang out with each other. We spent a while exchanging pictures from the semester and watching videos that we had taken back in the beginning. Jacqui, Pei, Richard, and I filmed our own little video that night - it was a commercial for skin whitening cream and it turned out kind of awesome. I'll see if I can post it on YouTube later. Pei played the part of the Chinese girl who is sad about her yellow skin, Richard played Pei's husband, Jacqui played a dermatologist, I played post-skin-whitener Pei, and a tube of sweetened condensed milk played the skin whitening cream. I was the only person who didn't end up getting condensed milk smeared on my face at any point, haha! Sleep deprivation will make you do these kinds of things.

I stayed up basically all night Saturday night as well because I didn't want to miss any hanging out with everybody, since they were all leaving Sunday morning. I only slept for one hour, from 5:30-6:30, and during that time Pei and Julie left! Boo. Fortunately they're just going to Hong Kong for a couple days and then coming back to Beijing some more. Hen hao!

CIEE had a bus leaving for the airport at 10:20 Sunday morning, so basically everybody left then or before then. An hour or two before the bus was leaving, Vanessa couldn't find her passport, and she was freaking out but we both prayed that it would turn up, and I was calling the last places where she had remembered taking it but they weren't answering and it wasn't turning up anywhere around her room but finally she found it in some random bag of papers that was packed away in her luggage and it was such a relief. People left soooo much stuff behind in the end, it was ridiculous. Paul gave me his speakers, which made me pretty happy because they're so much better than my tinny little computer speakers, so I'll have 20 days of good-quality music listening then I'll probably pass them on to some CIEE summer students or something. Share the love!

So Sunday morning half past ten the last of CIEE got on the bus and left for the airport, leaving just me and Matt, who accidentally booked a flight for Monday, and Richard, who isn't CIEE. We got a little lunch together and then I moved out too. Richard and I just took my stuff to my new apartment on foot (in retrospect maybe I should have gotten a taxi but I don't know how to approach my apartment by car because the walking route isn't driveable) and he went off to do homework and I was all by myself unpacking because my roomie was in Xi'an for the weekend.

Sunday night I was supposed to go out to dinner with Jon from my Kouyu class and other Kouyu classmates Saki and Maki and Saki's roommate because it was Jon's last night in Beijing, but it was Matt's last night too so him and Richard came along and Jon's friends came too but his friends wanted to eat somewhere far away but Matt had to be back on campus before too late to see his Chinese friend one last time so I wanted to eat close by and by the time Jon and his friends arrived we had already been waiting for a table at a Japanese restaurant and one had just freed up, but then they got angry and didn't want to eat Japanese and Jon and Saki and I just all wanted to eat together and be happy but there was no way to make everybody happy so I just ate at the Japanese place with Richard and Matt and everybody else went to the other place and I just went to meet up with them afterwards. We hung out by their restaurant for a little bit and then went once again to Pepper, where the fuwuyuan all greeted me like an old friend since I've been there like every night recently and I showed them my improved fan-opening skills and they were impressed and Sky showed us how to do a little magic trick with straws and it was a nice time but when it came time to leave and say goodbye to Jon, Saki started to cry a little, and today in Kouyu class we were talking about our weekends like we do every Monday and when it got to the part where Saki was telling about Jon leaving she started to cry again and I had managed to hold it together during all of the weekend's goodbyes but when Saki started crying in Kouyu it all just hit me that everyone was gone and I lost it too. I've met so many amazing people this semester and I just wish I had more time with them...I know we all live in the same country but America is so big and we're all so far apart and we'll never all be together again. Bu hao :( At least Pei and Julie and Kim and Casey are coming back to Beijing after they travel for a couple days, so I won't be totally CIEE-less for the rest of my time here...

Some things

I wrote down some things a couple days ago to post when I had the internet back, and now I do, so here they are:

"I haven’t had internet for all of June, and it makes my life so different. No blogging, can’t check my precious precious email, can’t check the weather online, etc. I love the internet. I’m not entirely sure what I do with the time I would otherwise spend online, but I think a great deal of it is spent napping. Also doing crossword puzzles. And homework!

So, what have I done in June worth noting? I went and volunteered at the migrant school again, which was great, as always. We learned about “o” and “u” sounds, and the past progressive tense. With the kids we had two groups, one who made paper airplanes and had a contest to see what kind of airplane flew the farthest, and one who made paper butterflies by painting one half and then folding and unfolding it to make symmetrical designs. I made a paper airplane and a butterfly myself, and it was highly educational.

Last Friday I went shopping at the Silk Market and bought tons of awesome stuff. I got myself (get ready for it) ...shiny gold sneakers! They are sooooo sweet. I also spent like an hour just chatting with the girl I bought the sneakers from and the other salespeople in that area. It even got me a good price later when I bought a suitcase from the girl across the aisle. Most people in my program brought one or two big suitcases for the semester, and I had only brought one little one, but I’ve gotten enough stuff this semester to warrant another suitcase, so I figured I’d get a big one because they’re dirt cheap. My new suitcase is nearly twice the size of my old one, and is a Samsonite (or at least a really good fake), and cost $12 American. You’ve gotta love China.

Also this past Sunday, I went out for pizza with my Kouyu class because my program is ending soon so they had a farewell party (although I’m still sticking around so it’s a little weird). Everybody got me presents, which I was totally surprised by. Asians are a lot bigger on giving presents for every occasion, though, and my class is half Japanese/Korean people. My teacher gave me a vase and flowers that are both made from cow bone – the hollowed-out bone is the vase, and the flowers are carved from bone. My roommate thinks it’s kind of gross, but I think it’s pretty cool. It smells a little cowish though, but whatever.

The only un-fun thing about that night was when I randomly got all these crazy welts on my torso...out of nowhere, I was all swollen and splotchy and kind of freaking out and worried I was having some kind of allergic reaction, and it went away after I took a cool shower but the next day it came back and I was all trying to figure out how to get medical care and whether I should go to a hospital and what is covered by my insurance in China but then I didn’t get anymore weird welts so I guess there’s nothing to worry about? Silly times.

The other main thing in my recent life is that I’m moving...my program’s housing only lasts until the 10th, but I’m staying until the 30th, so I found a classmate of a classmate whose roommate moved out but they had already signed a lease for a year so they were looking to sublet for any possible length of time, so on Tuesday I went to check the place out. It’s really close to campus (esp. since I have a bike) and it’s the same rent as my on-campus housing but like 10 times nicer. It’s a beautiful apartment (with a kitchen!!! feichang hao!) and the girl who lives there is really chill. Her name is Christiane and she’s from Brussels! And the apartment has wireless internet so my life can be normal again. And my bathroom sink is (seriously) made of blue glitter. I’ll take a picture sometime, because it is amazing.

6/7-
Today on the bus I saw a man who looked exACTly like Mr. Meo; offering further proof that Katie Meo is Asian. That's right."

The fun never stops

The CIEE semester ends in 10 days, so everyone else is going home soon, so of course we have to have lots of activities together before we part! Monday night I went with Kim to a free Darlene Schzech and Hillsong concert at the theater where the other branch of our church is located. It was super fun and awesome and energizing even though we had to wait in line for like an hour to make sure we got tickets before they ran out. Afterwards we went for Indian food and it was delicious and a good end to a highly satisfying day.

Tuesday night Zub (a nearby club frequented by foreign students) was closing down, so we went to pay our respects by dancing and dancing and dancing some more! My legs are still sore, but it was super fun and I saw tons of people I knew there and it was a happy foreign student time.

Yesterday was chill...I met with my tutor in the evening (I love her! she's so cute! I'll be so sad to leave her and my other Chinese friends) and then met up with my classmates from Hanyu at Pepper, this really chill Korean place, and we just hung out and talked in Chinese a whole bunch and I ate the most bizarrely round and symmetrical onion rings of all time, which were surprisingly delicious. Hooray!

Today my weekend started when I got out of class at noon, so I'm thinking tonight will be another night of dancing and just hanging out with my CIEE friends because the semester is winding down...tomorrow I have to get up early to get out to the Indian embassy (it takes about an hour to get there) so I can apply for my visa since they only accept visa applications 9-11:30 M-F. I really hope the whole thing works out smoothly. After that I need to go shopping for a bigger suitcase, because I have too much stuff to bring home! Even if I threw out everything I brought with me and just filled my suitcase with the things I've bought in China, I still don't know if I'd have enough room. Well, it would be tight, at least. I buy so much stuff but it's all so cheap! How can I resist.

I didn't renew my internet for the month of June because I'm only on campus for 10 more days, so I dunno how often I'll be able to post in the next little while, but I'm sure I'll figure something out, maybe involving internet cafes and whatnot. Hen hao.