This past week has been full of some adventure.  The holiday officially begins on September 29^th for many people in the PRC.  It’s convenient that the national holiday coincides with “Mid-Autumn Festival”. What this means for us 外国人 (foreigners) is that we get a nine-day holiday. Yay!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but during the holiday it is next to impossible to buy train tickets to anywhere in the country. China has this awesome (insert sarcasm) plan that everyone in the country should have the same holiday. It sounds really great, right? Everyone in your family with the same holiday? You can all get together and no one has to worry about taking time off of work or whatnot.  Awesome.

Not Awesome. Imagine everyone in America getting in their cars and going on vacation at the same time. Except, add a billion people, take away the cars, and smash everyone onto a train that’s not air-conditioned.  (My friends, this is not much of an exaggeration.)

So back to the train tickets… the rule is this: you can purchase tickets ten day in advance of your journey. No more. If you go eleven days before, the ticket window lady says, ‘no!’ (sometimes in English).  We were looking at leaving on the 1^st because a couple travel companions had previous engagements during the weekend. So, ten days before that was this past Friday.

I went to the ticket office. And it went something like this… Amber: We need tickets for Beijing to Baishan City. Ticket Lady:  什么都没有 which means, “nothing.”  I was discouraged, but my friend Mike began asking questions.  Mike (to ticket lady): How are all these people buying tickets if there are none left?  Ticket lady: they booked them on the phone. Mike: what? How? Ticket lady points to a sign. Mike: Amber, write that number down. Amber grabs tablet and types it in. Mike (to another guy in line): What day are you traveling? Guy in Line: two days from now. Mike: how are there tickets for that day? Guy in Line shrugs. Mike, confused, walks away from ticket office.  Mike and Amber brainstorm other ways of getting to Changbaishan.

Later, I find myself at school with another teacher and our new assistant, Kevin. I give Kevin the train-ticket-booking-phone-number. He tries to call it and says to me that it’s not getting him anywhere.  (Actually, he said it was useless). 🙂  He told me that there is a way of purchasing tickets online. How did I not know this before?!? Kevin looked it up and, sure enough, there were a few tickets left for us to purchase. I looked at Kevin and said, “why don’t more Chinese people use this website?” To which he responded, “they do, Amber.”  🙂

I don’t understand why we weren’t able to buy them at the ticket office. I don’t understand that if they go on sale 10 days before the departure date how they can be sold out already the morning they go on sale. I don’t understand. (It’s this way with many things in this country.) Apparently you can “fix” (or what English speakers call ‘reserve’) tickets on this website 12 days in advance. 🙂 Sweet! I immediately think that we are going to have to try to get our return tickets soon. Kevin!

To make a long story longer, we ended up getting tickets for early Monday morning into the following day. (They aren’t even for the whole way…somehow we’ll get there…) We were also able to get tickets for the return trip, sort of. It will definitely be an adventure.

There is one more wrench in the plans. Two of my travel buddies have their new visa interviews this week and the visa office will take their passports to process their visas. This means that they might not be able to get on the train… Another travel buddy had to give up his passport yesterday to change it into a student visa. He will not have his passport either. Whenever you stay in a hostel you have to have your passport for registration purposes. His won’t be with him. The two other companions will also be without passports. I’ll let you know how it all goes down. (Strangely enough, we were able to pick up their train tickets today with a copy of their passports…so maybe this is also legit?) One of my travel buddies is very good at talking himself out of situations in Chinese. Should be very entertaining. 🙂

Hopefully the next post will have some sweet photos from the top of Changbaishan!

Yes, I know I have way too many vacations in this country. When in Rome…

The National Holiday is quickly coming and I have my travel plans set…almost. I really only have one place I want to go at this time (for a 7-8 day holiday).  It is a lovely place called Changbaishan (长白山), which means “forever white mountain”. 🙂  Sounds cold, I know… Let me tell you about it:

Changbaishan is a mountain that lies on the border of North Korea and China (in Jilin Province).  It is a dormant volcano with a lake in the middle (sort of like our Crater Lake in Oregon).  Here’s a photo I stole from a website:

This is the lake on top of the volcano. It’s called “Heavenly Lake” 🙂

Another view of the lake. 🙂 I’m so excited!

I hope that it’s not too difficult to get there. 🙂  I’ll most likely be traveling with three other people this time around. No need to worry about my safety. (Although I am close to N Korea)

In other news: I haven’t experienced any of the protests (Japan – listen to the news). I don’t feel unsafe and life is pretty normal right now. 🙂  We are suspending our B studies for a couple weeks until after the Shi Ba Da (changing of the government…) I’ll be using my new found “free” time to hang out with my Chinese friends 🙂  Yay!

CAUTION! Please have your decoding hat on while reading this post!  I’ll do my best to choose my words wisely. 🙂

I’ve been back in the Middle Kingdom for about two weeks. My return date was set in June because the original start date of school was the weekend after I returned. I actually thought I was going to be one of the last people to return. Hehe…

Towards the end of last semester, I was at school one day with another fellow teacher (the lead teacher/owner/etc. of the school) in the office, preparing things for teaching (like good teachers do…hehe.) We received a visit from the Men In Blue (they are also blue in China, funny enough…are they blue everywhere?)  They were just “checking” out the school and asking a lot of questions about it (weekend school that is)…how many students, how many teachers, etc…  (You should know that this visit came at the beginning of what we foreigners liked to call the 100-day purge…the Middle Kingdom is currently changing Heads and we think it might be his/their way of showing their power, etc…something else I had heard was that the new Head would like to remove BIG DADDY from the country as well)  What we didn’t realize was that our visas would be a little troubled. So everyone happily returned to the states with the hope of returning in the fall for another fun-filled-year of weekend school.

Over the course of the summer, our new teachers had delayed arrivals (due to some visa trouble) and so the start of school was pushed back a week. During the week before school, the lead teacher/owner was working at school getting supplies ready, sorting out class lists, etc.  She received ANOTHER visit from the MIBlue, and this time asked her to visit them in their Office. So, she had an appointment for the next day with the MIBlue and our Chinese “liason” (also Chinese owner of the school).  The MIBlue separately ‘interrogated’ the lead teacher and the Chinese owner and it was decided that the school would have to be closed. (Not legal visas, other stuff…skype me if you want to chat)  So all of her hard work during that week was for nothing.  We had an emergency meeting with the teachers and decided that we needed to expedite the changing of our visas. (Mine is supposed to be good until November…prob isn’t now…)  Also-we needed to find a way to earn enough money to support the teachers because the school was a large portion of that income. Since it isn’t legal for any of us to be shaping young minds of China, we decided it would be best to stick to tutoring until further notice.

The day after the ‘interrogation’ with the MIBlue, I needed to register. (technically you are supposed to register within 24 hours of arrival in the country…minor detail…) It was probably a good thing that I didn’t register right away because I would probably be back with all of you stateside right now.  HE always works things out for the best, and I confidently believe this was one of those times.  When the lead teacher was asked where I was (because I was with her during the first visit of the MIB) she told them, ‘stateside.’  Had there been a record of me here, I probably would have been brought in too…

So, registration was another tiny problem.  I went with my other roommate (who arrived the night before) to the MIBOffice to officially register. We were not able to register because we didn’t have the landlord (LL) proof of ownership. hmmm….  That was on a Friday at 4:50 pm.  “I guess I get to stay for another weekend,” I thought.  Monday, we tried again. We took the LL to the MIBOffice with us so that we had proof. The registration went smoothly and NOT A PEEP was said about my late registration/not-so-kosher visa.  PRAISE HIM!  (It’s a bit of a Catch-22 for visa/registration in this country…) For me to come, I have to have a visa. When I get here, I have to register….(to get my “kosher” visa I have to have proof of registration.)  A bit 复杂 (complicated) if you ask me.

So I’m a little stuck…but life is moving on as planned.  Things you can talk to BIG DADDY about: My visa, the weekend school (there’s a lot more to the story…which I’ll try to relay piece by piece), the ‘daytime-training-of-Chinese-kids-in-English-which-some-people-do-with-their-own-kids-at-home’ that we also do, HIS protection of our STUDIES and the FRIENDS that we serve here.  I’m confident HIS PLAN is the best.

After a six-month hiatus, we’ll try this again…

In May, I was still struggling with my decision to return to China. During the summer, I was struggling with my decision to return to China. I’m now back in China and it’s good to be back. 🙂

I’ve been spending my first week moving into my new apartment (pictures will come when it’s clean and settled) and attending Chinese class. I have two roommates this year and I’m excited to be much closer to both the school where I teach and the school where I study.

This past weekend we had a joint wrshp service with our Chinese friends. Pstr Bare preached in English and Chinese which is very fun to see/hear/try to understand. He’s much easier to understand than a Chinese person! We recieved some of our new teachers from the airport (complete with signs!) and had a couple of good days helping them get acquainted with the smoggy city.

On Sunday afternoon, there was a get-together for some of the kids who went to America with Hannah this summer.  One of the homeschool boys hosted the party at his “house”.  Here are some things I observed while at the party:

1) The further you get from the city center, the larger the dwellings become. (This is probably not true, but I’m trying to use my Chinese logic so bear with me). This “house” (which was 6 floors) was huge and beautiful inside. They had a very small ‘backyard’ which was used for their garden, currently holding only pumpkin plants. They must really love pumpkin!

2) If it rains really hard for 24 hours straight, you will end up with a 1-2 inch wide crack along your support wall in your basement. I decided to ignore this one and just hope there would be no accidents. 🙂

3) If you finish your cup of tea, another one will promptly be given to you, until you stop finishing your cups of tea. (Thankfully the house had 4? bathrooms to choose from).

4) If you mix 8 middle school boys, a large remote-controlled/wifi-controlled helicopter, and glass chandeliers, something/somebody will be broken.  Thankfully, it was only the helicopter.  (Side note: this was probably the coolest toy helicopter I’ve ever seen…I kind of want one)

5) If you are a man, in China, and at any kind of party, you will be asked to drink baijiu. (白酒) This literally means “white alcohol” and it is very potent. My favorite use for it is cleaning the kitchen and I try to never drink it. I have been to many dinners with former (adult) students where the men would get out of hand with their drinking. (see previous post on alcohol culture in China) This dinner was nothing like those. The men at this party were able to control themselves just fine. Perhaps it was because the baijiu they were drinking was 1600元 per liter bottle (that’s roughly $250) and they wanted to savor it.  I tried some. The brand is Maotai and it’s apparently one of the best baijiu brands in China (and 53% alcohol). The dad of one of our students told us the cost of the bottle. Later we found out that his company gave him the bottle of Maotai…which is interesting because he is the owner of the company. Another dad told us that he has a bottle of 1963 Maotai worth half a million CNY. Hehehe….  Below is a picture of the shot glass I used:

6) There are in fact class divisions among the people at any given party in China.  Two of the other foreign teachers and I were observing this phenomenon.  If you are a parent in China and you have any sort of wealth, you WILL have an Aiyi (pronounced “eye-ee”).  This is basically a nanny-type person who a household will hire to do various jobs around the house. She’ll really do whatever you need her to do. Cook. Clean. Raise your children for you.  There were no less than 5 (yes, 5) Aiyis at this party…and I’m pretty sure 3 of them belonged to the house hosting.  (There are actually at least 2 live-in aiyis because we saw their bedrooms.)  The aiyis do not get to eat until everyone else has eaten (and had enough to eat), they play with the small children and basically raise them for the parents.  Any amount of children over one and it becomes way too much to handle for the mother! 🙂  I know you’re probably laughing right now (possibly my mother who had 4 kids in just under 6 years)… I laugh every time I think of this.  It’s just part of their culture. Almost all of our students have aiyis at home. Even the families who have only one child….and the child is in school.  It’s best to not ask.

7) Our students’ fathers are way more influential than we had originally thought. Two are lawyers (one of which was a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School and is now at one of the top three universities in China), one is an IT guy for the government…maybe I can convince him to remove the block on facebook…one is an executive for Rolls Royce Jet Engine division. They still like drinking their baijiu.

Welcome back to the craziness of China!