Random

February 17
decisions re: blog
Ok, so no actual decisions have been made in this respect.

Vicki made me a facebook account and I am totally addicted but it's not appropriate for blogging, though I may link to it through facebook. I haven't decided whether or not to transfer to blogspot and close this thing or what to do. Blogspot is better for design but shitty for pics. Facebook is good for picsand shitty for blogging. And i"m exhausted and should totally be writing an essay right now.

It's reading week (coincidentally occuring at the same time as Spring Festival) so I'll have some time to decide.

I'm still waiting to hear about Poland. It's getting really close to course selection and I'm worried that I haven't been accepted. People keep assuring me that there's no way I'll be denied but I'm feeling skeptical. It's just a big thing and some planning would be nice. Not that it takes a lot of notice for me to pacl up and leave the country, but it involves my education. One of these days I'd like to finish my BA.

Anyway, looking at going back to China in about May, assuming things go as planned. A couple of issues there that I have to figure out. The first is the ticket. Prices are not looking happy these days, so I'll have to look into that. The second problem is that I'll need a summer contract somewhere. I suppose I sould talk to friends I know there and find out who's looking for summer help. The third issue is that I hear the Chinese gov't is cracking down on teaching without a degree. I do have my TESOL cert though. So I'll have to see if that is sufficient.

More on this as information becomes available. Until then, let me know if you come across some cheap air tickets.
10:43 AM

March 24
fantabulous Guelph adventure
So, back in Guelph and very bored. Decided to go out for some fun but Dave had some sort of deathly infection which he insists is not oral gonnorhea so he stood me up and no one else would call me back, so Alex and I headed out with the camera and decided to random things up. First we stopped for coffee and money. Then we parked. Alex parked worse than Nana. Then after that we walked around and ended up going to the Cornerstone, natural habitat of the hippy and excellent vegetarian/vegan restaurant/cafe/bar. That's when we ordered the food. The nice man asked us to put our Tim Horton's in their mugs so we weren't so conspicuous with our commercialism. Then a crazy drunk guy came to tell us about how dispossessed he was with his 15 girlfriends in Toronto and something about nesting in a bar andd having a bunch of triplets. Then he chastised us for our bad attitude. I'm not the crazy drunk rambler now am I? Then the waitress apologized. They do that here, it's very nice. Then we headed out after more people tried to make conversation with me. Then we walked and ran into Evan and his friend. We know Evan from highschool, not that anyone remembers much of highschool. Then we stood there chatting in the cold for an hour until Joel came and we gradually made the decision to move. And go to play pool. Alex and Joel and I played pool, but we made our own rules, as you can see with Alex's crowning of the balls. Joel ordered disgusting drinks and realized he's finally a professional comedian - he made money. After that, it was the abysmally early last call in Canada, so we left the pool hall and wandered around, eventually deciding to shoot potatoes in the air with Evan's homemade and rather impressive potato canon which he conveniently had in the trunk of his car. Then we moved to another "secret" location just in case the cops decided to come. Then the potatoes got mushy and melted and it was less fun and more stinky. Then we went home and watched videos of fat people and children hurting themselves. Fun fun. Definitely one of the best ways to kill time in Guelph. The thing I've realized about this town is: you really have to make your own fun here, because no one else will.



11:51 AM

March 10
the tale of the red button
This morning we were sitting in Stacey's bedroom looking at naked pictures of her boyfriend and we saw this red button on the wall with a little keyhole. I asked Stacey what the button did and she said she didn't know, but she thought it would turn on the lights above it. So, she pressed the button, but the button didn't come back up. Then Stacey said she felt cold all of a sudden and I said "what in the entire history of your life ever told you that pressing the red button was a good idea? NEVER press the red button!" Then the intercom phone rang and someone called, at which point Stacey proceeded to tell them she didn't speak Chinese and hung up on them. We started to get worried. Then they called again and we realized it was security and they weren't happy. So Stacey went to the dictionary to look up the phrase for "I thought it was a lightswitch" and went to put on pants and set up the video camera because, of course this was all very funny. So, then a few minutes later, the security guard came up and Stacey attempted to demonstrate that she thought it was a lightswitch and showed him to the bedroom, at which point he asked "where is the key?". We had mei you key. So, the amused guard went back to the office to call someone and laugh at the stupid laowai. At this point we realized there was probably a really annoying alarm going off in the security office. Then several minutes later, another man in pajamas came to the door with a key to turn off the alarm and tell Stacey several times not the press the red button. We probably got him out of bed early on a Saturday morning because we decided to press the red button, but on the other hand, it's probably the most exciting thing that has happened in the security office all week, and a tale to be retold to their families for many a day to come. After it all, Stacey said, "Ok, don't press the red button." And we listened to the blurry video of the security manager telling Stacey in Chinese not to press the red button.

10:44 PM

February 15
a list
Well, now that I'm getting ready to head home I guess it's time to start making top ten lists. So, here's my top ten list of best things I've heard while living in China. It's just a bunch of my observations, so I hope nobody gets offended.

Meiguo bu hao
"hello money mother thank you happy birthday"
"for you, special friend smile price"
"it's good to health"
thirty minute special on how China invented cloning
"the province of Taiwan"
"the War to end Japanese Agression" aka WWII
"the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet"
"You know, war is the best way to resolve conflict - Chairman Mao liked war" regarding relations with Taiwan.
Chinese awards for the best 2008 Beijing Olympics propaganda
Anyway, more lists to come. I'll be surprised if they let me publish this without editing....

12:44 AM

February 14
Valentine's Day
So, Valentine's day in China is a lot like Valentine's day in Canada except the flowers are cheaper and more plentiful and the chocolate is crappier and more expensive. Also, there are lots of Chinese girls in the streets yelling at their boyfriends. Strangely enough, today was incredibly warm - around 18C and sunny. Air quality was poor but there was a but of a breeze and it stayed warm after sunset. Two weeks ago, Wuxi had it's one and only snowstorm which lasted a day and left slush all over the place, making it cold and miserable. So, I have no idea what it's going to be next week. Either way, 18C is fun for February. I'm going to be so screwed when I get home in March and it's already 30C here and still snowing in Canada.
4:57 AM

February 07
I survived Spring Festival
Well, Spring Festival is over, so I can finally get some sleep. For two weeks everyone has been trying to blow up every square inch of this country with fireworks. This year, Beijing decided to relax the fireworks restrictions for Spring Festival, allowing everyone to go crazy with them. Appararently, they haven't had this for a while, though I wasn't here last year. I've heard stories that the small towns don't bother with restrcitions.

I didn't really do much for the holiday. There really isn't much you can do unless you leave the country. Too many people trying to go everywhere. On Friday, Ian and I went to a small town south of Suzhou called Tongli. It's an ancient city described by explorers as the Venice of China. It's not quite that grand, but there are a lot of gondolas. Anyway, this city is the new home of the Museum of Chinese Sex Culture, which I had really wanted to see. It took us about twenty minutes by train and forty-five by bus to get there. We missed our first train, so we got a standing ticket for the next one. When we tried to get on the train, it was madness. The hard seat cars were packed so full no one could move, so we tried another car to avoid getting trampled by all the people trying to get on. The other car we tried was a soft-seat car, which we weren't supposed to get on with our ticket, but we played dumb and the girl gave up and let us stand on that car. Encouraged by our success, a Chinese couple tried to fight thelr way on the train, but they had void tickets and the girl wouldn't let them on - so they kicked her and shoved her out of the way and got on. Fortunately some guys pulled them off her and she made them buy good tickets, but it was frightening to see that on a train, especially with no space to move. The train pulled away with the girl trying to shut the door and pushing people's arms out of the way - dozens of people still on the platform unable to get on the train. Crazy.

The Museum was interesting, although hugely underfunded and thus a little disappointing. The museum is funded solely by the owners and private donations, which was unfortunate. Regardless it was still interesting to see a two thousand year old dildo. Pictures shortly.

Aside from that, slow holiday, ate at some nice restaurants, packed some of my stuff and watched a lot of tv.
9:45 PM

December 13
new student word list
Ok, I'm starting a new list of made-up student words. Feel free to add to this list.

divertingess - n, interesting, or the amount to which something diverts you from boredom.

interestingness - n, major, or area of specialization

9:57 PM

December 02
BBQ
Ever had a BBQ in November? Some of our student friends invited us to have a BBQ with them two weekends ago by Taihu lake. It was supposed to be an American style BBQ, but it eneded up just being various pieces of meat on bamboo sticks cooked over this cool portable bbq thing with some Chinese style spices thrown on. However, they did make some good salads and it was quite delicious. It was a little cool, but very nice, until this policeman showed up and told us that we weren't allowed to have fires in that area. So we offered him some bbq and took lots of pictures with him so soften him up and so he let us finish up what we had already started cooking. Anyway, here are some pictures of that. These were taken by Maria, another foreign teacher at web. There are some more pictures around somewhere, so if I find them, I'll put all the pictures in an album. Anyway, you can click on them to enlarge.

12:10 AM

October 14
Backstreet Hotpot
Ok - Tonglu pictures are posted. Xi'An still to come - I'm busy!

After work last night I was starving so Ian and I shared a cab with Denny and got off down the street from our house where there are a lot of street vendors. Ian bought something resembling rice krispies from a guy who was making them right there in the street - he only had one rice explosion all night! I'm excited because you can't really get cereal here. Anyway, so we grabbed some BBQ chicken and meat sticks and some spicy muslim style noodles and some garlic green beans and sat down at a table to eat. After a bit, a young man came to sit down with us and he brought his hotpot - which you can now get on the side of the street, I guess because it's getting cooler. Hot pot is a boiling spicey soup that you cook whatever meat and vegetables in and then eat out of the pot, like fondue. Anyway, we were eating and I was chatting with the guy in broken Chinese and a girl came along with a guitar and a karaoke box. I discovered unfortunately that she sings you a song with one chord on an out of tune guitar for money. She only played one song for us. Anyway, that's my random story.

12:49 AM

August 06
New Words
As the ESL students get to the higher levels of English study, they start to learn the basic rules for changing nouns into adjectives, into comparatives, into superlatives, into verbs ad noseum, by adding different endings. The problem with this method is that many words the students come up with aren't words at all, and so I am going to post them here, because they're funny. Now, don't confuse these with bushisms, because everyone except Bush gets through this stage of language difficulty by the third year immersed in English. I'll add more as I hear them.

manufactory - n, a building where things are made

increasement - n, the process by which something increases

queeness - n, the female ruler of a country

insurancer - n, a person who insures something

enirger - n, a person who enirgers things

confuriating - adj, something which is both confusing and infuriating

authenticker - comp, something which is more authentic than something else

importantest - sp, something which is the most important

minusment - n, the process by which you can calculate the difference between two numbers, ie 11-9=2

overwork - n, the instance where an employee works more than his normally scheduled hours

demeanorly - adj, possessing of a demeanor; sad

4:40 AM

July 28
Alex
Here is a picture of Alex being a bat. All hail the toastmaster, master of all toast making in foreign countries. Also, a picture of Sabrina looking cute. Don't be deceived - she's plotting something. I'm sure of it.

9:03 PM

June 29
True Blue kitten
Last night, I was headed to True Blue, the foreign bar, to meet some people. As I appraoched the door, a tiny kitten jumped out of the bushes as if it were about to pounce on me, but stopped short and just stood there looking at me. A few minutes later, my sister came and it did the same thing to her. We were amused and headed into the bar.



About ten minutes later, a thunderstorm came out of nowhere and it started pouring rain. Alex and I decided to save the kitten, so we ran outside, grabbed the kitten from the bush and brought it inside the bar. Now, in China, it is perfectly normal to see kittens and cats in bars, stores, restaurants, shops and any other place that would be shut down in the West for having animals. But, this is China, and I guess cats serve the practical purpose of killing small rodents. So, the owner of the bar was perfectly happy to let the kitten run around at will. At one point, we even had most of the bar looking for the thing.



Anyway, this poor little kitten has a weird tumor/birth defect on its stomach, so I think that was a pet that was turned out of its home - it had been hanging around the bar for two days apparently. So, I decided that next Monday, if it's still alive, I will give it a name and a bath.



I'm going to go check on it tonight....

2:19 AM

June 28
Summer is here
MSN Spaces has finally decided to let me change the font, background colour and formatting!

Well, summer is offically here. How do I know? Is it the soaring temperature? Is it the humidity? Is it the 200 highschool students forced to study English in my school for the next two months? No. In China, summer is marked by the beginning of several months of random power outages caused by the power company trying to save energy, or perhaps make extra money taking bribes to keep the power on.

Either way, we were sitting in Provence the other night, eating our dinner, and the lights went out. I always enjoy a candlelit dinner, but with no energy, and thus, no A/C, the candles were melting faster than they could burn.

The owner of the restaurant was pretty good about it. He apologized profusely and thanked whatever deity is legal here that all of the customers were regulars and would be coming back. Then he drank two bottles of red wine, or so he said, and had Jackson - an English teacher and the General Manager - make us up some free cold drinks. We wanted ice cream, but the cook wouldn't let Jackson open the freezer. The hard part came when we tried to split the bill six ways with no computer. Good thing Mr. Lee is good at math.
8:48 AM

June 21
Pizza Hut
Alex and I went to Pizza Hut for lunch today. It's a little on the expensive side for China, but it's safe and air conditioned and they have an English menu. Anyway, one of the menu items is a self serve salad from the salad bar. For 25 yuan or something like that, you can fill your salad bowl once. We happened to get seated beside the salad bar, so we had the entertainment of watching a party of four attempt to eat their entire meal on salad from one small bowl.

They started by filling the bottom of the bowl with coleslaw and salad dressing. Then they carefully laid a bed a of lettuce, followed by a neat row of tomato. After that came the fruit, which was stacked in such a way that the pieces fit together tightly. At this point, a second person came over to help. Then they started filling in the cracks of the structure with cucumber and carrot slices and used something that looked like hummus as a form of cement. Then they put something in the centre that might have been cottage cheese. Next came another layer of garden salad, and they repeated the above. Soon, all four of them were working on it in order to keep it from falling over.

The whole salad building process took about ten minutes. At the end, two of them carried the salad very carefully back to the table and the four of them spent the next fifteen minutes eating it. I have never seen such an intricate attempt to abuse the self-serve privilege. But, seriously, how cheap can you be?

1:50 AM

June 18
Alex is blogtastic...
I've imported my first friend! Okay, really my sister Alex is visiting me for the summer, and she has finally arrived. Now, she's sitting around my office being bored until I find her a job. But, at least I'm not alone anymore.

She arrived here on Tuesday the 14th of June. I went to the airport to meet here. Her flight was early, so I thought I'd missed her, but actually, she just spend an hour tryng to confuse the customs official.

Anyway, after several hours of waiting and travelling, we arrived back here to Wuxi and now I'm blogging her. This is my pointless blog entry.

11:23 PM

June 10
Rogue fruit h0re (stupid msn) and the Japanese Restaurant
First, the Japanese restaurant. There is this japanese restaurant across the street from my apartment in the designer mall. The restaurant is called Ichibanya. It's big, almost always empty and filled with a bunch of Chinese staff, who hate working there, but like getting paid and don't know the menu in any language. Actually, the food was quite good, the tempura was light and the sushi was decent. The prices were okay, considering it's in the designer mall. But, my favourite part about this restaurant, aside from the fact that it's open late, and always empty, is their slogan: The Sheet Iron Bums the Menu. The greatest part is that I don't know whether this is Chinglish (ie something that was poorly translated from Chinese to English) or whether this is Jachinglish - something poorly translated twice. I've been thinking about it and from what I can figure, this might have something to do with grilled food, although I wasn't aware that they served such a thing. Any guesses? Let me know.

Okay, second story. Last night, a friend of mine and I were headed home to have excellent Cajun food, when all of a sudden, a fruit whore on a tricycle with a huge box full of mountain berries came tearing down the sidewalk. I should explain my use of the term fruit whore. I only misspell because msn is trying to censor me. Apparently, it's okay to use perfectly accepted words in the body of this entry, but not in the title. On my profile I have to do the same thing because I used the word "is" right before I used the word "hitler" and if you put those words together, it's unacceptable. Stupid msn. Anyway, in Wuxi, and probably other places in China, almost all of the produce is brought into town by the farmers in the middle of the night to vegetable and fruit markets. Middlemen or "fruit pimps" as I call them, will buy up whole truck loads of whatever and then distribute the produce among a bunch of poor people on large tricycles with boxes mounted on the back for the fruit. Then they stand on every street corner and proposition anyone walking by who looks like they have money. At the end of the day, they head back, settle up with their pimps and start the whole cycle over again.

Anyway, so I was walking home and one of these fruit whores ran into me as he was trying to escape from some police officer. The edge of the wooden box of his tricycle caught on my pants and basically ripped them right off me, so that my left leg and ass were hanging out. The ugly woman behind me laughed, but she doesn't have any teeth, so I think we're even. So, now, I'm in China and my pants shortage is even worse, because I'm not a size zero. It may be a while before I can get another pair of jeans. This is a lot more heart-wrenching that it appears.

5:43 AM

June 04
Random Restaurant Woman
I went to the maple leaf last night - that's what I call the small hole-in-the-wall restaurant behind my apartment whose chinese name translates to something with maple in it. Normally, I just order one of the few things that I can say and then go back to my apartment, but as I went to sit down, an older woman ushered me into the seat beside her. She reminded me of the woman pictured in that famous wartime propaganda poster flexing her bicep (I've put it below), except older - definitely a worker though.

Anyway, she was sitting there with her bottle of baijiu or maotai or some other form of overproof liquor they drink straight here, and a glass. She didn't speak more than a few words of English and not much Mardarin, for that matter. We were able to exchange names and I gave her my buisness card. I was a little worried about her trying to stick me for the bill, but she insisted on paying for my meal as well, which was 6 yuan.

Now, she ordered some kind of bowl of big red soup with something that looked like a cross between duck skin and squid and tripe. She insisted that I try it and kept putting more and more on my plate. Actually, it was quite good tasting, but a little chewy. I ate a fair amount, because I didn't want to offend her, so I missed out on eating the dish I had ordered, which I was kind of looking forward to. But, overall it was a good experience, though I should probably be more careful about who I eat with.

1:51 AM

June 03
stupid msn... elevator story
Msn is a stupid whore. Ok, I'm just mad because I wrote this whole thing and it decided to eat it and not save it. The I tried it again and it ate it again. Or maybe I should blame China. I'm not sure.

Anyway, elevator story. Have you ever been on an elevator and looked at the sign that tells you the maximum number of people that the elevator can hold, and then calculated that it was unlikely, if not phyiscally impossible to ever put that many people in an elevator? Well, it isn't in China.

The Chinese view it as more of game, really. When the elevator doors open, they herd onto the elevator in order not to be the last one on - otherwise, the alarm goes off and the elevator won't move until someone gets off. It's kid of like Jenga - where you compete to see who's the last person to add a block until the whole thing comes crashing down. It's all very funny.

Now, I live about a 9 minute walk from the school, though generally it takes twenty minutes to get there with the elevators. I do understand that there are over a billion people here - but tell me why we have four elevators and we only use two? They're trying to save electricity... it feels like something from Ayn Rand.... oh, wait, communism, I forgot.

But, in defence of the Chinese elevators, when you can get one, they are very smooth and very quick, assuming you don't have to stop at every floor.

Anyway, that's my story. I should be obvious by now, I don't plan to put anything terribly serious on this blog, though I do intend to post about my various adventures.

11:57 PM

June 02
Stacey and Dave outsmarted China!
I'm not sure if this is blogworthy or not, but I'm excited. In China, the governemnt censors all websites and blocks those it feels are detrimental to communism. This, of course, is very frustrating to anyone who wants to read news or email. Some websites are blocked out permanently, like BBC World News, and some websites are only blocked out temporarily because they are displaying something bad that day. Sometimes the government shuts down personal home internet services for a few days while they check through all your email and viewed webpages to make sure you're not a spy. But for the most part, it's just inconvenient. Hotmail and msn messenger will occasionally go down for a week or more at a time, and the Chinese government hates google, at least, it did until google decided to open up an office here and invest some money in China. Funny how that happens.

Anyway, I would just like to congratulate Stacey and Dave for finding a way to access blocked out sites. But, I can't reveal their secret in the event the government decides to read my blog.

12:11 AM

May 31
My Apartment
So, I'm moving to a new apartment at the end of June. The lease is up on my place and well, it has a few problems. I've heard some good things about the new place and I'm pretty excited because it sounds like it's going to be a lot nicer than the place I have now. I had a day off so I thought I'd go take a look around the area and figure out where the important things are - grocery store, bars, shops etc. I knew where the building was because I can see it from my office building, so I took a look at the map and headed out.

After walking for half an hour I should have been in about the right area, on the other side of the canal. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be a road in the direction of the building and the area I was in was a little creepy and a little slummy. When I realized the road I was on wasn't going in the right direction, I turned around and walked back, hoping to find a different bridge that would put me in the right area. But, the closer I got to the bridge, the slummier and creepier it got, with no visible way to the area where the building is. Then, as I was walking, I felt a little tug at my purse and realized that someone was trying to put his hand in it. I screamed at him and accidently knocked over a small boy, which then caused his mother to start screaming at me.

And of course it was over 30 degrees. So, I guess I'll wait until the school takes me there. I just hope I don't have to walk through that area on the way to work every day.

7:46 AM