Autumn came. She disappeared. You can't remember where she said she was going to.

I am home again, and what can I say? Living in China was the single, most interesting experience of my life, followed closely by a play entitled "The Homecoming". I add my own meaning to this, and everyone else does, too.

Goodbye Judgmental Supermarket
Goodbye Cheap Cigarettes
Goodbye Noodle Boy
Goodbye Ajing
Goodbye Room 409
Goodbye Beloved Apartment

We're going to a party. It's a birthday party.

Today I wanted comfort food, and a lot of it. I decided to buy a cake. I don’t feel the need to explain myself about this. Cake in China: They don’t use butter cream or fondant, but straight whipped cream. This isn’t my favorite icing, but it’s edible. A “two-layer” cake is really the size of a one layer cake in America. The cake itself is okay, but I was raised on box cakes, and really nothing beats those for me. They cook chewy dried fruit into the cake. Cakes are for birthdays and for special guests. I was served a special guest cake when I had lunch at Susan’s, but her son served it to me, and I had spent the whole morning walking in the park with him, and watching him pick his nose and put his hands down his pants. And he served it with his hands, no utensils required. So I nibbled at it, and didn’t really get farther than that. I went to a shop across the road and pointed to a small cake with a rose on it. I thought they served the ones off the shelf, but the lady at the cake shop started making it right there. I left and went across the road to my favorite noodle shop. The noodles are good, but I really go there for the roast beef. A word on roast beef: Since I first discovered roast beef two weeks ago, I have eaten it at every possible turn. I know that roast beef is available in America, but not like this.
It’s the garlic (dasuan) sauce that really gets me, and the scallion pancakes you eat it with, like a wonderful roast beef taco. I make my own dasuan sauce, which is really the best part of the whole roast beef entrée. What I like about this noodle shop is that they have a wall of pictures of the different foods they serve, and I can just point to a picture, smile, and nod, and thumb-motion “to go, please”, and that’s that. I’ve started doing this every two days. I would do it every day, but one serving of roast beef lasts me for two days. I make some dasuan in my kitchen, pop around the corner to the outdoor market and buy some scallion pancakes, and stop by the noodle shop for some roast beef. It was a nice system. This is what has changed. There is a boy. Two boys actually. This boy has been in my life since the first month I was in China. I often would take long walks, and when we saw me on the street, he would yell, “Hello!” I don’t know why, but he just was there every single time I walked by, and every time he would say hello to me. So then A Jing took me to the noodle place, and this guy was there (per usual). His Chinese name is something like Han Si Lo, but in my head I call him Han Solo, so as to remember. Every time I go there he’s there, with his younger brother. I mostly didn’t pay them any mind at first, as I was really preoccupied with trying to communicate the phrase “niu ro” (beef) effectively enough to not have to point to the photo like a retard every time I went there. But then something happened, and now everything is ruined. Last weekend I went in and ordered my usual roast beef, and it is my custom to stand next to the door, leaned up against the wall, waiting. That time, however, Han Solo was prepared for me. He had apparently asked someone, or consulted a dictionary, or something, because he had a piece of paper, on which was written, “Please, sit down, what is your name?” He painstakingly read these words to me like they were all one sentence. I just stared at him, so he guided me to a chair and sat me down, and then sat down across from me. I was so confused. The care with which he did this reminded me exactly of a situation in a movie in which one character has some very bad news to break to the other, and so gently sits them down, sits down across from them, and looks at them with tenderness and/or pity. And for some reason, my first thought was, Oh no, he’s going to tell me they’ve stopped selling roast beef. Now, every time I go there, he sits with me, and doesn’t speak, but looks at me tenderly and smiles occasionally, and, this is the strangest part, when I give him the 20 RMB for the roast beef, he holds it in his palm like it’s a gift, or he pats it. He looks at me when I approach with a face reminiscent of a dog’s wagging tail. He meets me at the stairs. I am almost certain this guy has a crush on me. No one has ever had a crush on me in my entire life. When I was in high school, I imagined someone having a crush on me (god, especially a cute Asian boy) would feel really incredibly cool. But all I am concerned about is how this is affecting my roast beef intake. Now I feel shy to go there every day, because who the hell spends 50 RMB a week on roast beef? And I’m already like this stereotypical fat American, the fattest person in Qinzhou. Today was like the grand finale. I went in and ordered my roast beef, and then went back to collect my cake. She had made me a birthday cake. A beautifully decorated birthday cake, covered with colorful flowers and candies like confetti.
It said “Happy Birthday” in English, and even came with candles and tiny Styrofoam plates. Since I was going to eat this cake alone anyway, it reminded me of this thing my friend Kaitlin once told me. She said that Charlie Chaplin’s favorite joke went something like this: This guy walks into a bakery and asks the baker, “Can you make a piece of bread in the shape of a gondola?” And the baker says, “I don’t know, it’ll be hard, but I’ll try.” So the guy comes back, and the baker shows him the bread baked into the shape of a gondola, and the guy is really impressed, etc. The baker says, “Just let me wrap that up for you”, and the guy says, “That’s okay, I’m just going to eat it here”. When I first heard this joke, I was completely not impressed. I think I might have even said, “Why would he do that?”, and Kaitlin said, “That’s the point, why would he have a piece of bread made in the shape of a gondola if he’s just going to eat it alone”. However, the joke has definitely grown on me, and now when I think of it, I almost laugh out loud, even when I’m alone and cold. That’s exactly how I felt about this cake, like if this lady had known that she went through all that trouble just for me to go home and eat a slice of it alone, and cold, she would probably have felt the same way as the baker in the joke. This added to the awkwardness of knowing that you’re just buying an entire cake to eat by yourself in your apartment. Pathetic. So I awkwardly took my cake to the noodle shop to pick up my roast beef, but it wasn’t ready. Han Solo sat down and started gesturing at the cake. I said, “Wo bu dong” (I don’t understand). He went to the back room and brought out his brother, who asked, “Your birthday?” So obviously I have several options.

“No, it’s someone else’s birthday. It’s a gift for them.”
“No, I just bought this cake to take home and eat by myself.”
“No.”
“Yes, it’s my birthday.”
Or I could make some lemonade, baby.
“Yes, it’s for my birthday party. I’m going to need two orders of roast beef to feed everybody.”

Obviously, I chose the latter, got two orders of roast beef and didn’t look like a pig, and in this way, I thought I could avoid going back to the noodle place until at least after the weekend. This was not to be. A Jing came by tonight to have dinner with me, and where should she take me but said noodle joint. This time Han Solo had a translator, so he hovered around our table and watched us eat the entire evening, asking A Jing to ask me all the questions he had obviously so desperately wanted answered. In no particular order they were:

How old is she?
What does she do here?
What’s her job?
What’s her name?
What does she do on the weekends?
Does she like my noodles?
Does she like roast beef a lot?
How much did her coat cost?
How long will she be in China?
Tell her she should stay five years.
Does she like my noodles?

But the last question is the one that brought about the difficulty:
How was her birthday party?

At this point A Jing starts laughing, and tells me, “He thinks you had a birthday party today with a cake and candles, and served everyone roast beef!” My face went completely blank, as my mind tried to quickly figure out a way to deal with this situation.

“Yes, it is my birthday. I had some friends over and we had cake and roast beef.” Fine, except that A Jing knows I don’t have any friends.

“No, it’s not my birthday, but I lied to him and told him it was to avoid looking like an idiot. Obviously that has backfired.” That might work, except I’m pretty sure A Jing wouldn’t understand a single concept expressed there.

“No, it’s not my birthday. He is mistaken. Must have been someone else he was thinking of.” Also fine, if it weren’t for the fact that I am the most easily identifiable person in Qinzhou, in equal parts because of 1. the fatness, 2. the Americanness, 3. the hideous, bright orange coat.

I went with the “change the subject quickly and completely” tactic on this one. I asked A Jing to ask Han Solo if he would teach me to make noodles. This distracted everyone, including myself, because A Jing was surprised and amused (thinking I was flirting with Han), Han Solo was pleased and enchanted, and I was humiliated and curious. Let me explain about Han and his noodles. Apparently, his little shop is famous, and mostly all he does all day is stand and make noodles from dough. It’s very difficult. He takes a piece of dough, and pulls it out long, and then folds it in two and stretches it out long again, and he repeats this until he has a handful of long, thin noodles. His noodles are delicious, and he’s very proud of himself and his technique. So he took me to the kitchen, which is in the front of the shop, and open, which is where he always is when he greets me. His younger brother came up and started talking to us, and Han was so shy. To show off he showed me how he could pull the noodles out really thin, even thinner than angel hair pasta, and I was duly impressed. He didn’t try to speak much, but that was because his younger brother was doing all of the talking. They were like caricatures of a younger and older brother. The older one was handsome, quiet, smart, practical, and talented. The younger one was dorky, loud, outgoing, talentless, and flirty. I hate how people here are too polite to translate literally what people are saying. I read this situation like a book. Little brother (speaking Chinese all the while) points at me, points at Han, makes goofy faces, Han blushes, kneads dough, looks at me, smiles like puppy, A Jing blushes and says something to little brother in playful, scolding voice. A Jing translated, “He says his brother wants to live in America.” Come on. I think it went something like this, “Hey, my brother likes her, he keeps asking me how to say things in English so he can talk to her. She should marry him and take him to America.” They made me practice saying his name over and over, Han Si Lo, Han Si Lo, Han Si Lo, and then the little brother would ask me intermittently, in English, “Do you remember his name?” Han gave me the dough to try and stretch it out, and it just plopped down around my knees, and I couldn’t get it back up. Little brother started laughing, and Han punched him in the back, between the shoulder blades (that had to hurt), then picked the dough back up and smiled at me, stretching it for me and handing it back. So this is the root of my problem. I am too shy to talk to him. I don’t know what he’s saying to me in Chinese, and I feel like a fool. After the birthday cake incident, I really never want to show my face in that noodle shop again.

I also want to mention something about cold weather. I don’t think I knew what cold weather was before I came here. Because you don’t know what cold weather means until you live without heat. When you live in America, you are constantly going from one heated place to the next, your home, your building, school, work, the supermarket, the restaurant. Wherever you are going, it’s probably going to be heated. If you spend time in the cold, it’s for fun. Snowball fight, sledding, build a snowman. I only go to two places, school and my apartment, and neither of them is heated. The students sit in their gloves and coats while I teach (in my hideous coat, which is distracting for all of us). Then I go back to my apartment, which has generally been colder than outside. Today in the middle of my class at the primary school, the freezing rain turned to snow, and came down hard. Everything was covered by the time I got out of class. It was beautiful, but so sad. I knew I would be going home to my unheated apartment, to my three hot water bottles and my 16th rewatching of Ice Age. I knew I would make some hot chocolate, and crawl into bed wearing my coat and gloves. I knew I would think longingly of the warmth of Florida and the comfort of Ashley Jane. I knew my internet would not be working, because it wasn’t working before I left for work either. I suddenly realized that this is what cold weather really means to some people (homeless people, for instance). It means you’re not going to be warm again for a long time. It means that every single thing you do, taking a piss, boiling some water, heating up dinner, washing the dishes, and especially taking a shower, is now a horrendous chore that you have to do to the almost musical accompaniment of your chattering teeth. No more standing in the kitchen watching the sun rise, no more going for leisurely walks, no more comfort, at all, even a little, for four more months. The knobs on every radiator in my apartment are stuck, or perhaps they’re not meant to be turned. The next time I see Flora I’m going to demand heat. The people downstairs turn their heat on, and sometimes that makes my own radiator hot, but not enough to heat the room. Not even enough to take the edge off the biting cold. The strange thing, though, is that these are the silly inconveniences that make me stop, sometimes, in the middle of my day, and burst into a giddy grin. It’s a thing like slipping into my bed with a cup of hot chocolate in my coat and gloves that almost brings tears to my eyes. Sometimes I stop, and I have this feeling of nostalgia, but not for the past. I will pause and realize, “This is going to become one of my fondest memories”, and I feel that happiness that feels like sadness again. Maybe that’s what that feeling is, nostalgia.

Cloud Gate

This morning A Jing and I went to Yunmen Shan to watch the sunrise. I found out Yunmen Shan meant Cloudgate Mountain. My alarm didn't go off, and she woke up late too. You have to enter the gates before 6:00 a.m. to get in for free, so we ran into the street and took a taxi. The taxi took us to the summit and we ran for the gates. We both forgot our phones, so had no way to take pictures. As most of you can imagine, I quickly realized I had made a terrible over-estimation of my own physical ability. Halfway up the mountain I realized that my body had completely given out, and was trudging forward through sheer force of will. Luckily, I highly esteem my force of will, and so it got me to the top. Every 30 steps or so I would stop walking and look back down the mountain and out at the view. Yes, I wanted to look at the beautiful view, but more than that, I wanted an excuse to stop and take a rest. I kept saying to A Jing, "Let's just have another look." A smoker should not climb mountains. It was pathetic. I also quickly realized that a thermos of hot chocolate was useless to me, as I was beginning to sweat profusely, and a bottle of water would have been better. But when we got to the top, this breeze suddenly hit my face hard, and my face was so hot. A Jing and I sat on the edge of a jutting ledge, and she was terrified, and I was fearless. The view from the ledge was clear and expansive, and we watched the sun rise. We shared a thermos of hot chocolate. I smoked a cigarette. We visited the ancient temple on the top of the mountain and lit incense for our families, for their health and happiness. We wandered around the rocks to try and find the best views. I wish I could have taken pictures, but it's probably best, as my hair was greasy and wet and plastered around my face by the time we reached the top. As we sat on the rocks and looked out at the mountains, we began talking about ourselves. She said she wanted to do nursing abroad, anywhere, but she really wanted to go to America. I told her I loved to travel, and I really wanted to see more of China. We talked about what we would do when I came home with her for the spring festival, also called the new year festival, also called winter holiday. She said we're going to stay with her parents for two weeks, watch the festival and climb Yellow Mountain in her hometown. Then we'll go south to visit some friends of her parents, see the biggest river in China and ride a boat down it, maybe see Shanghai. I hope these plans work out, because it sounds incredibly fun.

When we climbed back down (which was much easier), we went to have breakfast at a noodle shop. Lo mein, pronounced something like lah mee-in, with beef slices and green onions. It was delicious. We had two Fantas and ate our noodles with raw garlic. But suddenly it was nine, and I had plans to meet Susan and go to her house to learn to make dumplings. On Halloween, my students taught me to make dumplings, or so I thought. But I had assumed that the filling was just meat and chopped green onions. It's actually a good thing Susan showed me, because it's actually a lot more complex than that. You boil these Chinese carrots, they're something like carrots, except they're green and yellow. The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure they don't have this kind of vegetable in America. I'll have to ask someone who knows. You chop and boil these Chinese carrots, and while they're boiling you chop green onions and ginger, mix it all up in a bowl with some meat, and add soy sauce, salt, and a kind of spice that I recognized the smell, but couldn't name. I'll ask someone who knows. Then you mix flour with water and make dough, which you roll out into little circles and put the stuffing in the middle and fold them up. Susan was really fast at folding them, but I was terrible. I thought my practice last week would have made me better, but it didn't. We sat and made dumplings and then ate them, and I came home.

As I Lay Freezing: A Coat Story; accompanied by Hot Water Bottle: A Love Story

Today was like a really crappy Family Channel movie about being fat and going shopping with your mother, who just doesn't get it, except without any of the emotional baggage. Flora took me today to buy a coat, because the past two nights have been the coldest nights of my life. No heat, bad-quality linens, no coat, sleeping-in-winter-boots kind of cold. So Flora became worried that I would become ill again, and took me downtown to the fancy, teenager-infested part of the city to buy clothes. We went to all these different department stores inhabited solely by hip, thin young Chinese teenagers. Flora and I both looked like we lost our way and wandered into another reality. It reminded me of how it felt for me when I was a tweenie to go into a place like Abercrombie and Fitch (which was huge in the mid-to-late nineties, wasn't it?), places where I knew I didn't like the clothes, and even if I did they probably wouldn't fit anyway. Flora would immediately go up to the sales girl and say, "We need your biggest coat, because she is very fat around the middle". This also instantly made me think of tweenie-hood, and how far I must've come, because if my mother had said that to a sales girl back then, I would have been mortified, but today when Flora said it, I just nodded in agreement and patted my belly, totally complicit. They all nodded in understanding. This is really a story about how I ended up with the most hideous coat in all of China, possibly the world. See, Flora has no taste. I only say this, because I feel I have been taking my own mother for granted. I was never one of those kids who was embarassed to be seen with my mother, but I did hate shopping with her. Now I see that this was not because she has no taste, but because I have none. It was also because I just hate shopping for clothes. It's all so much work. To be sure, you really do have to try it on, and that means taking the clothes you're already wearing off, and then putting others on, and then taking those off, and then putting your original clothes back on, over and over and over. It's really torture for someone who gets bored as easily as I do. And I was skeptical about buying a coat in China anyway, or any clothing for that matter, because someone told me that they don't carry any plus sizes. Which isn't true, actually, as I have been dragged shopping for clothes three times now (twice by my students, who I am beginning to realize see me as a massive doll that talks funny), and each time there are some, though not many, plus size clothes. So each place we went to, there was maybe one jacket that fit, and not at all well, but I hated them anyway. That's because the women's jackets that I've seen are all neon colors, or they're made out of that sateen sheeny material that was really popular a few years back. As far as I can tell, the late nineties are still really big here. So I would point out a simple black or brown coat, possibly red, warm-looking, not too noticeable, and Flora would be horrified. Apparently all of those were men's coats. That's another thing, I definitely have noticed that clothing is more ambiguous in the states. Though, obviously, men and women have different clothing sections, a lot of things are pretty gender-ambiguous. When I looked at these coats, I thought the men's coats looked that way, but a woman wearing a man's coat here is much more noticeable than at home, and Flora was scandalized I would even bring it up. I started to get bored and tired, and I decided that I was just going to buy the very first coat that fit me normally, no matter what it looked like. And I did. But I really shouldn't have. Let me lay this down for you: Bright orange. That should really be enough, but there's more. Fake zippers, you know what I mean, the kind where you unzip them and there's no pocket. Just a dozen decorative zippers. Faux fur-lined collar (of the kind that was really popular at stores like Old Navy back in the nineties). And the grand finale, folks, shoulder pads. Shoulder pads the likes of which I have never before seen on a coat. I look like a giant orange football player. I put it on, and some woman came up to me and said, "This is a very flattering color on women of your race," and I was thinking, "You must hate us." So let me recap: Bright orange. Decorative zippers. Faux fur-lined collar. Shoulder pads. I'm gonna have to find reserves of confidence enough for the entire suicide ward of a city hospital to fill the void this coat has left in my self-esteem. But I'm also not vain enough to be impractical, and it's only the beginning of November, just going to get colder and colder. So what the hell?

But I'm also not practical enough to avoid being just a bit vain, so I made Flora ask the sales girl for a warm vest as well. That is what I'm wearing now, and it's keeping me toasty so far. A nice, subdued hunter green. Average number of zippers. No fur collar. No shoulder pads. (No sleeves either, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.)

On another note, I want to comment on my night with the hot water bottles. It seems I never knew what I was missing. I filled the three bottles with boiling water from my kettle and then sat them under the blankets on my bed, evenly spaced, and went to finish up some e-mails. When I crawled into bed an hour later, freezing cold and dressed like an arctic explorer, I felt the most comforting, enveloping warmth spreading through me. It was like taking three shots of whiskey back-to-back. I snuggled my feet against the bottle at the bottom, I cuddled my arms around the one at my shoulders, I nestled against the one by my side. Who needs pets? Who needs lovers? I've got hot water bottles. If I were going to write a book about this experience, I would call it Extremely Warm and Incredibly Comforting.

If you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?

In my main class, the one with the advanced English students, that I teach every week, it had come to my attention that some of them thought the class was too easy. This was a rumor that may or may not have been true. In any case, I decided to really challenge them this week, to express complex thoughts and feelings. I made a presentation called "Creative Questions, Creative Answers", where I had a list of questions that would be very simple for a native English speaker, but very difficult for someone just getting their first real foothold in the language. Here are the questions and some of the answers:

If you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today?
Most girls said something like, "I would go to see my parents, and eat whatever I wanted, and spend time with my friends". One girl said, "I would lay in my boyfriend's arms until I died upon his bosom". Another, "I would lay in bed and cry."

If you had one million RMB, what would you buy?
Almost everyone said, "I would buy a big house, and a cool car, and lots of beautiful clothes." A lot of them mentioned giving money to their parents. Sandy said, "I would build a big house where people can live if they have no home, and I would build a school where students could study if they didn't have any money." I think she was thinking about her two younger siblings when she said that.

What's your favorite English word, and why?
Some interesting answers were "Spirit", "Journey", "Angel", "Time", and "Sweet Potato".

If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?
Some people went with things like, "I would make all people healthy", "I would make no war", "I would make no hungry people anymore". But others went with, "I would make myself beautiful (rich, etc.)" Someone said, "I would make myself strong, because I don't want to cry anymore". I guess that answer kind of shocked me. I feel like, if I were completely honest with myself, that's what I would have said, too. And one girl said, "I would make China rich and strong so I can live a better life, and all Chinese can live a better life". A few other girls said something similar, about making China better, making it the leading nation, making it richer, giving it more power. And Sandy said, similar to her above response, "I would make all children free to learn, and free to have books and pencils." A bit heartbreaking, that.

With the birds I'll share this lonely view

Today was strange and beautiful. It started this morning around 11:00, when I got a knock on my door. It was Sandy, a very sweet student, come to pay homage to me. I asked her if she wanted to go to a park and have a walk. While we were walking in the park, I noticed the wind was strong and warm, and we happened to come across a man selling children’s toys from the back of his wagon. I spied a kite, and on a whim I asked Sandy if she wanted to fly a kite today. So we bought one and put it together, and ran around the park like children flying our kite. She was incredibly sweet. Every time she got it up in the air she’d hand it to me, and I would promptly crash it, and she would get it up in the air again. Then we walked on, hoping to get a ride on a boat out in the water, but there were no boats. We did meet a vendor selling a delicious treat. Six candied strawberries on a stick. Sandy treated me, and we wandered about eating it. We decided to have a rest under a weeping willow tree out in the middle of the lake, and Sandy helped me practice my Chinese. Mostly she helped me pronounce the tones, over and over, and some others heard and wandered near us to see what was going on, why some crazy person was loudly repeating the phrase “Can I have your telephone number?!?” I think in China it is very different from America. When Americans hear someone trying to learn English, or trying to speak it (unsuccessfully) they feel ambivalent and/or annoyed. But here, it’s like everyone takes a personal interest in it. People wander up and just start correcting you. Two women and their children sat down under the willow with us and they all started telling me words they thought I should know. Qing, please. Xiexie, thank you. Duibuqi, sorry/excuse me. And I taught their children how to say those things in English (that is my job, after all! I am even a teacher off-duty). I had quite a nice time at the park.











After our lovely time at the park I told Sandy I would treat her to lunch, and where did she take me? No, seriously, just guess. KFC. Well, she called it KFC, but it was actually a knock-off KFC. It amused me a lot that she knew the word “knock-off”. This place was called Dicos, and it was essentially the same as a KFC. We rode the bus to get there, and that was a lot of fun. For some reason I have always just adored public transportation, going for drives of any sort. So we took the bus, and the window opened enough for me to put my whole upper body out, and wave at people on the street, and I got to smoke on the bus, too, which was like a totally amazing bonus. At Dicos, I had a delicious spicy, crispy chicken sandwich and French fries, and a Pepsi with, get this, ICE! The first time I’ve had ice since I’ve been here. I have no idea why but Sandy kept feeding me. She treated me like a baby doll, like a plaything. She fed me french fries, which she tenderly dipped in ketchup first, and chicken tenders, and she even tried, unsuccessfully, to put a water bottle to my mouth and have me drink, like an infant. (When I got home, she also fed me my pills. She took them out of the package and put them in my mouth, and then held a cup of water to my lips.) I can't decide if she was treating me like an empress or an invalid!

After lunch we went to the supermarket across the street. For some reason Sandy was insistent on buying me nectarines. We walked up and down the aisles holding hands, and she pointed out different things and I told her how to say them in English and she told me how to say them in Chinese. It went something like this: “Garlic” -- “Dasuan”, “Green onions” -- “Qingcong”. It was a lot of fun, but also very odd, because even though I generally consider myself incredibly affectionate, I have never held hands with an almost complete stranger for five hours straight. I mean, technically, I don’t even know her name. And the entire day she didn’t call me anything but “Teacher”. It felt a bit strange. And I ran into quite a few of my students, and I wondered if this was normal, or if it was as incredibly odd as it felt. What do I know about appropriate behavior with your students? I mean, most of them are my age, and I don’t feel that I am an authority figure over them, and they obviously don’t either.

After the supermarket we went to an arcade. Sandy had never been to an arcade before, and was so shy to play the games. I was ecstatic. We played air hockey, and basketball, and Dance Dance Revolution, and the claw machine. But the best part of all, we played bumper cars. Bumper cars are essentially the same here, but also different. There are no seat belts and no restrictions, the cars go faster and the sessions last longer. I paid 10 RMB for me and Sandy to ride bumper cars for 10 straight minutes. That seemed like an incredibly long time to me. Sandy was horrible at bumper cars. She kept getting stuck in the corner, and I would have to bump her out. She couldn't steer and she was afraid to bump. But still, we were laughing hysterically the entire time, and it was the most fun I’ve had in a while. When we were done there, we went to wait for the bus to take us back to the school, but a man in a buggy offered us a ride for 3 RMB. I couldn’t resist, so we climbed into the back of his buggy and took a bumpy ride across town. I was grinning the whole way, as I had never ridden in anything like this before. Sandy was not as amused, because she thought it was too expensive, for one, and a little dangerous also. She insisted on wrapping her arms around my waist to keep me from falling out. I tried to explain that because I weigh roughly twice as much as her, if I were falling, her body weight would be insubstantial to keep me inside the buggy, and in fact we would both end up falling. She either didn’t understand, or didn’t care. We parted ways when we got home, but made plans to go to Yumen Shan (that’s Yumen Mountain, in English, ha!) next Saturday, bright and early.

Sandy made me sad a few times. She told me that she had a dream to study nursing because she has two younger siblings, which is still very uncommon in China, because of the one family, one child law, and so her family found it difficult to support them. She dreams of becoming a nurse so she can make good money to pay for her siblings to go to school, because her father is an alcoholic and it’s too expensive for her parents to pay for it by themselves. She misses her hometown, and it is 12 hours away by train. But she is also happy that she is in Qinzhou because her town is very poor, and there aren’t any opportunities for her to work there. It just made me very, very sad. She asked me to come home with her at the Chinese new year, and I think I will. I think, in fact, that I would really love that.

Like black Cadillacs outside of the funeral

In the past two weeks, many things have happened to me. I have been to the doctor three times, my first trip to a Chinese hospital, had the flu, had an earache, made a new friend, took many, many walks on warm breezy nights, and found American food. I had a ten day break for the Chinese national holiday, during which I drank five bottles of wine and ate nothing for a week but raw pistachios. I was frustrated, bored, and lonely. I wanted to teach. I wanted to make my students come back forcibly, and teach them even if against their will. I missed my students, and I missed teaching, and I became melancholy and moody. I started fights with my boyfriend, I snapped at my mother, I got irritable and complained endlessly to my friends. But the time eventually passed, as it tends to do, and I found Monday morning of my first day back at work coming round. I was very excited. I had come to a few conclusions over the long, lonely lapse in company. I decided that it was my own fault if I didn't have anything to do over the holiday. I had a whole month to make friends, and literally hundreds of girls asking me to do things with them. I had put them off, not because I didn't want to be friends, but because they always asked me after class. After class I was so terribly tired, after four straight hours of jumping and laughing and enthusiasm, and I always feel when class is over that I will never, ever have the energy to do it again. But invariably, a few hours later, I have rested and recuperated, and am ready to do something fun.

Another problem is that they always ask for my phone number so they can call me to set up a date, but I don't have a phone. So I decided that every time someone suggests we should "do something sometime", then I will suggest doing something that very evening, or another evening, and make concrete plans right then and there. I will make friends! I also asked my boyfriend to send me a beginning Chinese textbook, and I resolved to learn as much Chinese as I could, to be able to talk to people and not feel so linguistically isolated. My sister also sent me a little book, Chinese Phrases for Dummies, that has already been quite helpful. In fact, it aided me greatly in making my new friend. I have already communicated such simple ideas as "Hello, how are you?", "Thanks", "I'm an American", and "I'm sorry, I don't speak Chinese". So, with my resolutions and my promises, I was very much looking forward to starting my teaching after the holiday. So, obviously, what happens when I wake up Monday morning? I have the fricking flu. There are not words to express how incredibly angry I was about this. I taught my classes on Monday and Tuesday, with absolutely no enjoyment. I had a headache, and the children screamed like banshees. I tried to help them pronounce words, and my head was so congested they understood my speech even less than usual. I played my favorite color game, but I was so tired that the students pulling on my hair and clothes just about knocked me over. It was utterly, completely miserable. In fact, if someone were to ask me, years in the future, "When were you the most miserable in your entire life, and why?", then I would have to answer, "The first two weeks of October, in 2009, because it was hell on Earth (or rather, hell in China)". On Wednesday, I found Flora and told her to cancel my classes for the week, that I was just too sick to lecture. Wednesday morning I had awakened with the sorest throat I have ever had. I thought it was laryngitis at first, because I couldn't speak.



This is actually a funny tangent. I found out I couldn't speak because every morning when I wake up, I narrate my morning. I don't know why I do this, I guess so it feels like there is someone else in my apartment. It goes something like this, "Waking up, freezing cold, okay, get the coughing over with, you goddamn smoker, you're going to kill yourself, you fool. You're starving, do you want to eat? It's too cold. Just lay here a minute. Okay, okay, you have to brush your teeth, get this morning breath out of your mouth. You need to shower. But it's too cold to shower. Just smoke a cigarette, that will wake you up. Where did you put the lighter, where are you always putting the lighter? Why do you just have one lighter? You know you always lose it. You need to buy another lighter. That guy that sold you those eggs likes you." Etc. It will go much like that most mornings. Like I said, I don't know why I do this. So Wednesday I wake up, dreading my day again, and I start talking to myself... and nothing. No sound comes out. My throat hurts terribly, and I try to speak, and nothing. So I thought it was laryngitis for this reason.



So I told Flora I couldn't lecture because of my voice, and she took me to the doctor. He gave me pills and I went home and pretty much slept the rest of the week into oblivion. So on Friday I felt quite a bit better, I went to sleep feeling certain that I would wake up almost totally well. I woke up with an earache. Again, there are not words to describe my anger and frustration. I had been so sure I would be healthy again, and now I had one of the most painful afflictions I know. So I told Flora I had an earache, and she took me to the doctor again, and he gave me more pills. That night, I laid down to sleep, and my eardrum ruptured. I don't know how many people have experienced this, but it is excruciating. Blood and pus come pouring out of my ear onto my pillow (disgusting, I have to wash that now, and my washer is broken). So Flora took me to the hospital across the street. I was afraid. I did not like this hospital. The nurses here wear those old 1950s insane asylum dresses. The stark white dresses, and even that hat with the flappy things on either side of the head. It can be unnerving. My nurse wore a mask over her mouth, so she looked even more terrifying, and she poked cold things inside my ear, and I just knew she was going to poke another hole in my eardrum. I was certain that's what was happening to me. I was so frustrated that all of this was happening, and I couldn't control it. I just spent hours wanting to do something childish, like break something, throw something, hit something, just to feel like I was in control again.



But the time passed, as it tends to do, and Monday morning came around again. I felt a lot better, even though my ear is still draining quite a bit while I sleep (I really need to wash that pillowcase), and so I went to the primary school, and had a wonderful day of teaching second grade. Flora said for a few days I could just teach at the primary school and not at the health school. That is how my new friendship came about. The gatekeeper at the primary school is an old man who tells me every day that I need to learn Chinese. He lives in the little room beside the big gate, and he invites me inside in the mornings after class, because it is so cold. We are both chain smokers, so we sit and smoke cigarettes until the driver is ready. He tries to talk to me, and I have developed a trick. If I simply nod my head, and repeat the last few sounds he made in Chinese, then he feels that I am listening to him and understand. It is amazing. Today we ate these donut things, essentially like deep-fried breadsticks. Five for one RMB, and we shared them and smoked cigarettes, and faux-communicated. He is quickly becoming my best friend here.



Today I felt so much better; I went for a long walk into the busy part of the city. I had only been to this part of the city late at night, drunk. The last time I went there, I drank a bottle of wine and decided to go for a walk, got lost (obviously), and wandered down an ally to find an empty spot to piss. I found myself in familiar territory (luckily). I was on the back ally where the primary school is located, only a few minutes from the health school by car, and I easily found my way home. In the daylight, I came across something wonderful. It was a big red sign over a very tiny shop, and on the sign was none other than a hamburger! A hamburger, a fried chicken leg, and french fries. I felt like I hit the jackpot. American food, right before my eyes. I didn't know how to order, but luckily the woman didn't need me to. She just looked at me and started making me a sandwich. It wasn't a hamburger, it was a chicken sandwich, but it was delicious and tasted just like home (kind of). Every bite I took, I expected to bite into something terrible, but I never did. Pure white meat chicken sandwich bit of mayo, lettuce. I'm starving just thinking about it. Sometimes all it takes to turn your temper around is a good meal.

I'll make it to the moon if I have to crawl

Sixth grade is pretty similar to fifth grade, quite different from fourth grade, and third grade is completely and totally a different world altogether. I would never have known that the grades are so different, I remember it all as a haze, every year of school essentially the same as the last. And yet, teaching each grade, I see what is similar and different about them. This is what is different about third grade. It is a hell on this earth. It is a plague unto man. When I taught third grade a few days ago, it was a madhouse. The students wouldn't stay in their seats, they were up running around, they didn't listen to a word I said the entire class, they screamed and yelled in Chinese utterly incoherent to me. One of them even kept running behind my back to make faces at the other students. I was certain that day, what I will refer to as The Day of The Third Grade Terrorism, that I had lost all of my skills as a teacher. I came home defeated and down-trodden. But not hopeless. I decided that I just needed to think this through, figure out what went wrong. I obviously couldn't handle the younger classes the way I had handled the older ones. This would call for a complete reworking of my entire lesson plan. No lengthy individual introductions, no lecture at all. I came home, lit a cigarette, and considered my dilemma. The third graders didn't listen to me. That must mean I didn't get their attention. They didn't behave, that must mean they weren't interested. So how do you get 50 third graders to listen? I considered when I was in third grade. What if my regular teacher, the disciplinarian, the one I had come to respect, had said, "Students, here is a Chinese lady to teach you Chinese. Give her your full attention." And then walked out of the room, leaving me with this stranger who spoke no English. I was a thoughtful student, so I would have tried to pay attention, assuming I would get brownie points for this. But after she spoke for several minutes, saying things I couldn't comprehend well, if at all, I would surely lose interest. I came to understand why my students did not pay attention to me, because I was doing nothing to grab their attention. So I thought about what a Chinese lady in my third grade class would have to do to get my attention, and then keep it. First of all, just seeing a Chinese lady would hold my attention for a few minutes. The element of surprise was on my side. Then she would have to do something physical, something entertaining. I decided to play a new game, where my body is home base. Once all of the students were touching some part of my body (and yes, if you are wondering, my butt got groped a bit) I would yell out a color, and all of the students would have to rush about the room to find something that color and bring it back to show me, and then back to their desks. Then I would yell, "Touch base!" and they would all run up and grab hold of me again, and it would start over. This game really got their attention. It had everything a third grader wants: running, yelling, touching people, a race, a bit of competition, a show of knowledge. The students all raced to the front of the class to be the ones who got to me first, because the first to get to me got to hug me full around the waist, or hold my hands, while the others had to settle for a bit of clothing or an arm or leg. This game went over so incredibly well, I couldn't believe it was this simple. I had worked out the dilemma completely. Just make them run about a bit, and they settle down immediately! So then I showed them the parts of the face. I used a student for this, and this amused them very much as well. I chose a student and pointed out their ears by pulling on them, pointed out their nose by squeezing it, pointed out their cheeks by pinching them. Using their face like a doll, it couldn't have amused the students more to see their fellow student poked and prodded. And the demo student was also very happy to be the center of attention. It was great fun for us all, and to review I would ask them to come up to the board and draw a part of the face I named, to see if they recognized the word. A lot of funny faces came up, because each student drew a different part of the face, so it ended up looking like a clown. So my first day of teaching third grade I thought they had beat me, but my second day of teaching third grade, I came out victorious. I imagine this is what it felt like to win WWII.










With the confidence boost of prevailing over the Third Grade Terrorists, I decided to be a little more adventurous with my older classes as well. In two of them I played the game I had been wanting to play all month, where I make up a bag full of my clothes, and they come up and pull out an article, and talk about what that piece of clothing's name is, the colors, and what kind of weather in which it would be worn. There was a lot of giggling and joking around during this game, which was quite a bit of fun. And as I suspected, when one student pulled out my bra, the entire class was total chaos for a few moments, while everyone took in the very idea, which went something like: "That huge bra, it's true the teacher's breasts are quite large, but look at that, it's ridiculous!" I think this is a game that can be modified for every single class I have, for the younger and older students, and for the smaller to the extremely large classes. Then everyone wanted to take pictures, and since it was the last day of classes before vacation, I decided to let class out early so everyone could get pictures of me and their friends wearing my clothes. Speaking of which, that was earlier in the week, and now I have been on autumn break for three days. I don't have classes, so I have little entertainment. I have been considering what to do with my time here. Last night I couldn't sleep, it was one in the morning here, and I was bored, restless. I decided to go for a walk to tire me out. I walked out of my apartment building, and was struck by a big, bright moon and a sprinkling of stars. People who live in cities must be used to not seeing the stars for weeks at a time, but I am not, and I had not seen the stars for a month. Every night the moon hangs like a glowing orange pumpkin in the sky, amidst clouds of grey pollution that block out the stars. I had not seen an evening for a month that wasn't gray and orange. Probably it was because there was a strong wind blowing from the east, sweeping away the clouds and pollution for a few hours, carrying with it the scent of the ocean. It was such a beautiful night last night, and the whole campus was deserted for break. I felt completely alone. I love feeling very, very alone in very large places, because it makes me feel like the last human being left alive. I remember when I was young I saw this zombie movie with my sister, "28 Days Later". The beginning of this movie shows a man waking up in a hospital bed, presumably from a coma, to find everyone in London is gone. He wanders the big, empty city in his hospital gown, looking around. I will never forget my feeling, watching that, as though I were there. It was like swallowing a deep breath in my chest. That, too, made me feel crowded and restless. I sometimes get this feeling at home when I am driving very early in the mornings. I think 4:00 a.m. is the time when the most people are asleep at any given moment. I pretend there are zombies, no humans left, and I feel safe because I have a car, a protective shield. Once I was with a friend during this time, and tried to describe the feeling, but it didn't translate, because you can't be the last person left alive if there's someone riding shotgun.

In any case, I have taken a strange tangent in my thoughts. I am thinking about very complicated feelings, and I suppose this is because I am feeling very complicated feelings. Who would have thought? Who would have thought that this is the way things would go? Not me, never. I suspected I would come here to mourn lost things. China, I mean. I would mourn lost things that would never return, or distract myself with seeing something new. I do know one thing: China is not the place I have been looking for. That place that is so totally different from the places I know that it is utterly unrecognizable. China is too civilized, it is not strange enough. You have to squat over a hole to piss, but then you use toilet paper just like anywhere else, and wash your hands with a bar of soap. I had thought it would be different, probably I had thought it would be a struggle. Everything I have ever thought has been wrong. In my first blog I talked about how you never know what you will feel on your journeys. You never know what something will mean until it happens. I know this is true, but what are you supposed to do, really, with that kind of information?

Black-eyed Susan or I have always relied on the kindness of others

I spent this morning with Susan and her seven year-old son. I met them at the school gate at 8:00 this morning, and we went to breakfast. I had been hoping she would take me to breakfast, but I got lucky today, and we spent all morning together until lunch, so she fed me at lunch also! For breakfast we went to this really delightful restaurant where you give them money at the register and they give you something akin to monopoly money, then you go to a buffet and give your fake money for real food. I pointed out that I particularly loved the pancakes stuffed with pork, and we bought six of them. Other than that, I didn't recognize a thing, and would have had a lot of difficulty picking something out. Which is why I loved being out with Susan and her child, who was not shy at all to ask for everything, and I knew if he liked something, I would most likely enjoy it also. So for breakfast I ended up eating what felt at the time like a truly outrageous amount of food. I had two pancakes stuffed with pork, and what I can only describe as spicy barbecue chicken on a stick, as well as this very odd sort of pastry. Imagine a very sweet Hawaiian roll with perhaps a honey glaze, stuffed with ham, with three pieces of bacon-esque pork on top and (SURPRISE!) an almost infinitesimal amount of cheese! That's right folks, I ate cheese for the first time in a month. Sure, it was less than even half a slice of American cheese, and such a small amount the type was unidentifiable, but cheese nonetheless. It was incredible. I kept fawning over everything I ate, so that Susan at first was very happy, but then became a bit worried. "What do you usually eat?" she asked with concern. "Noodles!" I said, laughing as I bit into chicken-on-a-stick, "This is much better!"

After breakfast we took a taxi to her part of the city, which was such a relief to leave these same streets I walk up and down every day. Her part of the city is much prettier. We went to a huge park there. One part of it was over 1000 years old, and another part was just built. It was like walking between two worlds. Inside the park there were bridges and temples built hundreds and hundreds of years ago. When we walked in there were three Chinese girls taking pictures of each other, and I offered to take a photo of the three of them together. Susan told her son, "Miss Autumn, she is always this way. So warm." We walked around and Susan translated stories her son wanted to tell me about his adventures in the park. The stories of children are sometimes so funny. His stories went something like this, "There is where there are snakes. I saw a snake so close, and I almost grabbed it with my hand", or "There were birds in this temple in the summer and I saw them flying," or "This is where I go fishing, I caught my pet turtle here." I liked her son because he made things less awkward. He was a very strange mix of extremely polite and quite rambunctious. We bonded in the park for this reason: in this particular park there is something very strange. There is a very old children's playground that has been closed to the public because it is so old, the equipment isn't quite safe. The gates were grown over with ivy, and in fact the whole playground was overgrown. It wasn't much like any playground I'd seen before. There was a huge, knarled tree growing in the middle, making everything seem dark. There were odd, colorful statues everywhere. There was a big chicken-shaped merry-go-round, that was my favorite. Her son wanted us to sit on it and be spun around and around, he thought it was hilarious. Susan got sick, and said, "You are very strong, my son." His favorite part was the huge clay dinosaurs you used to be able to climb on, but had rotted away. We also played on a see-saw. Susan and her son on one side, and me on the other. There was a big metal airplane you could climb inside. I loved that playground. If I still did that sort of thing, my friends and I would have done drugs there, and talked about how eerie an overgrown playground is, how desolate it seems. How a place absent of children, when children are so obviously supposed to be there, feels haunted by them. An overgrown playground seems much more desolate than anything else does.




After the park, we went to Susan's home, and I met her husband. He was a very thin, kind-looking man. He was very patient with their son. I had heard that being allowed into someone else's private home in China is a great honor, rarely bestowed. I wanted to show that I appreciated this, so I bought them the most expensive bottle of wine I could find, 50 RMB. When I pulled that out and handed it to Susan and her husband, I thought they were going to cry. Susan said, "It's too expensive. It's too much." They were so pleased that her husband went out to the bakery down the street and bought a cake, which he came back with in a big hot pink hat box, with ribbons around it. Very festive. Her husband made us lunch, and he made too many dishes for me to eat. Shrimp and also a very large kind of shrimp-like shellfish that was purple and hideously ugly, and you ate it with vinegar and garlic. A soup made with mushrooms, cabbage and pork, and a plate of fresh green beans. Her husband was impressed with my mad chopsticks skills. I can't say I blame him. While they cooked lunch, her son took me to his room to play computer games. He only knew one website, and the computer games were total rubbish. I wish I could have shown him a few that I know, but they're blocked here. A shame. Well, lunch was delicious, but my stomach must have shrunk or something, because I could barely eat anything, still so full from breakfast. When it was time to leave, Susan accompanied me back to the school gate, and I gave her a hug. This time it wasn't awkward at all. I said, "You have been too kind today. My morning was wonderful, breakfast and the beautiful park. I'm so glad we went there. Thank you so much for everything." Considering the conversations I've had in the past, I guess I should explain why I was able to communicate so much easier with Susan. Susan, I can tell, is very much like me. Her English accent is impeccable, almost flawless, but she doesn't have a very wide vocabulary. But the most impressive thing is her listening. She listens and understands English much better than Jenny or Flora, and she understood everything I said today. What a relief, I actually felt like someone was listening to me! And we had an actual conversation! There was even a point at which I thought I'd lost her because I sneezed, and she said bless you, and then I (who knows why I decided to say this) explained why you say "bless you" when someone sneezes, that it is based on an old superstition that when you are sneezing your soul is escaping. She was quiet for a moment, and then said, "The Chinese have a similar superstition with the number 4. The number 4 is pronounced like ssss, and it is the same way you pronounce 'death' in Chinese." You have no idea. A real conversation. I daresay my first real conversation with any Chinese person, where we both talked and understood each other. I even made my first real joke! A stupid one, but you have to start somewhere. When we walked up to her apartment, her apartment number was 440, and I said, "Oh no! Twice as unlucky." Hey, I said it was stupid. But we both laughed, and she told her husband about it in Chinese during lunch, and he laughed as well.

I gave Susan my e-mail address so I could send her the pictures of her son at the park, and I do hope she invites me out again. I enjoyed her company more today than I have enjoyed some of my classes, and that's saying a lot, because my classes are the joy of my life!

I make my slings and arrows out of strings and feathers

This week and last I have been tumbling down the rabbit hole, so to speak. Every day I have a new class, which means I've already taught over a thousand students. Every new face almost instantly becomes an endearing memory, and I do not know when I will see it again. I am told every day that my students loved me, loved the class, don't want it to end. I have an enormous shock value, which stuns them into attention. Once I have their attention, I keep it by putting on a show that lasts between 40 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the class. I am left exhausted and weak. Yesterday after I got home from my class I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and my vision went blurry when I reached my arm up for the electric kettle. It is moments like this when I realize that I am still just a child, after all, playing house, and I have not discovered my own limits. I gave myself a time-out, and took a nap.

I have decided to throw myself into learning Chinese, if only to be able to order at restaurants. I asked my boyfriend to send me some books on learning to speak Mandarin, and I hope I can start learning soon. Next week I start my cooking lessons. They want to teach me simple things, but I am going to ask to learn how to make dumplings. I will not leave China without learning how to make dumplings! They're my favorite thing so far. I went back to Weifang with Flora the other day and she and I had lunch there. It was a tiny, dirty shop. There were small wooden stools to sit on. The tables were a heavy, rough wood, and there were cloves of garlic sitting on them and tiny bowls of spices. We ate little pancakes baked in an open oven, stuffed with pork, green onions, and mushrooms. These were the most delicious thing I have tasted here. The pancakes were served with a kind of tofu soup and you ate them with raw garlic. Everybody ate the same meal: Two pancakes, a big bowl of tofu soup, and cloves of garlic, and that was something I found really charming. It was such a rustic kind of setting, in the middle of Weifang City. I would also love to learn to make those, but Flora said that making that sort of pancake takes a lot of training and time.

But the occasions I eat real food, cooked, containing vegetables and meat, are pretty rare. I mostly subsist on ramen and (now that my sister sent me a care package) candy. For this reason, I will be accepting every invitation to dinner that I receive! Today the fourth grade teacher at the primary school invited me to her home on Saturday. Her English name is Susan. I will take a moment to say that I hate the idea of having an "English name". Like, because English speakers have trouble remembering/pronouncing Chinese names, we should all just change our names and answer to new ones. There is something so.... I don't know, colonial about it. But again, it's their decision, because perhaps they just hate the sound of their name butchered by people who can't pronounce it. In any case, it really is, sadly, easier to remeber their English names, and even when I try to remember Chinese names, I will often only come up with English ones. So Susan, the fourth grade teacher, is having me over to her house. This is almost certain to be an uncomfortable endeavor, as her son and husband don't speak English, she barely does, and I have no knowledge of Chinese. I foresee a lot of sitting around awkwardly happening. I accepted because I am hoping she will be feeding me! Henceforth, no matter how tired I am, I will be accepting all similar invitations in the same hopes. I keep getting invited to go hiking as well. I am not much on physical exercise, especially when I'm around people I'm not completely comfortable with. I am somewhat rotund, quite slow, and inexcusably yet undeniably a pack-a-day smoker. However, for the opportunity to see the mountains of Qingdao, I will accept an invitation to go hiking with total strangers. Maybe they will order me some more of those pancakes stuffed with pork. In any case, this town is driving me nuts. There's no where to walk but up and down the same streets. It is not the same as London, where I was fearless. There wasn't a place in the whole city I feared to go, because their public transportation was truly exceptional. From anywhere in the city, I could find my way back to Glasslyn Road in under half an hour. It really inspires one to be adventurous. But here, I could get lost and not find my way back for hours, if at all. I don't have a phone, or any phone numbers even if I did. I don't have a map, I can't speak Chinese, I can't ask directions, I don't understand the bus system, etc. And what I miss the most, spending a perfect afternoon with a stranger. Something I cherished in London, to spend the afternoon with someone, have a bite to eat, take a walk, have a talk, and never know their name. Something I can't do here.

On another note, my class today got totally out of hand! It was a mob scene. It happened because I couldn't get this particular class to talk very much. They were very shy. So I started giving everyone a piece of candy who raised their hand to answer questions. Those fourth-graders turned to animals before my eyes! They rushed me and pinned me against the blackboard, I literally couldn't move. I should have gotten strict and yelled at them, but I was too busy laughing. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and I haven't done that in months and months. I started pushing them, screaming, "Sit down, sit down!" But the whole time I was laughing, and they didn't take me seriously. Susan was laughing also, and totally paralyzed about what to do. I looked up and she had run away. So I put the candy in my pocket and started tickling all of them and chased them to their seats. A little offense, you could say, settled them right down. If I am ever cornered by my students again, and unable to move, I will simply have to start chasing them. It's instincutal for kids, I think, to play chase. That got them all in their seats, and when Susan returned everyone was sitting, giggling quietly. I really liked all the kids running up to me, I love the chaos, the yelling. I also love figuring things out as I go along, and getting them under control. Every day is an adventure, and what more could I possibly ask for?

In my classes with the older girls, they have all heard about my games. As soon as I pull out the green scarf, they all start laughing and clapping. The other classes must have been talking about the game where you get to blindfold the teacher and hide the chalk. The new game I've been playing is wonderful for getting them talking. I put question words in a bag (who, what, where, when, why, how) and they draw a word. They then have to ask me a question beginning with that word. I expected them to ask simple questions, arbitrary, that I wasn't really supposed to answer. But instead they all formed really complicated questions about me and my life. What I like to do, what I like to eat, about my friends and family. They asked, "Who is your best friend?" And I said, "My boyfriend. My boyfriend is my best friend." Well, that really got them going. They asked to see pictures, they talked about what he was like, what his name is, how we met, where he's from, if we were going to get married, what I liked about him, how he feels with me being in China. I swear, every question after that one was about my boyfriend. They loved it, that I had a personal life. I said, "The thing I like most about my boyfriend is his pretty smile!" And they all passed around my phone with pictures and all agreed that he had a very pretty smile, and that was their favorite thing about him also. It was so wonderful to have them all talking. Because of their curiosity, they forced themselves to try and communicate complex thoughts. It was wonderful. Everyone got so much practice speaking English today. They also loved asking me questions about China. Where I live, how I spend my free time. They even wanted to know trivial little things like what time I wake up in the mornings, and what time I got to sleep at night, what kinds of food I eat. Many of them wanted to cook for me. It was really great. I have sort of been leaning towards preferring the children. I can be a lot more silly and playful, and a lot more physical, and it has sometimes been more fun. But the last two days I have really appreciated the older students, too, because they can talk more, and understand me better when I talk. They are also more interested in me as a person. When I tell my students I am 21, they all get so excited, because then they know that we're the same age. Invariably, two or three of them will ask if I want to go out together, get something to eat or go shopping. I have been asked for my phone number about a hundred times. Sadly, I have no phone, so I can't make plans with anyone. I would love to go out with my students and really get to know them. I'm sure it would also be better for them to practice speaking outside of the classroom, one on one. The news on the "English Corner" is that I only do it once a week at the military school across the road. This is too bad, because many of my students at the health school have been asking me constantly about "English Corner, are you teaching English Corner, when are you teaching English Corner, can I help with English Corner?" So I have been thinking that I will do an English Corner at this school outside of my regular hours, on my own time. I haven't wanted to commit to that, because some days when I'm done teaching I think I'm going to pass out from exhaustion. I am hoping to spend another week teaching and see if I get used to it or not.

A Minor Annoyance: I would like to take a moment to complain about a minor annoyance in my day. In China everyone must boil the water to make it safe to drink, and then put it in these large canisters, like an oversize thermos. This keeps the water boiling hot all day, and so the teachers all drink boiling water. Boiling water just doesn't quench my thirst in that way you want it to, and I frequently need to take a sip of water, as my throat gets dry. So every night I put a glass of water in the fridge to get cold for the next morning when I teach. And every morning, the teacher will slip up while I'm busy with the students and go pour out my cold water and fill it with hot water. I am sure this is done with the kindest and most thoughtful of intentions, but the truth is it's a total bother. So I have taken to carrying my water with me, or keeping an eye on it at all times. It's become a sort of game. I refuse to show distaste for the kindness of others, so when I get handed a glass of boiling water in 90 degree weather, I must smile appreciatively and drink it.

And I was your silver lining, but now I'm gold

I love this job. I have had a few fleeting doubts about some things. Nothing here in China, but about the people I left behind. And between every class I get nervous all over again, and worried they'll catch me in my lie. I am not a real teacher. I am not really this confident and full of mirth. And yet, every single class, I come away with an adrenaline boost of joy. Every class full of fifty Chinese children I look at, I know I am about to win them over. So far, two hundred Chinese children under my belt.

A van comes to pick me up to take me to the school in the mornings at 7:30. Yesterday morning I stood outside the school gate with the same panicky-excited feeling of catching the bus for the first day of school. The driver took me to the school and accompanied me to my first classroom. When I walked in, it was to a flurry of applause, which is a wonderful feeling in any circumstance. And the students with their wide eyes, and their mouths hanging open... all my students are like enthusiastic puppies. I'm sure that will wear off once they get used to me. I think we all had a lot of fun. We played games, I danced and sang, I made endless rounds walking up and down the aisles asking everyone direct questions. This is trouble I'm having. I'm supposed to make them talk, but I don't know how to when there are so many of them. I have two options. I can make them repeat things I say in unison, which isn't very good for helping them learn. Or I can go around the room and ask each of them individually to speak, which takes a lot of time. I prefer to make them speak individually, so they get used to hearing what their own voices sound like making English words, instead of a chorus of voices all saying the same thing. I don't make it too complicated, though, because they are shy and sometimes when I make them speak they finish, and drop down in their seats, and put their books over their heads in embarrassment! Though it's very amusing, it makes me want to go easier on them. I want them to want to talk to me.

The teachers at the primary school seem to think I'm a very good photo opportunity. They particularly like the game where I write words on the board and get the students to come up and circle them. The teacher watched in the first class as the students jumped up, yelling in English, "Me, Teacher! Me, pick me! Pick me, Teacher!" They raised their hands and touched me as I walked by, waving their arms in my face, anything to go up to the board and circle a word in English! It was very thrilling for me, but there was a certain amount of work to get them to that level. The introductions were important, because each student told me their name, where they're from and how old they are. I listened and made eye contact with each student, smiled at them, touched their arm, and said, "Very good, excellent, thank you". I liked starting out this way, instead of correcting them right off, because this way every single student gets a kind of private moment with me, where they have my undivided attention. I think that can mean a lot in a class of 50 students, where there is usually a real teacher who has to really teach them something, and can't spare time like that to speak to them individually. But I'm not nearly as busy or professional, and I can spare all the time I want to. So anyway, in the second class that teacher wanted to get pictures of the game, and of me, and of the students so excited to play it. But the problem was, she told me to play that game immediately after I'd introduced myself, before I got to go around and spend a little time with each student, so when we started playing the game, they were all more nervous. Instead of everyone raising their hand and waving it around and shouting to get picked, half of them raised their hands and sat solemnly waiting to be chosen. If I could have explained to her why, psychologically, the first class was more outgoing than the second, I would have. But instead, I worked on trying to get the students more enthused by giving each one that went up a high five when they got the right word, and having the class give them a round of applause. This worked almost equally well, and by the end of that game, the students were also yelling, "Teacher, here, pick me!" Somewhere there are photos of me and a group of Chinese students who are pulling at my clothes and touching my hair, and I am in the center, laughing.

I want to teach them the parts of the body, too, and I have a game I'd love to play, but I need some of those little star stickers you got in grade school. The students choose where to put a sticker on me, and then say, "It's on your _____". This way, they learn the body parts, use them in a complete sentence, and get to have fun putting stickers on my body, which they probably don't get to do with a lot of their teachers. I'm sure me walking around the classroom with stickers on my nose and cheeks will be funny for them, as well. For some reason this reminds me that all of my students love fat jokes. And it doesn't seem to be in a mean way. I am very good at picking out scorn from humor, almost obsessively. In my first class I asked every student to name something they were good at. A chubby little boy said, "I am good at eating!" and then laughed, and everyone else laughed too. When I said, "I am good at eating TOO!" I thought they'd never stop. So in my next three classes I used the same line. "I am good at eating" and patted my belly, and "I am good at dancing!" and danced around the room a little. You'd think I was freakin Mickey Mouse, the way these kids thought that was entertaining. So then, every chubby student in the class thought it was the coolest thing to say, "I am good at eating, too, ha ha ha!" And when one of the students said, "I am good at dancing, too," I would make them stand up and dance with me for a second, so I got a lot of students proclaiming to be dancers. In this way I could tell which students liked to show off, because it was the show-offs who wanted an opportunity to get a little jiggy with it with their teacher in front of the class. By the end they would say, "I am good at dancing," and immediately start shaking their booties, assuming I would join in (which I did).

I felt that things were going well because of all the laughing and yelling and activity. It wasn't boring, they were happy, etc. But when class was over, I felt like a celebrity. In the first class several students yelled, "I love you!" as I left. I turned around and blew them all kisses. In the second class, I heard students muttering, "I like her". After every class a swarm of students would come up to get me to sign my name in their notebooks. That's right, I was asked for autographs. I do not know why. Out of my 200 students so far, I have probably given around 50 autographs. After a few students get them, the regular teacher steps in like my bodyguard and herds me out of the classroom. It would only be more realistic if she had a walkie talkie, communicating with the teacher in the other classroom: "We're bringing her your way. We're taking the B stairwell. Be ready, we'll hand her off at oh nine hundred."

Those are the kids, though. Yesterday and today I also had new classes of older students, 20 and 21. They are the same age as me and don't ask for my autograph, they ask for my phone number. They ask to have pictures taken with me. Whenever I would turn around from facing the blackboard, there would be a dozen or so cell phones pointed at me, which would disappear immediately. At the end of class all my students stood in a line and waited to have their photos taken with me, and the ones waiting just took more candid photos of me. It was very funny. The older students are different because they can make decisions independently of me, and collectively with each other. You don't know flattery until you have been serenaded by 50 beautiful young Chinese girls. My last class asked me to sing a popular American song. I chose "New Romantic". I chose it for two reasons: 1. I don't know all the words of any pop songs, and 2. I knew they wouldn't be able to follow the words and so it would take the pressure off me to sing them correctly. It was an inaccurate choice for two reasons: 1. It's not American, and 2. it's not really pop either. But it was the best I could do. Then they asked to sing a song for me, and every one of them began singing, in perfect choral unison, "Ocean, Hometown", which is a Chinese song, so of course I don't know anything about it. I don't know if it's quality music or not, but when someone serenades you in a foreign tongue, who cares? When I submit to these things from the students the Chinese teachers say I am "so patient, very patient", and I am embarrassed to admit that, actually, I enjoy it! Who wouldn't enjoy it? I don't even care if there is a certain amount of spectacle to their interest, like they think I am somewhat freakish. I still like it! I am not a person who shies away from admiration.

I have been wondering if my teaching is too playful, and they're really not learning anything at all. I like it that way, I have to be honest. I like the playful. I like the shouting and the fun and the games. But I wonder if I am doing things right, or if I will soon be reprimanded for my behavior. Can work be this fun? Can you enjoy every moment of it this way? I swear to god, if I get any more skeptical and cynical of my own happiness, I'm just going to turn to dust!

You're happy, Autumn! Just live with it! Just let it be!

I gave a man my coat, he said, "What about your gloves?"

Today Flora gave me a more complete teaching schedule. Because there were supposed to be two English teachers, and there is only me, I have ended up with a very complex schedule. I was worried I would have to teach twice as much as I was supposed to, because the other teacher backed out. It turns out I am teaching twice as many classes as I was supposed to, but they also aren't allowed to give me more than 20 periods a week. So that means I have this weird two-week schedule. The first week I teach the classes I was intended to teach, 20 periods worth. The second week I teach the classes the other English teacher was intended to teach, 20 more periods worth. So every other week I switch schedules between my original schedule and the other teacher's schedule, and the students have class every other week, instead of every week. They also had to drop a few classes, or combine them with other classes, which means my classes will be larger. I hope I don't get my weeks mixed up! That also means different lesson plans for all these different classes, and all the students are at different levels as far as speaking English. So I will do the best job that I can, and hope they don't fire me! In a way it is a good thing, because the other teacher only had a high school education, and they were giving her all the easier classes to teach. So now I will get to have easier classes as well!

Half my periods each week are at the primary school, and I look forward to that, because I will be more of an assistant teacher there, and the regular teacher will tell me what he/she wants them to learn about. All the rest of my classes, except for one, are in the same two buildings on campus. One of the buildings is right beside my apartment complex, and the other is also very near. I can see it from my window at night, and wonder if anyone can see me from one of those classrooms, as I often hang my laundry to dry on the balcony in my underwear. Except for two of my classes, which are in the afternoon from 2:30-4:30, all of my classes are in the morning from 7:30-11:30. It looks like Wednesday will be my busiest day, as it's the only day I have 6 periods of teaching. I will have to devise some kind of week A/week B lesson plan chart.

I have already been thinking that this week and next should be easy, because I will give all my classes the same first-day introduction. I will tell them my name, where I am from, about my schooling, about my family, etc. Then I will ask each of them to introduce themselves and include the following: their names, where they are from, how old they are, something they like to do, and something they don't like to do. I'll write on the board the script, so they feel more comfortable.
Hello, my name is _______.
I am from _______.
I am _______ years old.
I like to _______.
I don't like to _______.

That should suffice to take up the first periods of all of my new classes, and if there is time left, we will play a game. I would like to play this game I read about where you put a bunch of different articles of your clothing in a pillow case and pass it around the room. Every student pulls out a piece of clothing and puts it on. Hats, underwear, shirts, gloves, anything really. Then you talk about the name of the article of clothing, what color it is, when is the best season of the year in which to wear it, etc. I think my students would think it was really funny, because my clothes are so big. They'd probably be four or five times too large. Everyone would look ridiculous, it would be hilarious, and they'd all get a good laugh at my expense (which is fine with me, as long as they're learning something). Especially my bras! Imagine a 15 year-old Chinese girl wearing one of my bras. In any case, I'm not totally certain this game is appropriate, or if anyone would want to play it. I think it sounds really great, though.

I am digging around in my head trying to come up with things to lecture about, and corresponding games to play. You know, which words are too difficult? Which topics can I teach in a single class? Which topics will be most relevant to actually communicating in English? If anyone has any suggestions, I would appreciate some advice.

I'm half-awake in a fake empire

Good news today from Flora. She has worked out the bare bones of my teaching schedule. I am only a part time teacher, so I have twenty periods to teach each week. A period is roughly an hour, about 50 minutes. Every day (Monday-Friday) a man will come and pick me up at 7:30 to take me to the primary school. I will aide a regular grade teacher there for two periods, 10 periods a week. I will be at the primary school from 7:30 to 9:30, and then I will be driven home. The grade school teachers will tell me what topics they'd like me to cover, and give me advice and be there to translate. That sounds like a lot of fun, as I've been researching online different games to play to help kids learn English. Flora says the kids learn much more quickly how to speak, and are more enthusiastic. So we will essentially be speaking the same language. Enthusiasm! That's half my periods right there. I will be teaching at three different campuses. The primary school with the kids, here at the health school, and across the street at a military academy. I will only teach two periods at the military academy, though. The advanced English class I've taught the past two weeks is two periods long. I will also have two special periods ("teaching on the corner" as Flora called it) where I go to the park with the dragon statues in the evenings and sit at the stone tables and anyone who wants to come and practice having a simple conversation can come. That's 10 periods at the primary school, 2 periods at the military academy, 2 periods of advanced English, 2 periods of "corner teaching", altogether 16 periods. The other four periods are still up in the air. Flora isn't sure yet what I will be teaching with those four periods. She says she will tell me by the end of the week. I am very excited to begin.

I am most excited about the "teaching on the corner". I love this idea! This way the students who feel uncomfortable talking in class can come and have a chat in a more relaxed and casual atmosphere. I would be willing to do it every afternoon, not for just two periods! I think this is a much more practical way to teach English to the students, because I have noticed that they are not used to speaking up in class. Sometimes I can tell they would like to ask a question, but are too shy to speak English to me. I hope I will win them over after a few more classes, because I am not here to judge their English, just to make them try. I would love to try and speak Chinese with them, and show them how terrible I am at it, so they will feel more comfortable! The only thing I have learned how to say so far is "fried dumplings". I was considering paying Flora to teach me Chinese each week, so that I could learn Chinese, but also so that I could give Flora some money. She told me that I make twice as much money as the regular teachers at the school, and that made me feel terrible. Even if they are awful teachers, they have to be better at it than I am! I have no experience teaching whatsoever, and I don't speak Chinese. So right there they have two advantages over me. But I know that the money here is worth only 1/6 of the American dollar, which would roughly be 1/10 of the British pound, so I imagine it would be difficult to find someone from an English-speaking country to come to China for less than the salary they've offered me. But, I will share a secret. I would have done it for free! All I wanted was to travel. I didn't come here to get rich. I came here to see what the world looked like from the other side. I wanted to adapt to a place where they didn't talk like me, look like me, act like me. I wanted to be free! I wanted to see if I could stand the alienation, I wanted to be an adventurer, a stranger in a strange land.

Before I left home I read a book called "Searching for Caleb" by Anne Tyler. I have always loved Anne Tyler, ever since I was too young to understand her. When I was a teenager I read almost all of her books, because I imagined they were a true and unyielding testament to the reality of adulthood. I have found that I am not so far off in that belief. "Searching for Caleb" was one of the few novels that I skipped, because it seemed like this particular story didn't speak to me. It was about a fortune teller, and I didn't believe in the supernatural, it was about family you had to leave behind, and I was wading up to my neck in family I had to leave behind. I finally read that book this summer, and I am glad that I waited, because now I am capable of understanding. Now I know what that story is trying to say. It is about a fortune teller who is really just an advice giver. People come to her with their problems, and she gives them answers. But the thing that touched me about the story is that she didn't need to be a fortune teller to give the answers she gave. Before she even consulted her tarot cards, she would tell each client which path to choose. "Always choose change!" she said. Always pick the road you haven't been down before, always pick the door you haven't opened yet, always pick the opportunity that may never come again. In this way, you can never regret your decisions, because you will never wonder "what might have been, if only..." You will know that you chose "what might have been" and it became "what was". And that is the path of a life. There is no shame and no regret, only a series of choices we make with the best of intentions for our lives. And if that doesn't amount to happiness, nothing would have made you happy, would it? I read this book at a time when I didn't know if I was making the right decision, and I learned that the right decision is easy. It is simply to decide to do what you've never done before, pack in your hopes and your fears, get on the plane, and fly!