Happy Birthday, Hello Kitty!

Hello everyone! If you didn't know, November 1st is Hello Kitty's (36th) birthday. Celebrate with me by looking around today and spotting things in plain sight that are covered with Hello Kitty. Thanks to multiple licensing agreements, she's everywhere. This is from this weekend, where a bootleg HK was on a license plate. 

Internet!

As of today, I have regular internet, maybe. NO guarantees though, since it is China afterall. but YAY!!!! Expect more pictures, more posts, and more everything after I work having internet back into my life!

You throw it, you eat it

New creative rules drive my class. My students are constantly thinking of something clever to do in order to not pay attention or shirk off. One of the most innovative rules in class is the you throw it, you eat it rule. It's amazing how students will gang up on one another. If someone throws a pieces a paper, the entire class erupts into EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT. Just the other day, one of my students sitting in the front row was playing with a pen cap before it broke in half, flying in the air. I turned my head and smiled at him. He look at me in terror. Scrambling, he tried to tell me that his pen cap had broken and that it was all really a mistake - I calmly told him to pick it up. He whimpered. After the cap was in his hand, the class had begun to chant EAT IT. I told him to toss it in the trash bin.. He sighed in relief. I enjoy when rules work!

So far, I've only had to have one student put a crumpled sheet a paper in his mouth. 

I now also Fear Paint

Do not be confused with my second new quirk, fear painting. Emerging purely from fear and a need to calm down and distract myself, I have no designs of being an artiste. I managed three pieces today (last Wednesday). My medium is watercolors. Out of fancy and boredom, I bought an art set two months ago, then never touched it. By the time I actually wanted to paint, I realized that I didn't have any brushes, palette, or paper…. This weekend, I finally fixed all three of those factors, so I could easily pull out my paints and go to town (or actually in this case, stay in town).

With no power and enough daylight, I set up shop facing our courtyard as I started randomly squeezing tubes of paint unto my palette. I actually felt pretty lucky as, in my previous life working for the VA, I would never have had time to just sit down and paint. (Plus, you all know I would be decorating cupcakes instead!) With nothing in mind, I started making strokes upward and over. A pastoral greeting card scene or a child's playtime product, I had no idea what was going to come from my ministrations. 

This is what I came up with. Sidenote: Since I don't have a scanner, I took photos of them, then extracted them with Photoshop and cropped them. They're all just on sheets of watercolor paper. The fourth one is one painted by Rachel Wasser. I'm not so spontaneous. In fact, the third one was my attempt to do what she did, and it just looks like a study of geometric shapes.

Fear Eating

I apologize for not blogging for the past week, trust me, the choice was not my own. Thanks to my authentic living, I've not had power, water, and internet at some point all week and I will continue to not have internet until seemingly forever. 

This was written on Tuesday, when I simply didn't have power, water and internet. 

Unseasonable torrential rains have caused winds to blow down power lines and in turn, my entire village was without power from about 4 am to 4 pm today. I'm not proud of this but when the electricity goes out, all of my actions are marked by panic. In rural China, no one can give you a quote of when exactly the power will come back and that's just what I need. 

Instead, I lose control of my basic emotions. In my haze, I don't know what I'm doing. Today, I wasn't even hungry but it was market day and without even the basic capability of boiling water, I panicked and starting stuffing my face. The next thing I know, I'm eating three buns and a bowl of noodles and later, more than 20 mini oranges. Say hello to my new quirk, fear eating. 

Weak, in reflection

Kids, like wild animals, can smell weakness and fear. This past week, I fear, I've been all kinds of a hot mess. Unlike in the corporate world, when you feel sick, you can't take off as a teacher in rural China. I've found out now that when you're weak with disease, the other 54 people in the room know it. I'm sick! My head aches! I'm dehydrated! I still have to teach you about pencils, pens, and what color it is. Welcome to my week, in reflection, an outline of my current classroom, one week after 10 days of vacation. 

Negotiating, chattering, crying, slapping, sleeping, cheating. It starts small and quickly hour by hour, day by day, it escalates. The thing is, the kids and I have had too many holiday back to back. First, there was mid Autumn festival and the National holiday. They've lost focus. They're antsy, they need to be reinvested. I need to be reinvested.

I'm happy that my students like me, they really like me. In fact, two girls have a habit of running to my house and catching me in inopportune moments. Twice, when I was on my hands and knees in my underwear lint rolling my floor because I need to have a clean floor...... that's another story all together..and two other times when I was cooking, once when I was lying in bed... aaaaaawkward.

Overall, I'd say my students are great. They respect me and they really want to get to know me. I've been trying to get to know them better, too. They like to sing although many of them probably shouldn't. They really like playing basketball. They have a poor foundation of learning. They need to be taught every detail of learning: what to read, what to read, where to read, what to memorize, where to write. They don't know how to take tests. They like winning small petty competitions. They are in 7th grade but their ages range from 13  to 16, how old I was when I was in 8th - 11th grade. They like to dance. They like laughing at me when I dance. 

My kids have books full of music lyrics. I have no idea when they have time to write these since they have class from 7:20 am to 9:20 pm. My school is too poor for the arts so it's not like they have a music class. I've converted the fifth hour that I teach on Thursday to a miscellaneous cultural hour. This week, we learned the Cupid Shuffle. Next week, skits. The week after that, I am going to teach them an easy song.

I hope you've enjoyed the last 20 vacation posts about Laos and National holiday break. Unfortunately from now until mid January my posts are bound to be more mundane. No more major holidays you see. Back to the same old, same old. Happy Autumn! What should I be for Halloween?

Tuk in Tune

We all spontaneously burst into song on our way back from kayaking. Tom, your hair looks great!

PS I don't know how Picasa videos work.. so click to play? Next time, Youtube. Sorry kids.

Retrospective favorites

Left to the dogs.

There are two kinds of pictures. Pictures appropriate to post on this blog and those that aren't. I refuse to differentiate between the two because these pics are too funny! These are a few of my faves that are unrelated to anything that I could think of that I'm posting anyway because I'm too lazy to post them on Facebook.

Beer Lao, so beery, so Laoy

Tom is pooping rocks. 

National Geographic ain't got nothing on you. 

Tropical paradiso!

Going Xishuang-bananas

We spent one more night in XSBN before going back to our placements. We spent our last night horsing around town. It was glorious. This first photo in particular is hilarious because we had it taken at a photo studio. For 10 kuai a person, we each got an 8" picture of our dysfunctional Laos family. It's stuck on my wall now at eye level. This trip was amazing.

Role models? or just MODELS

Let's play: Spot the American

Waiting in the bus depot in Luang Namtha to go back to China....

How many Americans can you spot in this photo?

Bitch Face

As a general practice, I believe that smiling with teeth makes a person look friendlier. Personally, smiling with no teeth makes me look like a bitch. In Laos, I tested this theory.

How do you like everyone's lukewarm, slightly apathetic, bitch face?

Do me a favor and smile with teeth when you're in a picture with me or now you and I will both know what I'm thinking when I go over the pics later!

Man ROCK

These hardly need explanation.

 Too sexy.

Sweet food, spicy food

Tong, our horny 27 year old guide, spent most of lunch talking about discotheques, how he was a monk for a few years because he had a hard breakup, and how obsessed he is with women. This is how sweet food, spicy food originated.... it's amazing what sort of euphemisms for sexy time that you hear of abroad. So the story is, a native Laotian culture has this practice of putting young couples in a hut for a period of time, a trial period. Here, they can decide whether or not the other person's food is too sweet or too spicy. If incompatible, they separate, if not, they continue to make food together.

Here are some pics of Tong, who was generally an agreeable person but personally quite annoying.

Tong trying to arm wrestle Lucas. He could only win by cheating, and once at that. 

Pretending to drown. 

Tong's sexy face, as he's showing us how he dances at the disco - from hanging off the back of our tuktuk

Small monk-y boys

Our guide took us to a monastery before taking us to lunch. I don't think it was a real monastery, but the colors were striking and the boys seemed like they posted at this house every day at 12:30 pm. 

Lao-sy no more

After that grueling hike, I worried over the intensity of the next day. After another hour hike downhill, we came upon a clearing. Kayak time!

Tong, the guide who sold us the hike, came along for the ride this time. I was too tired and excited about the water to give him a piece of my mind. I told him again that I didn't know how to swim. His response, "... but you know how to swim a little bit right?" Terror pierced through my chest... very briefly. At this point, if I had overcome the day before, I could overcome anything!

We put on our helmets and safety vests. I was paired with a guide that knew all the rapids.

Yay for not having to paddle too hard and a minimal risk of capsizing. Some of us look more awesome in our gear than others....

I tried to take as many pictures as possible but after the first rapids, it became clear that my camera was better off in the dry pack. 

Tree Girl!

There was this amazing tree outside our camp that you could climb. Here is a picture of Monica doing just that. 

 

What goes up must come down

Huge fronds!

When you're climbing up a mountain for two plus hours, eventually you have to start descending back down. First, we were treated to a sumptuous lunch of sticky rice, tomato sauces, eggs, and beef. I'm pretty sure while we were eating Gareth said that food tastes so much better when you have to work for it... and it was so true. 

Environmentally friendly plates!

Feast!

We hiked upward for a small period of time before we finally stopped. We paused to take a group of photo before we started heading downward. 

At first, it was calm and peaceful, a long jaunt slanting down the mountain... and then things started getting crazy. I have no idea at what point the trail stopped, but it started with a very narrow path that faced a ravine and never got any better. One slip, and I pictured myself tumbling down a very steep incline. Phoebe tried to comfort me by telling me that I wouldn't fall straight down... that the bamboo trees would break my fall, but at that point, all I could do is grip David Lee's hand in terror.

Oh, you didn't know? I'm terrified of heights. It's not something that comes up. I love epic views but when I'm crawling backward on all fours in the jungle and praying that my foot doesn't slip, and thus, I slip down into brush and wild weeds and death..... I was crying. Whenever I could manage to rest on solid ground, I'd have to stop and weep. It's a nasty sight. Be glad you weren't there.

I hated this man the first day... loved him the second. He was my kayak partner, but for now he just silently watched me panic. 

I remember being so angry at the end. It's really frustrating to look forward and NOT even see a trail. You're just straight up traversing through uncharted ones. Tom said later that he thought we were the first group to do the trek after rainy season. You know that your trek is hardcore when there are no Aussies and Israelis on it as well. 

I finished the trekking portion of our Laotion adventure a full hour after all the boys. Lucas and Tom were playing with fire when we finally arrived at the camp. They are very special.

Thank you, David Lee, for being my rock on this hike. Thank you for letting me hold your hand for two hours. Thanks Phoebe and Monica for being amazing moral support and trying to make me laugh while I was terrified. Thanks for putting up with all my crazy voices and my descent into insanity. This hike was definitely something that I've never done before... and a learning experience indeed. 

.. But there's more! The second day we kayaked! 

Puppy break

Before we started hiking/trekking... it's not just hiking or trekking.. more like repelling, traversing, climbing.... anyway, before I talk more about that, look at these cute puppies! The Laotian village that we started our hike in was full of them. I ruv them. Too bad later we found out the reason that there were so many was because THEY EAT THEM. 

Laos, so lao-y

The blue team! A surprising number of us wore blue shirts. I thought we should take a picture.

Remember how the trip to Dali was one of decadence and luxury? Well Laos is the opposite of that. Although we were in Laos for 2 days, I can truly say that I did things here that I've done before and... could possibly do again. 

The night that we arrived in Luang Namtha, a border village in Laos, JUST this side of China, we signed up for an adventure trek. Adventure and me, usually don't get along, unless you're talking about perhaps an adventurous top? or... an adventurous shopping spree in New York?

Keep in mind that I somehow ended up on this trip with super athletic and enthusiastic guys: Lucas, Tom, Gareth, John Kuo, Ken, David Lee.  So.. signing up initially was a struggle because there are about half a dozen trekking guide companies, all with about the same tours. Somehow, we settled on one. Then, Lucas and Tom wanted to go adventure cycling instead of hiking... all Phoebe and I wanted to do was go on a boatride... Feebs didn't even bring shoes. 

I quickly realized that I was outranked, outvoted, and going to be out-adventured. So... I stopped paying attention and shelled out the cash when it came time to pay the money. In the back of my consciousness, I remember John Kuo saying to our guide Tong, "We want to go on your most difficult trek." Of course, my mind rejected the idea that that would have held true after so much talking... but I was wrong. 

We awoke the next morning, jumped on a tuktuk for 40 mins, where we were promptly put on a kayak, and taken across to a small landing. From there, we climbed uphill for seemingly forever. When we asked when the terrain would even out, the guide told us it wouldn't. Afterall, this was the most difficult hike that they had. A sharp pain began throbbing in my chest. I think it was me breathing hard... PANIC!

Before I knew better

No one thought to correct John Kuo? 

Time spent on a bus getting to and from Laos

Shaojie --> Yunxian = 1 hour

Yunxian --> Lincang = 1.5 hours

Lincang --> Xishuangbanna = 16 hours

Xishuangbanna --> Luang Namtha, Laos = 8 hours

Total hours for ONE WAY: 26.5 hours

Round trip = 53 hours > two days

Worth it? Definitely. 

*Say hi to Lucas, my favorite bus mate. 

I gave Nature $5

Look at the man in the middle of this photo. Does he look like a monk to you? We thought so too. Meet Nature, the Taiwanese monk, or so we thought, that sat next to Ken on the way to Luang Namtha, Laos. 

His Chinese was so clear, his English was so good! He lives in Taipei but has been traveling abroad to find enlightenment the past 18 months in Yunnan. His next goal is to travel in SE Asia for the next three years.... to find enlightenment. When we asked Nature whether or not he was a monk, he denied that he was... he supposed we thought so because of his hair. That wasn't it. 

When we arrived in Luang Namtha, I vaguely remember someone wondering aloud at how Nature kept his head above water while traveling so much... since he didn't confirm or deny that he had been an ibanker in a previous life, we shrugged it off and went to eat food. It was only the next morning when he asked us for money that we figured out how he got additional fund. I gave him 50,000 Laotian Kip because he asked. 

Sigh. That could have bought 10 smoothies or 5 Beer Laos. Nature, if you're reading this, hey!

Everyone loves being in the pool

Look at all those smiles! Just kidding! It's a candid. I just really like the colors in this photo and the fact that Tom's facial expression matches the expression on his abs.

Coconut yum!

To prove that Xishuangbanna was indeed tropical, this is a photo of Lucas tearing a coconut in half by the pool. Rawr! Btw, raw coconut = NOT delicious.

Who doesn't love a huge golden Buddha?

We couldn't deny that love. We rented bikes and rode out to see it. Prettyyyy. Then, Lucas took a picture with a giant python and we forgot about the Buddha and continued on our bike ride...

Xishuangbanna: China Miami

After a fitful night's sleep, we (Lucas, Tom, Gareth, John Kuo, Monica, Laura, Sam, Ken, Rachel – Phoebe and David were a bus ride away) awoke to find that Xishuangbanna was a tropical paradise! Whoever did the city planning for this place... thank you. Thank you for showing me that China can be beautiful and not always a smelly wretched mess. There are statues of elephants everywhere. There's Western food. The sun was beaming; a pool was in the hotel next door!

Me and John with the same elephant

After each taking pictures with some elephants, we set about consuming as much Western food as possible. We found a café called Meimei's that had coffee, smoothies, spring rolls and creamy pasta! I couldn't say no and my stomach hurt all day. A worthy price to pay, I say!