You know how to you can tell that I love you, my internet fan-friends? Because after sitting at my keyboard for way more than fourteen hours straight writing a 3000 character Chinese essay, and even though China-gov has blocked blogspot, I have found a way to write to you on this lovely 1:00 AM Monday, May 18, 2009 (credit: Mom!).

Let me fill you in on China-life as of late. It’s been more interesting and less I-want-to-tell-parents/costudents-these-sorts-of-things than ever this week, but this is my oh-so-frank blog so if you think you’ll find yourself offended, I encourage you to just stop reading at this point. Yeah, delete the bookmark too, it’s probably for the best.

On with it then. In breaking news that everyone already suspected, Russian girls’ summer clothes are even more ridiculous than their winter regalia. In addition to heels as high and accessories as gaudy as ever, I’ve now also seen ladies who I swear forgot their pants, one who forgot upwards of half of her shirt, as well as several (pierced) bellybuttons. And yet, shopkeepers commonly mistake me for Russian. What does this mean.

In more interesting news, have discovered that a nontrivial percentage of CET students- myself included- would more readily break the law than the language pledge and I find this equal parts amusing and tragic; see me personally for further details.

In related news, for about four minutes on last Wednesday I forgot I was a 外国人. I was like, I want to shop for some veggies here, and then looked around without feeling the least bit self conscious for about four minutes. Then I thought, something is weird here, what could it be? Oh yes that’s right, an outsider- people are watching me again. Right.

In semi-related news, there’s finally some inter-personal drama amongst the CET students. A couple of Chinese roomies are dating, apparently all the boys think my (very taken) roomie is the most attractive of the lot and are willing to pay handsomely for my assistance in winning her over (or something…), everyone has come to hold more or less uniform opinions about each other’s personalities (and more importantly, respective levels of Chinese proficiency) that we compare whenever somebody isn’t around, and I have a couple of completely unfeasible crushes. Now now don’t go getting excited, we’re not talking serious emotions here, and at this point I know better than to take any action beyond passively-aggressively noting the existence of said crushes on the blog that said boys may or may not read. Pretty much, this crushing process is inevitable for me. I meet some cool people, we hang out a lot, I find more and more reasons to like them, and then eventually start thinking we could work out as more. Then, I remember that in 10 days everyone goes back to their own personal America, so it’s definitely just best to settle for an conversation in English and game of spin the bottle in Beijing before we scatter. Man, why didn’t I think of that.

In more consequential news, last Saturday our activity was interviewing old Chinese people, which turned out to be surprisingly interesting. My old person was a professor at 哈工大 until he retired at age 60, and we discussed all kinds of things, ranging from his life during the great cultural revolution to the rationality of religious belief. As far as the latter is concerned, he was way open-minded but just didn’t understand how so many people in such a developed nation as America could all believe in the existence of single God who apparently isn’t in the habit of offering up rational evidence of his existence. I tried to explain to Professor Su that it is possible to have faith not as an irrational belief, but rather as an additional one. It is not contradictory to accept science and/or rationality as the answer to the “what is our world? and how does it work?” questions while simultaneously accepting religious belief as the answer to that “yes, but why?” question. I mean, it ain’t my style, but it ain’t necessarily contradictory either. I don’t know if I impacted his thinking or not, but it was a fun conversation regardless.

I think I’ve forgotten how to drive,
China-Cat

So Far East It's North

Hey Guys.

I know it's an absurd hour right now, but I'm too excited about life to sleep right now. I love China, I love camp, I love my Austin friends, I love RICE, I love philosophical conversations in Chinese (that's right, you heard me right- ideas in CHINESE) and I love love love this whole experiencing life thing. It's crazier than anything I could imagine.

Last weekend CET and all our roomies went to 丹东, which is a little city of about 2 million people near the coast and North Korea. Here are some highlights:

-I saw North Korea. You can too! It's behind us. PS my roomie rocks.


-I met some North Koreans. My Chinese was better than theirs.

-I helped a stereotypical hey-I'ma-tour-China-even-though-I-don't-speak-a-fucking-word-of-their-silly-language American man order lunch and local beer. America win.

-The program kids played an absurd game that involved bathrobes, a table, sound effects, floor wrestling, and smacking noses (mostly Cooper's).

-I remembered why I don't wear makeup in China. The Chinese equivalent of a good 'ole boy's phone number is still scribbled on the back of my homework, though I did manage to rebuff his invitations for lunch and get him off of my bed on the train.

-It rained a lot, which was okay because I wear two pairs of pants every fucking day anyway.

-I miss driving. Lord knows I drive better than our bus driver did.

-New favorite game! When strangers comment on the 外国人, the CET students and our 地道的 Chinese roommates all turn to each other and comment among ourselves saying, "What? Outsider? Where??" Then we sort of point at one of us and murmur, "Oooohhh...I bet they're Russian. Yeah, definitely Russian..blonde hair..." This works best when the individual being commented on is in fact a Chinese roomie.

-Huangwei and I had a philosophical conversation in Chinese, and I came away with altered views, meaning we effectively communicated ideas. Points all around.

-Saw some more of the wall. You can too!



-So multicultural it hurts, every day:



Guys, I'm gonna miss my friends here. I'm gonna miss getting cat-called on the street. I'm gonna miss my crazy one-on-one teacher who never gets impatient with my crappy-ass reading skills. I'm gonna miss carrying my own little collection of TP everywhere I go. I'm gonna miss practicing this crazy new skill every, single day. I'm gonna miss joking around with Americans and Chinese kids and just enjoying life together. Heck, I'm gonna miss being confused and surprised all the time.

Seriously though, it's being oceans (or a significant number of continental united states) away from the people here that is gonna cause me the most heartache. These kids, and heck teachers too, understand at least one facet of me that I (literally) can't translate back to you kids at home. This experience has been, is, and tomorrow will be just incredible. Home guys, bad news but my favorite language is Chinglesh now, not just as a gimmick but as the most effective means of communication at my disposal. Only my CET peeps can hear me out on that one, and I plan to enjoy the hell out of these next few weeks. Amen.

Too many homes/I love life,
China-Cat

Warmth and Grass

That's right, Harbin has both. I have never been so happy to see a splotch of scraggy grass while wearing a short-sleeve shirt in my life! Of course, this just confirms (again) the widespread assumption that I'm a winter wuss.

The China-life is pretty sweet as of late; last weekend was a three day-er (owing to labor day) and a group of awesomely fun people hit up the local island-park for a picnic and birthday celebration. We got to ride a ferry boat across the river, ate sandwiches with REAL peanut butter for lunch, and toodled around on some tandem (and three-person) bikes for awhile. I recommend grabbing the back seat, as you can't steer or really make any decisions about your direction whatsoever, but the opportunities for picture taking and looking around are top-rate. Speaking of pictures, the park people wanted to play "picture with the waiguoren" a lot, but I'm getting used to it. We joked among the CET students about pretending I don't speak Chinese and letting one of the Chinese boys pimp me out for 5 kuai a shot (starting at 10 kuai and bargaining down, of course). In fact, I never wear makeup in these parts, rarely touch my hair, and shower infrequently because hey, if strangers call me pretty and want my picture when I'm red-faced, dirty, and/or rain-soaked, I'm afraid I just don't see what could motivate me to do better.

(I will here confess that after putting on some mascara the other day I surprised myself in the mirror approximately 10 times before it finally wore off a few days later: "What?? A girl?! What is SHE doing in here?! WWaaahh!" You get the idea.)

Also, I think I understand about 85% of my life on any given day now. Yeah, you're thinking- hey, that's pretty cool. You're speaking only Chinese and have a really good idea of what is going around you! I hear when you got there that number was more like 35%, huh. Way to go, Cat.

Hey thanks, but um...how to put this..15% of my life is still a complete mystery to me. You know how I hate confusion and inefficiency? Well, in China, every single day things happen to or around me that are just a complete mystery. Example A, I bought some groceries at the chaoshi. As I was checking out, the lady didn't give me a bag, she just loaded all my stuff back into the basket. I asked for a bag. She said "follow me" and walked off. This made me very annoyed. I don't want to go with you to restock your stupid stash of bags- borrow one from the next cashier over or something, no really. I started trying to tell her this in an exasperated tone when she turned around and gave me a free, enviro-friendly, reusable bag from the cool people at the service desk!...Wait what? Huh? Where did this come from? Did I buy the product of the day? Is this based on amount of purchase? What just happened here??

These questions and many many others remain unanswered on a daily basis. It's like there's this purpose/meaning/explanation-obscuring fog continually edging in on my China-consciousness; sometimes it closes in, sometimes it clears up a bit, but it's always there- like Beijing pollution. The good news is, I can't get worked up about outcomes or methods that displease me much, because chances are grand that I really don't understand the issues. At times, this hazy lifestyle gets me down a bit, but usually it just contributes to the grand adventure and hey, language pledge. What did I expect.

On the other hand, a random Chinese guy spent 15 minutes at dinner the other day trying to explain a question to me. As I battled the fog, it slowly dawned on me that I didn't understand anything he was saying because his question was directly related to my life in Russia. Um, wrong-o China-man, wrong-o. I even told you I studied in the US, so I'ma have to chalk this one up as negative one point for you, waiguoren still cruising at zero. I would now like to finish enjoying my jiaozi in peace, so thanks and good night.

Diet Pepsi blows,
China-Cat