Guzheng lessons!

So my lessons on Thursday went pretty well. It's definitely harder than it looks but most things are haha! Reading the music is so different from the piano but it's much easier. I practiced today for an hour and I'm starting to pick things up. There's a couple things I have to work out like relaxing my hand. My hand is too tense when I play and that can lead to problems. It's getting better though. I have lessons tomorrow and then on Tuesday of next week I'm going to go out and buy a Guzheng for myself! I'm very very excited! I'll post a picture or two when I get it. These instruments are so beautiful. I'm so glad I'm here in China and I have the opportunity to take lessons.

On a side note I had McDonalds today! Good ol' Chinese McDonalds! I was in downtown Xiangtan at the bank and I decided I was going to try it. I got the chicken wrap thing from the dollar menu (which is actually the 6 yuan menu here in China well the 6 yuan and sometimes the 7 yuan menu). It was really good but sooooo spicy! That's okay I'm getting used to the spice and I loved the taste! I'm going to assume that it's a probably more spicy than in the U.S. but I can't be certain. That's it for now! Things are going great! Love you all and miss you tons!

2 Posts in 3 days?! What is the world coming too?!

I don't know what's gotten into me. I'm making another post so soon! All of us teachers from the U.S. hang out with each other quite a bit but I mostly hang out with just two of the teachers; Miriam and Natalie. We just like to do our own thing. And we all like to be lazy together. On Saturday we just sat around and did nothing and ate junk food and watched movies. Well I shouldn't say "we" because I went to the music store on campus and got lessons set up! I have guzheng lessons every Thursday from 6:30-7:30 PM and Saturday from 2:00-3:00 PM. I also bought these finger picks I needed. I tape them to my fingers and I use them to pluck the strings of the guzheng. After that I went into downtown Xiangtan with my Chinese friend named Dennis (just his English name I don't even know his Chinese name) and Ryan (one of the other teachers) and we played basketball. I'm so out of shape and it was SOOOOOO HOT yesterday. And extremely humid. Although NJ is almost as humid as it is here in Xiangtan I got used to dry weather while I was out at Idaho. So I played for maybe 30 minutes in total. Then Ryan had to fax a document so we found a place that would do it and then we had dinner with Dennis' parents and his parents' friends. The food was pretty good except for the chicken. They literally cut up a whole chicken and put it in a bowl with different vegatables and spices. They pulled the head out right in front of me. Then there was another dish that had all the organs from that chicken. But the other stuff was good. They had beef, pork and a couple of dishes of vegatables. I was exhausted after that so we went home.

Tonight is going to be way good though! Me, Miriam, and Natalie went out and bought chicken breasts, corn, potatoes, fruit, and some spices and flour and we're going to make fried chicken tonight! It's actually going to be a feast because we invited a lot of people over. It's going to be very tasty! I can't wait!

Supposedly internet went into our apartments yesterday but the wireless network they installed was only up for like 5 minutes then it went back down and it hasn't reappeared since then. Oh well. My question is though why would they set up a wireless network if NONE of the computers they installed for us have a wireless card? Apparently it was easier to install a wireless network instead of dealing with cables. China will be China.

I'll post again once I get back from my guzheng lessons to let you all know how it went! Love you all!

Long time no see!

Well long time me no post! But did you know that "long time no see" actually comes from Chinese. It's literally translated from a Chinese saying. It's used when you haven't seen someone obviously and it goes like this: hao jiu bu jian. Like I said before hao means long when coupled with jiu and bu jian means no see so that's where the saying came from! Now you can impress your friends and family by revealing your deep knowledge of Chinese sayings. You can thank me later ;)

Teaching has been going very well. This week I've been teaching them the different parts of the body. I go through the arms the legs the torso and the face. But before I actually start teaching them the parts I get them introduced to it by having them do the Hokey Pokey and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and they love it! All of my classes have enjoyed it. Well my classes of all guys may not have shown their excitement for it but I know that they secretly fell in love with the song and they just didn't want to admit it to their buddies. However this one girl is the lone exception. As we were doing the Hokey Pokey she had this look on her faced that was kind of a slap in the face to me. Her face just screamed, "You're insulting my intelligence by having me to do this silly little dance" and I had a very strong urge to just... growl at her. It was weird don't ask me where it came from. Other than her everyone loved it and laughed. I love being able to be goofy and funny in front of these kids and being loved for it!

Although I'll be honest I don't always feel like I'm teaching college age kids. They certainly don't look like they're in college and they don't act like it either sometimes. It seems like they're in high school. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm teaching them the Hokey Pokey but it doesn't really change much.

Yesterday me and one of the other teachers wanted to get our students' opinion on the best place to eat. Natalie (the other teacher) asked her class and the whole class decided to take us out to dinner! It was very cool and lots of fun. I got to try some great dishes. I liked this potato dish and this eggplant dish and I even tried some fish! But the fish didn't taste what I thought it would taste like and that was a good thing. I'm slowing starting to get used to the spicyness. The Hunan province is known for it's extreme spicyness in all of China. And of all the places I could have gone I got put here :P I love it here though it's so amazing! I wouldn't change it for the world! Actually I would change it for a lifetime supply of Sprite. That substance is so wonderful yet so addicting you don't even know! I drink like at least a bottle a day. I'm going to die :(

Today I went into downtown Xiangtan with Miriam (yet another teacher) so she could get an A string for her violin. She knew two chinese girls that wanted to take her so I just came with for fun. We went to like 5 different musical instrument shops. I got to take a look at all the different chinese instruments and they were way cool. There was the Two String Violin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhu) and some sort of a Lute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipa) and then there was the Guzheng (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guzheng). I looked at the Two String Violin and was like "That would be pretty cool to learn" and I thought the same thing when I looked at the Lute but when I saw the Guzheng I fell in love. I was like "I don't care how but I am going to learn how to play that instrument!" It turns out there's a music shop in the Xiangtan campus that gives lessons for 40 yuan a lesson. If I have one lesson a week it's 160 yuan for the whole month. That's about $23ish! They give us 600 yuan for food a month which is really more than enough. I could easily get by with only 440 yuan a month and spend the other 160 yuan on lessons. I'm so excited! Tomorrow I'm going to the music store to get lessons figured out!

About a week ago I came the closest to being deported I've ever been. That sounds bad but I wasn't anywhere near close to being deported although I'll admit I was kinda scared when I got a call from one of the other teachers telling me what happened. The building manager named Hunter apparently told the local police that "the Americans are spreading their religion around" which is not true. All of us American teachers are Mormon and we are allowed by the Chinese government to worship on Sundays in private as a group because we are foreigners. We just can't spread our religion around and we haven't ever. But the local police are kind of ignorant of the laws of China. We just have to be very careful what we say to anybody. Not gonna lie I got the call at night and I had to decide whether or not I should sleep with my back to the big sliding window that lead to my balcony or the door to my room. I chose the door because it was smaller and if the secret police came they'd have to go through my front door first before getting to my room door and I'd wake up before they surprised me.

Like I said before life is slow in China which is good but it's going to be weird going back to the States and entering a busy life! If I have like 2 or 3 things in a day I'm like wow I'm so busy! Even if those three things only take 3 or 4 hours total out of the day. It's hard to explain but I feel overwhelmed if I have 2 0r 3 things to do in a day. All of the other teachers feel the same way so it's not just me.

It's crazy but I've been here for almost one month! On Sunday it will be one month since I left. It feels like a dream! Well that's it for now I'll try to do a better job at keeping this updated. Yell at me if I don't ;)

The pictures will come shortly! Teaching for now...

I still don't have internet set up in my apartment I have to go to an internet cafe down the road from me if I want to get online so I can't upload pictures yet until I get internet. It's going to be about a week. I was told this just yesterday. Hopefully it comes sooner or right on time. Life in China moves really slow which is a good thing but also a bad thing. Because when us teachers are told something is going to happen in a few days it usually takes longer than that. Which means the internet very possibly could be about a week and a half. Oh well... I'm just glad I'm here.

I started teaching on Monday and it's been going very well! I had 3 classes on Monday, 1 class on Tuesday, and 2 classes yesterday. Today I taught my first class then I'm teaching another one this evening. Every class I teach only meets once a week so I teach the same lesson every day for 5 days it gets kinda old but I can perfect the lesson after the first day or so. I'm surprised how much I enjoy teaching. Sometimes it seems like a chore but most of the time I enjoy it. If I ever feel sluggish going to class it always changes once I'm teaching. That helps. Xiangtan reminds me of New Jersey actually. The dirt is exactly the same. The apartments I'm in are still being worked on slightly. There's a few odds and ends they're finishing up and the dirt is still visible and it's the rusty color that stains everything! If you're from New Jersey then you know what I mean. It's so green here too just like in New Jersey! And it's humid as well! The main difference is the plantlife and it's ALWAYS overcast. But that's because of the pollution.

The people are so nice and friendly and I love being here. I'm still homesick but it's starting to go away as I get used to the difference in culture and difference in technology and comforts of life. I think this is a pretty good idea as to what a mission in a foreign country would be like. I don't wear a suit everyday but I do wear a dress shirt and tie and such. I don't have a companion and little other details but just being in another country on my own trying to get by with what little Chinese I can speak is, I would imagine, similar to a mission. I'm probably totally off the mark but oh well.

Basically life is good! I miss you all and love you tons!

Yangshuo, China! And a museum!

I've spent yesterday and today in Yangshuo. It's in the southernmost part of China closest to Vietnam. If I was any more south I would actually be in Vietnam. It's a subtropical zone I believe and the countryside is beautiful. It's so gorgeous. I took lots of pictures which will be on this blog as soon as I get back to Xiangtan and as soon as they provide internet for our computers. As of right now there is no internet in my apartment so I can't upload them. I might go down to an internet cafe to do that but I'm not sure if they'll let me put pictures on the computer. I'll get it figured out.

For various activities they have a bamboo raft ride down the Yulong river which is one of two rivers surrounding Yangshuo. The other is the Li river. The Li river is larger but you can't take a ride down it. It's so gorgeous here I can't say that enough! It's a pretty impoverished area though. Riding down the river you see all the peasants and their homes and they have very little. If it wasn't a tourist area then I don't know what it would be like. While on the river you would ride by rafts where people were trying to seel things. The main item was beer! They knew only two words which was "Hello! Beer!" and they just repeated it over and over. You can also go to a mud cave but I decided not to go because I was exhausted after the river ride. The rest of my group went and they just jumped around in the mud in the cave. They really liked it but I was happy I went home and ate and went to bed. I rode the bike I rented back to Yangshuo (you had to ride a bike to the dock where the river ride was) all by myself and I DIDN'T GET LOST! That's pretty much a first and only time for me considering I had never been in the area before and I'm in a foreign country. Luckily I know how to ask where things are and I can hold a basic conversation but I never had to ask anyone! I just got lucky I'll be honest.

The shops are so cute and there are so many different things. When you're walking down the street you're accosted by the shop owners trying to get you to buy their wares. They are very persistant much moreso than in America. They will literally come right up to you and hold out items for sale and follow you for 20 feet or so holding them right up to you. It's just how they do things. Bartering is very fun too! When a person tells you the price for something it's going to be about 5 times more than what it's really worth so you have to haggle down the price. I was shopping with some of my friends in the group and we were able to get chopsticks that were originally priced for 60 yuan for 25 yuan! I didn't buy them but one of the girls did.

Oh before I forget before we came to Yangshuo we went to a museum in Changsha the capital of the Hunan Province. The museum's main attraction was this wife of this important dynasty guy. She was like 2000 years old or something like that I don't remember. Anyway she was buried in like 5 coffins that were sealed with this charcoal paste that preserved her so well. When they unearthed her she was still slightly moist (not from decomposition) and her hair was completely intact and she had blood in her veins still. She is probably one of the best preserved bodies ever. I took some neat pictures and I'll put them up with the ones from Yangshuo. I honestly don't think she had decomposed at all. Of course she was a little shriveled but that's normal I believe. Anyway it was way cool. We got to see all the items from her tomb and it was cool. On a side note they wouldn't let us use the flash on our cameras. I'm not sure why. We could still take pictures just not using the flash. A couple times I turned off my camera and turned it back on to take more pictures and the flash is automatically on when you do that so I forgot to turn it off and I took a picture with the flash and I was a little nervous about getting arrested because that would have been bad but they were just like "sir please turn off your flash."

I'm really enjoying China but it hasn't really sunk in that this is going to be my home for the next 4 months. It's going to be so much fun but at the same time it's going to take some adjusting. Oh! P.S. they don't use diapers here in China. The pants for the babies have a large slit in them and the parents just whistle holding the kids up on the street and they go to the bathroom right there on the street. It's very strange but normal for China. I probably didn't explain that well enough so I hope you understand but I can't think of a better way to explain it.

Well that's it for now. I'll keep this updated! Love you all!

I finally made it to China!

After leaving The JFK airport Thursday August 21, I got diverted to Korea instead of the planned destination in Hong Kong. There was a typhoon that hit the Hong Kong coastal area and that forced the airport to shut down until it passed. That's why I went to Korea. I landed in the Incheon airport close to 2 or 3 in the afternoon went through customs and then was taken on a shuttle to a hotel the airline provided for us in Soeul which is roughly an hour from Incheon. I stayed the night and left at 3:30 in the morning to drive back to the airport for the 6:20 AM flight that would take me the rest of the way to Hong Kong. Only one other person that was going to China with my program flew with me the rest all flew in one large group. After we landed, her and I went and got our tickets changed to a new flight to get to Changsha the closest airport to Xiangtan in the Hunan province. The flight was set for 3:55 PM but got delayed to 6 PM then got delayed one more time to 6:30 PM before finally leaving. We got to Changsha around 8:30, I want to say, where there was someone waiting to pick us up. They took us to the University and we got settled into our apartments and then went to bed.

The rest of our group has been stuck in the Hong Kong airport since Friday all the way to Monday morning for some reason I'm not sure of yet. They flew out this morning and they should be here within the next hour or so. Somehow after their flight to Hong Kong they left the airport to take a day trip in Hong Kong since they had a 10 hour layover and for some reason they couldn't get back into the airport until this morning. I'm not sure what happened exactly but I'm glad I didn't get stuck there with them. Well I'll update you in a day or two once my orientation starts! Love you all!