Oh, China

Depending on how you punctuate that phrase, it is either positive or derogatory.

A few quick examples:

Oh, China!!
--Hearing people honk their horns randomly just to tell everyone, "I'm coming!", not necessarily because they are being rude.
--Today finding the perfect pair of gladiator shoes for under 10 American dollars, having yummy egg and milk porridge stuff with Chinese friends, etc.
--Standing in a store and wondering why everyone is staring at you..until you remember that you are blonde and oh yeah, this happens all the time!
--Getting free stuff just for being American. Haha.
--Desserts. Enough said.
--Just smiling at people when they speak in Chinese to you :) I have no idea what you are saying to me, lady :)

Oh, China...
--Not being able to comment on ANYTHING on Facebook anymore since Vtunnel switched from Lite Facebook to the regular one! It's like being mute! So frustrating...so Shannon June Ballard if you are listening, HAPPY FREAKING 20th BIRTHDAY and please email me, I have a little something awesome to tell you for your birthday :)
--Putting laundry out to dry and first off, it takes two days to dry and when it does dry. It REEKS of China. I cannot even describe that disgusting smell to you..and the worst part of it? I think I just smell like China. I can't get it off. And most days I don't even notice. Help me :(
--Listening to men hock loogies ALL DAY long. It doesn't matter where you are, or what time of day, it can be the dead of night or while you're showing when all of the sudden your peace of mind will be ruined by that awful noise {shudder}
--Waiting 30 for a bus that comes 15 minutes late. And then waiting for the same bus again going further downtown and having to wait again. And catching another bus home that comes 10 minutes late. So. Much. Waiting. For. Public. Transportation.

Today was one of my favorite days here so far, so fun and full of everything I love about this place, so if I could post a status on Facebook right now it would be...

I LOVE CHINA!!!

I really do :) With it's good and it's bad, I'm just so happy to be here having this experience right now! Oh, China :)

Check the back-dated posts!

The good news is I pictured the heck out of them as much as I would back home, even with photobucket and blogger via vtunnel making it slower and nearly impossible some days. I'm getting way faster at it so hopefully I won't get as behind on things.

Annnnd it's my hump day in China today! 2 months down, 2 left to go! I am thinking it's going by way too fast...I don't want to leave in June!

GL¤ß@L £ØV€

Every once in awhile our school is required to have a talent show of sorts in front of some judges to see how well its arts programs are doing, and if they are good enough the school can go “up in rank” or something like that. We were lucky enough to be here during one of these talent shows. And yep, you guessed it: we were one of the performing groups. I guess it's cool to show off your foreign teachers?

Our group has a lot of music talent- Shaw plays drums back home in a real band, Joey’s good at everything and Tanner plays guitar and bass really well so they threw something together and through an interesting turn of events I ended up on the piano. It felt good to practice and play again :) They boys chose “This Love” by Maroon 5 to perform for the Chinese. They came up with parts and coordinated together and listened to that blasted song so many times we started changing the words of the chorus to, “This song has taken it’s toll on me..” because it was CONSTANTLY in our heads. Joey came up with the piano part but being the visual person I am I had to write out music and it ended up looking hilarious but it worked. For 2 weeks we practiced on our own and endured a couple of pain-staking rehearsals and here’s how it went!

Oh but first, we went to a random creepy Chinese man’s music studio in downtown Zhongshan to practice and at that point I didn’t know I was playing in the band yet so Debbie and I got real bored and turned to camera entertainment; here’s just a taste of that afternoon;)


The weekend before we all went out and bought Chinese clothes for our performance and it was a whole lot of fun :) Their clothes are just cheap and awesome, it's a little ridiculous. As we were looking Amanda found a shirt that said "Global Love" that she thought was appropriate and awesome considering the circumstances and ended up buying it, and because she was the lead singer it ended up as the name of our band. It's pretty fantastic :) The afternoon of the performance all of us girls spent probably too much time doing makeup and hair but it was a lot of fun nonetheless- who doesn't like a good reason to dress up like a rockstar every once in a while? I definitely do!


Divas!


Here we are performing! From left to right: me on piano, Tiffany Erin and Raven dancing, Amanda singing, Shaw on the drums hiding behind Joey playing lead guitar, Debbie and Anna on the tamborines, and Tanner on the bass. Quite the ensemble with all of us! My notes weren't solid but they were enough, and aside from a couple other mishaps (Shaw's chair collapsing halfway through the song and Joe's guitar not being nearly loud enough) it went really well. I was kinda sad it was over!

The rest of the show was so good!


The dance group right after us. It was a fun little dance that was so much of the China that I thought of before I came! It's fun to experience rich cultural stuff like that in a place that is so old. You just don't get that in Utah, you know?


A gymnastics class (Beijing 2008 gymnast conspiracy anyone? They're like 10 but we'll probably see these girls competing in 2012 ;) hehe )


A little calligrapher. To show how he has mastered the art he did all of that on stage, it was pretty impressive!


For the finale everyone went back on stage and clapped to this funny song. Murder to practice but it looks pretty cool, I guess. The funniest part of the actual finale was that there were these HUGE confetti poppers that were set off that got ALL over us (we were finding pieces on ourselves the rest of the day) and they had these random chairs for us to stand on that had never been there during any of the rehersals. But whatever, I'll stand on your chairs and have confetti thrown at me any day!


This is Vivi, one of the foreign coordinators for our group. I'm wearing her pants (you have no idea how gratifying it is to fit into pants of an Asian with no hips. It's a little pat on the back!) and she's standing behind me because she thinks her face is big..I think she's silly!


And naturally a photo-shoot featuring our new outfits was in order!

Knock-off converses, a bejeweled tank, a funny shawl and black skinny jeans. Asian at its finest!


And of course the shirt! Complete with pseudo-leather leggings borrowed from Vivi.


So the whole experience was a lot of fun! Now if only I could get that song out of my head...

Coming soon!

Be sure to catch all my back-dated posts! And no, I still haven't written about my last vacation to the Hawaii of China but it will happen soon-- my mom mentioned again how much she wants to hear about it so I realize it's definitely time ;) To anyone else who has wondered, thanks! I'm never sure who's really ever reading this so it means a lot when I'm missed.

So this post is, like, the previews, before a really good movie...

Okay so maybe not, but give me a break!! The Chinese asked my group to prepare a song to perform at a little show of theirs in front of 800 people...we've got a lot of musical talent in our group: the boys threw together an arrangement of Maroon 5's "This Love" complete with drums, guitar and bass and somehow I got landed on the keyboard. I guess I've always wanted to be a Chinese popstar? We'll see how it goes, the performance is Monday!

I am going to be a big girl and muster up the strength to not put a picture in this post. And that's two in a row--a painful thing for a picture blogger! It's only because I don't have any applicable ones and that can't really be helped at this point...it's okay, I can do this. Ready? {holding breath}

Come Away to Sunday School

I realize that some of you haven't heard what church is like for me yet, so I am going to tell you :)

(Note: This is the second time I've written this blog post. The ever-unreliable firewall by-passer decided to not post when I wanted to and all of my work went unsaved. I'm working on patience this week so I'm sucking it up and writing it again. Just know it was awesome before and there are no guarantees for the second time around)

But first some background info. The church is not authorized to legally proselyte in China. In fact you get in serious trouble for it if you get caught. But China has given the church permission to form two districts for foreigners living in China to worship. The first is the Shanghai district for Shanghai and its surrounding cities and the second is the everything-besides-Beijing district (I forget the real name ;) ). In the districts there are branches and the one in Shenzhen is closest to us. The members meet in a boxy little house in a weird neighborhood that communists built for their families in the 70s but now it's used by foreigners and their families. Someone used to live there permanently but now it's used solely for church--outfitted with a sound system and hymnal marker thing in the living room, bright colored decorations in the Primary room, pictures of Christ all over and folding chairs as far as the eye can see. It's pretty great :)

That's the branch we should be attending weekly but we're incredibly lucky to have priesthood holders in our group. My head teacher Tiffany's husband Shaw is set apart as the group leader for our group and is authorized to hold church here on Sunday. It's really cool--it's exactly in line with China's requirements of how foreigners can worship here (there can only be a certain number of branches/places to gather so Shaw doesn't have all the keys of a bishop even though he's practically that) and it's also in perfect harmony with how authority works in the church and holding the keys needed to perform the ordinances. It's only with special permission from the church that we can do this, it's neat :)

So the Sundays we are home in Zhongshan here’s how the afternoon goes, as dictated by the branch presidency in Shenzhen. Church starts at 12:30 so we head over to the other ILP group’s apartment up the street about 12:15. We wind through pathways lined with beautiful trees, ponds, pavilions and flowers to their building. (The above picture was from an especially sunny Sunday). Unlike our apartment theirs has a living room where about 25 of us sit on various couches, chairs, a big windowsill and a random bed for Sacrament meeting. We listen to prelude hymns played through speakers from an iPod and wait for the meeting to start with an a cappella hymn and a prayer. From there we go straight into the Sacrament, where distinctly Chinese-tasting bread and bottled water are used, then a closing song and prayer. We separate into two classes for Sunday school (which doubles as Relief Society and Priesthood) for hour-long lessons and that’s it! The shortest church meetings I’m ever gonna have in my life! Of course I miss the dynamics of a real ward and the extra blessings of three-hour meetings but it’s been an amazing experience just concentrating on the meat of the meeting that has been simplified. Everything is so simple, it’s not even funny! I even have a calling in this little group: I’m the Sunday school coordinator of sorts. I make sure I know who is giving the lesson in each of the Sunday school classes, which is decided “popcorn reading” style (you know, from second grade? Where one kid reads and chooses the next kid by saying “popcorn..Jimmy!” and then Jimmy reads and chooses someone else? Yep that’s how our teachers are chosen every week, it’s very effective even with young adults and teaching assignments). With our vacations church has been pretty irregular so my “calling” hasn’t really required any effort on my part. Literally. One of the oddest callings I’ll probably ever have! Church is nice to be able to talk to the other groups that we don't see very often. After church I sometimes stay at the other girl’s building complex and write in my journal at a stone table by the ponds. Then it’s off to blogging, lesson plans, writing letters, Preach My Gospel, dinner at the cafeteria, etc. and bedtime to start another week!

Every time I stop and think that I get the chance to attend a normal (haha did I just say normal?) Sacrament meeting so close to home every week I am honestly amazed. In this country where it’s not even legal to tell our Chinese friends about the gospel, I can partake of the blessings of the Atonement—right here. It’s a miracle! To sing hymns and pray with a group of saints sharing the light of Christ by example in China is pretty darn incredible. It’s hard sometimes to realize the happiness in life that can come from a knowledge of the Savior, the people I pass everyday can’t even know about, but the first counselor in the branch presidency told us (not as doctrine :p) that he thinks of the saints in China now as Ammon when he went to the Lamanites. At first he was a humble servant to King Lamoni and established the friendship that would eventually open up the opportunity, when the time was right, to introduce the gospel to him. Even though we are not allowed to legally preach we are still examples here, and perhaps it will be the way by which church members adhere by the government’s laws concerning foreigners worshipping here that will open the door to let missionaries into China. Who knows! But hopefully we are sowing the seeds now, that by our examples, when the truth does come it will be recognized as the source of the light within us. Maybe simple things like our modesty, CTR rings, Book of Mormons, teaching the kids “Popcorn Popping”, or our church clothes on Sundays will spark some lasting curiosity that will eventually point someone to the gospel when it arrives.

So that’s how my Sundays go! I’m not sure what I would do without church in China, and although we would be going to the Shenzhen branch if we didn’t have priesthood holders it has still been a once in a lifetime opportunity and blessing to take part in these church meetings. I feel like a pioneer :)

Thank you, Sun Yat-Sen

Many adventures happen downtown after kung fu. Remember the giant Brigham Young-esque statue? Well we explored his entire park after kung fu and it was a surprising treat!

We were met first by some finely manicured hedges that just reminded me of Alice and Wonderland ;)


We started up some stairs to a pagoda (after a kung fu pose...)

..and found a pond with a bajillion koi. I bought some fish food for 3 RMB and quickly became the fish's favorite tourist at the park :)


And the little Chinese lady behind me started blowing bubbles. It was perfect :)




Pagoda!


Silhouetted kung fu picture behind a waterfall. This might be a little too legit, folks!


All of this is as artificial as Disneyland but it doesn't make it any less fun to explore ;)

We headed back down the stairs to go catch the bus and were met by a group of tourists that we have come to refer to as "the red hat group." I'll let you figure out why ;) We figure they must be a group of tourists from somewhere that doesn't get many foreigners because they are always REALLY excited to see us. And this memorial must be a stop on their tour of Zhongshan because there are ALWAYS some of them here. And they are ALWAYS happy to see us :) Come to the Sun Yat-Sen memorial and see white people, what could be better?

This time it was especially funny because one of them just handed me a large bouquet of flowers to pose with. Hehe :) We had to hide from the rest of the groups to make our bus on time. It's hilarious to watch the genuine surprise and excitement when Chinese people see us, though, it's really a neat experience to be in another country and have the immediate friendship with someone, even if it's only for 5 minutes and a picture!

It's wonderful to have so many exciting places to visit so close to home! Our weekends are such a relaxing relief. I have grown to love Zhongshan so much for all it has to offer!

Sanya :)

At long last :)

A brief note about parent teacher day that morning: the parents were a big distraction watching their kids, I was exhausted and felt like a mess but the day went okay. I didn't get yelled at and if there were glares I wouldn't know because I was trying so hard to control the children that I couldn't even look at their parents! and the follow-up meeting the next week the moms were super nice, just asking about their kids individually and how well they speak English. They were more worried about things like the kids getting enough water or if their gross sweaty back towels get put out to dry often enough. So I'm off the hook, phew! Even with the injuries that seem to keep happening in my class I left the classroom unscathed Friday afternoon. And ready for Sanya :)

We headed to the bus station shortly after lunch. One thing we say about China is that it doesn't rain here, it "mists"--meaning there are never water drops falling from the sky ever, just a light little misty thing. It's very strange. Well it was misting that afternoon and I told on of the girls in our group, Anna, how weird it was. I should have held my tongue because as we got off the number 10 bus to the bus station it was a downpour. Oh one other thing you should know: in order to not get robbed, we sometimes wear our backpacks on our fronts. Not the most attractive thing ever, in fact it looks downright silly...but hey it keeps your stuff safe! Now picture me at this point, glasses, green UVSC sweatshirt (now vintage, gotta love it!), sweat pants, not able to reach my umbrella, running for shelter to the station. Yes, I couldn't help but laugh at this scene. It only added to the moment that a Chinese woman came up from behind me and started running in time with me, holding her umbrella over my head with a big smile on her face. Thank you, random kind Chinese stranger :)

We got on our bus an hour later and as we settle in I noticed I was the lucky duck sitting behind the toilet. It was alright but became a problem about 5 hours into the trip..I won't go into details about that. Amanda's bed was right next to a speaker blaring music to a very questionable in-bus movie that was playing. I will never understand Asian entertainment. Literally because of the language, yes, but as far as content as well. So weird.

You should understand this about sleeper bus rides-- they are pretty confusing. You sleep in hour chunks, wake up randomly, can't find a comfortable position, it smells bad, random Asian jingles are going off on cell phones, there are stops occasionally at these sketchy little restaurant markets with gross squatters where everyone has to get off the bus, there are these NASTY furry blankets that come with each seat that I make a point of never touching (I WILL get diseases, I'm sure of it) and they smell like stinky feet because you take your shoes off and put them in little bags when you get on the bus. Just to paint a little picture for you :) This bus ride was, I think the most eventful of the 4 I've taken so far. There was the most INSANE car accident I've ever seen. It held us up in traffic for about 40 minutes and when we passes it we were all completely shocked at the scene: three white-hot car frames with flames maybe 7 feet high billowing up from them. Very scary! It was like watching a stunt act at Universal Studios. I was very glad at that point to be in a bus that would win most car accidents. Later we were woken up and told to all get in our beds. A policeman came on the bus and shined a very bright flashlight into each of our faces. I guess everything was okay because we drove on without any difficulties…but right after we started driving a man came opened the door and emerged out of the bathroom..where I guess he had been hiding..so funny! I think I laughed for about 10 minutes. Things are so sketchy here it’s ridiculous. Once again we slept for I don’t know how long and woke up very confused to the driver herding us off the bus. We gathered our stuff and were told to put it on another bus. Apparently we were at the harbor? No one was really sure. So everyone put their big luggage under the bus and...it drove away? Um. Okay. Interesting. At this point we just hoped we'd see it again! We waited in line for the ferry (but we'd just put our luggage on a bus? This is just how it is with China..) and just got on! But the ferry was HUGE and there were large trucks and tons of buses being loaded on so it was pretty safe to assume that ours was among them.


And my name was on the ferry. A nice little bonus at 1 in the morning :)

The hour long ride to island province of Hainan Dao was mostly uneventful. The ferry pulled up to the harbor and we wandered off..good rule of thumb here is to just follow the Chinese people so we that’s what we did in this situation. Tour buses like ours started pulling up and we all anxiously stood in the “rain” waiting for our to show up, admittedly crossing our fingers that we would ever make it to Sanya. Eventually it came! Back on the sleeper bus, driving to the most southern tip of the island to Sanya, I was in and out of sleep for a couple of hours and eventually managed to sleep until 10.

I woke up to a bright sunny day outside and looked out the window to see crowded sidewalks and lots of street vendors. Once again, REALLY confusing! We got off the bus, puffy-eyed, and wandered in circles around the bus station until we found a random man with a van offering us to give us a ride. Heck yes, we told him. We got to our hostel and plopped down our stuff. This room was different than our hostel in Yangshuo- it was a big room with 5 bunk beds, a table in the center and big blue lockers to keep our stuff. I had a bunkmate already sleeping soundly :) We were exhausted but we pushed through it-- the beach was calling!! We’d seen it on the way in and there was no stopping us. We got changed and wandered through a couple alleyways to find it..
,
..and stopped for some lunch first. And this was the scene that met us:




And this is how I felt about it :)

A day basking in the sunlight is best spent with the camera in its case, so just know it was wonderful, but I took a break from mindless paradise to get a couple worth mentioning here.


Little Chinese vendors came by selling us pearls (relentlessly..)


..and mangos :) So yummy! And incredibly messy, it was fun to wash off in the ocean afterwards.

We basked in the sun all day and it was heavenly! The sun was warm, the water was too...ah...I can't even describe my happiness without wishing I was back there, moving on!

We headed back home for showers and realized how sunburnt we were. Painful, but completely worth it :D Stopped for some jiao zi..

..and life couldn’t get much better right then!

We rode an insanely crowded bus downtown to explore an outdoor mall. Lots to see!


A giant Buddha. All the Chinese people were holding his beads so you can guess why I am. When in China!



Waiting for our frozen drinks, this family wanted us to pose for a picture with their kid. It might bring good luck or something. Once again, language barrier..

We were too late to catch a bus back to the hostel so we had to resort to other means of transportation..a motorized taxi!



We squished all six of us girls on the back of one and just laughed the whole time (in between feeling absolutely terrified for our lives) and it was quite fantastic.

The next morning was Easter Sunday! And I doubt I will ever have another Easter quite like it. Not exactly your typical Easter pictures, right??





Once again it’s hard to sum up such a relaxing, wonderful, perfectly lazy day so here are the highlights:


A jellyfish washed up on the shore! I only touched it because of Finding Nemo- I knew the top wasn’t going to hurt me ;)




The ever-persistent fruit vendors. This particular lady would NOT stop heckling us to buy her mangos and coconuts. She took a break in the shade between efforts.




Back at the hostel waiting to go out for the night. Such an interesting experience staying in places like these! Hostels are so cheap it's ridiculous.

Hand pulled noodles later and some last minute shopping at the mall for Chinese beach souvenirs. Top the night off with a beach walk and it was a very unique Easter indeed. Not enough celebration of the Savior or the Resurrection for me but it was an Easter I’m sure I will never forget!

The next day we packed up and sadly left our beach paradise. At this point I was nursing a pretty bad sunburn and was a little displeased with myself at how I’d finally traveled to a place the same latitude as Hawaii and I burned myself. Better luck next time, I guess!

Bus ride for a couple hours to a ferry. It can make you feel a little crazy getting on a bus you know you'll be spending 11 hours on...


Ferries are exciting places! Lots of wet stuff and weird smells. Plus a room dedicated solely to instant noodles...who knew?!


A little break for a Titanic moment :)

The bus ride home was for some reason SO BUMPY. At one point I stood up to tell Erin to come sit and talk on the bottom level, and the bus jolted really bad. I grabbed the side of one of the upper beds to keep myself up but my momentum was going and I sliced my finger on the metal siding. I don’t know how to tell you how bad it was because I wouldn’t look at it..we disinfected it and made a bandaid.

I spent the rest of the ride sleeping really lightly chasing the make-shift bandaid around my bed. What a night!

We arrived home, tired and sunburnt but happy. An orange juice from McDonald’s and a steamed roll from the cafeteria and we were happy. It’s amazing how we can go away for a weekend and I can miss my hard little bed here back in Kaiyin. It feels like home!

Such a wonderful vacation!! Totally different than our trip to Yangshuo but I don't think I could say which one was my favorite. It's incredible how many different experiences China has to offer. I really love it here :)

Next vacation in 2 weeks! Beijing, here I come!