A Comet Appears

Have you ever looked in the sky and seen something completely amazing and surprising? Previous to this year I would have answered that question with a timid "Maybe." Now, I can answer that question with firm "I certainly have! Not just one thing, but two!" 

It all started on November 16th. After dinner, Susi and I went for a walk with Cookie, my puppy. We soon realized that it was snowing. Naturally, I looked towards the sky and stuck my tongue out to catch snowflakes on my tongue. After a few seconds of this wonderful, yet childish pose, I realized that something was burning in the sky. I was sure that it was not a regular shooting star, because it was a foggy night, and we were in a very well lit area, so I would not have been able to see it. At first I thought it was a malfunctioning airplane. Then the flame suddenly changed from one flame, to several flames of several colors. The sky was illuminated with orange, green, and purple sparks. At this point Susi and I started screaming "WOAH WHAT IS GOING ON!!!" Then it occurred to me that it they might be fragments of the massive asteroid that had passed the earth during the previous week, so I started jumping, and screaming "IT'S THE ASTEROID, IT'S THE ASTEROID!!!" For some reason, no one around us was reacting at all. Susi and I probably looked rather foolish as we jumped around, pointing at the sky, and screaming in a language that no one understood, but we could not be stopped. I am still not sure exactly what it was, but it was one of the coolest things that I have ever seen.

I was completely astounded again, a few weeks later. Susi and I were going for another walk. About five minutes into the walk Susi pointed at the sky in astonishment. The moon was dark brown and looked absolutely amazing. Neither Nina, Susi, nor I had managed to learn that a there would be a lunar eclipse on that night. Susi and I ran up to Nina's room, rapped on her door, and said in incredibly excited voices "Put warm clothes on NOW and come outside! There is a lunar eclipse!" In no time at all Nina was fully dressed, with her camera, running up to the roof, which was unfortunately locked. We spent a long time just staring at the sky in awe.

Thanksgiving

Usually, when I find myself missing something about home, or confused by Chinese culture, I share these feelings with Susi and Nina. They are both from Germany, so their lives at home are fairly similar to mine. As a result, I have yet to really feel homesick. Thanksgiving was the first time that it actually occurred to me that I should be homesick. At this point I had spent well over a month in a different country, with only a few English speaking contacts. I was the sole American in my town during a major national Holiday. I didn't even speak to my parents on Thanksgiving because my dog had eaten my internet cable, so I was not able to use Skype. I thought about all of these things in a failed attempt to feel homesick. After mulling these thoughts over, the only thing that I truly felt myself missing was Mexican food. In one final attempt to feel homesick I planned to have some kind of poultry for dinner. That did not actually work out, because I forgot. I ended up having something that had some tofu in it. I have decided this should count as a proper thanksgiving meal, because some people eat tofurkey, which also contains tofu. Basically, this thanksgiving, I arrived at the conclusions that I am not patriotic in the least, and I am also not prone to homesickness.

The Strangest Night of my Life

December 2nd, 2011

This is the story of what was, without a doubt, the strangest night of my life. Two days before Susi's birthday her school informed her that it would be hosting a small birthday party for her with all of the headmasters and a few other people. The next day, her school informed her that the party had been moved to the school Cafeteria, and that each of the thirty English teachers, as well as each of the ten headmasters, and some other people would be in attendance. Susi was also informed that she would have to perform a song in English, do a traditional Chinese dance, and give a speech. Initially, the speech part didn't sound so bad. However, when Susi realized that the speech had to be in Chinese, a language that we are still struggling to pick up, she began to get nervous. Our Chinese teachers wrote the speech for her, but the concept of giving a five minute speech in which mispronunciations were likely to be very common, to fifty people, some of whom were important, was rather daunting. It was not until we arrived at the party that we were informed of the fact that a local news station would be covering this birthday party. 

Then, the festivities began. Susi performed her speech, which was met with a round of applause and only a few moments of stifled giggling. She also cut the cake in a very uncomfortable, ceremonial moment, and she received a few gifts. Then, the food came. Most of the food was excellent, but one particular item was rather frightening. In case you have ever found yourself wondering, chicken feet taste about as good as they sound. They are basically just skin and ligaments that are nearly impossible to eat. Chicken feet also have a very strange pickled flavor. The embarrassing part about eating a chicken foot is that I accidentally did it just as the television camera was pointed right at me. 

After the food, it was time to perform. Not just for us, but for everyone. Many of the teachers danced and sang songs. They even sang "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music, in a cute attempt to do something German for Susi and Nina. Susi, Nina, and I managed to avoid performing for a long time. However, our demise was inevitable. We were pulled to our feet and forced to perform a traditional Chinese dance that we had learned the day before in Chinese class. It was probably the most uncomfortable moment in my entire life, and to make it all better, it was captured on video and probably broadcast on a local TV station! I also juggled on this camera, and sang "Hey Jude" with Susi and Nina.

While this night was altogether strange and uncomfortable, it was also amazing. It really showed us that these schools truly appreciate the work that we are doing to help their students, and their town develop. It is one of the many things that have happened during my stay to make me glad that I decided to come to China, rather than Cambodia, or India. 

THEY SAY IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY! IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TOO! (

November 10th, 2011

At some point in my life I realized that I am an individual who is entirely capable of forgetting my own birthday. Last year my birthday consisted of my hall mates singing happy birthday to me, my roommate giving me a gift a week early, and lunch with my mom. Don’t get me wrong 4^th Bryan, Kathleen and Mom, it was an amazing day, but it was not exactly the blow out of the century. This year I probably would have entirely forgotten my birthday had it not been for the other volunteers. For days in advance they asked me things like, “Are you excited about your birthday?” At first my response was a very mild “Umm…Sure!” It wasn’t until my actual birthday that I realized that birthdays are truly great days! I played with my brand new puppy; I really enjoyed my classes; I danced (rather poorly) to the Beatles song “Birthday” while alone in my apartment; I received several gifts from the other volunteers, and we celebrated with dinner at the KTV restaurant. All in all it was a very good day, and far more memorable than most of my birthdays!

The Shortest Time Frame in Which Anyone Has Ever Adopted a Puppy

November 8th, 2011

Monday morning I was sitting in my apartment weighing the pros and cons of taking a nap when I heard a knock at my door. I wrongly assumed that it was Nina or Susi because they are the only people to regularly knock on my door. It was actually a woman who goes by Echo, although I do not know her Chinese name. Echo had one simple question: “Do you want a puppy?” I was taken off guard by the question, so I answered with a hesitant “Sure…” 

At the back of my mind I assumed that it would be at least a week before she would be able to find me a puppy, which would give me plenty of time to reconsider. I really need to stop assuming. The puppy was in Echo’s apartment, which just happens to be in my building. Within five minutes I was the owner of an adorable two month old puppy. 

You may be wondering why Echo had a puppy in her apartment. One of her students gave it to her earlier that morning because he had no other option. Many of the students (both at San Zhong and Yi Zhong) live at the school because their homes are in the country, and the commute to school would be far too long to make every day. This boy was one such student. Alternatively, the students who live in the city of Yumen are able to live at home with their families. The boy had given a puppy to his friend who lives in the city; however, the friend was not able to keep the puppy. This left the boy with two options, raise the puppy in his dorm, which is not allowed, or find another owner. I love that I am able to give this puppy a home, but I am really not looking forward to having to leave my puppy in China when I go home in eight months.

Hello my name is M-A-G-G-I-E and I am from America

November 2nd, 2011

This is how I started the first lesson for each of my 16 classes. I teach 16 different classes, each once a week for 40 minutes. For my first week I prepared only one lesson to teach in 16 different classes. I quickly learned that this strategy will not work. 

For a select few of my classes I prepared the perfect amount of information. There was ample time to explain everything well enough that they would understand it, but not so much time that I ran out of things to do. A few of my classes had really excellent students, so they were able to do and understand my lesson quickly. This is great for the students, but it left me with 10 extra minutes at the end of class where I had nothing to do but try to teach knock knock jokes. As it turns out, it is very difficult to explain painfully unfunny jokes to teenagers who don't have a great grasp on the English Language. On the complete other side of the spectrum, I have two classes in which I would be surprised if half of the students can list more than fifteen words in English. I think for those classes I am going to prepare entirely separate lessons because the level is so low. 

My worst classes by far are those in which the students are overly rambunctious. My problem is not with students talking in class. In fact, my favorite classes are the ones in which the students are energetic and talkative. I do have a problem with students goofing around, paying no attention and making the class impossible for me and the rest of the students. 

I literally cringed as I wrote that. When did I become a teacher? Five months ago I was just another student doodling in class, and making jokes at the teachers’ expense. The stranger thing is that I know in ten months I will be right back in the role of a student. In one of my classes I actually considered making two boys split up and sit at opposite sides of the room. This was a very brief consideration, because immediately after thinking it I mentally slapped myself for being "that teacher". I am not sure exactly what I am going to do in these classes, but I am going to have to do something that calms the classes down a little bit without completely going against everything that I have ever experienced as a student.

How Good is Your Chinese? Mine is Fairly Non-existent!

November 1st, 2011


I often hear the theory that immersion is the best way to learn a new language. While this theory sounds perfectly reasonable, I am starting to seriously doubt its validity. This part of China is unlike a lot of the rest of the world in that almost no one speaks any English. The English teachers usually have a decent command over the language. Surprisingly though, many of the English teachers cannot hold conversations longer than "How are you doing today?" "I'm fine thanks, and you?" I actually often find that the students have better English than the teachers. Other than students and teachers though, no one speaks any English at all. Don't get me wrong; I am not complaining about this. I just want to make the point that I really am almost totally immersed (with the exception of the other volunteers). I spend an average of four hours a day in my school office, which I share with 15 other teachers who are constantly babbling in Chinese. Despite this, I have barely managed to pick up any conversational Chinese. The one thing I am getting pretty good at is ordering food. Really, I can do that like a pro. I am also pretty efficient when it comes to counting. If you ever need someone to count in Chinese, I'm your girl. Granted, I have only been here for two weeks, and I cannot expect to pick up the entire Chinese language instinctively. My problem is that I think that I was really expecting discover that I have a super human ability to understand everything that I hear in any language. As it turns out, my mental capabilities fall short of super-human. Looks like I'll actually have to work to learn Chinese!

Updates

I am sorry that I have not updated my blog recently. I actually wrote quite a few blog posts and simply forgot to post them. I will post one every day for a little bit until I catch up. Some of them have dates included so that you won't be confused.

Blond hair, green eyes, and eating with chopsticks?

If you look anything like me, and I mean anything like me, and you are feeling like you just are not enough of a celebrity, you should take a visit to a small town in northwest china. At home I am very accustomed to being fairly average (that is if I don't take into account my spastic tendencies and my eccentric lifestyle choices). Here, I can barely walk down the street without being met by blank stares and school children shouting "hello" and waving emphatically. A few days ago I had dinner with the other volunteers and a few school children, and one of the girls from Yumen was entirely flabbergasted that our eyes were not simply dark brown. When I go to the market the vendors rub their cheeks and touch their hair while staring at me in amazement and speaking Chinese that I have no hope of understanding at this point. On occasion I have walked into one of my classes and been met with applause and cheering. Today, as I was walking back to my school after lunch a man from inside his store waved to me to come in and visit him. When Susi and I went in he asked us to sit down and he started asking us questions in Chinese. Susi understood a few of them, but most of it was just a really strange (though nice) interaction. 

I have actually heard from previous volunteers who claim to have experienced "reverse culture shock" upon returning home. I am beginning to worry that I will be disoriented when I return home and I am not worshipped simply because I have pale skin and blonde hair. 

KTV

In case you are not aware, karaoke is a very very very big thing in China. In the US, karaoke is something reserved almost entirely for drunk people. Also, in the US if you cannot sing karaoke, and let’s face it, most people can't, other people in the room scoff, giggle, and make uncomfortable faces towards their friends sitting across the room. In Yumen, however, "KTV" is an entirely different situation. First of all, you can pick from many different settings. In Yumen alone I believe that there are at least 10 karaoke venues. Some of them are classic Karaoke bars, and some of them are sit down restaurants where your party gets a private room equip with disco lights, a projector screen, two microphones, and a dinner that is quite delicious. Sadly, I have only experienced the private room, but I am seriously considering hitting up some KTV bars in the very near future (yes, I realize that sentence was riddled with absurdities). We went to the KTV restaurant, sat down, ordered food, and started belting out cheesy '80's song after cheesy '80's song, with an occasional (slightly less) cheesy 90's song, and quite a few Chinese songs that I am completely incapable of describing. 

I honestly think that no one in the room was drunk (although I cannot be entirely sure)! Nevertheless, everyone was belting out songs as loud and as passionately as they could. At the beginning I thought that it was shaping up to be an uncomfortable experience, but it ended up being astonishingly fun. I honestly think that if anyone wants to experience "modern" Chinese culture, they should hit up a KTV bar! 

So this is what it's like in China!

I have now been in Yumen for two weeks. I like it here and I am starting to settle into the town. I am still amazed by how excited the people here are to see white people. This is especially true in towns like Yumen, which have no tourist attractions, no notable businesses, and essentially no draw for anyone not from Yumen. There are three other volunteers in Yumen. Nina and Susi are both from Germany while Jennifer is from Switzerland. I am teaching at a Senior High school

called Yi Zhong. Susi and Nina are both teaching at a middle school called San Zhong, which is beside Yi Zhong, while Jennifer is teaching in a middle school called Er Zhong, which is across town. I am actually living in an apartment building in San Zhong along with Susi and Nina. In a few months I should be moving to another building in Yi Zhong, but for now I am really glad to be living in a building with the other volunteers. I walk a lot here. It's really strange when I compare it to home. At home I walked from my room to the kitchen, then from the kitchen to the car. When I was at school I also walked to class on occasion. Here, I think that I probably walk a minimum of 10 miles a day. My apartment in San Zhong is really not very far away from my office but the schools are surrounded by fences, so I have to walk half a mile to get to and from my school. I usually make that walk to and from at least 3 times a day, and I have to walk into town for lunch and dinner and to go grocery shopping. Basically, it is a lot of walking.

The food here is seriously amazing. I'm invited either to eat out or to eat at someone's home at least a few times every week. One of the key differences between eating here and eating at home is that in China, everything is shared. There is no personal space or individual plates. If you go out with three other people you get three or four dishes to share. If you eat at someone’s home you do not get a plate, you simply pick each bite up separately from one of the several dishes that have been prepared. In America people would tend to think that

this is unsanitary, but here it is an entirely common practice.

Ruhong, a woman from the Amity Foundation, told me that during the SARS influx a few years ago the Chinese people were encouraged to stop sharing meals. In response many people said that they would rather die of SARS than do something so contradictory to their traditions and culture. I think that this really shows a sense of community that is

excellent, though life threatening at times.

*Just a reminder! There was a very long time in which I did not post anything on my blog because of internet restrictions. As a result, there is a delay between when I write these blog posts and when they are posted. For instance, this post was written about a week ago. In a few weeks I hope to have gotten rid of this delay, but for now just bear with me!*

I wrote this blog post on my fourth day in Nanjing, only to

immediately discover that blogspot is blocked by the great firewall of China. It has been about two weeks since then and I am now having a friend in the US upload my blog posts.

There is a lot about Nanjing that I really like, and I think that if I

were here with someone else, or if I were staying here long term I would truly love Nanjing.

First of all, I absolutely love the way that traffic works here. In

North Carolina there are rarely any pedestrians, and traffic is very calm and controlled. Here, there are crowds of pedestrians at every corner; people on bikes fill the streets; cars honk frequently; people cut others off and switch lanes constantly. Essentially, chaos is ever-present. While I would be terrified to drive here, riding in cars and walking through the streets is incredibly enjoyable.

I am also really enjoying the food here. There are a number of street vendors throughout Nanjing. For breakfast every day I have eaten a strange breakfast burrito-esque meal. I have no idea what is in it other than egg, but it is very delicious.

On Friday I spent the day with Robert, who works at the Amity

Foundation. He took me to a few of the organizations run by the Amity Foundation in the area. First, we went to a school for autistic children. China has only recently started recognizing autism, so this school is one of few for autistic children. It helps about 20 children at a time who are at most 7 years old. The children were unbearably adorable. Afterwards, Robert took me to the Amity Bakery. This bakery employs 16 mentally challenged adults. It is really wonderful because

it gives them the opportunity to lead more independent lives. The last place that we visited was Amity Printing, which is the primary printer of Chinese and Braille Bibles in the world. It also initiated the first translation of the Bible to Chinese.

Afterwards, Robert dropped me of at the Youth Hostel where I am staying. For the rest of the weekend I have essentially been on my own. In case of emergencies I have Roberts number, but I basically alone as I navigate a city that is an entirely different language. At first I found this incredibly daunting, but it has actually been a pretty good experience.

On Saturday morning I planned to go to the Nanjing Museum. So, I grabbed my street food breakfast and took a subway to the Museum, which is apparently closed. While walking around the museum I met to men who are also new to China. They are both in Nanjing to study traditional Chinese medicine at a hospital in the city. Of the two men Sako was far more talkative. He was from Canada, while Muhammad was

from Australia. I ended up spending the day with them. We went to Purple Mountain, which is a massive area with several mausoleums, temples and other monuments. My camera died, but Sako took some pictures for me. I will post them as soon as he emails them to me. I really enjoyed my day with them, although, in the past few two days I have walked at least 15 miles and my feet are beginning to hurt very badly.

Is getting there really half the fun?

I never fully understood  exactly how not Asian I am until I walked through the doors of the building of the Los Angeles airport that housed Asiana Airlines, Air China, Air Korea, China Airlines, Philippines Airlines, ANA, and Thai airlines. I was still in Los Angeles, but I was in a totally different world. During my layover I passed the time by making some last minute phone calls to college friends that were still up at 2:00 A.M. in North Carolina time. Finally, I boarded the Asiana Airlines flight to Seoul, South Korea. A few hours into the flight I was served dinner. I was given two options, a "western" style dinner platter and a Korean style dinner platter. I decided to be adventurous and order the Korean style dinner platter. I didn't think much of it. I've had Korean food before, and I really like it. It wasn't until I got the meal and realized that a degree of assembly was required that I began to regret my decision. I knew that the rice had to be put in the bowl along with the various other things, but I wasn't sure what else I was supposed to combine. Not wanting to look like an idiot for preparing my meal incorrectly, I watched my neighbor make his food out of the corner of my eye. Once my meal was assembled it was actually pretty good in respect to other airline food. That is, until I took a bite of the mysterious brown-green twiggy substance that my neighbor had been eating. I am not sure what I was expecting, but I was not expecting to realize that my mouth was full of very tiny, dried fish. While I love fish, this taste was far to abrupt for me, so I proceeded to eat everything on my plate until the overwhelming taste of fish was gone. To avoid any more confusion, I got ham and eggs for breakfast.

I am currently sitting in the airport in Seoul, South Korea, where I will be for the next several hours before departing for Nanjing, China. I will spend four days in Nanjing for orientation, and then I will fly to Yumen China, where I will spend the next nine months. I hope to be able to update my blog during my stay in Nanjing, but I make no promises!

The Freak Out

This has been, without a doubt the longest summer of my life. I don't necessarily mean this in a bad way, or in a good way; I am merely stating a fact. One of the side effects of such an absurdly long summer is that I have an entirely messed up sleep schedule. Therefore, naturally, I happened to still be awake at 5:35 A.M. on Friday. This was very convenient, because that is when I received my official Letter of Invitation from the Chinese government. For the past two weeks this one piece of paper has been the only thing standing in between me and China. 

In addition to sending my Letter of Invitation  via e-mail, Amity Foundation (the organization that placed me in Gansu, China) informed me that they would like for me to be in China by Saturday the 8th of October. At this point, my sleep deprived brain imploded. One week? Amity wanted me to leave the country in one week! In retrospect, I realize that this was not that big of a deal, but at the time I was really worried. I needed very badly to vent to someone. However, as I mentioned, it was 5:35 in the morning, so naturally most of my friends and family were asleep. Luckily, within twenty minutes two of my friends were online. I am eternally grateful that they listened to me rant, and helped me see logically at that absurd hour of the morning. 

There were two reasons that I found Saturday the 8th of October to be a stressful arrival date. The more obvious of the two was that I had a lot of things to before I would be able to leave the country. Among other things I had to apply for and receive my visa, buy my plane  ticket, finish packing, clean my room, and do some last minute shopping. Honestly, I was not sure that I would be able to get it all squared away in one week. The other reason, which probably played more of a factor in my brief panic attack was that actually setting a date for arrival made my future journey feel real in a way that it had not before. Previously my journey to Asia had been an abstract trip that would be happening at some non-specific time in my future. Now it was both concrete, and approaching very very quickly.

Eventually I calmed down and started making arrangements. I will be leaving on Tuesday the 11th, and despite my momentary freak out, I could not be more excited.

Also I figure I should also include some details about what i will actually be doing. I will be teaching English to middle school students in Yumen, Gansu, China. There are eleven other volunteers that have already been teaching in Gansu for a little over a month. I will be living and working with them, which I am very excited about. Nine of the other volunteers are from Germany, one is from Holland, and one is from Switzerland. I am also excited about that because I took German throughout high school.

All of the Places that I am Not Going

If you have talked to me about my plans for the year in the past five months you might have noticed that my plans have had a tendency to change very frequently. If you are curious about any of these shifts, here are some very brief explanations.

Phase 1: Nicaragua

• When I began considering taking a gap year I was planning to spend my year working as a volunteer with the CDCA, a non-profit organization in Nicaragua run by some of my parents old friends. I planned on this because it was an organization that my parents were familiar with and it would be a fairly inexpensive trip. When I received the Global Gap Year Fellowship I started changing my plans because I had the funds to plan my perfect trip. 

Phase 2: Thailand

• I quickly started doing research on places to go, and I fell in love with an organization in Thailand that provided education to the children of Burmese migrant workers. Unfortunately, it was very hard to get in contact with this organization, so I began to look for placement elsewhere.

Phase 3: Global Volunteers Network

• After Thailand fell though a family friend suggested I volunteer through the Global Volunteers Network (GVN). For a while I was planning on spending my year in Nepal working as a volunteer for GVN, however GVN could not place me in one location for longer that five months. This caused problems because my fellowship requires me to spend at least six months in service, and I had hoped to spend the majority of my year volunteering globally. 

Phase 4: United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries

• Luckily, at about the same time that I started researching GVN I also contacted Nancy Eubanks, the individual volunteer coordinator at The United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM). When I realized that GVN was not going to work out I began working with Nancy to find a placement somewhere in Asia. She sent my application to volunteer placements in Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Mongolia, China, and Thailand, in hopes that one of these locations would be interested in having me as a volunteer. GBGM requires that all of its volunteers participate in a weekend long orientation. One of the people at the orientation suggested to Nancy and I that I could spend my year working in an orphanage in Bareilly, India that is run by the Methodist Church.

Phase 5: India

• I started getting really excited about the orphanage in , but unfortunately after about a month of talking with the administrators of the orphanage, they decided that they were not interested in having me as a volunteer. There was not really an explanation for this other than that the director of the orphanage had recently changed, and the new director did not want to have a volunteer. This aggravated me because this happened in towards the end of August, so it was the end of the summer and I had absolutely no idea where I would be going.

Phase 6: Choices

• At this point I became very grateful to Nancy. Within a week of hearing that the orphanage in India was not interested in having a volunteer Nancy had found three placements that were very willing to have me as a volunteer. Oddly, this was almost as torturous as not having any location at all. The first location was in Camodia, where I would be working at the Methodist Missions Center of Cambodia. I would be living in the Phnom Penh, the capital, and doing a variety of jobs. The second location was at a school outside of New Delhi, India. I assume that I would have been teaching, but I am not entirely sure what I would have been doing. The third location was a teaching position in Yumen, Gansu, China. For reasons that i will explain later in my blog, this is the location that i chose.

Long story short, over the past few months I have considered several different options, most of which have fallen through for one reason or another. Right now, I am preparing to spend the next nine months in Northwest China, and I could not be more excited!

Gappl

It will be a few weeks before I leave for China, so I thought I would give some basic details about what I am doing and how I am doing it!

My decision to take a gap year started in March when I applied for the Global Gap Year Fellowship (click on the "Fellowship" tab), a brand new fellowship through UNC's Campus Y, a student service organization. This is the first year of the fellowship, and I have been selected along with four other future UNC students to recieve one of the few scholarships in the nation for students taking gap years. This fellowship is providing me with $7,500 to finance and organize a Gap year in which I focus on global service.