Being a Tourist

With our April rush of visitors here in Guangzhou, we took the opportunity to be tourists within our own city. Guangzhou is a huge city with many diverse neighborhoods and area. It is not, however, where people think of visiting when they go to China. When you think of China, everyone thinks of Beijing and Shanghai with a stop in Hong Kong, not Guangzhou. You will not see the Great Wall of China here. You will not see the ancient terra cotta warriors of Xian. You will not see Tiananmen Square. You will not see the bustling cosmopolitan city of magazines. Instead, you will see a city that has exploded in the last ten years. You will see a city of migrants. You will see a city of old and new built practically on top of each other. You will see a city of change.

While Guangzhou isn't heavily frequented by western tourists, there are a lot of cool things to see and do here. We love the Chen Clan Academy, the historic "dorm room/hostel" of the Chen clan for those who were coming to take the Imperial exams.

One has to check out the Qing Ping market with all its fun items for sale, including scorpions, turtles, assorted paws and hooves. Rumor has it Qing Ping used to be where one would go to buy the most hidden delicacies such as tiger's paw and assorted reproductive organs.

There is the Canton Tower. We have yet to venture to the top of the Canton Tower as it is quite expensive, but we certainly will one day.

There are markets here for everything. Some of the most popular ones, for tourists anyway, are the jade market and the pearl market.

No visit here would be complete without checking out Shamian Island, the former foreign concession.

Finally, the food. Oh the food. It is a delightful mix of traditional, fusion, and imported. There is northern food, southern food, western food, and everything in between.

XiaoLongBao: An American Guide

XiaoLongBao, or soup dumplings, have become one of our favorite dishes here in China. They are a bite full of everything delicious, however, they also are a dish that requires it be eaten a certain way if you don't want 2nd degree burns all over the inside of your mouth. This is *our* guide to eating them.

Step 1: Observe the deliciousness.

Step 2: Carefully remove your dumpling from the steamer basket using your chopsticks and place it onto your spoon.

Step 3: Use the end of a chopstick to gently poke a hole in the dumpling so it can let a bit of the steam from the molten hot soup inside exit the dumpling. 

Step 4: Eat!

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Only recently (like in writing this blog) did I realize that PM and I weren't taught the correct way to eat these buggers. I think we were taught the American Expat way of doing it, which is not the traditional way.

In doing a little research for this post, I came across this wonderful card that describes how to eat them according to one of the most famous XiaoLongBao restaurants in Asia, Din Tai Fung.

Now, I feel we must go eat them again so that we can do it the correct way and not look like fools!

Junk Boating

Three weekends ago, PM and I ventured to the holy grail for consular folks living here in Guangzhou: Hong Kong. Everyone around the consulate was amazed that we hadn't been yet as we had been here over 3 months already! Hong Kong really is a whole different world than Guangzhou.

Our trip to Hong Kong was in celebration of our 1 year anniversary of the first wedding and we wanted to celebrate with friends as it was friends who made our first wedding a success. A junk boat trip had been in the works for some time, which made it the perfect way to celebrate.

We spent Saturday out in Victoria Harbor swimming, kayaking, drinking, dancing, and eating delicious Thai food, and getting very sunburned, even with 50 spf sunscreen on. Oops!

There were tons of big ships out in the harbor, which made PM really excited.

Nothing like a post-swimming dance party to dry you off.

Our final view of Victoria Harbor. 

Can't quite see the sunburn yet, but it is there...

Because we were on the boat all day Saturday, we didn't get to see much of Hong Kong, which means we will just have to go back! Good news is, its only a two hour train ride away!

The Neglected Blog

I think back to Peace Corps when I would see other volunteers' blogs on my blog roll say things like "Last updated 3 weeks", "Last updated 1 month", "Last updated 3 months", and so on and I always secretly judged them for not keeping up with it. I felt it was so easy and fun. Well, I am now one of them and believe me, its not easy to update this blog. Even updating photo of the day is getting harder.

I am lacking inspiration to know what to write, which makes updating a challenge. I am struggling to put our experiences down on paper (or on the screen in this case). I have a hard time feeling like our life is interesting enough to detail. I don't always know how to phrase things sometimes as our life here is far more watched and scrutinized than any any aspect of life in the Peace Corps was.

A typical day for us involves waking up at 6:10 am, being to work a by 7:45 am, working all day, leaving work around 7:00 pm, coming home to figure out dinner, doing a few quick things around the house, and finally collapsing into bed. And this doesn't even take into account all the side projects and events we have going on, such as trying to start up a summer camp, collecting a million visa records from the past few years for analysis, and trying to make time for friends and basic things like grocery shopping and laundry, let alone time to think of how to creatively write a blog post.

I love the idea of our blog. It is an easy way to keep friends and family back home updated on our life. We would love to be able to call and email everyone individually, but that isn't realistic between the time difference, the sometimes spotty internet connection, and everyone's busy lives. Theoretically, the blog should be the easiest way to update everyone, but even it falls victim to neglect. I do prioritize doing laundry (a 4 hour process here), planning this summer camp, and trying to keep our apartment tidy (thank goodness for our weekly apartment cleaning). I would never say our life is difficult, because let's be honest, we live in a ridiculously nice place, have great jobs, and great friends. But, it certainly is a never ending to-do list.

Human Interaction

One of my favorite parts of my day happens sometimes when I am fingerprinting. These moments are brought to you by the precocious children and happy elders of China. Today, it was a child. Often when I say, "ni hao" and wave to the kids, their parents smile, and the kids hide. Today, a spunky little seven-year-old responded with, "Hello!" and a huge grin. The look on her face made me melt. When I had finished with her mother's fingerprints, she gave me a perfect smile and said "Goodbye, have a happy day!"

A few weeks ago, I had another adorable child, this time a 10-year-old boy. After I had fingerprinted his parents, he looked up at me and said in flawless English, we had this conversation.

Child: "Hello madame. May I please give it a try"

Slim: "How old are you?"

Child: " I am 10-years old" (said very proudly)

Slim: "Sure, left hand. Right hand. Thumbs. All done. Perfect!"

Child: "Thank you very much. Have a good day."

Finally, the elderly people often make me smile. I have had old women jump up and down and tell me how beautiful I am. I have had older men tell me they are sorry I am married because they would like me to marry their sons. And I have had many people smile and laugh at my Chinese, but I know they are doing it in a loving way.

Fingerprinting can be long, it is four hours of doing the same task over and over again, however, time flies when you have fun people to interact with.

A Flushing Easter

I promised I would do a better job updating this blog and well, I haven't. It is much harder to keep up-to-date on than it was during Peace Corps, largely due to the fact that after work, PM and I want to just relax together and the blog seems like work right now. That said, I am going to try to get a few posts up from some of the day trips we have been taking.

First, I must say, I can't take credit for the title. After posting one of the photos here on Facebook, there was a sea of toilet related puns. So it is really my Facebook friends who I owe this one to.

A few weeks ago, a group of us went on a day trip to the city of Foshan. Foshan is Guangzhou's neighbor, but it still took about 45 minutes to get there as Guangzhou is huge. HUGE. What I knew about Foshan before we went: it is where a lot of ceramics are made and there is apparently a toilet bowl waterfall. PM and I had friends in town visiting, so we thought this day trip would be a great way for them to see a bit more of China and thankfully we had some awesome friends from work who were willing to arrange it all and accompany us.

So, what happens when you take eight Americans, one local Chinese driver (no way we were going to drive ourselves), and nine hours in a rental van? Well....

Our first stop was in the ancient village area. This village was known for martial arts (hence the red men). It is also famous for its kiln. The bottom right picture is when PM decided to go wander into the kiln to see if there was anything fun to see. The kilns were built at an angle so the air would preheat the upper levels of the kiln.

The whole time we were exploring the ancient village, we kept asking where the toilets were. People were a bit confused and often pointed to the restroom, but finally, we emerged to this beautiful sight! It was pretty awesome. Over 10,000 toilets make up this magnificent work of art. The top left photo is our Happy Easter photo.

One of our final stops of the day was at a Taoist temple. We have been to quite a few temples and they all have some of the same elements, they also are always fascinating and a lot of fun to see. This one was no exception.

Our night ended with us standing on a street corner, several people eating ice cream, calling and calling for our driver to come pick us up. After about 40 minutes, he finally answered his phone and we were on our way home. It was a fantastic trip and we all decided we need to plan more in the future.

The Life of a Consular Assistant

My first month of work has been tiring. Very tiring, but also very exciting. However, I have gotten to do some really awesome things that make the job a great fit for me.

In the last two weeks:

- I got to help a fellow Minnesotan get home for an emergency despite having an expired passport.

- I got to watch several families go through the final steps in their adoption from China.

- I got to help stop people traveling under fraudulent pretenses from getting a visa to the US.

- I got to play an essential role in the non-immigrant visa process by collecting biometrics of almost 100 people per hour for hours a day.

In reality, my job involves many different things. I am a Consular Assistant, which means I get to, well, assist in the consular section. To explain what that entails, there are a few things you need to know first. There are four parts to the consular section here in Guangzhou (not every U.S. Embassy/Consulate has all four). The consular section here is comprised of: 1) Non-Immigrant Visas, 2) Immigrant Visas, 3) American Citizen Services, and 4) Fraud Prevention. Right now, I work in three of the four sections.

I start my days in American Citizen Services (ACS). The ACS section helps Americans overseas. Some services offered include: Passports (i.e. adding more visa pages if you are almost out and issuing Emergency Passports for those who had theirs lost/stolen or expired and have an immediate need to travel), Death of a U.S. Citizen abroad (they are the ones who notify next-of-kin), Marriage in China (to marry a Chinese person, you need an affidavit stating you are single), Consular Report of Birth Abroad (if a U.S. Citizen child is born overseas, this document states they are a U.S. Citizen), Notarial Services, and Emergency Assistance (Prison visits are a common one). While all of these services are approved and processed by Officers, I get to assist with some of these services, which is really exciting.

After two hours in ACS, I move down to Non-Immigrant Visas (NIV) for biometrics collection, ie: fingerprinting. Every person (with a few age exceptions) who is applying to a visa to travel to America gets fingerprinted. Fingerprinting must be done my a cleared American. In Guangzhou, we process hundreds of thousands of visa applicants each year, so that is a lot of fingerprints to take! Each day I spend four hours saying, “left hand”, “right hand”, “two thumbs”, and a few other phrases in Chinese. A lot of people find fingerprinting boring, but I enjoy it. It is a chance to interact with people and to practice my Chinese. I often turn it into a game and try to guess people's ages before they show up on the screen or make up stories about what I think they might be doing for work or why they might want to travel to America. While I don't get to find out most of that information, it is fun to guess.

I end my day in the Fraud Prevention Unit, helping with some of their databases, it is all very interesting work.

Quite a few people have asked PM and I how it is working together and to be honest, we enjoy it. Very rarely are we in the same area, and never are we working next to each other interacting, but it always makes me smile when I am moving from one section to another and I get to see him for a couple seconds. I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we also really like that both of us are getting to know more people at the Consulate. I have met some people he hasn't yet and visa versa, but to us, the Foreign Service isn't PM's job, it is our life and it feels really good to be even more a part of that. I hope this is the first of many jobs at the U.S. missions abroad.

Tour of Vacation

So this one is a little late, but I wanted to get it up nonetheless. After all, I made a promise to Slim about contributing to the blog, and I'm definitely only going to break the promise a fair amount rather than entirely.

Growing up, I was obsessed with Viet Nam. One of the first movies I remember was Platoon and the first television show I really remember watching over and over again was Tour of Duty. If you're not familiar with it, it rain on CBS for three seasons from 1987 to 1990. Season 3 is preposterous and not worth watching, but Season 1 in particular tells some solid stories following the members of 2nd Platoon Bravo Company at Firebase Ladybird. The show can be cheesy at times, but as a child, it helped me create some sort of reference for what I thought my father might have gone through.

It's absurd, but when I landed in Viet Nam, I couldn't shake the idea of my father landing as a 20-something almost fifty years earlier. I kept looking for a deuce and a half hauling soldiers down a dirt road and imagined a whole world that in most ways has disappeared. It was the first time I had ever been in a country about which I had such strong preconceptions. I knew Viet Nam would be nothing at all like the movies about a war long since ended, but I couldn't help but try to reconcile the two and was surprised by feelings of nostalgia for a place I had never lived and a life I had never experienced.

In Hanoi, there were men walking about in the old NVA helmets and plenty of people wearing peaked hats. On our way to Halong bay, there were plenty of rice fields and a few water buffalo to be seen. Outside of Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, the Cu Chi tunnels still exist and were particularly eerie to see during the Tet Holiday. But the NVA helmets were worn by armies of people riding on motorcycles going to and from work, home, and God knows where else, the rice paddies dotted a well-traversed highway leading to a tourist destination and one of the most beautiful places I've seen in my entire life. The tunnels no longer serve guerrillas, but teach Vietnamese children about their country's long and violent history and the path to reunification.

I can't wait to go back. We, of course, have a laundry list of places to go in the region, but a return trip to Viet Nam is a strong possibility and I wouldn't mind serving in Hanoi or Saigon for a couple years. I'm still going to replay the old Tour of Duty episodes, but I can't wait to see more of what the country has to offer outside of the film reels.

Paparazzi

Today I was approached by some locals who wanted to take my photo. Now, I know others have snapped away photos on their phones, but this was the first time I was asked if people could take my photo.

I was walking towards the metro to head to the Consulate when two college-age kids approached me- one armed with a camera and the other with some basic English. They asked if they could take my photo. I was a bit thrown off, but was happy that they actually asked instead of just doing it. Sure, why not let some kids take my photo.

They wanted me to walk forward smiling at the camera. Easy enough. After I walked the 20 feet, they told me I did a great job and I found out a bit more about what they were up to. I was told they were photography students who had been sent to take photos of people. They went to the mall near where we live hoping to get a photo of a westerner as the mall is very high end and a great place for westerner sighting.

Happy I could help them out, just hoping my face doesn't end up all over some weird inappropriate site!

Extreme Couponing: Foreign Service Edition

Many of you will remember our seeing pictures of our piles and piles of stuff waiting to be packed up so we could move to China. Well, all that "stuff" has finally arrived. After three, almost four weeks of delays, our Household Effects finally made to us.

The night before our stuff was to be delivered, PM and I were saying that we don't even know what all is in the boxes and we really hope we don't have boxes of stuff sitting around our entire time in China because we have no place to put the stuff. I watched it all get taken away in DC, but I still didn't know what it would look like when it got here. If it was a lot more, less, or the same, as what I remember.

Around 9:00 am, I got a phone call that the truck was downstairs and ready to be unloaded. I was to go down to certify that our wooden shipping crate hadn't been opened since the US (very unlikely that is true as our stuff has to pass through customs), but I was excited to see just how big the crate was.

Our crate of stuff. Exciting!

PM was busy with projects at work, so he didn't want to take the day off to help get all of our stuff, so I tackled it by myself. The movers here were awesome. They hauled everything inside and as they were bringing boxes into the apartment, I was given a sheet to check to make sure all the boxes arrived. I commented part way through that half the boxes were labeled "wine glasses", which I found funny as we don't own that many wine glasses. Either the movers in D.C. packed them one per box or they were just not very creative in their labeling. 

Once all the boxes were in, we noticed that we had two #13s, two #26s, one unmarked box, and no #25 box. Hmmm.... either someone in D.C. can't count or something wasn't right here! I decided not to have the movers unpack each and every box and put things away because I didn't know where anything was going to go and in case I didn't have it all done by Saturday when people were coming over, I would rather have boxes sitting around than piles of stuff. The movers left and I was left to figure out what was going on with our double numbers and missing box and such.

All the boxes piled up in the spare bedroom.

I decided to start by assessing the boxes to see what was what. While doing so, I noticed some of the labeling on them was interesting. A special prize to anyone who can decipher what "Kitchen: Food spaoy" is!

By the end of delivery day, I had conquered most of the boxes and moved stuff to the rooms I thought it would go to. PM came home to quite the organized mess and piles of boxes.

By the end of day two, everything was all put away and mostly organized. I think we have one box left unopened of summer clothes that we aren't wearing now, but other than that, everything is in its place. The thing that took the longest to organize was our consumables. Guangzhou isn't a post that gives you an extra consumables shipment as you really can buy everything here. However, we were warned that certain things were expensive and of poor quality, and since we had lots of leftover weight, we decided to ship our own. I now feel like we are on Extreme Couponing as we have a toiletries store in our house. But don't worry, if you come to visit, we got you covered on shampoo, conditioner, mouthwash, and almost everything else!

Remember how we were missing box #25. Well, after opening all the others (which were all our stuff), we discovered several items were missing, and I must assume they are in that box. The funny part is, despite half our boxes being labeled "wine glasses", what are we missing? All of our red wine glasses! We are in the process of trying to locate that box, otherwise, I guess we will head out and buy some new ones as a house isn't a home without wine glasses.

Multitude of New Year's

PM and I now have three different New Year's to celebrate. We start with what we know as simply New Year in America on December 31st from the Gregorian calendar. Next comes Orthodox New Year on January 14th, which is based on the Julian calendar. Finally, this year, we ended with Lunar New Year on February 19th, which is derived from the lunar calendar.

Most people are familiar with how America celebrates New Year's Eve and those of you who have followed our blogs since Macedonia got to learn about Old New Year, but this year was our first celebrating Lunar New Year.

Some of you may be confused because you have heard of Chinese New Year, rather than Lunar New Year. They are one-in-the-same. I am choosing to use Lunar New Year as it is celebrated elsewhere, not just China (China is just the largest population to celebrate). Lunar New Year is also celebrated in Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and Tibet.

With the New Year drawing closer, PM and I were asking around about how the multi-day holiday is celebrated here. Most people we talked to, compared it to American Thanksgiving. There is lots of food and lots of family. There is a great documentary about all the migrant workers in China who return home for the New Year's celebrations and I can only imagine how packed the train stations were here in Guangzhou.

For PM and I and our friends at the consulate, Lunar New Year means time to travel but also many amazing decorations displayed everywhere.

Top Fifteen of Vietnam

PM and I just got back from our Lunar New Year vacation. We spent the week exploring the beautiful country of Vietnam. Instead of writing a day-by-day account, I decided to focus on our top fifteen experiences there....in no particular order. We had a fantastic trip, but are glad to be home.

Number 1- Flight to Hanoi

 This was not memorable for a good reason. This was the scariest flight of my life. We hit really bad turbulence over Vietnam. For a good 30-40 minutes, we sat with our plane bouncing up and down. We tried to avoid looking out the window as the wing looked like it could snap off at any moment. There were a few extra bad moments when I really thought we might be going down. We could tell we were descending, but outside was still completely white. I was shocked that even after the wheels had made contact with the ground, we couldn't see the end of the wing as the viability was next to nothing. I could not have been happier to be on the ground.

Number 2- Water Puppet Theater

Going to the water puppet theater was one of the first things we did in Hanoi. I had read about it, but we weren't gong to go out of our way to see a performance. However, 4:00 pm on our first day after exploring in the rain, we were tired, wet, and happened to be right next to the theater and a show was starting in 5 minutes. We had very good seats and got to watch 12 different short performances based on traditional folklore complete with live music.

Number 3- War Museum

This was one of PM's favorite things as PM grew up fascinated by all things Vietnam related (he promised to write a posting about that soon). There were lots of interesting things inside, but my favorites were this sculpture made out of shot down American fighter jets and the display showing the flag soldiers carried with them. It read in many languages, 

"I am a citizen of the United States of America. I do not speak your language. Misfortune forces me to seek your assistance in obtaining food, shelter, and protection. Please take me to someone who will provide for my safety and see that I am returned to my people. My government will reward you."

Number 4 a, b- Halong Bay

And Halong Bay in general. Halong Bay is a 3 ½ hour drive from Hanoi, but the drive is well worth it as Halong Bay instantly earned a place on our list of most beautiful places we have ever been. The beauty here was only magnified by a slow rolling mist that made us feel like we were on a movie set. It was hard to choose which photo to post (hence the part a and part b), but the ones taken from the very top of one of the islands at sunset are hard to beat. Our boat docked not too far from this spot for the night and we awoke from our slumber to be completely surrounded by fog.

Number 5- Motorbikes

By far the most popular method of transportation in Vietnam is the motor bike. This picture doesn't really capture the essence of motor bike riding there, though, as 1) there is only one person, not 5 or 6 on this bike and 2) this man isn't swerving through the crowded streets dodging other bikes, cars, and people. Walking across streets definitely took a little bit of getting used to, but by the end, we were pretty good at altering our walking pace between sauntering, pausing, and rushing all within one intersection.

Number 6- Kayaking in Halong Bay

Words cannot describe the beauty of kayaking in Halong Bay. Unfortunately I didn't dare bring my camera, so I had to borrow this picture. PM and I got into our kayak and paddled under this rock bridge. Once inside, we were greeted with the most picturesque lagoon, complete with monkeys (see number 9). We only had about 30 minutes to explore the lagoon, but it was hands-down the best part of the entire trip in my mind. I foresee more kayaking adventures in our future.

Number 7- PM's Street Cut

I think this was perhaps the best part of the trip according to PM. We had walked past many mini street barbershops all over Hanoi. Some guys simply propped a mirror up on a wall and threw down a stool, others, like this guy, had a bit more elaborate of a set up. After days of admiring and commenting about how cool it was, PM finally decided he would put his hair in this man's hands and it certainly was a good idea. Not only did he get to experience this, but he got, what is in my opinion the best haircut he has ever had in our tenure.

Number 8- Ho Chi Minh City's Book Fair

In Ho Chi Minh City, lots of things were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, however, some special things appeared, including a fun street book fair. We spent over an hour wandering the aisles checking out what books they had. I was pretty impressed with just how many books can be purchased in Vietnamese. 

Number 9- Monkeys

The monkeys in Halong Bay were both amazingly adorable and frighteningly scary. While kayaking, there were lots of monkeys scurrying around on the branches and rocky cliffs. There were even babies. They were adorable and everyone paddled over towards them to watch them play and go about their day.

Right before we paddled out of the lagoon, the monkeys got into some sort of tiff and began to howl and scream and run around. Their screams kept getting louder with their anger channeled towards one or two monkeys. They clearly had done something wrong and were going to pay for their actions. The problem for us came when we realized that we were going to have to paddle close to and under the rocks and branches where the angry monkeys were to rejoin our group. Those of us left in the lagoon collectively decided we would wait until the action died down a bit and we wouldn't have to worry about an angry monkey flying at us. About 10 minutes later the action had calmed a bit, but was still pretty heated. We decided to paddle out as a group and to paddle as fast as we could. PM and I were near the back of the group with only one girl behind us. As our group paddled under the rock bridge, a few of the monkeys ran along next to us staring down the girl behind us. Thankfully, I can report we all made it out unharmed.

Number 10- Ash Wednesday Music

Our first day in Ho Chi Minh, we decided to wander around just to get a lay of the land. Within minutes, we found ourselves speechless in front of Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, otherwise known as Basilica of Our Lady of The Immaculate Conception. We were drawn in by some of the most beautiful music I have heard from a church. PM and I stood outside the gates (we were neither dressed appropriately for church or Catholic) with many other people who were also there to listen. They had pulled their motorbikes over and we were all in a trance-like state listening.

Number 11- Vietnamese Massage

Another borrowed picture as I was there to relax, not work. During our research period, PM and I discovered that one of the most popular things for western tourists to do in Vietnam is to get a massage, because it is like no other. We decided why not see what it is all about. It took a bit more research to make sure we were going to a reputable place, but we found the number one rated place on Trip Advisor was just down the block from our hotel. We both decided to get a 2-hour full body massage (which cost us $16 a piece)! It really was like no other massage I've had. The masseuse uses her entire body to massage your entire body. There were bars up above so she could walk across me and at one point her feet were in my hands and I don't even know what all went on. It hurt- a lot- at times as Vietnamese massage is more about muscle manipulation and stretching rather than relaxation. We both walked out of there with this odd sensation of relaxation and pain, but would I do it again, of course! 

Number 12- Cu Chi Tunnels

Before going to Vietnam, going to the Cu Chi Tunnels was one of the places that was on our "must go" list. PM has had a particular interest in the Vietnam War since he was a little one, so it was only natural to see where Viet Cong based their operations during the Tet Offensive. Our tour guide for the trip was terrible and didn't seem to know much of anything about the war or the Tunnels, but PM and I did our best to listen in on what other guides were saying. I think the highlight for PM was definitely getting to crawl through the tunnels. As small as they look, they have actually been widened for tourists.

Number 13- Flower Show

Because we were in Vietnam during Tet, we got to see the beautiful flowers that come out and mark Lunar New Year. There was a flower show in downtown Ho Chi Minh that featured traditional arts and crafts displays, elaborate objects created out of flowers, and many times of goats, as it is the year of the goat/sheep (translated to both).

Number 14- Lunar New Year

These little guys were enjoying the flower show as well. Seeing the kids dressed up in traditional clothes really made us feel like we were a part of the celebration. We had debated long and hard about whether or not we should travel during Lunar New Year as we wanted to see how people celebrate it. While we didn't get to see it celebrated in China, we got a good idea of the Vietnamese way.

Number 15- Caves

Another Halong Bay favorite! Our first stop in Halong Bay was a cave out on an island. Exploring the cave made PM consider skipping out on the rest of our boat trip and living in this cave for the rest of our lives. I, of course, was the practical thinker who kept asking him about food, water, and what about all the tourists who come.

A Trip Back in Time

This past weekend, PM and I went with a group of other Consulate folks to check out the Panyu Ancient Village. It was an awesome day trip where we got to explore the preserved old village, eat some local specialties, and on the way home, see a traditional garden.

Our awesome group for the day.

From top left: Paper crafts displayed, Some of the decorative rooftops, Inside one of the temples, People praying to the god of water, Hanging out with my friend Nora, The water god, Candles, Lighting their offering, Giant incense coils hanging from the ceiling.

After the village, we headed to a nearby traditional garden. The bus ride there was quite interesting as we drove through a construction zone and took the bus off-roading. We also got to see some interesting creatures at a place that is proof that there is a store for everything.

This store sold giant statues of all sorts of creatures.

The garden was beautiful. It was very picturesque and we wished we had time for a tea ceremony while we were there. I would love to go back with a picnic and just hang out.

Joking Around

Everyday when I go to, or leave, Chinese class, I pass by the friendly security guard of the building my school is in. Usually, we just acknowledge each other with a smile and head nod as he knows my Chinese isn't good. Today though, it all changed.

I was leaving class at the end of the day and the friendly man approached the exit gate and opened it for me. I told him thank you in Chinese and he smiled extra big. As I was starting to walk out, there was another man walking in. The guard stopped me and started talking to the man and me (although I didn't understand a word he was saying). The two men started laughing while I stared at them with the deer-in-the-headlights look, making it clear I had no idea what was going on. The guard then pointed at the man and held his hand up to show how tall the man was. He then pointed at me and raised his hand up about two feet. They both started laughing again and I joined in, realizing that he was saying I am way taller than Chinese men. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled, shaking my head jokingly trying to convey, "yeah, I know. I am a giant. What can I say?!" As the second man walked to the elevator and I walked out, I could still hear the guard laughing saying in Chinese what I must assume to be, "that white girl is taller than a Chinese man. Hahahahahaha".

Polytonic Dreams

First, I must confess, the credit for the title of this post must go to PM. He finds it very cleaver and witty. I am just too tired to think of anything else and he is clearly pretty proud of it, so why not!

I have been studying Chinese for almost two weeks now. The school I go to is a great little school right near the Consulate. I go four hours a day, five days a week. I have learned a lot already, but it hasn't been without its challenges. Today, I wrote about what I did yesterday using the words I knew. My paragraph went like this:

At 6:30, I got out of bed. At 7:00, I ate breakfast. At 10:00, I went to class. At 3:00, I finished class. At 8:00, I ate dinner. At 11:00, I went to sleep.

Not very creative, but it gets the point across. My teacher said it was a bit too repetitive. An hour later, we had this beauty, which says almost the same thing (with some additions), but in a much prettier, fancier way:

wǒ liùdiǎnbàn qǐchuáng.wǒ qīdiǎn chī zǎofàn, shídiǎn qù shàngkè měitiān dōushì. cóng shídiǎn dào shíèrdiǎn, wǒ zài shàng hānyǔ kè. xiàkè hòu, wǒ qù chī wǔfàn. chī wǔfàn hòu, wǒ zài shàng le liǎng gè xiǎoshí hānyǔ kè. wǒ měitiān shàng sì gè xiǎoshí hānyǔ kè. wǒ sāndiǎn xiàkè. zhīhòu, wǒ qù le měiguó lǐngshìguǎn. wǒ huí jiā hòu, wǒ zuò le hānyǔ zuòyè. zuò zuòyè hòu wǒ zuòfàn gěi zìjǐ hé xiānsheng chī. wǒ xǐhuan zuòfàn. wǎnshàng wǒ hé xiānsheng yìqǐ kàn diànshì. zhī hòu wǒ qù shuìjiào.

To make it clear, my teacher did most of the work on this. I filled in words here and there and can read and understand what it says, but there is no way I could produce something like this on my own! Even now having this template, I don't think I could reproduce it myself as there is no chance I remember all the "then", "after that", "later", and other connecting phrases.

Much of what I have learned so far is pretty useful stuff for everyday life. I know a bunch of foods and can order (if the waiter doesn't ask me any questions and the menu isn't in Chinese characters) in a restaurant. By the time family comes to visit, I should have restaurant ordering mastered. Although if I can't do the complicated stuff,  I can already point at pictures and say "this one" like a pro.

I also have picked out a few words/phrases that I will teach my parents and their friends when they come visit. This started in Macedonia when they expressed an interest in being taught how to say something in Macedonia. The phrase there was, "I saw a cow today". A year and a half later, the phrase is somewhat forgotten, but the memory of "Edna krava" and arms waving wildly has not been forgotten. They have even taken to naming cows they like Edna (the Macedonian word for one/a). I even saw that Edna the cow was featured on my father's Facebook recently.

99.9% of what I have been learning so far has been in pinyin (i.e. the above text about my day). Pinyin is the phonetic transliteration of Mandarin characters. This makes it much easier to read as I understand the Latin alphabet. In addition to the letters though, are the fun little lines above certain vowels, showing the tone(s) of the word. I'm just going to say it- I don't like tones. I know they are important (mā, má, mǎ, and mà all mean different things), but boy is it hard to remember 1) the correct way to say the word, 2) the tones, and 3) the meaning of the word. I find myself focusing on either the tone or the pronunciation, but it is still quite difficult for me to do both at once.

While most of what I have done has been in pinyin, I have been learning a few characters though. I now know about 30 characters. While that may sound like good progress, it takes 3000-4000 to be considered fully literate. No matter how hard I work, its going to take me a looooong time to get there (if ever). I did have quite a bit of fun the other day picking out every character I recognized on signs when PM and I were walking to dinner. And I was pretty pleased with myself one day last week when I put two characters I know together to make a word that I see 100 times a day.

*Not my picture. I am afraid that if I obviously take a photo in the metro I will get screamed at in Chinese.

Chinese is definitely a difficult language. Certainly the most difficult I have ever learned. I am not going to sugarcoat it- some days I hate going to class. It's not that I dislike class or my teachers, but rather I feel so unprepared and overwhelmed. I am still not used to the Chinese teaching methodology of memorization to the extreme and maybe its just me, but my brain can not handle memorizing 150+ new Chinese words a day. I come home exhausted and not wanting to study. Most days, I force myself to study for two to three hours, but some nights, I open my book and just stare at it with words swirling around in my head. I have also had the pleasure of waking up repeatedly during the night thinking of words and saying them over and over trying to get the tones correct. I feel very fortunate to have the chance to study Chinese so I am a bit more comfortable and connected here, but I often find myself wondering, "who thought it was a good idea to study Chinese four to seven hours a day?" and am looking forward to Chinese New Year when I get a long, hopefully relaxing, break.

How to Successfully Not Plan a Vacation

When I think about our recent trip to Sanya, China, I can't help but laugh a bit. I am a planner. I like to know what is going on when and have all the details figured out. However, I have noticed that when I get overseas, some of that desire to plan disappears. Partially because I find myself slipping into a bit more of a laid back local way, but also because there is a lot more to figure out.

Not too long after we arrived in China, the question of where we would be traveling for vacation started to arise. As we were new to life here, PM and I focused on that- living in China and making this home. However, with MLK weekend looming closer and closer, we realized that we better get ourselves in gear if we were going to go anywhere. I started researching airfare and discovered there were a lot of cool places we could go that were close and cheap. While this sounds great in theory, in reality, this left us with just too many choices of where to go and what to do.

About a week before MLK weekend, we finally had it narrowed down to three places: Manila, Kuala Lumpur (ultimately decided our families might be happier if we weren't flying AirAsia to Malaysia right now), or Sanya. They all sounded fantastic, but on Wednesday, just two days before we were to leave, we finally made our choice and bought plane tickets for Sanya.

For those of you who have never heard of Sanya, don't worry, we hadn't either. Sanya is located on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. It's main attraction is the beach. There are many beaches in the area (being an island and all), but the main ones were categorized online as being the "western beach", the "upper middle-class Chinese beach", the "budget beach", and the "Russian beach".

Our next big not planning was where to stay. For hours I poured over online sites weighing the factors of location, price, and amenities and finally on Thursday night, PM got so frustrated with my internal struggle that we just picked a place and booked it figuring no 4-star hotel can be as terrible as some of the places we have stayed. We awoke Friday morning (the day we leave), to an email from Expedia saying they cancelled our reservation for a reason unclear to us. Well, there goes that "planning". Thankfully, there are about 8 million hotels in Sanya, so I was easily able to book a new, and much better one, Friday morning.

Friday evening, we flew to Sanya with the plan of getting a taxi to our hotel (thankfully we had the name of the hotel in Chinese characters to show the taxi driver), getting a good nights sleep, and figuring out the rest of the trip in the morning. Our arrival at the hotel was quite pleasant, despite our plane being delayed. We were welcomed with coconut juice and the news that the room we had booked came not only with breakfast, but also complementary high tea and cocktail hour.

The following morning we awoke to a beautiful view, warm weather, and the desire to spend the rest of our time eating, reading, and relaxing on the beach and that is exactly what we did.

Our mornings started with no alarm clock, followed by getting ready for the day and going downstairs for the most amazing buffet breakfast I have ever seen. There was a delightful mix of Chinese and western foods, tied together with fresh exotic fruits.

Plate one: fruit, banana bread, spinach steam buns, stir fried noodles, almond croissant, bacon, and sweet potato hash browns.

After a leisurely breakfast, we would mosey down to the beach, find a chair, and spend several hours with this view.

Occasionally taking a break for a little refreshment. "You put the lime in the coconut and drink 'em both up." In our case, this wasn't quite true. Our coconuts were unadulterated. We found ourselves wishing for a splash of rum though to liven them up.

Sometimes we were distracted from our books by the sights and sounds of the South China Sea.

There were children and crabs playing in the sand and Mickey Mouse wandering the beach scaring children.

After a few hours of reading, we ventured back to the resort for some refreshments, including our visit to the rooftop bar for high tea and cocktail hour.

For dinner we ventured out to the Breeze Bar by the pool where they hosted a nightly BBQ buffet. There was chicken, fish, lamb, a seafood raw bar, a salad bar, and so much more. We enjoyed it so much the first night that we did it again the second night! They also had quite the dessert selection.

I didn't think I was a big fan of "sitting around on the beach" type vacations, however, this one really was a delight. I sense a few more "no plan" vacations in our future.