Times have changed...

In approximately five days we'll be celebrating our six month anniversary of living in "The Big Chicken" (look at a map and tell me if it better resembles another animal). So over the course of the next few days we're recalling back upon what we came from and what we came to. We love being here and have no doubts about this being where we're called to be, but with that calling came certain changes that are more obvious than others. I searched through our picture files on our computer for a picture of our old apartment, and the best that I could come up with mostly features Brandon's old jeep (we miss ya Ebony!) We don't usually take pictures of our cars...just so you know we're not dilusional...but this one happened to be for insurance purposes. Anyhow, in the background you can see our beautiful first home as a married couple.

That was us. Second floor on the right (we've forgotten our apt. number! how sad!) You can also see my old white truck 'Cracker' on the right. Which is a whole new topic on how things have changed.

So we left beautiful Stonebriar to come to the 'Big Chicken' where we currently reside. We may have posted this picture before but we're posting it again so you can see the dramatic difference.

We love our apartment here too. # 202 (we're the only ones with blinds up in the windows).
But you'll notice some dramatic differences between the two pictures. For instance, the mode of transportation in front of each building, the bars on the windows, etc...
Remarkably though, both apartment buildings were built in the same year, about five years ago. Seriously. Our current one may look 40 years older but that's due to the amount of pollution in the air, we think. Acid rain must be a killer on cement walls.

So, a lot of things have changed...most noticeably, our apartment. But thankfully there is one thing in our lives that "does not change like shifting shadows."

What?

In an effort to get some much needed exercise Brandon and I woke up early Tuesday morning to go up to a local hotel and use their swimming pool & sauna. It's still too cold outside to go for a jog in the park (besides getting stared at even more!) and we've yet to join a gym because we can't cope with spending money to run in place. So...we're trying swimming. Anyhow, we put on our swimsuits then bundle up with multiple layers over our suits & head out the door to flag down a taxi. This man pulls up beside us honking and pointing at us like, "Hey Hey Pick Me! Pick Me!" So we get in, tell him where we'd like to go, and...we're on our way...in 2nd gear the entire time. What might have taken 5 minutes to get there took us about 20, all the while little old ladies on bicycles were passing us. It just gave us more time to share with him really, which was pretty neat.
So we get to the place and are greeted with warm smiles when we entered the door. The lady that greeted us says to us in English, "Would you like to swim bathe?" A little confused as to her meaning I just reply in Chinese, "We'd like to swim." I think because she'd much rather practice her english with us than communicate effectively she continues to speak english to us, to which we kept replying in Chinese just to clarify what she's talking about. She takes us up to the counter and tells this other lady in a really official looking suit what we're there for and they frantically look at eachother and get on telephones to call the more important folks upstairs (we guess!) So they lady in the official looking suit hangs up the phone and we have the following conversation...she spoke english (I'm assuming for the same reason above) and we replied in Chinese (again, same reason)...but for your sake the following is all in English:

Official Looking Suit Lady: "I am embarrased. Today we have no water."
Us: "You don't have water?"
OLSL: "Correct. Right now, no water. 12 o'clock you can swim."
Us: "So you'll have water by this afternoon so we can swim?"
OLSL: "Yes."
Us: "What mornings do you not have water?" (wanting to clarify for future 20 minute cab rides)
OLSL: "We have water every day."
Us: "But not today?"
OLSL : "Not today"
Us: "So if we come tomorrow will you have water?"
OLSL: "Yes."

We're still a little confused by the conversation and if they were really out of water or if it was all part of the "Saving face" conspiracy that goes on in this country....either way, we haven't gone back yet to find out if there is, in fact, water there now. Maybe they were really out of water at 9 o'clock that morning and would actually be able to fill up the olympic size swimming pool and heat it in three hours...who really knows? We've yet to chance it again though...so if you see us in the next few years and we look a little "thicker" around the waist line just blame it on the No-Water Hotel.

Middle School

You remember middle school. Embarrassment, social confusion, trying to make the basketball team...all things most of us have probably successfully blocked out since our middle school days.
This past wednesday, Brandon and I visited a local middle school with the "principal" of foreign students from the university we attend. He set up this arrangement with the middle school his son attends so that we could get a feel of what schools are like here and also so that the students and english teachers at the school could practice their english.
It was exactly opposite of what an American middle school is like.
Middle schools here are for students ages 12-15. The majority of middle schools (and high schools for that matter) in this country are more similar to boarding schools. Over half of the students in the school live on campus in a dormitory like setting. Each student has a room (small sized bedroom) that they share with seven other students. The go home on weekends so the stuff they have with them in their dorm room is what would fit in a small duffel bag. Plus they wear windsuit uniforms, so there's no need for many clothes. They attend class from about 7:30 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon, with a short lunch break in between. They learn the usual subjects, chinese, english, math, science, history, geography, but also have time for choir, dance, drawing, painting, & photography. From 5-7 p.m. they get a break for dinner and resting and then return to the classrooms or library from 7-9 p.m. for personal study time (homework!) Then it's to bed at 9:30 p.m. So as you can imagine the school we visited was more like a university campus than a one building middle school you might recall from your middle school days. The students have PE hours where they can play outside with fellow students, but they don't compete with other schools in sporting events...also different than what might have been your experience. That's a quick synopsis of obvious differences just glancing at the school...but the best part of our experience was not the difference in the school but the difference in the kids.
Imagine, if you will, an English classroom full of "only childs." (no brothers or sisters...if that didn't make sense) That would probably be a teacher's worst nightmare. But that's every classroom here. We visited an english class of about 30 students. When we entered our "principal's" son came up and gave him a big hug then returned to his seat. (right, like you would do that when you were 13). The kids sat up straight in their chair and asked us all kinds of questions that they knew in English. "What's your favorite color/animal/food/book (awesome way to share by the way)/song/country (what are gonna say!? Japan?) etc... After each response we gave in Chinglish, they said, "Thank you!" and sat back down. They were sooooo polite. For many reasons I'm sure, one of which may have been that it was the first time they'd seen a whitie in person, but also just because that's how they behave in school. Then we had a girl ask us if we like to sing. I said, "sure, but I'd like to hear you sing!" So she stands up, in front of the rest of her 13 year old peers, bursts into song, & the rest of the students all start clapping along! Now...again, return to your days as a middle schooler. If you ever had the guts to do that it'd be a sure way to get beat up behind the cafeteria during lunch. But when this girl finished (who was absolutely incredible by the way) the rest of the students clapped and cheered! One of the boys sitting at a nearby table said that she is the best singer in the school. Again, that would never happen in my middle school. They asked us to sing a song (brandon made me do it by myself), so I took the opportunity to sing an english song I grew up hearing every sunday.
All that to say...it was so different than any middle school in America might be. Some really cool differences. Some differences I wouldn't be too fond of. But the biggest difference was the kids and the respect they showed not only their teachers (many kids do that in the states) but their peers...which is a totally foreign (haha no pun intended) concept for U.S. middle schools.

Let me fill you in...

A lot has happened in the past few weeks that I'll try to recount in a not-too-long-so-that-you-just-skim-over-it post. First, I'll start with a quick story that happened this morning.
This morning we had listening class, which overall is a very good class. However, today was a little different than usual. For some reason our teacher decided to educate us on all the cities in our country that manufacture their own beer. If you know us much, you know that this isn't a topic that pertains to us at all. None the less, we let her do her thing (mostly because our fellow Korean classmates were listening intently), but also because halfway through this lecture we thought it was a good chance to learn a new word in our new language: "connoisseur." We did our best to spell it correctly in english and plug it into our little handy-dandy electronic dictionary so that as soon as she finished her beer lecture we could call her a "beer connoisseur" correctly in Chinese. So when the break in the lecture presented itself Brandon shouts out in chinese, "Teacher! You are a beer connoisseur!" I thought she might fall onto the floor laughing, but alas, she managed to stay in her chair. Meanwhile it was the first time in our Chinese learning history that we had those koreans simply stunned with our up and coming speaking abilities. (we didn't find it all that necessary to explain that we had just looked that word up.)

So over the past few weeks we've had two Christmas parties with chinese friends and neighbors, we've made dumplings with our tutor, and tallied up a few more squattie potty uses. With no class to attend & the weather being unusually cold (we got our first snow! but by morning there was nothing to show for it) we've spent a lot of time taking down Christmas decor, rearranging our apartment, and catching up on previous lessons we've since forgotten. We brought in the new year over at our friend's house watching the season finale of Amazing Race! It's the first time in a long time that I didn't get to watch the ball drop. Watching it at 1 o'clock in the afternoon the following day just wouldn't have been as cool.
I know I keep promising you pictures, and I promise this time it has nothing to do with my procrastination...our internet just still hates us too much to let us attach pictures to anything.
You better believe once it works I'm overloading the bandwidth like crazy just for you all.
For now we'll just try to go out and do some crazy things to provide good reading material.
Happy New Year!

Slow Poke

Sorry folks. due to the big earthquake in Taiwan our internet has been slower than dial up for the past few weeks. It affected all of East Asia. It's been so frustrating. We didn't realize how much we depend on the internet until we didn't have it at all! Thankfully it's back up and going a little better lately. It's still not quite up to par but at least we can actually get blogger.com to open up so we can let you know we haven't fallen off the face of the earth.
What's sad is that we've thought of so many great blog topics over the past few internet-less weeks and now that we have it up and going I can't remember any of them.
But we're still here and as soon as it's fast enough to post pictures we'll post some from Christmas and New Years!

Shui Jiao, Shui Jiao, Shui Jiao

errr...I dunno. I couldn't think of a better title.
Sorry we've been a bit slack in the posting department. After persistent nagging of friends & family we've decided to rejoin the blogging world.
As you might not be all that aware...let me remind you that learning Chinese has its moments of great difficulty. It also has its moments of ridiculousity (if you will). And if there were some area of our lives that needed complication, this area is certainly not one. However, it seems that it is inevitable. Let me introduce to you: Shui jiao. (shway jeow) This is an everyday word in Chinese, but on average not one regularly confused with much else in the world. That is...for normal people. It is our luck however that this word is regularly confused for different aspects of our life.
Shui jiao-
1. To sleep. (at night...not to be confused with at rest) eg: I like to sleep.
2. Dumpling (aka jiaozi) eg: I like to eat dumplings.
3. Wrestle (as in the sport) eg: I like to wrestle.

So...if you never sleep, never encounter dumplings, & never participate in any sports remotely close to wrestling, you'd be in the clear when trying to communicate with Chinese people. However, given our current location in one of the biggest dumpling producing cities in all of China, given Brandon's newly acquired nickname of Dumpling King (his new favorite dish), given the fact that we enjoy sleeping, & given Brandon's history with the sport of wrestling, you might understand where this word proposes a problem. So this past week at two of our Christmas parties (more to come on this subject in our next update) Brandon had a heck of a time communicating to our neighbors things that he enjoys. It's never dull seeing him act out "wrestling." I still think a few of them came away thinking he just really enjoys sleeping.
I'm sure this won't be the last time we deal with confusing language issues.

Hey!! Merry Christmas!

Things You Should Know...

For this post we thought we'd compile a list of things that our friends and family back home should be aware of...you know, after going four months without seeing someone, they tend to change a little. So here are some updates on our life here, how we've changed, or random stories we'd like to share. So here it is: The Things You Should Know (in no particular order)...

- Before coming to China we never EVER ate eggplant (at least not that we were aware of). Now, it is a common staple any time we eat out.
- We love our apartment. Considering what we have to work with, we've really grown attached to our little concrete abode. For example: we may never go back to the showering with walls concept. Trust us, if you've never showered in a wall-less shower where you get water on the entire bathroom floor, toilet, & washing machine (yes our washing machine is in our bathroom too) you should definitely try it. It's so freeing. And our little contraption that we hang clothes on so that they can dry is brilliant! No more shrinking sweaters in the dryer folks!
- We accidentally told our friend yesterday that last week our home town got 18 kilometers of snow. Centimeters and Kilometers, sheeeesh, crazy metric system!
- We've got five Dr. Peppers sitting behind several cans of asparagus in our kitchen. We're rationing them for really special occasions. We thought hiding them behind the canned vegetables might take our mind off of them...but we're both fully aware of their existence.
- We wish we would have had our camera with us last night. We went out to eat with a friend and she ordered mashed potatoes! We didn't even know we could order that here! Much to our surprise though the mashed potatoes came with a heavy cream on top tasting much to similar to vanilla icing and on top of that were pink, blue, & white "sprinkles." It looked like a cute little cake, but it didn't taste like a cake. It tasted just like mashed potatoes with vanilla icing & sprinkles.
- Our favorite restaurant back home would never be one where you eat boiled beef or boiled lettuce. I know, sounds weird. However, it's our favorite restaurant here. It's delicious! Find some thinly sliced beef, some boiling water, and a concoction resembling peanut butter, olive oil, & sesame seeds & you've got yourself the best Hot Pot Restaurant ever!
- We've not driven a car (or well, anything for that matter) in 4 months. May not sound that long, but when you go from doing it every day to nothing at all, it's a little strange. So yesterday when Brandon heard our taxi driver say, "Would you like to drive my car?" (only in chinese), Brandon said, "YES!" But alas...when the taxi driver got a strange look on his face, we realized we'd misunderstood him saying, "Have you ever driven a car before?" Surely it wasn't because Brandon misunderstood him. We think it's just because he's going through car-driving withdrawals & is hearing things. bummer
- Fu Mart started playing Christmas songs a couple weeks ago. We've even heard the little kid version of Silent Night played a few times! But our favorite song we've heard in there goes a little something like this: "Mamasita, donde esta Santa Claus?" Really flew us for a loop when we heard another different language!
- As long as we're on the subject of Spanish, it seems it's trying to creep it's way back into our lives. Yesterday our taxi driver had stickers all over the dash with phrases in Spanish. We asked if he understood them but he didn't...so we did some translating. It probably wasn't all the way right, but what does he know! Anyhow, we had tutoring the other day and one of our words was "juan" (roll, as in a roll of toilet paper). So she asks us to read through our vocab words and we come to this one and both say, "Juan" (huan) as in Juan, Jose, Jorge, you get the idea. But in chinese it's pronounced jhuan. So she thought we were a little retarded for a second there but after giving her a little spanish lesson it was all cleared up. And then as we were leaving class she asked us how to say bye in Xi Ban Ya (spanish) and we seriously could come up with nothing. All of our spanish had disappeared at that moment and the only thing that came out was still Chinese.


ok sorry that was a little long for a post...but oh well. if you read it all..."Muy Bueno!"