Once you stretch a rubber band, it can never go back all the way.

I know we've stopped blogging.  I've thought about adding another post a hundred times, but I can never bring myself to do it.  Today, I think I have to, though.  The truth is, we haven't stopped blogging because  we've been to busy or something like that; things have gotten so bad here that we didn't want to depress anyone.  I was worried that if I tried to be witty or quippy I would end up sounding sardonic and cynical.  I figure by now no one is reading this anyway so I can speak freely.

Throughout my life I've been accused of being a smart ass (guilty as charged).  I would form opinions without the life experience to back them up but then share them with people as if I did.  I'm still young and without much life experience, I guess, but now I've seen some things, things that make reality a heck of a lot more complicated than they've ever been before.

When Ben and I go into a classroom, we can never predict what questions might pop up.  We always get the usual "Do you like China" and such.  Of course we can never tell the truth so we find some way to answer satisfactorily.  Somehow, though, the question of God has arisen lately.  I can't even choose the words to explain this; I have so many emotions rolling through me that are blocking verbalization.  Anyone who has ever called me naive, frankly, can shove it, because you have never seen naivete like this place can offer.  When these students look at me, their faces are tabula rasa.  I honestly to smack them and shout at them, "Wake up!  You have a brain!  Use it!"  They don't ask questions; they are told the "correct" answers and memorize them for a test then forget them immediately.  Oh, but they all remember that God does not exist.  How do you know God does not exist, I ask.  Because when we were in primary school, our teacher told us God does not exist.  That's what they say to me every single time.  I'm so angry the only reason I'm not throwing curse words around is in case some actually does read this.  I have so much rage inside me toward this place.  It's not that they all believe there is no God.  I have friends who don't believe in God, friends I respect a great deal.  But these students don't even give it a thought.  One of the biggest questions in human history and they don't even blink an eye at it.  In fact, they laugh.  Every time someone says "God" in a classroom, someone laughs.  Without fail.  They tell me that my God is not their god, that China has not had a god in many years.  They don't believe in God, but sometimes when they feel sad, they will pray to God for comfort.  What the hell kind of logic is that?????  No, really, that's the crap they are taught to believe.  And they accept it.  They can't see how illogical that is.  They are completely okay with praying to something that does not exist unless they need it to exist in their minds so that they might feel comfort.  Karl Marx:  "Religion is the opiate of the people."  That's it.  Okay, so I ask, "What about the soul?"  Is there such a thing as a human soul.  They tell me, our soul is in our mind.  So what happens when we die?  We die.  Then what is our purpose in life?  Why do we, humans, exist?  No answer.

And these kids are under unbelievable amounts of pressure to succeed, from their parents and from the government.  But for what?  Sure, maybe they can kick our butts in math, but they couldn't begin to tell you why 2 + 2 does not equal 5.  2 plus 2 is four and there is no need to ask why.  It's not really their fault, though.  This is what the government has done to its people, and it's convinced them all that it's good.  A student asked me what I thought of Chairman Mao.  I told her I did not like him.  She and her classmates said, "It's a pity."  These students aren't expanding their minds or learning how to be an adult.  They are learning how to be parrots.  They literally mimic everything I do.  They repeat what I say.  They mimic my hand motions.  And they stare.  Oh how they stare.

I have never doubted my own soul, nor have I doubted that humans do have a purpose on earth even if I don't know exactly what it is.  But when I'm here, so much of what I have come to understand is "human" goes away.  All the thought, the spirit, the emotion... I don't see it anywhere.

I do believe that Ben and I have done some good by being here, though.  I can see small progress with some of my nursing students.  Still, every day is a battle against an ideology and a mindset of chalkboards.  My mom always told me that I would argue with a brick wall.  Well, Mom, that's exactly what I feel like I'm doing here.  I'm not trying to convert these kids; that's not my job.  But I truly hope God is doing some good here, even if I can't see it.  I never truly believed that I could be His instrument, but if I am, I feel like a spoon against a boulder.

Yeah, that last post... I lied.

So, I thought I was getting used to living in China, eating with chopsticks, and not knowing whether the poop on the sidewalks was canine or human, but I might have been wrong.  Last Friday I had to use my first trough.  Barb Jones had warned me about them, but I had not encountered one until recently.  In the ladies' restroom there was literally a trough separated by "stalls" that had no doors.  I have seen more than my fair share of babies butts, but I did not expect to see grown women butts.  I honestly walked in, went bug-eyed, and walked out.  Unfortunately nature was calling so insistently that I could not afford to be horrified for more than a few seconds.  I waited until a few people had walked out, smiled at the white chick, and then hurried to the "stall" furthest from the door, where I thought my shiny white hiney would be least likely seen by anyone.  You don't wanna know what I saw in the trash can next to me.

The night before, Ben and I had gone on our first date in China, to celebrate our two-month anniversary.  We ate dumplings filled with soup and gong bao ji ding (kung pao chicken) then strolled through downtown Kaifeng.  It was quite nice, feeling slightly more normal (that is, until we saw two kids sitting next to a FIRE they had built on the friggin' sidewalk--apparently sidewalks are not for walking in China).

A group of Australians recently joined us here, and Ben and I have made a few new friends.  I mentioned Tim and Margeaux in my last post.  Now there is also Toby, the German teacher.  We all went out to dinner on Friday then retired to mine and Ben's place to watch the most horrible movie ever ever made and laugh and gag while doing so.  So now Ben and I have friends on four of the six habitable continents.  Yay!

Got to run.  As my lovely sister Madeline so wonderfully said, I gotta go teach them commies to speak English good.

PS See our picture of Longting Park on Facebook!

Acclimating

Hey y'all.  Let's see... What's new?

Honestly, I think we are starting to get used to living here.  It's taken me longer than Ben to accept the fact that we really are living in China for a year and, no, there's no way to jump ship and head home tomorrow or the next day.  So that's probably why we haven't posted lately.  We're getting used to kids pooping in the streets and not knowing exactly what is in our mouths at any given moment.  I'm even almost used to all the incessant honking.  The only thing I think I will never get used to is how the students answer your questions like trained monkeys.  Seriously, I have asked hundreds of students where they would like to travel, and anytime someone answers that they would like to see France they say this to me:  "I would like to go France...I think it is, um, romantic."  No variation ever.  And, honest to Spandex, I'm not sure they even know about the Eiffel Tower.  Okay, they probably do, but I wouldn't be shocked.

Some more Aussies have shown up, and with them they have brought along a mother and daughter from the States, named Sybil and Margeaux.  They are as interesting as their names.  Sybil lived in Istanbul and majored in Modern Dance.  Margeaux has been all over the continental U.S. as well as spending a year in Gap before the age 28.  It's been a huge relief to me to have her here.  We have a lot in common, I think.  She studied English and has her Master's in Rhetoric and Composition.  Last night, Ben and I went to dinner with some of her organization, who are all middle-aged women except for her and a 24-year-old guy named Tim.  After, Tim and Margeaux came back to our place for a couple of hours, and we all had fun talking and sharing music and such.  We also butchered a wine cork trying to get it out of the bottle.  I swear, nothing here works the way it should.  So, that's a little of what's new.

Oh, did we tell you that our flatscreen has a USB port?  Yeah, we may not have a DVD player, but we can load movies and TV episodes onto my flash drive and watch it on the TV.  That's cool.  I'll take it.  Because you really never know what's going to be on the English movie channel.  (Tangent:  I'm pretty sure they have 1 Italian, 1 French, and 1 Russian movie also that they mix in with the English ones.  And they call everything from Mulan to Ocean's 11 a "Classic Blockbuster."  Sheesh.)


So a tally:  Yay for China, USB ports on the TV.  Yay for the US, pretty much everything else.  :)

Pizza in China!

Hey y'all.  I'm sick (Mal).  Well, now that I've said that, I can talk about making pizzas last night!  A few weeks ago, Ben and I went to Zhengzhou with Adam and the other Ben to get ingredients to make pizzas, and last night we finally made them.  We took McCormick's pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese and put them on top of these delicious pieces of bread called "xia bing" and baked them in a little oven.  They were absolutely delicious!  I don't really know what else to say about that...  It felt so nice to have something familiar, though.  The food here is delicious, but I really miss the food back home.  Making the pizzas made that seem no so far away. 

That's another reason why it's been so nice to have good internet here.  We were fighting with a dying computer and ridiculously slow internet, so we often felt isolated.  Granted, we are on the other side of the world from everything we've known and loved.  Now, we can get Facebook without any trouble, and we can access our favorite TV shows and movies too!  Don't ask how.  Ha... Ben is now sitting beside me eating oatmeal and drinking coffee.  Why can't I have my cereal?  :( 

Oh, and being sick makes me homesick, apparently.  If you can't already tell.  Short post.  Hopefully something really interesting will happen and we can put up something longer soon.  I guess I'll get back to playing Angry Birds (I'm getting really good at it) and reading all the free books we got for the Kindles (don't ask about that either...)

Love to the US!

Thoughts on Being a Miniature Celebrity

Howdy folks, Ben speaking. For those of you who don't know, Mallory and I have had a few computer troubles over the past few weeks. As in, the computer went six feet under and our internet connection was moving slower than a geriatric turtle. But thanks to some great friends, some ingenious Chinese students, and a few thousand kuai, we're back online faster than ever!

A few things to catch you up on. First, people tend to stare around here. By that I mean, everyone stares and everything I do. And I partially understand. For many people in Kaifeng, I am the first non-Chinese person they've seen in their entire lives. They've heard about America every day, and then America just walks by. Most of the time, I don't mind the attention. But on days like today, it's about all I can manage not to smack someone. You see, I teach almost every morning. I teach two classes in two hour blocks, and I do the same lecture in both classes because I go around to different classes every day. So, I have different people every day and need to consistently deliver my lecture so they can practice their listening skills. [Remember: never seen a foreigner. So many students studying English have never heard a native speaker in person either.] Now, imagine talking at about one eighth of the speed you normally talk for four hours every morning. Pretty tiring...

This morning, one guy came up after class and asked if he could take a picture with me. "Sure," I said. What could be the harm? I'm sure this would make the guy's day. After the first picture, someone else comes up and asks for the same thing. Ten seconds later, I'm surrounded by people pushing and pulling each other [and pushing and pulling me] to get a picture. It wasn't like being an animal in a zoo. It was like being an animal on the chopping block. Eventually, I shook them off, gave them a few firm English phrases, put on my 'Don't bother me' face, and everything was good. For those few seconds though, I was livid.

Enough negative though. Things are just swell around here. The National Day holiday starts in a few days. For some reason National Day [the day the PRC started] lasts for an entire week. So that means a full week and a half of no classes for us. We're preparing for some serious rest, a bit of nesting, and a lot of TV shows in bed.

Now I'll leave you with a few pictures we've taken over the last month that we haven't been able to share. Enjoy! More to come!

 

 

Noodles and beer. What a mix!

A shot of the street outside of the second floor of a Chinese pizza place. Yep, Chinese pizza...

The Iron Pagoda, the campus attraction.

A full bus is a happy bus.

Never a day without something interesting...

Let's see... How to begin this post? First, I can say to you that not a single day passes here without some crazy surprise, whether revolting, hysterical, or just plain funky. Here are a few from our past week.

Nearly every day, Ben and I eat lunch together at a little fan-guar, or meal-place, outside the south gate of the university. The other day, we went with Adam and Eaaf (yes, Eaaf) to a place we had been to several times before. Well, I can say with confidence that I will never go there again. Right about the time everyone had finished eating, Eaaf put down her chopsticks and said, "That's it. I'm done." First, I thought she was just announcing to the table that she had had her fill, but no. In the midst of her white rice...was a worm. A worm. If we had been in the States, um, lawsuit! It was absolutely disgusting. I know I shouldn't have been as grossed out as I was (I am in B. F. China after all), but I wanted to go yell at someone about health code violations. Oh, wait, there are none.

Next story. Yesterday, the International Affairs Office took all of us wai-go-ren (white folk) to Zhengzhou to visit the Yellow River Park and the Henan Museum. At the park we climbed a mountain, took some pictures, yadda yadda (actually it was pretty cool but I'll just share pictures later). Then, we went down to the river and had lunch in a boat, where I experienced my first quad-language meal. At our table, we had four Americans, one Russian, and to Japanese people. The other two Americans communicated with the Japanese couple in Japanese and with the Russian in Chinese and with us in English. I learned how to say hello, or was it thank you?..., in Russian. It sounds like ztrasvoychen. And Tatyana learned to say "I like drink tea" and "I eat fish" in English. Success. Meanwhile, there was some eating going on. The first course (dun dun dunnnnn) was a plate of tiny little fried WHOLE fish! Funky. I ate a couple. They weren't as bad as I thought, but I still couldn't bring myself to eat the head. I miss salmon filets; no bones, no eyes, no funk.

Anecdote numero tres. This one is short. Today, I had lunch with three of my students. They are incredibly sweet girls, each of whom brought me a present. When we arrived at the restaurant, one of them asked me, "Do you like eat packets?" I'm thinking... "Not usually..." We had these yummy soup-filled baozi (which are a variation of dumplings. They translated the name to "Irrigation soup packets." Ha!!!!! Doesn't that sound delicious? Well it was. Got to go. Kisses from Mal!

"In Christ alone my hope is found; He is my rock, my strength, my song."

Sorry we have been absent for so long. We have had serious computer problems and could not get a blog post up for several days. This is Mallory speaking. :)

Classes have been going well, for the most part. My nursing students really seem to love me, which still shocks me. Mom was joking a couple of weeks ago, when I told her about the ladies who clean our rooms and take out our trash, and how we eat out for every meal; she said, "You won't be fit for shit when you get back." Sorry to the grandmothers reading this, but the rhyme is too good to re-word. Not to mention the fact that every day I have someone telling me that I am beautiful. When I enter a room, students glow with delight to see me. Some of them even jump up and down when they see me coming. We've had people paying for our meals and our taxis, even though we make a lot more money than they do. In a strange way, it is like we are celebrities here.

I can see how Mom or anyone else might think all this special attention would make me useless. But the truth is, it hurts. A lot.

When I come back from a class or meeting with my students, I feel heavy inside. Rather than giving me a big head, my position is proving to be the biggest burden I have ever carried. All I can think is, Who am I? Who am I that you should adore me so? I am not special; I'm not even really a teacher. I'm only two years older than my students. This is truly the most humbling experience of my life.

I'm doing my best here. Every time I leave a classroom, I'm exhausted because I've given everything I have to these students. But it doesn't seem like enough. Not nearly. The way they look at me, they deserve so much more than me. But I'm the one who is here. I just hope that I will not fail them.

Location:Kaifeng, China

Moon Cakes, Foreign Food, and a Town Called Zhengzhou

I never want to eat another Moon Cake for the rest of my life.

But first, let me explain. You see, traditionally the Chinese celebrated the harvest and the autumn moon with a mid-autumn festival. During this festival, they go home to their families and eat what they call Moon Cakes. If you were to see a Moon Cake in the States, you would think, "Oh, that must be filled with something sweet--maybe fruit, or caramel, or chocolate." But oh how wrong you would be...

You see, the Chinese have different taste buds than we have in the States. They don't like sweetness as much as we do. So when they make Moon Cakes, which look very much like a very fancy Little Debbie cake, they fill them with not so sweet things. Sometimes they fill them with fruit. Sometimes... Other times they decide that making a paste that tastes like a plate of rice and meat would be wonderfully appetizing. Other times they meet halfway and mix sweetness with meat with nuts with seeds. You can imagine the concoctions we have discovered.

It is also tradition at the mid-autumn festival to give Moon Cakes to friends and family. And since we are new here and plenty of people want to welcome us to the neighborhood, we've gotten our share. We've gotten about 20 of the blasted things so far. A handful have been very tasty. Many more have been questionable. The one thing we learned from this was that you should never blindly bite into what looks like a dessert in China.

------------

On a more interesting topic, Mallory and I took a trip with two other teachers to the capital city of Henan province, Zhengzhou [pronounced jung-joe]. One teacher who was here last year told us that there were many Western food stores in Zhenzgzhou and that we could probably buy cereal there. He was right about buying cereal. It certainly was there. It also costs about $7-8 a box. That's around 40-50 yuan per box. Consider that we can buy dinner for the both of us at a local restaurant for less than 15 yuan and you'll quickly see why we bought no cereal in Zhengzhou. We did however get a good deal on some mozzarella and pizza sauce, so all the foreign teachers will be having homemade pizza soon.

Also, another item of interest: Zhengzhou is big. Like, New York City big. We waited at one of the bus stops in the city for about 20 minutes because we could not find a bus to fit on. Literally, there were people crammed into the bus right up to the front door. There were floods of bikes in places, all fighting to get past the rows and rows of cars going the other direction. Our little escapade really made us appreciate the "small town" of Kaifeng. Now this place seems like a peaceful little village to us.

From moon cakes to big cities, keep in mind: It's all about perspective.

Chinese Jenga, Big Brother Cake, and a Happy Dance!

Hello, USA. This is Mallory speaking.

So, for the past three to four days, I've been downright sick and have been bundled up in our apartment trying to recover. Last night, though I was still feeling crummy, I decided I could get myself out of pajamas if it meant I could eat pizza. And I did. Ben and I got into a rickshaw with two other English teachers and made our way to Gu Lo, or Kaifeng's downtown. I was absolutely beside myself with hunger and excitement that I wouldn't have to eat something served over rice. At about 7:20, we ordered one large pepperoni and one large Hawaiian pizzas. Little Ben (as he has been dubbed because he is so much shorter than my Big Ben) found a game of Jenga in the restaurant, oh excuse me, I mean Folds High Wooden Toy, which we played for the next hour while we were waiting for our food. Granted, playing this sort of Chinese Zodiac Jenga was very amusing, but nothing compares to the joy we found in reading the box. On it, we discovered priceless mishaps of Google translate, such as, "While listen attentively to the natural rhythms, lets the baby know the basic scale," which is related to the game in no way whatsoever. Then, all four of us were holding our stomachs in laughter at this little beauty, listed under the Caution section: "Place toy in mouth to prevent chidren (sic)." Once we had calmed down, our pizzas finally arrived, and they were actually delicious. Crunch crust, warm cheese,... fruit cocktail????? Seriously, instead of having ham and pineapple on our Hawaiian, we had ham and drained fruit cocktail. Yes, there was pineapple, but there was also pear, peach, and cherry pieces on every slice. I am so in China.

This morning, my stomach told me that it was not ready to handle anything from a street vendor, so I chose instead to get a muffin for breakfast from this chain bakery called Gege Cake, or in English, Big Brother Cake. Ben and I got a few items to sample, because really, when it's six yuan to the dollar, why not? The rundown: what I thought was chocolate cake was in fact prune cake, still tasty but I don't understand why they like prunes so much; the cookie tasted like angel food cake, so okay there; my lemon muffin was very satisfying if not slightly on the dense side (darn that milk-that-doesn't-need-to-be-refrigerated-and-is-sold-in-pouches). We still have one pastry left to try that looks yummy but will most likely taste nothing like we expect. That's what you get with the food here. Never thought I'd be so grateful to have a McDonald's close by.

And the final bullet point of this post is... Our bag finally came! For those of you who don't know, we somehow managed to lose the bag with all my medicine and contact lenses on the plane from Atlanta to Tokyo and have had a hell of a time trying to get it back. Well, it finally arrived in the mail today. Ergo, the happy dance. :D

Love you America!

Spectacles All Around

It's been an interesting two days, and the number of surprising sights I see per day is rising steadily. Yesterday me and two of the other English teachers decided to go out and get some breakfast together. That normally involves walking to the West Gate [Xi Men] of the campus and going to one of the food stands for fried vegetables in a pita or something similar. I've noticed that the Chinese don't mild, sweet breakfasts like Americans do (cold cereal with milk would not be appetizing to them). After we got our food, we walked back towards the East Gate, where my and Mallory's apartment is. On our way, we encountered a group of men in similar uniforms marching around the sidewalk together chanting. We had no idea who they were or what they were doing.

After they had marched around for about a minute, we heard the noise of more people in uniforms behind us. Another group in different colored outfits came out of a shop right next to us and started doing the same thing. Turns out, these were both hair salons! Apparently every morning the entire staff of both places comes out and competes to see who can yell and march the best, in order to win customers. I took video of most of it, and trust me, it was quite a sight!

Later that day, we were relaxing around campus when the wife of one of the groundskeepers came out with a strange contraption. It looked like a spinning top a bit bigger than a softball. She had two sticks in her hand with a string connecting them, and she would spin the top on the string, which made a whirring noise like a UFO. After she did that for a while, she started doing tricks with it, tossing it from stick to stick (still spinning!), tossing it under her legs, and throwing it in circles around herself! She even taught one of the English teachers how to do it, though it took him quite a while to even keep it spinning, let alone do any tricks with it.

The Chinese are not the only ones providing spectacles, though. Most Chinese have never seen a foreigner in their lives, and coming to university is their first chance to see one and practice the English they've learned. They've also never seen many things that we take for granted, like a frisbee. You heard me right: most Chinese have never even seen a frisbee on TV before. When I and two of the other English teachers went out to play, it was quite a sight to behold! Usually when we play, a crowd of about 15 to 20 people gathers to watch us throw it around. One guy with a very expensive camera even stopped and started taking action shots of us! He seemed very taken with my ability to reach a frisbee flying about 9 feet off the ground.

It looks like these ten months will be full of surprising sights for everyone involved!

P.S. If you ever get the chance to try doujiang (pronounced dough-jahng), I'd advise you not to do it unless you're ready to have your mind blown. Doujiang literally translates to "bean juice." It's ground up soybeans mixed with water, warmed up, and frothed like a latte. And it tastes exactly how it sounds...

Home Sweet Hotel Room

As some of you know, Ben and I got these jobs here in Kaifeng via our connection with Dr. Carolyn Dirksen, who taught at this same university back in the eighties. When she and her husband were here, they lived in the building referred to as the Foreign Experts Residence. This is where Ben and I expected to be living when we got here, but, because A. there were not enough apartments for everyone and B. we are married, we have the luxury of lodging in an on-campus hotel. Ours is a much newer (and honestly, much nicer) building, with most of the comforts of home, minus a decent mattress. When you walk through the door, the first thing you see is...yourself! There's a large mirror with a small cabinet for our shoes. Behind this is our kitchen, which consists of a few cabinets, small counters, a sink, and a hot plate and microwave/oven/grill, courtesy of the International Affairs Office.

Our living room is really quite spacious. They've given us a sofa and comfy chair with cushions that are much softer than our bed. :P We also have a coffee table, where we eat our breakfast every morning...yummy egg and veggie pita... Plus, we have a sweet flatscreen tv! There is a channel that plays English language movies, which is great and highly entertaining, seeing as I'll never get to know what movie I could be watching at any given moment. Today, I've caught snippets of Princess Diaries 2, Goodfellas, and Zodiac. Finally, we have the wonderful air conditioner and fridge. The AC is covered in Chinese, so I just push the + and - buttons to change the temperature, which is measured in Celsius, of course. Our fridge is about the size of the one I had in my dorm room with the added freezer on the bottom, and, like almost everything else in China, it has a funky smell. We're working on finding some baking soda.

In our boudoir, you will find the cement block, I mean bed, a wardrobe, two bedside tables, and a desk (on which I am typing this very blog post). I get first dibs on the desk because I'm actually teaching a couple of classes with grades and stuff (explanation to come later). There's really not much to tell about this room other than we like it and have been spending a ridiculous amount of time in here the past few days since we've been sleeping more than we've been awake.

And, of course, I've saved the best for last... our bathroom! First thing on the left is our sink, then comes the itty bitty, but greatly appreciated, washing machine, followed by the Western (hallelujah!) toilet, ending with the "shower." We don't actually have a shower. There's just some extra space on the other side of the toilet with a shower head above and a drain on the floor. So, the whole bathroom floor is wet for the majority of everyday, but, truth be told, showering is a lot more entertaining than it has ever been.

So far, our apartment has proven to be quite the safe haven for us. Plus, I change into pajama pants right when I come through the door, so I think, in time, it will start to feel like our home.

Oh, and all our floors are tile. Cold feet! And lots of sweeping (thanks, Ben!).

:)

Hell and High Water Into the World (a road sign describing a new apt. building)... You can't make this stuff up

So, we've been in Kaifeng for a few days now, and plenty of interesting stuff has happened, most of which is currently catalogued in our minds for future sharing. But right now, I just can't archive the experience of our morning at the Zhengzhou hospital.

All the foreign language teachers (meaning the six English teachers and one Russian teacher who does not speak English) packed into a bus and headed down the Zheng Kai Road, literally the road connecting Zhengzhou and Kaifeng. In China, there is no need for a car radio, because as long as you are on the road, you are serenaded by the sounds of people honking at you from every direction. Traffic laws mean absolutely nothing here. Everyone is so impatient, and whenever you feel like it, apparently, you can cross the double yellow lines to pass the moron in front of you who just isn't going fast enough. I've never seen anything like it.

We arrived at the hospital safely, but before we could have our "body checks" done, we had to have head shots taken, I kid you not, next to a room stocked with nothing but beer. I have no idea, even now, what the heck was going on. Pictures taken, we all proceeded to have the exact same physical examination that we were required to have in the states before we came here, only this time, I was not in a nice doctor's office. I was one of hundreds of people moving from room to room, completing steps of the body check, like height, weight, blood pressure, E.C.G., chest x-ray, and the glorious blood and urine samples. Granted, I've lived a fairly sheltered and clean existence (no guffawing, Mom and Dad), so this was bar none the most traumatic "peeing in a cup" experience of my entire life. I'm sure someone told me, but I completely forgot that Chinese bathrooms do not provide tp or even soap for that matter. Not to mention the fact that I'm standing over a ceramic hole in the ground, around which there is evidence that, even though they've been using these toilets their whole lives, women still can't aim. I think I will officially be holding it for the subsequent ten months of our stay here.

I realize that was more information that you cared to read, but quite frankly, it was more than I wanted to experience. I could not have come to a place more different from the world I've grown up in.

Anyway, we survived, and then Jackie, the International Affairs guy who has been taking care of us up to this point, took us to lunch at the place he claims to have the best noodles in Kaifeng. They were really tasty. Also, we had these veggie balls, which I swear tasted like fried okra. Or maybe I just miss home that much. All in all, though, the food here is delicious! I'll give you some more on that later, because this post is starting to run long.

Love to everyone back home, in that land where things make sense. More to follow soon, something with the less gross and more yummy. :)

Thoughts in the Beijing Airport

Here's something that Ben wrote in the Beijing Airport after we arrived--



This might not get posted until a few days later when we get internet, but Mallory and I are resting in the Beijing airport before our next flight. It's currently 3:48 AM. We arrived around 11 PM and have to wait until 6:45 to board our flight to Zhengzhou. Throughout this journey (which I calculated has been roughly 9000 miles so far), nothing has been so impacting to me as staying in this foreign airport for the night.

To give you a little background, I had to get my first passport this summer. I've never left America before right now, though I've always wanted to. When we arrived, English almost entirely ended. Though there are English translations of major checkpoints, all the little things are in Chinese. For those of you who've traveled out of the country before, this might not sound like a big deal, but it's been a bit disorienting for me. To think I am now in a world where a five year old has a wider array of words to choose from in everyday speech.

When we arrived, we had a luggage question, and spent about fifteen minutes trying to tackle the language barrier with three young men who only remembered a few words of English from school. The most interesting part about the entire conversation was when I recognized my frustration at them not knowing English and thought that perhaps they have the same frustration at my puny Chinese.

Mallory was able to sleep here and there on flights and in between, but I've had a difficult time forcing myself to do the same. As it stands, I've probably had an hour and a half total sleep in the past 32 hours. Not to mention the aches and pains of sitting on a plane for 14 hours and the pang of having irregularly timed meals.

But we're happy. Just after we arrived, we were pushing our eight pieces of luggage around (on carts, luckily) looking for a restroom, while I said every two minutes, "Xie xie, bu yao." [No, thank you] to people who offered us hotel rooms a few minutes from the airport. Through all of this busyness, all I could think was that I was overjoyed to have a partner to share this adventure with.

Go with God, friends. He's going with us.

5 Hours to Take Off

As Ben and I sit in our friend's living room watching the news of Hurricane Irene, we are realizing how many pissed off people we are going to have to deal with at the airport. Luckily we are flying west to Tokyo, so we don't have to really worry about the weather, unlike the people with tickets for the 6,000 cancelled flights out of Atlanta.

I really can't believe we will be leaving the US for so long. I've been making sure that, these last few days, I've eaten as many of the foods that we won't have in China as possible. Oh pizza, I shall yearn for thee. The last installment will be a Starbucks chai tea latte before we get on the plane.

Hopefully we can let you know when we get to Tokyo, and I'm hoping to find that they really do serve lobster in the Japan McDonalds....

Location:atlanta

Packing Up

The big day (after the previous Big Day, of course!) is approaching steadily. Mal and I have everything laid out in the living room, and we're stuffing everything into space bags and hoping we don't forget anything. We have our travel visas now, so all we have left is to get on the plane and fly off. We're still figuring out what our internet situation will be over there, but we should get everything worked out in the first week. Then we'll be updating the blog at least once a week with pictures. Also, we'll be sending out an email to those who want it just talking about our experiences in Kaifeng.

I've included some pictures of us packing to give you an idea of how much fun we're having!

The Final Countdown

We are officially under three weeks until the big day.  Now is the time for the last-minute details, like printing the programs (dealing with technology is always an *interesting* experience in my parents' house) and getting groomsmen measurements.  Meanwhile, Ben and I finalized our travel plans for getting our happy little married selves to China.  We will fly out of Atlanta at 1:45 on Saturday, August 27, and from there we go through Tokyo (Ben is thrilled!), Beijing (spending the night :/), and Zhengzhou.  Praise truffles, we got economy comfort seats for the 14-hour stretch, so Ben won't be smelling his knee caps all the way to Japan.  I have to admit, it was a little terrifying to commit to the "purchase" button.  But we've done it, and we are so excited!  We've been studying Chinese phrases in the car, repeating them to each other until they embed themselves into memory.  I think our favorite right now is Qing gahn kwigh, which means, Please hurry!  That's Ben's sentiments when it comes to the wedding day... Please hurry!  His feet are warm and ready to be married.  (Personally I think he's just itching to go to Disney World and walk around with Mickey ears on his head :p)