I absolutely hate the question "How's China?" It makes me want to scream and kick things. I mean, I don't even know where to begin to answer that question. It's not like I can be like oh, good, it's great! There is just so much complexity to the whole thing. Normally I just lead people to my blog because this is the only thing that can scratch the surface of what China is like.
Anyway, this weekend I went to New Year's hometown, Guang'an! It is a pretty small (big for American standards) country town about four miles east of Chengdu. If I thought Wenjiang was ugly and dirty then I don't even know what to say about this place! Everything was old, falling apart, and very ugly. It could have been because of the perpetual grey skies, but who knows! An interesting thing that I encountered out here was that the people seemed to be quite thicker than what I was used to. Like normal sized almost. They still had baby feet but they weren't a size negative. Their teeth for the most part were absolutely horrendous. When a local smiled at me I was often quite taken aback.
We were really tired after our four hour van ride and to our surprise our hotel was amazing! I mean, amazing as you get for Sichuan. Kara and I squealed in delight and jumped on our beds and smacked pillows at each other (like every boys fantasy) when we realized that the bed had an ACTUAL MATTRESS! Oh! I thought I was a Queen that night with the sleep I got! I mean the piece of plywood that I sleep on now really does wonders for the best but what a treat it was to sleep on a real mattress! Seriously, you people don't know how lucky you have it in the states. The Chinese actually enjoy sleeping on wood (Chinese mystery number 29393230…)
The next morning we had to wake up early because we were going to travel all around Guang'an to see the kids in the school's that New Year's dad owns. I wasn't happy about waking up before nine but I was so excited to see the first batch of little kids! I didn't realize how much I missed my small siblings before I got to Asia! The kids at the first school were 2 through 6 and they were so much fun to play with! We sang songs with them, played games, and showed them our phones and cameras and they went crazy over it. Audra and I joked that all the small children looked like our mutual friend Le…so Le if you are reading this the pictures I took of the kids will be named in your honor! We were outside when we were playing these games so we got quite a couple country bumpkins peering in through the gates. The local news station also came to film and they interviewed me! So I am basically a celebrity in Guang'an because I ended up being on the news twice. But I will get to that later..
After a long lunch of local hot pot we headed to another school to meet students. This time we were going to a Middle School, (which really means High School) to speak to the students. I was surprised to see dorms when I got there! I guess a lot of students are from the country and it would be too hard to commute in so a lot of them live there. They also wear uniforms which look like tracksuits. I was expecting a lot of stares but nothing could have prepared me for what came next. I looked up and there were hundreds upon hundreds of faces staring out the windows. I looked to my side and there was a small Chinese woman grabbing my arm and leading me through the dark, damp, grey communist style halls up six flights of stairs and in front of a wooden door. I took a deep breath. I opened it. Cheers, applauds, screams, camera flashes. Was I missing something? Did someone really famous just walk in the door behind me? Oh no. It was me. These kids were in shock. Beaaaaaaaaaatiffurllll!!!! They yelled. "MISS! MISS CAN I TAKE A PHOTOR WIS YOU?!" "MISS MISS YOUR EYES ARE SOOOOOOO BIGGG!!!!'' You get the point. Three hours later and three different classrooms later I had sung the national anthem, the fight song, many American songs, and Lady Ga Ga. Now I have a horrible voice, and I am very aware of this. But they thought it was beautiful. They thought it was awesome. They also made me dance. As Matt always tells me, I have horrible rhythm (maybe true but I don't think he has any either) but with whatever moves I threw out there they loved it "sexxxy!!! Sexxyy!!! Like Lady Ga Ga!" After a couple thousand pictures and many "do you have boyfriend? You so hot! Do you think I'm attractive?" and signing my name on people's shirts (!) I was pretty tired. Being a celebrity is rough.
I had to use the restroom so one of the English teachers (she was my age….wtf?) led me to the restroom. It was a huge building outside and it was disgusting. Easily one of the grossest bathrooms in China. It didn't have stalls…just small walls about two feet high separating the squatties. No doors. You could see everyone do their business! The teacher had to go with me and plopped right down next to me. Humming a toon, looking out at the lovely view of a disgusting, dirty river next to the school. Seriously, this place. Boundaries China, Boundaries!! We all don't need to be up in each other's business all the time!
The next morning we were ferried off to yet another school. I was getting kind of wary at this point but I was getting an all expenses paid trip so I was pushing through it. This time instead of being overwhelmed in classes we were all outside and played a bunch of games with the Chinese students. Typical BS contests, except for this one. It was a game where you say a word into the candle to blow it out, and the first person to blow out all their candles wins. It was us verse the Chinese students and we were losing. Bad. I was feeling particularly patriotic as we had just finished belting the National Anthem and the fight song and I was not happy we were losing to a bunch of commie children. The first four had lost, and it was my turn. I was heated. I screamed the words. "America!" "fight!" "peas!" "Mel Gibson!" "FREEEEEEDOMMMM!!" was the final candle I screamed into and I looked up and I was victorious against the innocent little Chinese girl! Ha! I had won! The crowd loved it! I ran to college my prize, all happy and then the evil Chinese dictator principal said although I won, the Chinese won overall because more people won. COOL CHINA. My prize was a pretty awesome pen that I later used to sign more autographs and hand out my phone number and such.
The locals definitely were not as friendly as Chengdu. As in they tried to rip us off considerably more because we were lowai. I got quite heated about two pretty nasty incidents. New Year told me to relax, and that the couple more yuan meant a lot more to them than it does to me. That's true, but I am American and it is still the principle of breaking rules! I will not stand for it! The craziest incident involved apples. Ana, Audra and I were exploring Guang'an and we stumbled across a nice looking fruit stand. We saw some ripe apples and decided to indulge. We bought six. She charged us ten yuan a kilo, so 13 quai total and we were on our way. We no joke had been walking for almost two minutes when we heard yelling and turned around. The shopkeeper ran after us and was speaking in rapid Sichuan Hua. No clue what she was saying but I assumed it was about money. I was right. I couldn't understand her so we called Tao to translate. He told us that we owed her 26 quai now. I was pissed. I started yelling at her, at Tao, at everyone. I walked to the scale and showed her we owed thirteen. What she did next was unbelievable. She changed the price for 20 yuan a kilo. In front of us. Then pointed at it. Is that a joke? Yeah right were we gonna pay that! By that time a 15 year old girl wandered up to us and started freaking out cause we were white then told us it should be 5 a kilo. So she was already ripping us off enough but running after us was ridiculous. We took our money back and left. Ha. Chinese no money, Americans no apples but lots of pride! Tao later told us that the woman was saying that these were the best apples in all of China and that's why they were expensive. Puhhhlease. This woman clearly didn't know that I hailed from the state where the most delicious apples in the world came from: the state of Washington. I don't settle for apples.
The next morning I was kind of in a grumpy mood. New Year told us that once again we would be going to school to talk to kids. I was completely over it at this point. Audra and Kara were sick from the food, and we were all tired and didn't want to get out of our western beds. It was also raining so all I wanted to do was sit inside and watched my bootlegged sex and the city DVDs. Begrudgingly I pulled on my clothes and walked to the van. When we got to the school we noticed all the kids were on the field. We were to have a competition, each white person leading a group of 25 kids in a bunch of different events. We all had to make a flag for our country, a slogan, etc. It actually turned out to be pretty fun and it was great connecting with students on a more personal level! They were just so happy to see me it was hard to be in a bad mood. We sang, danced, laughed and tried to communicate with one another. For one event we did a trust fall…scary! These kids were half the size of me but only three years younger! Our team ended up winning the whole thing so as our reward we got…wait for it…CPC handbooks! I love reading up on communism! The best part was the kids were all so excited..
We finished off the events with letting some hot air balloons go off into the sky. I really wanted to get going as my stomach was rumbling and I was getting kind of overwhelmed. I had signed almost everyone's tracksuit and it was pretty funny looking over and seeing my name on everyone's sleeve. I kept being grabbed, getting my picture taken, etc. But now I was tired, and I just wanted to go home. I gave my phone number to everyone, and my email and finally it was time to leave Guang'an. Two girls who had really taken a liking to me walked me back to the van. I gave them one last hug and hopped in. When I turned around to wave my final goodbye my heart sunk. The two girls were crying. One just had tears rolling down her face and the other was full on bawling, and in need of being comforted. Suddenly I felt horrible for not wanting to be there. These two 16 year old girls had looked forward to us coming for the whole year, and especially the past week. That Sunday was one of the most exciting days of their lives, to meet a foreign person that spoke native English as they had never met someone who wasn't Chinese before. I made our driver stop the van, I got out of the car and hugged them again and promised them that I would see them again someday. I don't know if I will be able to keep that promise as I can't even remember their names but them and some other ones sure text me a lot in broken English! It's racking up my phone bill.
