I must've mistakenly signed up for the Red Guard when I registered to teach health education to rural village kids.
Friday, July 14, 2006
I'm sleeping beside a veritable mosquitoe graveyard on the wall. I smashed every last one of them with my Let's Go guide. So handy in so many ways. Bug guts don't stick to it. I knew the actual volunteer site would be primitive, but it never occurred to me that the training site would be also. We have long days - 7 AM to 11 PM. When am I going to wash my dirty underwear?
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Today, I was called a "nonwoman". This is in reference to the fact that I don't own a brush, I don't care which direction I'm facing when I use the squat toilet (towards or away from the hump) as long as the necessary stuff gets to where it needs to be, and because I'm "wai xiang", meaning "facing outwards" literally - "outgoing" figuratively. It's funny the expectations Chinese women place on each other. They're like little Martha Stewarts, en masse. One girl in my Arts teaching group wanted to introduce fashion to the class, where we encourage the kids to "look neat", encourage the boys to cut their hair (or at least comb it), and the girls to not wear clashing colors. The teachers who've had Western exposure veto'ed the idea with the argument that you can't impose your own visions of beauty onto other people. Besides, I secretly like the wild look that some kids have. The little girl with the neat plaits was never my type. Maybe because my own hair was never neat as a kid, and my part was never straight and I always wished the grown-ups could like me despite it. One can't help what their hair chooses to do.
It's hard not to feel a little hurt by assertions that I'm not a girl - even if the remark was made innocently with lack of cultural understanding. At least now I understand more of the culture my mother comes from and can stop taking things so personally. It's odd, because I'm well aware of the fact that I'm not at all masculine and that people can tell right off that I'm a girl, and I'd like to think that I'm secure in my femininity. I think it comes down to attitude more than anything else. My roommate mentioned that she thought Rachel - the other American girl here (blonde, curvy, nose-ring), is also "not very like a woman", but the quieter American girl is (soft-spoken, no earrings at all). It's funny how things like being different from the other kids at camp can still be a little weird even at the age of 25. The Chinese are generally very blunt in their criticisms, and American culture tends to sugarcoat things. I guess not meeting expectations - whether they're parental ones, cultural ones, or your own - is a little tough no matter where you are. I'm not really willing to change a lot of the things that make me "unwomanly" in China's eyes, and most of me thinks that I'm quite alright on my own. But it'd just be nice once in a while to have some reinforcement that it's okay.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
1.5 rolls of toilet paper later, I've somehow gotten used to the mass group showers with other little Chinese girls, sleeping on wooden planks, and the ever pervasive smell of feces - thanks to the pig farm next door. What I haven't gotten used to are the intermittent sharp pains in my belly, or the man hands I've grown due to handwashing my clothes. I can see little communities forming when the girls bring their clothes out to wash. I too, squat with them (because there really is no other way to get the laundry done), soak my clothes, and chat up the woman next to me.
New Buffalo has been in my head on and off for the past few days. I woke up to "It'll be alright" playing in my head this morning, and had "Inside" going all evening. Of course - customary to my usual practices, I play the song that's in my head on my ipod. So NB's been getting a lot of playtime.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - The Peaches of Death.
It's been a rough morning. This is day #3 of tummy troubles. How did I make it through a full month of travelling in China and eating street food, but not be able to hack if here at training camp for teachers? Admittedly, it's been a little more than I bargained for. Between the red armbands (wore on the left arm) and the morning exercises in which we're criticized for the angle of foot outturn and that we run like sheep set loose, I wonder if I mistakenly signed up for the Red Guard. The funny thing is that no one here complains. The Chinese just aren't complainers. I don't know if it's the influence of Eastern religions or the result of decades of Communism.
I woke up this morning to singing in the room. The girls were singing Chinese songs while getting ready for our invigorating 7 AM morning exercises. I spent the morning exercise time invigorating my bowels in the bathroom, and then being reprimanded for missing the exercises.
Gender roles are much more prominent here than they are in the States. They've been surprisingly enjoyable. The boys here don't grumble about being nice to girls. They always offer their seat, or at the least get up to retrieve another chair for you. And they have no trouble standing guard outside the bathroom whiel you shower on the boy's side because the girl's side is full. And I didn't even have to put out for any of this. They never sneak into the girl's courtyard to catch a glimpse of our knickers on the line, but instead wait by the gate and ask a girl going in if they can see if so-and-so is around. It's sort of nice being respected. These gentlemen. And they always listen to what I have to say, consider it, and respond. And no flippant responses either. Though I have some issues with the sanitation system here (and the sanitary practices of the people), I'm beginning to have some grudging admiration for the social structure. Am I turning to the dark side? It's funny to see the boys when a girl talks to them. A silly smile broadens on their face and they look a little fatuous.
About the lack of self expresssion here. When I first found the training site after being yelled at by the cabbie and getting lost twice, I registered/signed in and was given a red scarf. We were to wear them on our left arms. I took it and absent-mindedly tied it onto my belt loop. There were frantic shakes of the head from the girls and they firmly tied it on my left arm. I've since stopped wearing it (though it's required). Not because I'm a rebel of any sort or because I'm trying to prove a point, but simply because I lost it about 2 days into training. It's buried somewhere in my bed. Everyone's bed is neat and made every morning except mine. They funny thing is - everyone else never fails to wear their armband. And it doesn't even occur to them to wear it anywhere else but the left arm. No one tied it onto their bags, or around their hair. Can you really say that self expression here is suppressed if no one wants to really wear it anywhere else? When I asked about it, they looked at me in surprise. "Why would I care about something small like where to wear a scarf? This is small beans." I could hear the undertones - I'm here to teach. Not to be a fashion statement. That put me in my place. In the States, self expression is tied to image and fashion. In China, self expression is tied to other things - but definitely not image. You can tell they don't give a crap about image based on some of the huge fashion no-no's I've seen on the subway. Old fat men wearing wifebeaters, jeans, and a belt with the playboy logo on it. If you ask them what that symbol is, they look surprised and say "a rabbit." If you ask why they're wearing a rabbit, they shrug and say "I needed a belt and this was cheap." Or simply, "I liked the rabbit." Tablecloths at restaurants have Mickey Mouse print on it or other cartoon characters because that's what's on sale at the store. People wear gay pride shirts not because they're gay, but because the colors are bright. And even if you told them the implications of a gay pride shirt, they'd probably shrug and wear it anyways. Why waste a good shirt? Fashion and appearance just aren't on their list of priorities. So why wear it anywhere else but your left arm? It causes trouble - and they just don't care enough about it to bother bucking authority on it.
Okay, it's time to get off the can.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
I smell like a Boy Scout. Off Deep Woods Unscented. Ironically enough, it smells pretty damn fresh and good. There's been a dearth of free time here, and what little free time is given, I tend to use on doing laundry and frantic trips to the communal bathroom. It's driven me to play hooky so I can have some time to myself in the room I share with 8 other girls. They're participating in some structured social time right now. It makes me feel strangely Smeagol-like. Everyone here gets such joy out of group activities, and I sneak off to be by myself while they do ice breakers and get to know each other. Being a Westerner, I guess I'm used to a certain allotted amount of personal time. What does it say about us as a society when we recharge ourselves by isolation in our own rooms as opposed to being in a group? I was talking to my friend Paddy about this since he's spent a year as a Chinese international student in the UK. He says that it was odd for him to come back to Chinese living, but that people here don't get much personal space - so they don't miss it. They share everything - showers, bathrooms, dorm rooms, meals. There's no walls here. He says the pro side of Western personal space is that it promotes individuality. The con side is that it emphasizes "me" in front of "society". So the typical Westerner thinks first about what is best for him/her whereas the average rural Chinese thinks about what is best for society since his/her entire life is spent sharing space with the society. How Communist. But I suppose it explains the lack of complaint culture here and the proliferation of our American litigious society.
I've inhaled more bug spray than I can care to think about right now. I fear it's only a matter of time before I become the poster child for the correlation between DEET and lung cancer. The good news is that my stomach has recovered. The bad news is that I still haven't accustomed myself to voiding my bowels as a group activity.
Friday, July 21, 2006
I've come to the conclusion that I never would've made it in a Communist country. Largely because I don't like sharing. As someone who needs a large amount of alone time, even by U.S. standards, I would've undoubtedly been shot and killed as a maverick. Part of me can't believe I gave up a portion of my vacation to listen to more lectures, but this time in another language besides medical terminology that I still can't understand. Hours upon hours of lectures. This morning's exercises were particularly militant. 1-2-1. 1-2-1. Arms swing! We sang the same songs that I still don't know the words to because I can't read Chinese. What I do love are how open the boys are. We learned some dancing today. Whereas American boys would've stood there embarassed and refused to partake, the Chinese boys tried their best and even asked serious questions about how to perform the steps correctly. I loved it. It really makes a difference in the morning when you can giggle your way through it. The best is that I have it all on tape so when I'm feeling down in med school - I can play it to myself and smile. They all try so enthusiastically and are concentrating so hard, it's completely adorable.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
I dispatch to my rural village site tomorrow morning, along with Diana - another ABC who I absolutely love, and J.Y. - a Chinese guy working in Canada for one of their newspapers. J.Y. has developed this look of long-suffering every time I speak to him. Diana and I can't help but cling to him like limp puppets because our Chinese isn't super great. I can deliver a lesson in Health Ed pretty well because I can prepare it before hand and look up all the words in the dictionary, but we have a harder time when students ask questions or have discussion points that we don't understand. He has to translate for both of us on a pseudo-regular basis. I bet he's wondering how he got stuck with both the "wai guo ren" (the foreigners). However, he wears the look of long-suffering too familiarly. I strongly suspect a bossy older sister, a past full of angry girlfriends, or a frequently angry mother.
Based on all reports, we'll have to sleep at the school while we're there. On bed pads placed on top of the kids' desks. I'm not sure where we'll shower or eat. The school has a small run down theatre though, so we're planning to put on a festival-type of thing, with an art gallery full of the arts and crafts projects and performances put on by the kids. The Health Ed group wrote a "Brush your teeth" song and I choreographed a tooth-brushing dance to go with it. I'm excited to meet the kids and teach them to do it. Kids love dancing, and they look so adorable when they do it. The parents in the audience usually love it even more. I spent 58 RMB on a set of speakers for my ipod just so I can play some background music while they work on their art projects.
Being in Beijing for the night is like heaven compared to the training site. I've gorged myself on the internet, eaten a Big Mac, had 2 popsicles, and fully intend on getting a foot massage. And, as I pulled down my pants to lower myself onto a Western toilet this afternoon, all I could think of was - Ah, this is such luxury.
I'm sleeping beside a veritable mosquitoe graveyard on the wall. I smashed every last one of them with my Let's Go guide. So handy in so many ways. Bug guts don't stick to it. I knew the actual volunteer site would be primitive, but it never occurred to me that the training site would be also. We have long days - 7 AM to 11 PM. When am I going to wash my dirty underwear?
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Today, I was called a "nonwoman". This is in reference to the fact that I don't own a brush, I don't care which direction I'm facing when I use the squat toilet (towards or away from the hump) as long as the necessary stuff gets to where it needs to be, and because I'm "wai xiang", meaning "facing outwards" literally - "outgoing" figuratively. It's funny the expectations Chinese women place on each other. They're like little Martha Stewarts, en masse. One girl in my Arts teaching group wanted to introduce fashion to the class, where we encourage the kids to "look neat", encourage the boys to cut their hair (or at least comb it), and the girls to not wear clashing colors. The teachers who've had Western exposure veto'ed the idea with the argument that you can't impose your own visions of beauty onto other people. Besides, I secretly like the wild look that some kids have. The little girl with the neat plaits was never my type. Maybe because my own hair was never neat as a kid, and my part was never straight and I always wished the grown-ups could like me despite it. One can't help what their hair chooses to do.
It's hard not to feel a little hurt by assertions that I'm not a girl - even if the remark was made innocently with lack of cultural understanding. At least now I understand more of the culture my mother comes from and can stop taking things so personally. It's odd, because I'm well aware of the fact that I'm not at all masculine and that people can tell right off that I'm a girl, and I'd like to think that I'm secure in my femininity. I think it comes down to attitude more than anything else. My roommate mentioned that she thought Rachel - the other American girl here (blonde, curvy, nose-ring), is also "not very like a woman", but the quieter American girl is (soft-spoken, no earrings at all). It's funny how things like being different from the other kids at camp can still be a little weird even at the age of 25. The Chinese are generally very blunt in their criticisms, and American culture tends to sugarcoat things. I guess not meeting expectations - whether they're parental ones, cultural ones, or your own - is a little tough no matter where you are. I'm not really willing to change a lot of the things that make me "unwomanly" in China's eyes, and most of me thinks that I'm quite alright on my own. But it'd just be nice once in a while to have some reinforcement that it's okay.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
1.5 rolls of toilet paper later, I've somehow gotten used to the mass group showers with other little Chinese girls, sleeping on wooden planks, and the ever pervasive smell of feces - thanks to the pig farm next door. What I haven't gotten used to are the intermittent sharp pains in my belly, or the man hands I've grown due to handwashing my clothes. I can see little communities forming when the girls bring their clothes out to wash. I too, squat with them (because there really is no other way to get the laundry done), soak my clothes, and chat up the woman next to me.
New Buffalo has been in my head on and off for the past few days. I woke up to "It'll be alright" playing in my head this morning, and had "Inside" going all evening. Of course - customary to my usual practices, I play the song that's in my head on my ipod. So NB's been getting a lot of playtime.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - The Peaches of Death.
It's been a rough morning. This is day #3 of tummy troubles. How did I make it through a full month of travelling in China and eating street food, but not be able to hack if here at training camp for teachers? Admittedly, it's been a little more than I bargained for. Between the red armbands (wore on the left arm) and the morning exercises in which we're criticized for the angle of foot outturn and that we run like sheep set loose, I wonder if I mistakenly signed up for the Red Guard. The funny thing is that no one here complains. The Chinese just aren't complainers. I don't know if it's the influence of Eastern religions or the result of decades of Communism.
I woke up this morning to singing in the room. The girls were singing Chinese songs while getting ready for our invigorating 7 AM morning exercises. I spent the morning exercise time invigorating my bowels in the bathroom, and then being reprimanded for missing the exercises.
Gender roles are much more prominent here than they are in the States. They've been surprisingly enjoyable. The boys here don't grumble about being nice to girls. They always offer their seat, or at the least get up to retrieve another chair for you. And they have no trouble standing guard outside the bathroom whiel you shower on the boy's side because the girl's side is full. And I didn't even have to put out for any of this. They never sneak into the girl's courtyard to catch a glimpse of our knickers on the line, but instead wait by the gate and ask a girl going in if they can see if so-and-so is around. It's sort of nice being respected. These gentlemen. And they always listen to what I have to say, consider it, and respond. And no flippant responses either. Though I have some issues with the sanitation system here (and the sanitary practices of the people), I'm beginning to have some grudging admiration for the social structure. Am I turning to the dark side? It's funny to see the boys when a girl talks to them. A silly smile broadens on their face and they look a little fatuous.
About the lack of self expresssion here. When I first found the training site after being yelled at by the cabbie and getting lost twice, I registered/signed in and was given a red scarf. We were to wear them on our left arms. I took it and absent-mindedly tied it onto my belt loop. There were frantic shakes of the head from the girls and they firmly tied it on my left arm. I've since stopped wearing it (though it's required). Not because I'm a rebel of any sort or because I'm trying to prove a point, but simply because I lost it about 2 days into training. It's buried somewhere in my bed. Everyone's bed is neat and made every morning except mine. They funny thing is - everyone else never fails to wear their armband. And it doesn't even occur to them to wear it anywhere else but the left arm. No one tied it onto their bags, or around their hair. Can you really say that self expression here is suppressed if no one wants to really wear it anywhere else? When I asked about it, they looked at me in surprise. "Why would I care about something small like where to wear a scarf? This is small beans." I could hear the undertones - I'm here to teach. Not to be a fashion statement. That put me in my place. In the States, self expression is tied to image and fashion. In China, self expression is tied to other things - but definitely not image. You can tell they don't give a crap about image based on some of the huge fashion no-no's I've seen on the subway. Old fat men wearing wifebeaters, jeans, and a belt with the playboy logo on it. If you ask them what that symbol is, they look surprised and say "a rabbit." If you ask why they're wearing a rabbit, they shrug and say "I needed a belt and this was cheap." Or simply, "I liked the rabbit." Tablecloths at restaurants have Mickey Mouse print on it or other cartoon characters because that's what's on sale at the store. People wear gay pride shirts not because they're gay, but because the colors are bright. And even if you told them the implications of a gay pride shirt, they'd probably shrug and wear it anyways. Why waste a good shirt? Fashion and appearance just aren't on their list of priorities. So why wear it anywhere else but your left arm? It causes trouble - and they just don't care enough about it to bother bucking authority on it.
Okay, it's time to get off the can.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
I smell like a Boy Scout. Off Deep Woods Unscented. Ironically enough, it smells pretty damn fresh and good. There's been a dearth of free time here, and what little free time is given, I tend to use on doing laundry and frantic trips to the communal bathroom. It's driven me to play hooky so I can have some time to myself in the room I share with 8 other girls. They're participating in some structured social time right now. It makes me feel strangely Smeagol-like. Everyone here gets such joy out of group activities, and I sneak off to be by myself while they do ice breakers and get to know each other. Being a Westerner, I guess I'm used to a certain allotted amount of personal time. What does it say about us as a society when we recharge ourselves by isolation in our own rooms as opposed to being in a group? I was talking to my friend Paddy about this since he's spent a year as a Chinese international student in the UK. He says that it was odd for him to come back to Chinese living, but that people here don't get much personal space - so they don't miss it. They share everything - showers, bathrooms, dorm rooms, meals. There's no walls here. He says the pro side of Western personal space is that it promotes individuality. The con side is that it emphasizes "me" in front of "society". So the typical Westerner thinks first about what is best for him/her whereas the average rural Chinese thinks about what is best for society since his/her entire life is spent sharing space with the society. How Communist. But I suppose it explains the lack of complaint culture here and the proliferation of our American litigious society.
I've inhaled more bug spray than I can care to think about right now. I fear it's only a matter of time before I become the poster child for the correlation between DEET and lung cancer. The good news is that my stomach has recovered. The bad news is that I still haven't accustomed myself to voiding my bowels as a group activity.
Friday, July 21, 2006
I've come to the conclusion that I never would've made it in a Communist country. Largely because I don't like sharing. As someone who needs a large amount of alone time, even by U.S. standards, I would've undoubtedly been shot and killed as a maverick. Part of me can't believe I gave up a portion of my vacation to listen to more lectures, but this time in another language besides medical terminology that I still can't understand. Hours upon hours of lectures. This morning's exercises were particularly militant. 1-2-1. 1-2-1. Arms swing! We sang the same songs that I still don't know the words to because I can't read Chinese. What I do love are how open the boys are. We learned some dancing today. Whereas American boys would've stood there embarassed and refused to partake, the Chinese boys tried their best and even asked serious questions about how to perform the steps correctly. I loved it. It really makes a difference in the morning when you can giggle your way through it. The best is that I have it all on tape so when I'm feeling down in med school - I can play it to myself and smile. They all try so enthusiastically and are concentrating so hard, it's completely adorable.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
I dispatch to my rural village site tomorrow morning, along with Diana - another ABC who I absolutely love, and J.Y. - a Chinese guy working in Canada for one of their newspapers. J.Y. has developed this look of long-suffering every time I speak to him. Diana and I can't help but cling to him like limp puppets because our Chinese isn't super great. I can deliver a lesson in Health Ed pretty well because I can prepare it before hand and look up all the words in the dictionary, but we have a harder time when students ask questions or have discussion points that we don't understand. He has to translate for both of us on a pseudo-regular basis. I bet he's wondering how he got stuck with both the "wai guo ren" (the foreigners). However, he wears the look of long-suffering too familiarly. I strongly suspect a bossy older sister, a past full of angry girlfriends, or a frequently angry mother.
Based on all reports, we'll have to sleep at the school while we're there. On bed pads placed on top of the kids' desks. I'm not sure where we'll shower or eat. The school has a small run down theatre though, so we're planning to put on a festival-type of thing, with an art gallery full of the arts and crafts projects and performances put on by the kids. The Health Ed group wrote a "Brush your teeth" song and I choreographed a tooth-brushing dance to go with it. I'm excited to meet the kids and teach them to do it. Kids love dancing, and they look so adorable when they do it. The parents in the audience usually love it even more. I spent 58 RMB on a set of speakers for my ipod just so I can play some background music while they work on their art projects.
Being in Beijing for the night is like heaven compared to the training site. I've gorged myself on the internet, eaten a Big Mac, had 2 popsicles, and fully intend on getting a foot massage. And, as I pulled down my pants to lower myself onto a Western toilet this afternoon, all I could think of was - Ah, this is such luxury.
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