All the Tea in China

One of the cool things about teaching in an international school is the exchange of cultures. My school only has a few different cultures represented because the students are all Chinese (the staff are Chinese, American, Canadian, British, Australian and South African), but the school tries to give the staff, especially the international staff opportunities to learn about Chinese culture (see here for the coolest Peking Opera experience). One of those opportunities was given to us last week during our weekly meeting time. The Chinese department organized a traditional Chinese New Year meal (with delicious jiaozi - also called Chinese dumplings, pot stickers or gyoza), a presentation about the history of the Chinese zodiak and for a parent to come and share with us about tea.
Introduced as Dora's dad we had a parent who was really passionate about tea come and share with us about the history of tea, and the types of teas. More importantly, we go to sample the teas (and he gave us both an ornate tea disc and a sample of the tea in the disc so that we don't have to destroy the beautiful disk to sample it). As we sampled each tea he explained how to brew the tea (yes, the different teas had different procedures), and showed us different equipment we could use in different situations for making the tea.  He spoke some English so sometimes he presented in English and sometimes in Chinese. The funny thing was a Chinese member of the social studies department was translating, but when Dora's dad spoke in English he would just automatically repeat it in English. Sometimes, I would translate it faster than he could and he would stick the microphone in my face for me to take over translating, but there were too many words I didn't know for me to take over translating.

This is tea wrapped in painted wrappers. I actually got some interesting shots
Of the tea and the tea "ceremony," but the just won't upload....

It was really cool seeing Dora's dad (sorry that's the only name that was used) present about tea, because his passion was so apparent. When we tried to ask about how much some of the really good teas cost we were told that there was no price, because they weren't teas we could buy. They were from his private collection!

 

According to legend the order of the Chinese zodiac is the result
Of a race. This is an illustration from that story. 

The history of the Chinese zodiac was explained using a YouTube video.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the same video or I would have shared the link here. 

They served lots of yummy foods including three different types of
Chinese dumplings (a traditional Chinese New Year food). 

The quick turnaround

Our route from Beijing to Detroit
- flying time 12 hours 33 minutes

When I lived in China before, one of the most difficult things was missing every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Nowadays I usually only see my family at Christmas anyway so it might not be as bad as before to miss all three holidays (not to mention most birthdays), but thankfully I don't have to. I was really excited when I was applying for jobs to see that even though Christmas isn't really celebrated in China, most International Schools have Christmas off. Originally, my school was supposed to have two weeks off for Christmas. Unfortunately, because we are a new school, construction was not finished on time and we had to push the start of the school year back by two weeks. This resulted in the calendar being altered and Christmas was shortened to only 7 school days off (Thursday the 22nd - Sunday the 1st). Nonetheless, I was able to get good connections (less than 20 hours from Beijing to Greensboro) at a good price (about $750) and so I decided to go to the U.S. for Christmas. I figured this will help me to not get so homesick (and it probably did). I'm glad I went back, but unfortunately, I picked Influenza A somewhere along the way and got sick on Christmas Eve morning.

I only have a toaster oven, but I baked sugar cookies and
took them home for Christmas. They survived my checked
luggage unbroken.

My flight home was quite enjoyable. I was sitting next to a lady from Xian and we had a good time chatting. I also chatted in the Beijing airport with a man from Inner Mongolia (both of these conversations were in Mandarin). One of the flight attendants who covered my section couldn't speak any Chinese and my neighbor couldn't speak hardly any English so I did a lot of translating and rather enjoyed it. Like I said it was a nice flight. I changed planes without incident in Detroit and made it to the Greensboro airport in about 19 hours from the time I departed Beijing - not bad, but exhausting.

Santa's workshop - at Pilot Mountain
Lights

I got to see the Pilot Mountain Christmas Lights. I'm including some of the photos in here. The Pilot Mountain Christmas lights are done by a family that used to live in Florida and moved to North Carolina about 12 years ago. They've been turning their yard into a Christmas display for 50 years (in three different locations) and it is so cool! They have all kinds of music playing, a synchronized Christmas tree, just too much to even begin to describe and it is all free (they do have a donation box), they even give out hot chocolate. Unfortunately, they decided this was going to be their last year. I will greatly miss their display, but I'm so glad I was able to make it (I couldn't go until my last night in NC because I was just too sick).

I texted this picture to a friend of my who lives
in North Pole, AK

After going to the lights I went home and finished packing. I got about 4 hours of sleep before I had to wake up (at 4 am) to drive to the airport for my 7:25 am flight. I crossed the International Dateline somewhere in the flight and since it was December 31st, I missed midnight and suddenly jumped into 2017! I landed in Beijing around 3 pm (having been traveling again for less than 20 hours) on the 1st. Because of my jet lag, I only managed to sleep about 4 hours that night and then went to school to teach.

At Pilot Mountain Lights

I can only show a fraction of the things they had there
(even a lot of the trees have been given faces, but those
don't photograph well in the dark)

Unfortunately, having had the flu (I still had a cough), taking an international trip and then going straight to work ended up being problematic. I taught 3 of my 5 classes that day just fine, but then in the 4th class (7th period), I had some horrible health problems and ended up going next door to get help. One of the guidance counselors covered the rest of that class (actually I think I heard three of them did) while it was decided I needed to go to the hospital. The only other math teacher (yes, I'm a chemistry teacher, but I have been teaching 4 math classes since October) covered my 8th period class. The school driver drove one of my international co-workers (and friend) a woman from the HR department (it was her first day on the job) and I to Oasis International Hospital. We picked this one because it is an international hospital so it has a high level of care and cleanliness (a real issue in Chinese hospitals) as well as an English speaking staff. Unfortunately, January 2nd was a public holiday. Because it was a public holiday the hospital was closed. Yes, closed! The only portion of the hospital open was OB/GYN and pediatrics. Luckily there was another international hospital, Beijing United Family nearby. We did go to Beijing United Family at first because even though it is considered the best hospital in town, it is also the most expensive. At Oasis (and every other hospital except Beijing United Family) my health insurance will cover absolutely everything. At Beijing United Family I have a 20% co-pay.
I saw the doctor and we ran some tests. He determined that what had happened was apparently just the result of having the flu (I had a fever when I arrived at the hospital in addition to the cough) and lack of sleep (I had had less than 10 hours over the previous three days combined). I definitely do not recommend sticking an international flight in the middle of your recovery from the flu.
I am happy to announce that I have fully recovered and since we celebrate both Christmas and Chinese New Year we have another holiday coming up next week (we only have 3 weeks of classes between Christmas break and Chinese New Year break) and I am going to Thailand and Hong Kong. Stay tuned for further "kapers."

Me!

Of course they have to have Pilot Mountain represented.

Mom!

The reason for the season.

It did snow quite a bit about a week after I left.

Thanksgiving Times Three

One of the things that is rather fun about living overseas is celebrating holidays. I find Thanksgiving to be an especially interesting holiday experienced abroad because while it is a holiday only celebrated by Americans and Canadians (and the Canadians celebrate a month earlier), everyone knows about it and wants to celebrate.  I found it very interesting when I heard that the student council was hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner and so I decided to buy tickets (40 RMB or about $6) and go. The tickets said the menu was turkey, mashed potatoes, salad and a fruit cup. I wasn't sure how good it was going to be because Chinese turkey isn't known to be tasty (Chinese think turkey is tough and not good, but that's because the domestic birds are tough and not good. You can buy turkeys imported from the U.S.), but I figured it would be a fun evening. I ran into some friends in the hallway (the wife of one of my co-workers is quickly becoming a very good friend) and we went to the cafeteria together. The students weren't quite ready and we had to wait a few minutes. When we walked in they had the lights down and hit lit a hundred or more tea lights. They had a collections of greeting cards (with blank insides) that you could select one from (free with your dinner ticket), flowers which you could buy and I think something else (but I just don't remember). The students had arranged the tables in a U-shape with rows of additional tables in rows and the bottom of the U. They had the sound system ready to go and throughout dinner the students performed (singing, playing instruments, etc.). With the candles and the students in uniform it reminded me of Hogwarts (are students uniforms are rather formal with skirts, blouses and sweaters for the girls, slacks, sweater vests, suit jackets, ties, etc for the boys). It felt somewhat magical.
Unfortunately, the magic ended with the appearance. The food was already sitting at each place. It was in plastic take-out containers with chopsticks on top. I laughed an commented how this would be my first time eating Thanksgiving dinner with chopsticks. Inside the food container the turkey was rather pink and from a pig (it was ham and sausage), the mashed potatoes had turned into a weird sushi roll (seaweed wrapper surrounding rices, a few anaemic looking vegetables and egg. The whole thing was then topped with a squirt of mayonnaise). We did have a tiny bit of leafy veggies to serve as the salad, but the fruit cup had become soup. The students said that they had discovered they couldn't afford to buy the turkey and mashed potatoes. (Last year they had turkey and mashed potatoes, but apparently the ticket price was 70 RMB and they felt not enough people came. I'm not sure how they thought they could drop the price and afford to buy turkey) One of my coworkers complained and they did provide fruit cups (procured from the coffee shop located within our cafeteria) that were quite tasty. The students also did a good job with the entertainment. It will definitely be a Thanksgiving I will never forget.
I hosted my own Thanksgiving dinner as well, but since Thursday and Friday were regular work days I had to host it on Saturday. Friday evening I started cooking and I got up Saturday morning and continued to cook. I served mashed potatoes with gravy, home made bread, cornbread stuffing (made from homemade cornbread), apple pie and pumpkin pie (both with homemade crusts and the pumpkin was cooked down from, well a pumpkin), salad, fruit salad, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes with apples and dried cranberries (my favorite way to make them), cranberry sauce (out of a can because you cannot get fresh cranberries in China) and roasted chickens (unfortunately I forgot to take pictures). A couple of things you have to understand about cooking this feast. 1) There are no ovens in China. Actually, if you own your own place it is now possible to buy an oven at IKEA or a few other places. They aren't as big as American ovens, but not terrible. I, however, rent. I cooked everything in a toaster oven or on the stove (I have a two burner stove, but only one burner is working. 2) I could have purchased turkey from the import store, but I didn't have the oven space to cook it. I also could have purchased turkey already cooked from somewhere (I don't know where it is, but I know someone who did buy turkey from there), but it cost about 215 RMB (USD 32) per kilogram (or about $15/lb). I bought already roasted chicken for 16 RMB per kilo (or $2/lb). I think I made the wise choice.
I had 10 guests over and we had a grand time. I didn't have enough chairs for everyone (even with people sitting on the couch), but we made it work. I invited mostly American and Canadian friends because I knew they were the ones that would appreciate it the most. We did have a few other nationalities represented and it was a total blast. I am now thinking about hosting a Christmas party.
With all of that celebrating you would think I would have been Thanksgiving Day'd out, but no. On Sunday my small group had another Thanksgiving dinner. I made a chocolate cream pie for this one (I wanted to make a graham cracker crust, but there aren't any graham crackers here - at least not without paying a fortune at an import store for them - so I used digestive biscuits. I didn't think they turned out nearly as good as a graham cracker crust would have, but the others at least claimed they liked the crust.), and brought some of the sweet potatoes and bread from the day before. This time we had turkey! Third time's the charm (however, the turkey alone cost as much as my entire feast the day before). I did a really good job not overeating on Saturday, but on Sunday I didn't resist the temptations quite so well. Thankfully, after Sunday's feast Thanksgiving was finally over.

Thanksgiving dinner number 1: The first time I've ever eaten Thanksgiving dinner with chopsticks! 

Thanksgiving dinner number 2: I forgot to take a picture of the wonderful spread, but we had two awesome pies: apple and pumpkin.

Thanksgiving dinner number 2 - The aftermath: my refrigerator isn't much bigger than a dorm size fridge. That made it rather difficult to fit all the leftovers in it.

Thanksgiving dinner number 3: We're still setting up. I didn't get a picture, but this one actually had real turkey!

You're calling yesterday...

One of my coworkers got a cake for me and another coworker
with birthdays really close together. The cake came with the
candles, but the last two letters were hidden inside the box.
When we opened it we saw that it said "happy birthdaa"
instead of birthday.

Yesterday was my birthday. Yesterday is also sort of right now. As I type my Facebook feed is filling with birthday wishes. Here, in China, it is about 10:30 in the morning, the day after my birthday. On the East Coast it is 9:30 in the evening the day of my birthday. In Alaska it is only 5:30 in the evening the day of my birthday. According to my dad, I can't even celebrate my birthday until 5:03 pm tonight here in China, because he says that you can't celebrate until the time that you were born and you have to adjust for time zone changes (I tell him that's hogwash). I was born at 11:03 pm in a time zone that most of Alaska is no longer even in (only the aleutians and Hawaii are in that time zone).
My birthday started on a slightly sour note. I woke up and reached for my phone to check my email, the weather and the pollution (yes, I check the pollution levels when I wake up). I pushed the home button on my iPhone and nothing happened. I tried again. The screen stayed dark. I tried pushing the power button. Nothing happened. I checked that there was power coming through the charger, by plugging in another device. I tried charging it using another cable and another plug. Nothing. Now, I'm getting concerned. I have plans that involve meeting up with people. I can send them messages from my iPad, but once I leave the house

Chinese birthday cakes are a little different from back home,
but the friend who procured this one worked really
hard to find something similar to what we would find
at home and it was fantastic!

 (and subsequently my wifi) I cannot reach them. I must admit I was a little surprised by how panicked I was. I not only remember the world before cell phones, but I lived in China (and Germany) before cell phones were ubiquitous and before smart phones existed. I tried to do an online chat with Apple support, but they want my IMEI number which I can't look up because I can't turn on my phone. They give me the option to log in with my Apple ID and I do, but then I'm faced with a second level of verification. They tell me that they have sent a verification code to my trusted devices, but I didn't get it. I google how to get a verification code and learn that I can do it even with a device that is offline. Following directions, I try to get a code, but it won't let me because I apparently have not set it up previously and so it sends a verification code via text message to the phone that of course is not working. I do not have another cell phone that will work with my Chinese nanosim card. I cannot receive a text message, I cannot make a call, but I am growing frustrated. The Apple store will open at 10 and I'm thinking of going there, but then I'm afraid I'll be late for church and without a working phone I won't be able to message anyone. I then realize I can use Skype to call Apple Support. So I call Apple Support in the US from Skype. When the representative answers the phone he asks for my name and then a call back number. I replied, "I'd love to be able to give you a call back number, but I'm calling from Skype because my phone won't work." He understood and we proceeded. As I'm explaining what happened, I realize I don't make a whole lot of sense. He's in the U.S. where it is evening and I'm talking about having just woken up this morning. So, I told him I was in China, but I'm not sure if he didn't catch that part at all or if he just didn't realize the implications of that statement. Thankfully, he successfully helped me do a hard re-start of my phone and it works just fine. At the end of the call he needs a phone number. I tell him its country code 86 and then the rest of the number. He's like, "What was the area code?" I said, "there's no area code, but the country code is 86 because I am in China. My U.S. iTunes account is registered with my Chinese cell phone number." He figured it out and it was all good, but as often happens when I call these customer service places, my unusual situation leads to several questions (and I'm sure a lot of talking about my call after they go home from work - or probably even while they're at work). So after a minute he says, "so you're calling yesterday." I laughed and replied, "Yes and you're talking to tomorrow."

The food was sooo good!

Luckily all that happened quick enough for me to shower and still leave for church nearly on time (altogether the ordeal took about 1.5 hours, but I'm an early riser). That afternoon I had lunch at a 春饼 （chun bing) restaurant with some friends. Chun bing is kind of like the Chinese version of a soft taco and one of my favorite foods. It's not very common in China, but when I lived in Baotou there was a chun bing restaurant just down the street from me, so its something I use to eat a lot, but hadn't had in years. We were really impressed we found the restaurant via a Baidu search (not only is Google blocked in China, but even before it was blocked the most common search engine in China was Baidu) and it turned out to be really awesome. The food was both really good and also quick, the service was good and the place was clean. We plan to go back again.
Then yesterday evening as I was going to bed I started to get Happy birthday messages (in all fairness I had a few friends who are either in non-US time zones our made an effort to send the message on my actual birthday where I was). I went to bed at the end of my birthday with the messages rolling in. I woke up this morning to a bunch or waiting messages (and a couple of adorable videos).
It's very interesting, this isn't my first year living overseas, but it is my first time since the advent of social media. When I lived in Germany I was pretty cut off from things back home. I would talk to my family on the phone once every 2-3 weeks and would get letters from family and friends, but that was pretty much it. My second host family had Internet and my family had CompuServe and so I learned how to send email to them on CompuServe from the Internet (first time I sent an email using @), but otherwise I was cut off. When I lived in China before there was Internet (although the first 1.5 years I only had dial-up), and while I was living in China I think MySpace may have been created, but there wasn't the large social media presence one finds today. I chatted with some friends and family using Instant Messenger and my parents called me most every week, but that was about it. When I would come home in the summers one of my favorite things to do was to watch commercials because that would give me good insight into how a lot of things had changed.
Today, things are very different. I know what's going on in my friends lives via Facebook (the same method I used for a lot of people even when I was in the States), I chat via WeChat with some of my family and friends (including voice calls), which is the same way I chat with most of my friends here in China and I even stream a lot of the same videos. Personally, I'm excited that the 3 am EST release of the Gilmore on Friday. The timing will be perfect for me because that is 4pm on Friday and I get off work at 4 pm.

Observations from abroad on U.S. elections

As I write this it is Wednesday night November 9^th here in China. It has been a very interesting day because with the time difference today was the day that the United States voted. This is only my fourth year living overseas, but it just so happens to be the third U.S. presidential election I have experienced from overseas. Living in a foreign country during a presidential election is a unique experience that I felt warranted a post. This post is going to be on my observations of how people abroad perceive the U.S. elections. It is not about politics. I have never stated my political beliefs online and I do not plan for that to change.

The first presidential election I experienced from overseas was the last one I could not vote in.  In 1996 I was 15 days too young to vote (a number I calculated years before the election, because that’s just the kind of person I’ve always been). However, even as a not quite 18 year-old, I was intrigued by how interested people of other countries were about U.S. elections. My school asked me to speak to the 12th grade class and explain how the elections in the U.S. worked. A lot of people were curious because elections in the United States work very differently than elections in most other places (not only because of things like the electoral college, but also because you are voting for an individual rather than a party). There were a number of people who asked me questions about the election, but

they were simply questions on how the system worked. The media covered the election in what to me at the time felt like great detail (but is nothing in comparison to what happens today), but it really wasn't that big of a deal.

My next experience with living overseas during a presidential election was in 2004. In 2004 I was old enough to vote so it was a more personal experience. I had to plan far in advance and request an absentee ballot to arrive by mail and then mail it back in in plenty of time for it to be received. I remember being excited to cast my first ballot and I had a few Chinese people who asked me about the election. China is not a free country, but I learned that they do have elections of sorts. I was also informed by my friends back then that they had no choice, but to vote and that they were given a list of names that they knew nothing about to chose from. The other interesting (but not surprising) thing about the elections in China is that they are not done by secret ballot. During this election there was some interest and curiosity amongst my Chinese friends and like the 1996 election it was a little surprising at how interested the rest of the world was in the election. I still remember after Bush was re-elected seeing the headlines from the British papers and being surprised at just how much the rest of the world cares about the U.S. elections.

Fast-forward now to 2016. This summer I was in Europe just after Brexit and during the national conventions. The two topics that people wanted to talk about were Brexit and the upcoming U.S. election. I wasn’t as surprised by how interested people were because not only had I already experienced it with two previous elections overseas, but I could see how interested I was in Brexit and how much I wanted to talk about it with the various Britons I met during my travels. However, none of this prepared me for today. 

Yesterday was November 8^th and to me this was the important day because even though we are 13 hours ahead of the east coast, November 8^th in my mind was election day. Yesterday I downloaded the I voted “sticker” that I’ve included on this blog (and tried, but failed at posting it to Facebook). Yesterday, in my mind was the important day. Yesterday, had some questions. I had a couple of co-workers from South Africa who were asking me questions about the election (I refused to give my opinion on who I though would win or who I was voting for). They were especially intrigued about the fact that you could write-in a candidate. I learned from them that apparently (this is hearsay after all) that in Australia you get fined for not voting and in South Africa a non-vote is counted as a vote for (I believe they said) the opposition. It was interesting because this information came after they asked me what would happen if I didn’t vote. I wasn’t sure how to answer the question and was like, “then I don’t vote…” Yesterday, was an interesting, but not all that surprising a day...

 I don't think anything could have prepared me for today. The world has changed a lot since 2004. One of the greatest changes is social media. Because of social media I have a better feel for what is going on back home than I ever had before. Another change is live-streaming. Right before I left China in 2005 I tried to stream my first video ever (it was a movie trailer). The Internet speed was too slow to actually see anything in the video. Today, you can easily watch live updates and stream video commentary (although from China that can still be a touch difficult) and with the time difference lunch time (noon) was right when most of the west coast polls were closing. 

My morning was lived in a state of normalcy. My afternoon was not. I got to school and spent a little longer on breakfast than I had planned to because my Chinese co-workers were asking me questions about the election. One of the questions they asked me was who I voted for. I explained to them that we vote by secret ballot and that oftentimes we don't tell people who we voted for (possibly not even our families). They then told me similar stories to what I had heard in 2004. One of my coworkers told me the only time she had ever voted was in college and the teacher handout the ballot and told the students which name to pick. She told me she was sure that the teacher was just passing on the instructions that had been given to her and that the election had no meaning to her. My other coworkers agreed.

I left breakfast and figured I was done with election talk. I taught my morning Chemistry classes, graded papers for a while and then went to lunch. As I mentioned above, noon was when the west coast polls closed and I quickly realized two things 1) my international co-workers were watching the election results very carefully and 2) they felt a vested interest in the election. Throughout lunch every time a state was projected to be won by either Trump of Hillary you would hear cheers or sighs (I'll let you guess which way the thoughts were going). I got asked quite a few questions about how the electoral college and other related things worked. After I explained several aspects to one co-worker his response was, "now I understand so much more about what I've seen in American television programs."

The most interesting part though was how frustrated my International (read non-Chinese and in this case non-American) co-workers felt. They were frustrated because I think they feel just as strongly as Americans do about the results of the election (they feel that what happens in America greatly effects them, and I think they are probably right), but also feel helpless because they don't have a voice.

On Wednesdays we have staff meetings and the first thing that happened in the staff meeting is one of my Chinese coworkers sat down beside me to show me a Chinese website that was calling Trump the winner (none of the U.S. media had done so yet). Throughout the meeting everyone was watching phones and computers to keep up with the results. While the principal was telling us about report cards and other typical things one of my co-workers informed him Trump had won. My principal is an American and he looked at the guy who said it and replied, "aren't you a Canadian?" (Knowing full well he was). As he said this another Canadian walked in to the room and he turned to her and said, and what update on the U.S. elections do you have for us. I have to admit with so much focus on the election I was glad to go home (not that my whole subway ride wasn't about politics - it was). Thus, being overseas doesn't in anyway limit how much the election is talked about or the strong feelings. I for one am at least glad it is now over. Hopefully, we can unite and end the divisiveness that I've seen of late.

One last side note. I mentioned in 2004, I applied for an absentee ballot that was mailed to me and then I mailed it back. This year, I could receive my ballot by mail and mail it back or I could receive my ballot electronically or by fax. In all three cases you had to complete a voter identity confirmation and have it witnessed by someone over 18 (I witnessed for a friend and had a fellow American colleague witness mine), then if you received it electronically you could mail it back in or return the ballot electronically (if you received it by mail or fax you HAD to mail he ballot back in)

Kristin (barely) makes it home from the China Open

So as I mentioned in my last post, my school is located within the National Tennis Center. Our school building is actually underneath most of the "ground" (it's not really ground because the school is located on the ground and what I'm talking about is actually the roof of the school) around the Lotus Court (The National Tennis Center has three courts. In order of increasing size and importance, they are Moon Court, Lotus Court, and Diamond Court.) Our school building is used once a year for the China Open. This of course, means we are closed during the China Open. It also means we get some free tickets to the tournament. The teachers got two tickets each to Moon Court, but I learned tonight that some people got tickets to the Diamond court (I learned this from a student I ran into in the Diamond Court who got apparently three free tickets from the school - yes, I'm a little jealous).
Since Moon Court is the smallest court I assumed (correctly I might add) that as the tournament progressed fewer and fewer matches would be held in Moon Court. Thus I chose October 5th and 6th for my tickets (I returned from Baotou on October 4th). On Wednesday I had a fantastic day. I arrived at Moon Court during the first set of the first match of the day. I watched three matches, two women's singles matches and one men's doubles match. The men's match was two Chinese players against Carreno Busta and Nadal.  It was an excellent match and I had a fantastic time. I decided not to stay for the final match because I was coming back the next day and I felt a little tennised out. Unfortunately, my trip home was quite a struggle. I live 3.5 miles from the National Tennis Center. There is however, no direct mode of public transportation. To get from my house to school (aka the National Tennis Center) you have to take line 13 and transfer to line 8. This means that you are taking a rather circuitorious route (and is also why I have plans to get a scooter). When I arrived at the subway station yesterday I found a surpise: line 13 was not running. I had to take line 5 down to line 15 and then to line 8 (except I forgot to get off at line 15 and so I went to stops further to line 10 - which is a shorter transfer, so I did the same thing on purpose today). When I went to leave the China Open yesterday, there were a bunch of people who taking line 8 south so I decided to go north. I thought maybe it had been temporary or I figured I could take a bus from Houying or something. Well, when I got to Houying there were some professional signs that I'm guessing were explaining about the closure. I can't read Chinese very well and after reading the name of my stop and line 13, I stopped reading. The signs at the entrance to line 13 in my direction had been removed (they were still there going the opposite direction), there were signs (written only in Chinese) which said do not enter (I can read the important stuff afterall), and there was a woman standing at each entrance. I went up to one of the women and told her where I lived and asked how I should get home. She told me which bus to take and which exit from the station to take to find the bus. I followed her directions and found the bus stop. Then I proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait some more. Quite a crowd gathered, I apparently was not the only one who needed to get my stop. Finally, the correct bus came. We all started heading towards it. Then it turned off the engine, turned off its lights and shut down for the night. To say I was frustrated was nothing. I looked on my Uber app and it would cost a whole lot more to take an Uber from Houying home than it would from school so I decided to go back to the National Tennis Center. Along the way, I debated about whether or not I should just keep going and take the metro all the way home. In the end, I decided to get off and call an uber. Well, that didn't work. When I tried to call an Uber I was told my payment method was invalid. Now, I'm extremely frustrated. I left the tennis center about an hour earlier and I'm right back where I started. It's also well past dinner time and I'm hungry. I pick up some street food and a bottle of water and take the subway home. Two hours after I left the National Tennis Center the first time, I'm home.
On Thursday, I debate back and forth on whether or not to go to the tournament. I take a nap and when I wake up its 2 pm. As I'm looking at the schedule, I see that nothing in Moon Court even started today until 2 pm (rather than 12:30 the day before). Around 3, I'm bored and decide there are still plenty of matches to see. I eat a late lunch and head out. I get there are watch the end of a doubles match. I'm waiting for the next match to start and it starts raining. At first it is just spitting, but it gets a bit heavier and they announce that the match is postponed listen for announcements. I then spend sometime wandering around. I map out where different parts of the school are underneath us. It was actually a really cool thought exercise. Then I heard an announcement playing several times, but only in Chinese. I cannot understand the annoucement (between some specialized words I don't understand and the fact that it is a PA system, I simply cannot understand - something that frustrated me terribly). After I heard the same announcement numerous times, I decided to ask in the information center. The English in the information center isn't very good (the first woman couldn't do much more than greet me), but they were able to tell me that the matches were post poned until at least 7 pm. It was already 6:30, so I figured I would stay around. I wandered the booths (very elaborate booths more like actual buildings rather than what one would think of as a temporary structure) and contemplated buying a ticket to see the matches on the Diamond Court. The Diamond Court has a retractable roof (that was of course closed) and was the only court where matches were still playing. Evening tickets (from 7:30 onward) started at only 200 yuan ($30) and Shuai Zhang who upset Venus Williams in round 1 was playing at 7:30 and Rafel Nadal was playing at 9:00. I decided I had already ventured all that way, I should go ahead and enjoy it. I looked at the seat map on my phone and decided to buy the 400 yuan tickets (The best grandstand ticket you could get. Matter of fact, it was the best single day ticket still available). I went into the upgrade both and asked in English for a class A ticket. I got this panicked look and the two women in front of me started looking around. I then told them in Chinese that I speak Chinese, but I don't know how to say class A (meaning I don't know what term the use because I had read it only in English), but I want to buy a class A ticket. Did she understand class A? They replied that they understood and told me that it was 400 yuan. Then they told me they would give me a 10% discount (I don't know if that was because in order to be there I already had a ground pass which costs 30 yuan or because it was raining or why). I got my ticket and still had some time to kill.
At 7:30 I went into the Diamond Court building. It is nice (both the building at the court). Matter of fact the bathroom even has both toilet paper and soap. I took pictures of both (Strange, I know, but in China bathrooms don't usually have either of these items and the bathrooms for the other courts sure didn't have them).
Shui Zhang upset another person, much to the delight of crowd. I wouldn't be surprised if she wins the tournament. She seems to be on fire. Nadal beat up on Mannarino in the first set winning 6-1. I was starting to think it was going to be a blowout and perhaps a waste of my money, when Mannarino came alive in the second set. The second set ended up going to a tie-breaker. Nadal won the tie-breaker and thus the set (7-6) and the match).
As it was getting later and later I started checking the times on the last trains and getting more and more nervous (the Beijing subway shuts down sometime after 11). I couldn't find any information for line 8, but after a while it became a moot point because I wasn't going to make the last train on line 5 and I didn't want to risk it since my route home involves me getting a lot further away from school. Additionally, at the beginning of the match I reached 20% battery life and realized that after charging my powerbank I forgot to put it back in my purse. I was going to run out of battery if I wasn't careful and have no way to get a car to take me home. I switched the phone to airplane mode until the end of the game. I then switched it back to try to get an Uber to take me home. I had made some changes to my Alipay and so I thought it would work, but it didn't (Alipay is an app linked to my debit card that can be used to pay for things). I can't use my debit card directly in Uber because I do not have a national ID card (Alipay gives me the option of changing it to my passport number, which is the number my account is registered under). I then tried to link my Chinese paypal account to my Uber account. It wouldn't accept it. Now, I'm getting really nervous. It's pouring down rain. It's 11:30 at night. My battery is down to 14% and I don't have any way to get home. There is no way I will be able to hail a taxi the old fashioned way because thousands of people are using apps to call taxis and ride app cars and there simply are not any available taxis. They are literally all pre-booked. I'm praying and trying to figure out what to do. I cannot get my Uber to work. As I'm looking in my Alipay app (the first screen on which is in English, but anytime you move past the first screen it is no longer in English) and I see Didi Taxi. Now I know that Didi Dache (Dache being one way to say taxi in Chinese) is Uber's biggest competitor in China (actually they are merging) and since this is within my working Alipay app I think I can use it to get a car. I click on the icon and of course it now switches to Chinese. Thankfully I can read enough Chinese that I successfully call a car (I can type my address is, but it's a very slow process so I always copy and paste it). Unfortunately, I have 2 problems (or maybe three). 1) There are a lot of people and so even though it is almost midnight  there is a traffic jam on this road 2) the drivers always call and ask where you are and 3) its pouring down rain (I know I've said this one before, but I don't want you to forget it. It adds so much to struggle. Just using a multi-touch touch screen as water keeps getting on it is very difficult). When the driver is about 1 km away he calls me to find out more precisely where I am (I guess the maps in China aren't as accurate at placing you as they are in the states. I've never had this in the US, but it is standard procedure in China). I try telling him, but I don't know very well how to identify where I am. I tell him I'm accross from the Lincuiqiao subway station, but he doesn't seem to like that statement. I also try to tell him I'm just south of Lincuiqiao bridge (qiao actually is bridge in Chinese), but again that doesn't seem to satisfy him. So I tell him, I don't speak Chinese very well, please wait a moment. I go up to a random young couple and in Chinese ask them if they would tell him where I am. The girl takes the phone and spends a long time speaking to the driver explaining where we are. I am growing very nervous as she talks longer and longer because I can just seen the battery dropping further and further (figuratively of course as I can't actually see it). She gets off and tells me the last two numbers on the license plate are 62 (something I already know because it shows the entire plate number in my app) and which direction he's coming from (by the way after I didn't know the Chinese word for license plate, she switched to English. See, there is some English in China. Oh and in my defense she didn't use the word license plate in English so I think she didn't know it either).
After a while the car came (explaining that it took him so long because of the traffic jam), he got me home driving me all the way to the door (he was insistent I told him he could let me out at the gate, but he wanted to take me all the way to the door) and paid him through my alipay app. I have never been so happy to make it home. It was about 1.25 hours after the match ended and the drive home took less than 10 minutes, but boy was I thankful to have made it home!

Kristin Returns Home

Stop. The title doesn't mean what you might think it means. I have not given up and I am not leaving China. What I mean is I returned to my second home, my Chinese home. When I decided I wanted to write this post and give it this title I simply meant that I had returned to Baotou, the city where I first lived (for three years) in China, but while I was in Baotou I discovered that the friend of several of my friends (both American and Chinese friends) actually lives in my old apartment and so I got to visit my old apartment too. Boy was that weird (but also really cool)!

Here comes the train!

Let me back up and start at the beginning. My school in Beijing is located in the National Tennis Center (国家网球中心). By in the National Tennis Center I mean our school building is the building that surrounds the Lotus Court. Usually, this doesn't mean much except that it's a long walk through the National Tennis Center to get to the school building (I need to buy a scooter!) and that the elementary kids actually have recess on the Lotus Court (I've got a post coming soon about the school itself). There are, however, two weeks out of the year when this has a very significant impact and that is the last week in September and the first week in October. During these two weeks, China hosts the China Open, an international tennis tournament that as you can guess is held at the National Tennis Center. Several of our classrooms and offices are taken over by the China Open. Our students use the lockers in the China Open locker rooms as their regular lockers and so, of course, they have to empty them out prior to the China Open. As you may have guessed by now all this means that we cannot hold school and so we get a two-week break! Now all of China has the first week of October off to celebrate Chinese National Day (commemorating the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949). However, having the week before off is awesome because you get the opportunity to travel without the masses (the so-called Golden Week is a crazy time travel-wise). I took the opportunity to travel to Baotou, Inner Mongolia.

Each car has a conductor who after a while collects
all the tickets and exchanges them for a card. She then
wakes you up before your stop (unless it's at the end like
mine was in both directions, then they wake everyone up
about an hour before arrival)

My berth is top left through this window.

I left Beijing after work on Friday, September 24th and took the train overnight to Baotou. When I first arrived in China in 2002 this was a 16-hour train ride. Now you can take it in about 8 (and I heard that a high-speed railway will open next year reducing the travel time to only 4 hours!). I chose to take a slightly longer train ride, 10 hours because this would be more conducive to sleeping. A friend of mine ordered my tickets online for me, reserving me a top berth in the hard sleeper section. I prefer the middle berth, but apparently, none were available. I was able to then go the Beijing Railway Station a bit early and pick up my tickets. This is a big improvement from when I lived in China before when you had to go to the railway station or a ticket office and you could only get tickets one-way (although in Beijing you could get return tickets to Beijing) and you could only get the ticket 6 days in advance (I think it was 12 in Beijing - I'm not positive because I didn't live in Beijing back then). This time, I ordered my tickets about a week before I left (we weren't worried about the trip to Baotou because that was before the holiday, but needed to order the ticket for my return because that fell within the holiday week).

The view down the train car.

The train was not quite as nice as it used to be (you might be thinking this is a product of memory, but I know at least to a degree it is not because there used to be carpets in the aisles that they would roll up at the end of the trip and those weren't there), but the prices I think actually went down (not sure of this, though) while people's earnings have gone up. Thus, the hard sleeper tickets that were once the realm of the middle class are probably now the realm of the lower middle class (the bottom in China is still incredibly poor). I also noticed people didn't seem as interested in talking to me (usually, but not always, in the past when people discovered I spoke Chinese they wanted to talk to me). However, I also spent a higher percentage of my time on my berth because of the shorter trip duration.
In Baotou, I got to spend a lot of time hanging out with friends. I was able to work around my friends' work schedules to spend almost all of my time (over the course of 10 days) with various friends. I visited my foreign friends (and made some new ones), my former co-workers (and one former student who now works at the university) and my former students (my first year in Baotou I worked with the Iron and Steel Company's training center and my students were all adults, many of whom became good friends). I stayed in a hotel two nights and with friends the rest of the nights and I had a great time. I'm going to let the pictures (and their captions) do the rest of the talking. Enjoy!

I went to Saihatala park with one Chinese friend
and four American friends (who are also blondes).
We attracted a TON of attention.

I decided to take pictures of the people
taking pictures of us.

They were not the least bit covert in their
picture taking.

I had deluded myself into thinking this
didn't happen as much because it doesn't
usually, happen in Beijing but in Baotou the
foreigner is still the fish in a fishbowl.

Baotou is known as the city of deer. However, this park and a statue
in the middle of a traffic circle are the only places where one can find
any deer in Baotou.

You thought the picture taking was over, but you were
wrong...

This is a really cool market street near the university where I used to teach. The market wasn't there back when I taught there...

Meat on a stick, anyone?

On Saturday, October 1 I went hiking with a group of my friends.
We went to Ma'An Mountain (马鞍山), but because it was
National Day it was unbelievably crowded! I'm glad we went in the
morning because as we left the crowds were a LOT larger
and there was a HUGE line of cars trying to get into the
park.

Just when you thought you'd reached the top you turned the corner and saw that there was more!

I got asked (at least they asked) for SO many pictures! This was a group
of middle schoolers who talked a lot about asking me, but for the longest time
didn't ask. I told them (in Chinese) that they had to ask me (one of the people
with me tried to tell me they wanted to take a picture, but I insisted they had to ask
me personally). I didn't mean they had to ask me in English, but after I said that they all
worked on figuring out how to ask me in English. When one of them got it right, I took a
photo with all of them.

I ran into a woman I had known 11 years ago (the on
the left. The one on the right jumped into the photo.
After this photo, she wanted one of just the two of us,
however, it wasn't until that point that she realized this
was my camera)

Behind me is a screen made of water. They are
showing a Monsters Inc movie on that screen
(in English). When I lived in Baotou they would
show videos on this water screen, but it was usually
just pictures of Inner Mongolia with music.
Occasionally it included cartoons, but never
a full-length film (and never in English).

It's kind of hard to see because of the lights behind us,
but this is my former university student and her mother.

This donut shop belongs to a friend of mine. Unlike Beijing, Baotou
doesn't have Dunkin' Donuts, but these donuts have a pretty
authentic taste.

I couldn't resist a picture of this dog. I thought its
grooming was unique, to say the least.

Here comes my train back to Beijing!