grossed out to the extreme

ok i know that i could write about any number of things like the monthly tests or how i fell asleep in class today watching 'chicken run' or my upcoming trip to hong kong.

i'm going to talk about Christmas presents, because I love Christmas presents and this year I've received a ridiculous amount of them. And it isn't even Christmas yet.

It started out with Mike, who brought me --literally-- a suitcase full of presents.

So that set the bar pretty high. I'm still opening those gifts, one day at a time. It's pretty amazing.

Next came my students, who have been giving me interesting gifts. I've received some classic gifts, like chocolate. Today I got some really nice gifts, including a green sweater (!!) and a green scarf. By far the nicest gift I've received from a student was from one of my history students, who is really good at drawing. Last week, she asked me what my favorite animal, to which I responded, "cat." Yesterday, she handed me my Christmas present, this beautifully drawn face of a cat on a piece of 4 by 6 cardstock. It's really incredible, and obvious that she put a lot of time into it. I want to get a frame for it.

But then there are the weird presents. The set of "antibacterial" flatware that have weird painted handles. The Christmas-themed picture frame that you can only use for like 2 weeks a year. I don't want to sound like I'm not grateful, but come on, I saw this picture frame that Shannon got and it's just hideous. Why?

Then there are the secret santa gifts. I had two secret santas this year because we did one huge gift exchange with the whole foreign teaching staff, and then we also did a smaller one of just our close friends. We exchanged gifts with the close friends last night, and Jonathan gave me a gift certificate to get a massage and some tea and a little teapot. So cute.

Here's where things get weird. I got home today and found what I presume to be my other secret santa gift sitting outside my door. At first glance, I was excited. A blanket! I had mentioned to several people how much I wanted another blanket for my bed. Then I brought it inside and realized that it wasn't just any new blanket. In fact, it wasn't a new blanket at all. Someone just gave me their old, dirty blanket, along with their old, weird fake fur matress pad thing.

Ok, I get that some people don't want to spend money, and I also get that I said I wanted a blanket. But I'm pretty sure I know who gave it to me because he was sitting at the same table at lunch today and was talking about regifting his fake fur mattress pad thing that someone gave him last year. GROSS. On what planet is it ok to give someone a used, dirty blanket and mattress pad as a gift? The cap for spending was 150 rmb, or about $20. I'm not saying they had to buy me anything. Making stuff is nice, or even something small (a pack of gum? a bowl of chao mein? that's only 6 rmb!) would be better than a dirty old blanket.

disgusting

seriously shady shopping

My weekend was really nice. Friday night i managed to have my first greek salad since I've been in China, and although the feta cheese was rather salty, it wasn't half bad. Better than no greek salad at all.

Saturday was spent in bed with a headache and on the phone (webcam) for the better part of the day. I got to talk to Rebecca for a few hours for the first time in 4 months. How weird is that. Saturday night we went to a lovely Christmas party thrown by one of our collegues at his new apartment (off campus), ate a lot of delicious home-made sushi and soup and chicken, enjoyed the beautiful (but chilly) view from the balcony, and had some egg nog. Who doesn't love a good Christmas party?

But Sunday is where it got really interesting. I knew I needed to go shopping for Christmas presents for a few people, and decided to brave the fake market in Pudong. This huge market, where they sell fake designer things, used to be on this side of the river, in the French Concession. However, as real estate prices are skyrocketing in Shanghai, the government decided that the property was far too valuable to house the fake market, and in June of this year, the market closed. It moved to a large area (and i mean huge) inside the metro stop for the Science and Technology museum in Pudong.

So I got up on Sunday, bundled up (the weather has, finally, turned colder. On Sunday it was in the 30s, and today I finally noticed that the leaves have fallen off of the trees), and headed to the metro. I don't even know how long it took to get to the market, but it seemed to take forever. I guess I'm not really used to riding the metro, because cabs are so cheap here. But I obviously wasn't going to take a $12 cab ride by myself to Pudong, so I spent 5 kuai (like...65 cents) to ride the metro there. If you know me, you know how much I love going to Chinatown in New York City every time I'm there just to look at/purchase some fake bags. Well, this was like that, but multiplied by a million. Everywhere I looked, there were fake coach, prada, gucci, louis vuitton, longchamps, chloe, kate spade, etc bags. Fake North Face jackets. Fake Tiffany jewelry. I'd seen the fake tiffany stuff in New York before, but here they even sell it to you with the turqouise leather pouch. I was, obviously, in heaven.

So I shopped around for a while, purchased some things, and walked into this one stall. A salesgirl came up to me and asked me if I wanted to see the Prada and Gucci things in the back. The fact that I didn't have anywhere to be, coupled with my adoration for Prada bags, made me accept her offer. I'd done this before in NYC, but when I did it there I had several friends with me. Here I was, all alone all the way in Pudong, watching this woman open a false door that looked to the unsuspecting eye like a bookshelf full of purses. She pushed the false door open, and assured me "Just me, no one else, no worry." Well, I hadn't been worried before, but I certainly became worried when she kept repeating to me 'be careful' and 'just me' as we zig-zagged through a makeshift hallway. I had to climb over a lot of stuff, and we finally turned a corner and saw what was at the end: a ladder. What?

She was already climbing up the ladder, telling me 'it's ok, just me, be careful' and reaching her hands down to help me climb up the ladder. I'm sorry, what? I just wanted to see some good fake Prada purses and now somehow this woman has me climbing up a wooden ladder, struggling not to drop my bags full of presents. When I got to the top, I saw what we had come for: a room in this weird attic that was maybe the size of our family room at home, probably a little smaller. There were purses everywhere. Coach, Louis Vuitton (yuck), Prada, Gucci, Fendi, Chanel...it was nuts. And they weren't the crappy ones that they had downstairs, either. These were GOOD. I perused the room for a while, asking the salesgirl to help me find a small black purse. Her definition of 'small' was definitely not the same as mine, but whatever. She kept trying to get me to buy a million different purses for my 'mama' "Because it's merry christmas. very nice for mama. it's merry christmas!" I was like "yeah but i'm not going home for Christmas!"

Finally she picked out a black prada bag that was remarkably similar to the red one that i was wearing (purchased in NYC for $18 in february of 2005, yes i know it's weird that I can remember that). She told me 'red one very dirty, this one very nice. very good for shopping.' And honestly, she was right. He haggled over a price for that and a wallet, she told me several times how beautiful I am, what a nice bag it was, and I told her the truth...by that point i didn't have much money with me. So I'm sure I still overpaid, but when I took the new black Prada out today to transfer my stufff, I opened it up and inspected it. Not only is there another Prada tag thing on the inside, but even the lining says "Prada" on it. And, it's a practical bag. For $12, not a bad purchase.

Climbing down the ladder was harder than climbing up...it was hard to say goodbye to all those beautiful purses, but I was looking forward to leaving shady-central.

Sometimes I get myself into the weirdest situations.

quote of the day

"Miss Stephanie, you look a lot worse with your glasses on."
Jack, age 12, the second student of the day to tell me this.

link to the video!

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but it was all Mike's. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxR8MV-Mzhs

i was the question master. what.

I decided that the fact that the internet isn’t working isn’t a valid reason for not writing in my blog. So, this is what I wrote on Microsoft word last night after eating chao mien in my bed and watching the Borat movie, which cost me less than a dollar.

Things here have been pretty interesting since I last updated. My weekend was moderately uneventful. And by moderately uneventful, I mean really nice. Shannon’s parents took Dania and me out for dinner on Friday night, and Saturday I went out to brunch with Jonathan and Dania and went shopping. My goal was to buy Christmas presents…and I ended up buying presents…for myself. I got this awesome hat that I’m going to start wearing because I happen to think I am a hat person. I also bought this beautiful fake prada bag, and a fake north face jacket. The fake North Face was about $25. Awesome.

I spent the rest of my weekend working on my law school applications (8 of 10 are submitted!! Woohoo!!) and talking to Mike via my webcam. So far I have applied to Michigan, Chicago-Kent, University of Southern California, UCLA, University of Texas at Austin, Georgetown, George Washington, and American University. The other two are George Mason and Northwestern. And seriously, webcams are so awesome cause it makes you feel so much more connected than just using the phone. It’s too bad that the best times to talk to me I’m always wearing my pajamas. Although judging from the fact that apparently pajamas (not just pajama pants, FULL pajama outfits) are appropriate for everyday outside wear in China, talking to me while I’m wearing my flannel pajamas should be no big deal.

The most interesting thing to happen this week was by far an English speaking competition at East China University of Science and Technology. That’s the same university that invited me to give my speech on a cappella. They invited me back to be a judge at their English speaking competition on Tuesday night, and I accepted. Actually, it turned out that when I was picked up by Professor Yan, she told me that I was going to be the "question master," which meant that I was going to have to listen to their speeches one by one and come up with some random question that I wanted to ask them based on their speech for the question and answer part. Well, I certainly didn’t expect that and had no idea what I was doing, so I got a little nervous. Yan also told me that I was going to have to give some comments at the end of the competition, while they were compiling the final scores.

So, we got to the room (the same one that I gave my speech in) and I got to listen to the two hosts practice their lines. Then, still nervous, I went up to the circle that the 5 judges were standing in, speaking in Chinese. Professor Yan was there, as was another teacher that I had met when I was there before. So I asked them if they could give me examples of certain types of questions to ask, and one by one they all said something to me in beautiful, flawless English. I don’t know why I was so surprised; they are English professors at a university known for its English department. And yet, I was surprised. To that point, I had only heard them speak in Chinese. They were all really nice and helpful. It sort of made me miss college.

So, we sat down in our seats, and luckily I was sitting next to Professor Yan. There were a total of 16 contestants who all had to give a prepared speech (3 minutes), speak impromptu on a given topic for 2 minutes, and then answer whatever question I threw at them. The topic for the prepared speech was something along the lines of “usage of proper honor and shame in civilized societies.” How Chinese.

The competition went well, and I felt like I was getting an interesting peek into Chinese culture by watching these speeches made by university students. Many of them talked about a book that I hadn’t heard of (but have a feeling I should have? Maybe I’m just ignorant) called the Eight honors and eight….something else. One of the students talked about how simply promoting patriotism would cure all the problems regarding people not using proper honor or shame. Another talked about strong socialist ideals. Professor Yan, when introducing me to one of the other professors, made a point to tell me that he was the party secretary representative something for the school. People might talk about China not being a "communist" country because of the free market economy, but when I was sitting in that room, listening to university students quote the president of China over and over and discuss the Beijing Olympics, it definitely did not feel like America. And…as for my questions, I had to ask Yan almost every time if my question was ok, and if she thought it wasn’t, she’d come up with a better one for me.

The contestants were ok (some better than others). There were actually a couple of people that seemed to have very strong American accents and very lovely voices. The only problem was that I couldn’t understand a single word they were saying…and they were speaking in English! When I was asked to give comments at the end, I mentioned that, as well as my own little tricks for public speaking (the more nervous you are, the bigger your smile should be).

And, what do you know. It’s 9:15, I’m laying in bed, and could easily fall asleep right now.


.....................

Um, that's exactly what i did. I fell asleep at 9:15 and woke up at 11 and the internet still wasn't working.

But, now that i think about it, yesterday was cute and sort of fun too. In my music class, I decided to spend the month of december singing Christmas carols. Yesterday was the culmination-- we went caroling to various classrooms and offices in the Primary school building. The kids loved it-- they were so excited to go sing for the other students, even though the other students were mostly confused. "Teacha, why they sing for us?"

We came up to my office and sang for the teachers that were sitting in here, and Ge Ding recorded it on his digital camera. So, now i have it on my computer-- my music class singing "We Three Kings" off key. I wish I could email it but the file is a minute and a half long.

I posted pictures on my kodakgallery site from Mike's visit. www.kodakgallery.com login stephanie.fajuri@gmail.com and password is stephanie. Enjoy!

oh, no, it's the "china you'

As I sit here at my desk, listening to Sufjan Stevens' new Christmas album (it is amazing. Go out and buy it. I'm in love) and watching my Christmas lights flash above me, I'm inspired to write yet another blog entry.

One of the reasons I want to post is to mention the fact that I am curently wearing black knee socks that have a gray and purple argyle pattern on them. With a skirt. Weird, I know. I'll get back to that.

Chinese lessons are coming along alright. I went to the free on-campus class last week for the first time, and thought itw as ridiculously hard. Our teacher (one of our bosses in the Foreign Affairs Office) wants to focus on learning the characters. I personally think that learning the characters won't be particularly helpful if I can't even pronounce words written in pinyin. Reading Chinese written in pinyin (with the roman alphabet) isn't like reading English, even if it uses the same letters. Even though I "know" the tones, it's still really hard to say correctly. We'll see if the class improves...I just felt so lost when she started talking about the different strokes for writing the characters. Let's be honest, I need to talk to cab drivers and buy things and eat in restaurants. I might need to talk to some other people, but am I ever going to be writing things in Chinese? I think not.

So yesterday Shannon, Dania, and I had our Chinese lesson with our tutor, Emily. Emily then invited us to have dinner in her and Alex's apartment, which ended up being really fun. I didn't actually do anything to help, but we watched her make scrambled eggs with tomatoes, dumplings, and chicken fried rice. Ooh, thinking about it right now is making me hungry. We had a really nice meal and it was so nice to have a home-cooked dinner. I feel like anything I "cook" here doesn't really constitute as "home-cooked" because I don't make anything besides pb & j sandwiches, dumplings, pasta, or ramen. It's just such a hassle, and if it only costs 6 rmb (um, like 80 cents) to go out and get chao mian (noodles with vegetables and meat in a spicy sauce) then it's hardly worth the trouble to cook. I'm looking forward to coming home and having a real kitchen (not a midget kitchen) with an oven and real cookware and a big fridge and more than 2 plates.

So, when we went out to the supermarket with Emily, we stopped at a random vendor on the street who was selling socks. Not just regular socks, although there was a pack of socks that were obviously mass-produced at some crappy factory that said 'polo' on them. We were interested in the really tall socks that had interesting designs on them. So...I ended up buying two pair, and today I wore them with a skirt. I was talking to Shannon, and I was like 'yeah, it's so weird that I'm wearing them, they're so not 'me.'' to which she responded, "oh, no, it's the "china you."" It's funny, but true. There are things that I wear here that I wouldn't necessarily wear at home. Or things that I buy here that are just ridiculous. If you looked at my dvd collection, you'd be embarrassed for me (although, for the record, many of the dvds i'm buying are to show to my students in my music class). I have no excuse for buying "Take the Lead," starring Antonio Banderas as a ballroom dance instructor who teaches troubled inner-city teens how to dance. No excuse, except that it's China and it was less than a dollar.

You'd wear weird socks and buy horrible movies if you lived here too. I know it.

i still have 10 minutes

I realized that I'm giving my students time to work on their propaganda projects in history class this afternoon, so I don't have to pretend to prepare for class at all.

I like teaching history. I think I prefer teaching English, because it's really hard to explain World War I and World War II to 6th graders in a way that they will understand, especially considering the fact that they've never really studied history before. There are so many important points to bring up that they know nothing about...

...such as in class now. We're talking about the Russian Revolution, and needless to say, the topic of communism is a touchy subject in China. I feel pretty uncomfortable discussing it in class because my students keep asking what my opinion is. The last thing I need is for them to go home and tell their parents what I say about whether communism is good or bad...so I try to avoid the opinion part altogether. I tell them that there are good things and bad things about everything.

Anyway, I'm introducing them to Bolshevism and explaining how the Bolsheviks wanted things to be equal (aka...no rich people and no poor people, just working people). However, my students' parents pay $10,000 a year for them to attend this school, which means that they are by no means badly off. I would go so far as to say that many of my students are probably rich. So, because of their background, they keep raising their hands in class to talk about how the Bolsheviks were doing something very UNFAIR, that the poor people didn't deserve more food or more money or to live in a nicer house because if they just worked harder, they'd be rich too. I got this a lot. "They just need to work harder. A lot of poor people are just lazy."

So...during my last class, I had to go into a lengthy explanation of what "social mobility" is, and how even though we have it now (for the most part), in 1917 in Russia, social mobility didn't really exist. People were either born rich or born poor and for the most part it stayed that way. There weren't a lot of peasants striking it rich with a brilliant idea, like my students said could happen. I also had to explain that the fact that so many rich people were simply born rich was why the Bolsheviks resented the aristocracy and didn't think they deserved to be rich any more than the poor people deserved to be poor.

Now...this is stuff that we discussed in my college classes. The material seems rather elevated for a 6th grade history class. And yes, "social mobility" wasn't in the textbook, but I felt it was important to explain in order for them to gain a better understanding of the situation.

Time for class.

i need to just update a little every day

i had planned out this post i was going to make about the table i bought at Trust Mart on Friday. However, I have some free time in the office right now and I haven't uploaded the pictures yet, so here's a tid-bit to tide you over.

I have lots of pictures on my computer. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Definitely over a thousand. I love pictures.

So a few weeks ago, Shannon and Hayley were in my room looking at hotels for our Christmas trip to Hong Kong. Somehow I ended up showing them family photos from freshman year of high school onward, and they thought they were awesome/hilarious. I was sort of embarrassed because I was...less cute....then than I am now. And for some strange reason, I apparently wasn't a big fan of smiling in photos. But, Shannon told Dania the pictures were funny, so a little while ago in the office, I showed Dania some of the family photos, too.

However, I quickly noticed that the cleaning lady (who is so cute and so nice) was standing behind me, also looking at the pictures. I thought it was cute, but a little strange. Then the woman that works downstairs and has all the keys to the classrooms came up to our office and the cleaning lady invited her to come look at the pictures, too. So now I was showing old, embarrassing photos of me from high school to Dania and these two Chinese women that I can't communicate with, who started making comments on every photo to each other. I have no idea what they were talking about, but when there were pictures of me and Rocky (my adorable orange cat), the comments became more fast-paced and excited. There was a horrible picture of me wearing a giant fleece sweatshirt that makes me look at least 200 lbs, and they said something about kafei (coffee). I made another comment about a picture of me and my mama, and they caught that I said 'mama' and made comments about her that i didn't understand.

So...now the cleaning lady and the other woman have seen more pictures (and worse ones) than probably most of my close friends have. Even though we can't communicate much beyond "ni hao" and "xie xie," it's sort of weird....I feel a little bit closer to them. They're so nice.

This weekend I got a massage and was incredibly productive, working on my law school applications. I'm hoping to be done with my applications this week! Then I will have more time to waste (aka write in my blog).

Oh, and by the way. When Mike was here, he brought me a little christmas present to open every day of december leading up to Christmas. Like an advent calendar, only a million times better. If you want a Christmas present from China, send me your address. I can't guarantee that it will get to you on time, but I will do my best to send you something.

time to pretend to prepare for class!