boo to the Kindle Fire/Blogger (ps, I'm in Laos)

Naturally, right after I get back into the groove of blogging regularly, I leave for a two week holiday and don't post ANYTHING for a really long time. This is my first holiday here that I haven't brought my laptop on, and while I feel a bit naked, it's been really liberating (and good for my shoulder to boot). I was planning on blogging a bit from my Kindle Fire, but the interface with Blogger doesn't let me add content into a new post for some reason. So boo to that.


In other news, my holiday so far has been phenomenal and completely reinforcing the fact that I cannot go back to live in the States (sorry mom). I met a friend from Songyuan on June 25th, and my plan was to travel with her for about six days, and then meet up with a friend of mine from the States that's on holiday here as well and bounce around with him for another week or so. I started in Siem Reap, Cambodia where my friend from Songyuan and I actually met up with my friend from the States there too.


We spent three days in Siem Reap, two days in Battambang, three days in Phnom Pehn where my Songyuan friend departed and yesterday we crossed into Laos to head to 4,000 Islands. In Battambang we picked up a lone, stray traveler who was actually teaching English in South Korea, and she just left us this morning as well. And then there were two.


I came on this trip with absolutely zero plans or even vague ideas of things I wanted to see. My friend from Songyuan was meeting me coming off a month of traveling southeast Asia with her boyfriend and his mother, so I had no idea what she was going to be up for. My friend from the States is actually an ex and is traveling here for about two months with a pretty specific itinerary and set list of things he wants to do, so I figured I was set. I didn't even have a ticket back to China until a few days ago.


It feels like I've been traveling for so much longer than I actually have, and I've had so many amazing experiences in the past 10 days. When I get home and back to my laptop I'll have tons to post and some ridiculous pictures to share as well.


Even just  living in China, at some point almost every day I look around me and think, "This is my life," and am constantly struck by how happy I am and how coming over here was the best decision I have ever made. On this trip, that feeling is almost constant.

school drama

See below for an updated teacher roster for my school and their various drama...

We have three Filipino teachers at my school that I've recently given the rundown on. The two that are a couple have been a bit stressed lately about getting enough teaching hours. I don't understand that, because I don't get paid by the hour, but as I mentioned, their deal is a bit different than the other foreigners because they're not quite looked at the same way. They never really hung out with the rest of us much, but they've distanced themselves even more lately because (I'm assuming) they feel their livelihoods are threatened by us.

We have one other teacher that's been around forever as well, the French Canadian woman I've mentioned before. She's kind of a loner, as she has really good Chinese, has been here for many years and is a bit older. Something's been upsetting her about our school recently, but she won't talk about it, so who knows what that's about.

Aside from her, we have another Canadian. He's a university student and only here for the summer. He belongs to the non-partier group of foreigners and doesn't really come out too much unless there are sports involved. He falls into the visa drama category, as he was with my hypothetical friend in the group that went to Hong Kong and not a single one walked away with a visa.

The third member of that group was a British woman. She signed a year long contract with the school, but told the owner from the start she was probably only going to stay six months. She kind of screwed herself there, because if she'd only signed a six month contract she could have had flight money built into it, but to break a year long contract she'd be forfeiting her flight money. Not that it ultimately mattered.

The failed Hong Kong trip and associated faked medical form were the final straw for her. She was just done with the school, the last minute changing of classes, disregard for teacher's time, etc. She took all of her accumulated holidays in the beginning of June, got her May pay and just up and left, forfeiting her pay for any work she did in June. She didn't tell the school she was leaving until she was at the train station. It's kind of awesome that someone sent that message to the school, you treat us like crap and we won't take it. The school is kind of covering up her leaving, they didn't really tell anyone, they have just been saying she's sick.

Awkward = me trying to pretend I didn't know she was leaving ahead of time! All the foreigners in town knew, except for the Filipinos and the French Canadian. Most of us kind of view it as an "us vs them" relationship with our school(s) and it's hard to judge which side those four belong on.

Then we have two Americans, one is a big partier and the other is a non partier. Neither of them hang around too much. The partier has offended a lot of the other foreigners and has the personality of someone that did waaaaaay too many drugs at some point. He's a nice enough guy though. The non partier is naturally kind of a loner I think; there's also something slightly different about his personality. He's got a little bit of Chinese also, which usually make people more inclined to be loners.

Outside of them, we have the Jamaican teacher I also recently talked about.

And finally we have/had the three teachers that were from the agency in Changchun. There was an American Libyan crazy party guy had a lot of drama recently. He got fired by our owner, then the VP talked him into coming back, then he had some family drama so he left for a bit to clear his head, then he came back and then a week later he and the school owner mutually decided he was leaving us.

The second was an older Kiwi guy. He was really easy going, but was getting fed up for a while with bs to do with the school. His final straw was when the school caretaker was at a high school to pick up him and another foreign teacher, but just got the other teacher and didn't wait for him because the caretaker had to drive other teachers somewhere after that. The caretaker was literally at the high school the Kiwi was at and decided not to wait two minutes for him because he had to drive other people. So he quit. And then about two weeks later the VP talked him into coming back (she really is the buffer between us and the school owner!). He got back and then maybe two days later they fired him (reasons unknown, I don't understand why they asked him back in the first place).

The third from the agency was a young American guy that was just weird. Everyone thought so, Chinese and foreign alike. Our school owner never liked him, so I don't even know why he got hired in the first place. Before he even arrive the owner told the British girl that this guy was stupid and he told me once that he had a special talent of putting people to sleep.

So, between everything going on with the people above, and then my hypothetical friend's whole visa situation as well, there really has been a lot of drama!

red, white & tan (& racist)

Chinese always exclaim to me that my skin is so red and ask me if I have been in the sun too long or am allergic to something. This is just my normal skin color (lol) and it's not exceptionally red, just maybe when compared to theirs.

We're kind of opposites in what we think is appealing and looks good in terms of skin color. Chinese always want to be more white. It's actually really hard to find any skin care products here that don't say "whitening" or "bleaching" on them. They carry parasols on sunny days to avoid getting tan. When I explain to them that Americans like being tan, that I like being in the sun and that we have such places as tanning salons they just get confused.

There are a couple of non white foreigners in town as well, and the Chinese's reactions to them are a little nuts. One of my students actually told me once that he was afraid to meet a black person because they might shoot him. WTF.

There are two Americans, one with Libyan heritage and one with Mexican heritage, that the Chinese call black. They tend to be a little wary of both guys before they get to know them, strictly based on their skin color.

And then we have a new foreigner from Jamaica. Clearly, she is fully black. Being from Jamaica, where of course most people are black, she has never experienced racism before and I feel terrible for her. She's having a bit of a tough time of it. People stare at us enough as foreigners, but being black on top of it, especially in a small town, makes it so much more intense for her. Children are sometimes afraid of her.

I tutor a student that I would call very open minded and western thinking that actually told me that she doesn't like my friend just because she's black. She also told me that my friend seems too sensitive about her skin color, even though she doesn't like her because of her skin color (make sense of that one!). She has had class with my friend and found her to be a nice enough person.

My poor friend is also having some issues with her work visa because of her skin color. Our school's owner is telling her that the government has denied her work visa because English is not her native language (it is). All of her documents (passport, degree, resume, etc.) are in English. He told her that unofficially, they're denying her just because she's black.

I asked a friend in Xiamen if that could be true or if she'd have better luck in a bigger city. My friend in Xiamen used to handle all of the visa paperwork for her school's foreigners, so she's a good resource for questions about stuff like that. She basically told me that my Jamaican friend is just SOL. And here we thought parts of the States were bad.

awesome invention: mosquito patches

Everywhere is China has mosquitos, blah, and they all love me. Different parts of the country have different kinds. Xiamen seems to have the most of anywhere I've been so far, and they are also the most vicious. I looked like I had leprosy on my legs when I was there, and the bites are still visible and that trip was like a month ago!

I've heard that eating certain foods is supposed to keep them away (raw garlic, vinegar or bananas), but none of these have worked for me. What does work is these awesome patches they have here that you put on your clothes. They smell like citronella, but the scent is pretty light and not bad or over powering. Now why have I not seen these in the States? I need to send my parents a Chinese care package, haha.

pee feet

The topic of toilets comes up a lot here, squatters versus western style. When the group of American high schools was here the other week, I was trying to explain to them why I prefer squatters. I'm a hoverer in America anyway, so squatting is completely natural for me. Granted I have good balance and good knees; I think being fat, pregnant or old might change my opinion a bit, but squatters are fine in high heels too.

The only problem with squatters is the splashing. No matter what, your pee is going to splash everywhere, it's inevitable, no matter how slowly you pee. Some squatters have splash guards on the front, but the doesn't protect the sides from splashing. When I first got here, I was kind of thinking I might not wear sandals in summer, but I hate shoes so I do. I've just accepted the fact that my feet will pretty much always have a little bit of pee on them. Fun fact of the day!

eating Lassie (& Thumper)

I finally did it, I ate dog for lunch yesterday.

One of my adult students has been talking about going to try it for a while now, so yesterday he took me to lunch with a friend of his and we did it. We tried dog literally prepared eleven different ways (or eleven different parts). It definitely has a distinct flavor and it's not especially good. I had a fortune teller tell me I will grow to love eating dog (completely random, I know) and an American friend told me to just wait, I'll crave it, but I don't see myself ordering it again.

This is ALL dog. The plate on the left is dog skin. The other two smaller plates are shredded dog meat in some kind of marinate, that one is the clear favorite for everyone.

This is a platter of dog necks, no joke. And I ate one. Eek!

Also, at the beer fest the other day, we tried rabbit, bbq style. The whole rabbit. Luckily they cut it up for us. But they were nice enough to give us the head (how sweet, right?). My opinion of rabbit was about the same, I probably won't ever go out of my way to eat it again.

random pix: more random food

Does anyone know what this fruit is? It's furry, almost like a peach.

I'm just shaking my fist that this, damn KFC...

Not sure what the food is, this was on the corner at a hot pot restaurant, but that's a bat in there.