万圣节在武汉 = Halloween in Wuhan :)

     While it obviously doesn't have the same deep meaning and joy of Chr*stmas or E@ster, I've always loved Halloween. The costumes, the treats, the childlike excitment of savoring the wind in your hair on a chilly night as you get an unexplicably "spooky" feeling. Like most American holidays, Halloween here in Wuhan, China is recognized a tad, but mostly in passing. We tried to change that this year :) Our Halloween party didn't happen until Saturday, but there's so many fun pics, I hope you can enjoy them throughout my tales of this week:

Yup, I was a witch. Hanging out here with face paint that continued to wear off throughout the night, and my dear pal Nicole, who pulled off the pirate look quite convincingly, I think!

Monday, October 24, 2011—I woke up this morning with a start, realizing I had NO idea where I stashed my notebook for teaching...which contains all the info I have about classes, and so early on, I NEED it!!! Freaking out, I eventually found it...under a pile of stuff in my room. I really need to finish moving in :p Most of my teaching today was just observing while Sinnina gave the lessons, but I taught the "Small 1" class, which was loud and annoying...cuz no Chinese teacher stayed to help me control the masses. Ugh. I spent the afternoon in the school office Skyping with the fam, working on the blog, chatting on QQ, and watching a bit of T.V. Back at home, we had a small group (about 5 people) for B*ble study, but it went well. Most of our discussion revolved around the will of G*d, and it definitely got complicated, especially when people raised tough questions about destiny, G*d's hidden purpose for our lives, etc. Thankfully, though, we answered questions to the best of our ability, with HIS help, and closed the night remembering that even while we can't always understand everything G*d says and does, we can always trust him. A great reminder :) 

With Jane, Sophia, and Andrea. Yup, she's a pumpkin!

Tuesday—“Chinese is very easy to learn.” I'm usually a pretty mild-mannered person (I think?), but sometimes when my boss says things like that to me, looking at my life completely through her point of view, it's hard for me to just let it roll off my back. But I'll keep on trying :) This morning, while greeting students, I told our principal that I liked her scarf and that it was beautiful. In Chinese, you know...because Chinese is very easy to learn *eye roll* Anyway, it was sweet...she gave it to me! I wore it outside, and then set it in her office on her desk. She came into my office a few minutes later and said, no, I wasn't supposed to return it, it was her gift to me. Aww! I enjoyed an awesome Skype chat with my sister Stefanie in the afternoon, even though for some reason my webcam only works upside-down, currently :p Joy, a teacher here with excellent English, had fun talking to her a little bit. In the afternoon, I realized that my students are getting much more comfortable giving me hugs, dancing, and laughing together, which is a nice feeling! After school I visited Andrea's apartment (where I lived last year for awhile), picked up some street food from Mom and Pop's, our go-to place nearby, and got a nice greeting from the guy who works there...hadn't seen him in months. Unfortunately, our conversations still don't advance beyond me ordering my food :D Exhausted, and a bit crabby after dealing with the awful traffic that hits simultaneously with my bus ride home, I thanked Andrea for the glass of wine she gave me, and we had a laidback night together. I was further cheered up when I got home and discovered a package Kelsey had retrieved from my family...filled with stuff that was too heavy to fit into my suitcase, and a couple extra goodies. Thanks Mom and Dad...love you guys!!!

Witch and Lumberjack (Brian), with matching crazy eyes :D

Wendesday—After an uneventful day of teaching, I met Andrea to go buy train tickets for our upcoming trip to Hangzhou. Unfortunately, after checking out ticket prices online, we decided it was too pricey, with me not having gotten paid yet, and her saving up for an Ipad ;) We had a fun afternoon...I came along to her Chinese classes provided by her school, and the teacher even complimented my Chinese, saying it's good enough that I can use it in my kindergarten classes. It was definitely a sweet thing to hear...though when I do use it in my classes, it usually just leads to laughter from the students, haha. We had Subway for lunch (they opened a Subway about two minutes from her apartment...nice!) and embarked on a search for Halloween costumes!!! China doesn't do much in the way of Halloween, but there's enough interest in Western holidays, that there were a couple costume shops between our houses...the stand that we ended up patronizing sold mainly hats, masks, simple accessories. But, they DID have a precious pumpkin costume for Andrea, and a witch hat, enough for me to determine I'd make that costume my special project :) We hung out at my place watching a movie, and discussing how excited we were for the partay on Saturday!!! 

Our lovely group of Japanese anime characters, doctors, witches, a servant, basketball player, and goblins! 

Thursday—It's annoying and amusing...lots of the time when I leave school, there's a 5-minute walk straight to my bus stop...and I can see the bus pulling up in the distance...I can feel the impending disappointment if I were to miss it...and I RUN. Sprinting down the street past curious spectators. By the time I get there, I'm usually panting, but proud! Sometimes the driver just grunts stiffly, other times he'll laugh at me :D Today I questioned whether I should have run or not, when the bus I made it onto kept stalling, and the driver nearly hit about ten different things...well, okay, that part of being here isn't too uncommon, but his driving was definitely worse than the average in Wuhan. But eventually I had to laugh to myself as we stopped, and another guy switched places with the driver. At first I was a bit alarmed, until it clicked: the two guys sitting in the nearest seats were training the new (and unseasoned) driver. It was pretty funny watching them give tips throughout the rest of the ride, to the new and nervous man. But, if I had the choice, I'd prefer not to have a bus ride like that again ;) Andrea and I had a nice sit-down lunch at a minority-style restaurant close to her place...really neat and clean, and nicely decorated, different than most Chinese restaurants here. A good discovery! The five of us Hankou people had a short group devo together, and then Kelsey and I joined Andrea and Aaron for their school's free tai chi class. It wasn't too vigorous...mostly a lot of hand movements and changes in position, but still, a good cultural thing to at least try once. Afterwards, I took the light rail to METRO, a wonderful bulk store that sells a lot of Western stuff, and picked up face paint and a wig to add to my costume :D Oh, and I also brought a small broom...it turned out to be a definite waste of money, and really annoying to have sticking out of my backpack on the trip home, but oh well! The night ended with Kelsey and I bonding over some cookie-baking and a movie.

Laetitia (old school pirate), Sylvia (cute girl wearing a mask), and I.

Friday—Today, as my alarm rang at 6:28 a.m., I realized that I wake up every morning with a Chinese-style "aye-ah!" How cultured I've become :D Almost as cultured as my boss, who declared to me, “Oh, my spoken English is... very good.” This after she proudly delivered two complete sentences to me in English. Now, don't get me wrong...her English is certainly superior to my Chinese, by a long shot. And I don't look down on anyone for speaking or not speaking a certain language. But again, I just don't know how to respond to people who go around praising themselves *sigh* Another frustration this week had been preparing for an upcoming "Parent's Day," where moms, dads, aunts, uncles, and grandparents come watch a lesson. The idea of it is great, but practicing the "lesson" six times a week (once back-to-back), making it "perfect," boring the kids and driving me up the wall...not a fan :p It was cool spending more time with that class though...they're the oldest group of students (6 years old, I think), and it's been fun seeing them go more out of their way to say hey and smile at me, getting to know their individual cute personalities, etc. I had to bite my tongue a LOT as Sinnina bossed me around with preparations today, but the lesson/performance ended up going well. Parents complimented my teaching afterwards, which was nice...I was actually a bit nervous, since there were close to 100 people watching! I had a nice chat with Yulia, a Russian lady afterwards. She married a Chinese man, and their child, Nick, is one of my students. Yulia has good English, wonderful Chinese, and is a sweet lady...I always enjoy our talks, since we understand each other more than anyone else I know here at this school :) We exchanged phone numbers and promised to get together for dinner in the future.

After rushing yet again to catch the bus, I made what was intended to be a "quick" stop at Carrefour, a supermarket close to my place, for earphones. Here is the saga:


1. I search around aimlessly for awhile, finally pulling out my old and broken pair of earphones, and pointing to them, asking store workers where I could find some.


2. I locate the earphones, pick out the ones I desire, and rip them off the rack (it's locked so that no one can shoplift, but I didn't feel like dealing with the hassle of finding someone to help...little did I know...)


3. I knew that I'd need to purchase the earphones on the 2nd floor, where I currently was, and not on the first store, where you buy food. So I searched, eventually found a cashier, and waited in line.


4. Ten minutes after waiting in line, I got to the front. My other items were just fine, but an "error" light and sound went off when the cashier tried to scan the earphones. I feel like in America, if this would happen, someone would be paged to help with the problem. But nope, with my limited Chinese, I told her just to give me the receipt for all the other items...I wouldn't buy the headphones.


5. I went back to the headphones area, selected a different pair, and returned to the cashier.


6. After waiting in line again, the same thing happened. Once again, the cashier couldn't check them out and made no attempt to get anyone to help the obviously confused foreigner.


7. I know it's a small thing, but I fought back tears of frustration as I returned yet again, to the earphone section, and approached a worker there. Thanks to HIM, the guy spoke some English, and came with me to the cashier. She was characteristically unhelpful, and he directed me to a register at a different part of the store. The worker there was much more friendly, but she was unable to open the protective packaging around the earphones, and apologetically sent me on my way.


8. Frustrated beyond belief (it had been a good half hour of miscommunication by this point), I returned to the helpful English speaker, tried to explain the situation, and thanked G*d as he came along with me, helped the cashier open the package, and walked away.


9. I stopped him, asking him to wait a minute, expecting the same error with the cash register as previously. Sure enough...I think he finally understood the problem at that point. 


10. I waited as my savior ran across the store, retrieved something for the cashier to scan, and helped me FINALLY buy that stinking pair of earphones. 


Oh my goodness...sometimes it's the little things that can lead to culture shock. After barely keeping myself from crying with embarrassment and confusion, I headed home, picked up some food, and intended to lock myself in the apartment for the night! That's basically what I did, but first I had a nice reunion with "Jack," a handsome worker at a fruit stand nearby my apartment. His English is minimal, but he's very friendly...between his English and my Chinese, we had an a highly intelligent conversation about America and China, food, beer, and singing ;) Still, a nice change of pace compared to my previous frustrating activity, and I got his QQ number! Yay! The rest of the night was spent vegging, cleaning, and preparing for our Halloween party!

Kelsey (the roomie) as a sailor :)

Saturday-- I slept in luxuriously late today, cleaned the place, and texted friends reminding them of the party, figuring out where and when to meet everyone. It definitely led to a confusing hour before the get-together, having friends arrive way early, or late, directing them to my house or to the KTV location. I'd purchased some long green fingernails to add to my costume, but they made it impossible to send multiple texts, so sadly they had to go :p  I'm embarrassed to admit that in the confusion of everyone calling and texting before our party, that when one friend called me, I could not for the life of me remember who he was...or connect a face with the name my phone gave me. Haha. However, once I saw him there, it clicked. And much more embarrassing that than confession, was my 15-minute walk to KTV. If you're a non-Asian here in Wuhan, people will stare, sometimes point, sometimes shout "Hello," and sometimes continue to stare even after you've made eye contact. But that is absolutely NOTHING compared to the stares you will get if you're a foreigner wearing green face paint, tons of eye makeup, a wig and witch hat. People stopped in their tracks, whispering about me, standing inches away from my face in confusion :) It was definitely a bit humiliating, but also a funny memory. The party itself was an absolute blast...we had a group of about 40 people together in a huge room, Chinese friends and Americans, old friends and new. Lots of the group rocked costumes, but some people found the concept too overwhelming and just had fun laughing at everyone else's. There were screams and laughter when I walked into our room of friends :D The next three hours consisted of dancing, singing, working my way around the room to try talking to everyone, eating, and lots of picture-taking! A couple of my friends who came were pretty new to anything Western-style, but they texted the next day saying they had a great time, but wanted to improve their dance skills before future parties :) In the midst of all the craziness and fun, I also had a more serious talk with one of my friends, who recently broke up with his fiance. You never know when HE will give you the chance to comfort a friend, and for what purpose HE brings different individuals into your life. After sweating off most of my face paint, singing my heart out, and socializing, a smaller group of us loitered outside, kicking around a poor abused stuffed animal, and saying no to offers of going out to the club. Ch*rch in the morning, after all! Andrea, Shirly, and I did have an awesome "after-party," consisting of sitting on the steps outside the KTV entrance in our costumes, drinking one can of beer each, and delighting passerby when we agreed to take our pictures with them :) 

Gavin sent me a hilarious text earlier in the week about wanting to wear "pumpkins" to  the party. Sadly, however, he showed up in normal clothes. Good thing I didn't mind sharing my hat!

Sunday—Andrea and I woke up, exhausted, and headed to ch*rch. I was very touched, as she requested a pr*yer for my Uncle Ron and cousins, a month after Aunt Julie went to he@ven. I think about you guys all the time...and there are lots of people pr*ying for you in China <3 Afterwards, Andrea, Peter, Darin, Andy and myself took a couple taxis to the Hubei Provincial Museum. On our taxi ride, Peter, Darin, and I discovered that we all have younger siblings at WLC. Woot woot!!! We met Laetitia, and her friend Liz there, to see a Baroque art exhibit. It was quite good, and I actually saw some Italian paintings that I recognized from art history class (don't ask me to remember their names though :D). The coolest part of the day was getting to talk with Liz about the B*ble. Laetitia's old schoolmate, she traveled to the U.S. for college, married another Chinese guy there, and is just here in Wuhan visiting. Her English is nearly flawless, and as we viewed several paintings based on B*ble stories, she asked questions. She only knows a little about the B*ble and has attended ch*rch just a couple times. But she eagerly listened to my descriptions of paintings and stories, saying "Tell me more," and asking good questions. My favorite discussion revolved around a painting of the Prodigal Son...HE wants all people to turn to HIM and be saved. HE welcomes everyone! Getting to share that message is such a joy ><>

Laetitia, Darin, Andrea, myself, Peter, Lizzy, and Andy outside the Hubei Provincial Museum.

After the museum, the seven of us headed to 汉 街 (Han Street), a newly-opened walking street, complete with lots of nice stores, European-style buildings, and CLEANLINESS :) We ate lunch at "Show Coffee," a restaurant serving Western-ish steaks (my lunch) and french fries, and also frog and octopus! Exhausted from the previous night, Andrea and I headed back to her place for a movie and nap. We got dinner at a sit-down place...beef and lotus and delicious spicy clams...sooo good! 

"Enjoying," to various degrees, some sugary fruit kabobs we bought on the street. The strawberry ones were unavailable, but they are far superior to this variety...which contained glazed cherry tomatoes.

Thus ends my week. In closing, I'd like to leave you with two texts involving the Halloween party, that I've left on my phone for weeks, because they make me chuckle each time I see them.


From Britney: "I will be a gohst! And catch you! (I wrote back that I was going to be something with magical powers...then she wrote...) Wow! Are you Harry? You can chang me to a pumpkin car, so I will take you to my house, and you will be my little pet! hoho"


From Gavin: "Haha, I am just wondering what to wear to your party since I don't have pumpkins."(Gavin's English is really wonderful, and I just did NOT know what to make of this text. I read it, fell over laughing, read it again, fell over laughing, and to this day, I have no idea what he meant by it).


:D