Xinshao

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Haven't been doing much since we came home from HK. Chillin' mostly and being shocked at Christmas being 10 days away. Students keep asking what i'm doing for Christmas and i'm sure none of you care. But for the sake of writing something let me tell you what i'm doing. Nothing. I only have 1 day holiday (Christmas Day) and that isn't enough time to umm......do anything at all.... the Headmaster told the FAO's to treat us as part of their families, so he's paying for a huge meal for us. The FAO's have also expressed interest in throwing a party w/ all the students. I have no idea how that could ever pan out, but I wish them luck. Still no word on when Spring Festival starts for us. The FAO's have speculated sometime around January 6th, but since the students will have exams before the break, we will get off a week early. So probably sometime around the 1st which would be cool so we'll see.

Last Tuesday the teachers held a huge Tug of War competition between all the teachers. I heard a big announcement over the speakers and heard students cheering and tons of kids leaving. So I went to my class and all the kids were sitting there waiting for class to begin as tons of other classes were going home. So I ask what's going on and they say some classes can go home because their class teachers have a meeting. They had no idea where their class teacher was, and I wanted to see the competition dangit! So I was like whatever and let them go. The funny thing about it is.....they wouldn't leave. I kept telling them to go away, no one else is having class, so we won't either and they were convinced it was a trick. It took about 15 minutes of convincing that I was serious before they started to leave. So I race down to the playground and the vice headmaster finds me and wants me to participate. So i'm like sweet! So I chill there watching the teachers compete with my students, having fun, and they still haven't put me on a team. FINALLY the final match came in and they found me and my roommate and put us on opposing teams. My students were right there to take pictures of me and cheer me on. It was so much fun. Who won? Of course my team. I'm like the incredible Hulk and coupled with us having Frankenstein on our team we wtfpwnt some people. Actually it was a really good competition. It was decided because some of the women teachers fell down on the other side which allowed us to win. We had a good stalemate going there for awhile. It was tons of fun. Then the Headmaster took a bunch of pictures with us and it was over. The next day they gave us the pictures which is great. Unfortunately they've never heard of digital cameras so I don't know what i'm going to do with hard copies of photos. I didn't know people still had those.

Today was a great day. Annie, a girl that we meet from Shaoyang University called us and invited to take us to her home town, so we set off early. We met her at Bubugao (The mall) and took a taxi to Xinshao county. I don't have the name of the village we went to as she blurted out a really long Chinese name so I ignored it. I just know we were in Xinshao county which is the poorest county in Shaoyang district. The taxi ride was an hour long which I don't know why the driver agreed to that, but we got there and the place was really nice. Her village was much cleaner than Shaoyang, granted it was much poorer and there was NOTHING to do there really, but it was really nice nonetheless. We first went to a school where she introduced us to her old Headmaster when she was in school. He was a really nice guy. ........Now that I think about it.......I didn't take any pictures of the school and I really should have. The school was very small but it was a really nice setup. Under 1,000 kids, there was a classroom building, a dorm building, and a cafeteria building. That's it. Now I hate myself for not thinking about taking pictures.

Anyway, the buildings were set up as a perfect square, the last side was stage area for announcements and meetings and stuff. So we were smack in the middle, which were basketball courts, and the kids were in class. A couple kids came out to use the WC when they spotted us which is when a really amusing situation arose. The kid went upstairs to his classroom and just burst through the door in a hurry. We all knew he was just like "OMG FOREIGNERS ARE OUTSIDE!" So when the bell rang all we heard was THAT class screaming and the doors flew open and kids just exploded out the classroom onto the balcony to see us with jaws dropped and giggles everywhere. These kids have never seen a foreigner. How many really go to this village in the boonies? Unfortunately, all but one girl was way too shy to come talk to us. They are so shy to use their limited English on actual native speakers of the language, and it's really a shame because we would have had a lot of fun talking to them.

So we left and had dinner after that. Which by the way, chalk up another crazy food i've eaten on my crazy food list: Fox Stomach. It's really weird tasting. Like a kind of sea food. I don't know, I couldn't describe what it tastes like....maybe like a edible rubber. But the texture was so bizarre. It was really spikey, and tentacley. It was like a ring with four tentacle things which were covered in robbery spikes. It was so weird. The headmaster was the nicest guy and although the food wasn't the best......heck it wasn't even really good at all.....he kept filling our bowls with this nasty food. It was fun. And upon leaving I guess some farmers shot and killed a baby deer and they just hauled it into the restaurant and threw it on the floor in the middle of the place, so it was just lying there dead.....spilling blood everywhere while they discussed a adequate price for it. Always something interesting going on in China.

So we meet up with Annie's friend, who turned out to be this really cute girl named San Bao. That's not her real name, but that's the name I like better. San Bao means "Third Baby." Ok ok if you really need it explained yes, she is the third child in her family. We went to this cave which was in a mountain. Annie for some awesome reason decided it was a good day to wear her heel boots. So we're mountain climbing and she's wearing heels. Pretty smart. No one was hurt, and it was really fun. The cave goes all the way through the mountain but it was so dark in there that we couldn't do it since apparently there were random holes everywhere that are like miles deep. I wanted to chance it, but they would have beat me up had I tried.

Annie's mother died last year due to cancer, so we visited her mothers memorial which is actually really nice. She has this really nice size memorial area all to herself and was dug out of the mountain so she is basically overlooking the village. Annie paid her respects and it was time to go home. We had to leave early because the buses stop leaving the village at 4:30pm and if we missed the bus we would have to stay the night there. Which we had places to stay if that were the case....Annie's crazy grandma's house, San Bao's house, the school, and probably any random person that we asked.

So this was the part which was the most fun. Partly a fondness between San Bao and I arose which made it all the more fun for me. She's pretty much just like me, cept a girl, and Chinese. So we spent the whole time messing around and basically making fun of each other and Annie. She gave me the nickname of Ha Bao because we were making fun of her name. Ha Bao is basically a Chinese play on words, she was essentially calling me Ha Xing Bao which would mean Stupid Baby haha. We gave Annie the name of Zhu Bao which means "Pig Baby." Pigs are really loved in China because they are "Cute and funny" so a lot of people insult each other by calling them pigs. Well, it's an insult because pigs are lazy and fat. It's fun to call people a pig just to hear them whine about it. ^_^ I also learned today that girls who have "special feelings" about someone call them Ha Xing. So I guess that's good news because seriously a TON of people call me Ha Xing. Who knows though if that was just a lie.

So anyway it great very apparent that San Bao has a liking towards me, she always stayed with me and was all over me. Not like making out all over me but ya know. Chinese girls all over me. I don't know mang it's difficult to explain! My roommate was the first to say something about it, then Zhu Bao started in. It was really cute. Anyway San Bao is 22 and her birthday is October 15th. One day after you Bob (Although I don't know if you read this drivel.) She speaks FIVE FREAKING LANGUAGES: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shaoyang Hua, Changsha Hua, and English. I'm jealous. Anyway she lives in Changsha and works as a singer in a coffee shop or something. Her English actually isn't all that good, but I have a uncanny ability to know what people are saying which amazingly worked really well when we were sitting off to the side making fun of Zhu Bao. So she's trying to get a job in Shaoyang so that'll be cool if that works out. I spent the whole day with the girl c'mon! You know I talked to her about all kinds of stuff. Also, she's rich. Like her parents are big time farmers, like really successful farmers and her brother is a doctor and I can't remember what her sister does.

Anyway, we almost missed all the buses. It was like 3pm and we were standing there waiting. The first bus we missed b/c we were walking and was like "Meh, another will come." The next bus we missed because a car stopped that happened to be one of Annie's co-workers and she was going to try to get 6 people to fit in this tiny car and as she was doing this, the bus drove by. And so we were standing there for like an hour and a half. LUCKILY there was one last bus which we caught. It would have been cool to make the phone call to my school "Oh hey, yeah i'm stuck in some farmer village over an hour away and can't get home, so i'm gonna miss my classes tomorrow." Honestly, they wouldn't even care. This week I missed two classes because my FAO decided to take us to the police station to get a new residence permit. Apparently it couldn't be done at any other time. They are really lax about that kind of stuff. I mean, I have seen teachers miss their classes because they want to go to the post office. Although it would have been fun to miss the bus and stay the night there.

So that's what I did today. Tomorrow hopefully we'll meet up with the other foreign teacher that's in the area that we haven't met before. He's been trying to meet with us and we've just been lazy. So tomorrow maybe it'll happen. I'll try to update one last time before Spring Festival! So until then!

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Photos

Xinshao!
Xinshao County. I'll try to update with the name of this village.

Xinshao!
So much farm land.

San Bao's parents' home
The bottom middle. Well, their home was in that building at least.

XINSHAO
There really wasn't much that was photo worthy. Really kicking myself for not taking some of the school.

San Bao and Annie
San Bao - Left, Annie - Right In the cave.

Cave
I took this blind! l337 k4m3r4 skillz boi!

Annie
She has a knack for taking horrible photos. I don't have a single good one of her.

Zhu Bao and San Bao
Annie and San Bao. This picture almost looks fake.

San Bao and me
She just sent me this picture.