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Published: December 17th 2013
Calligraphy Museum
We have experienced some gorgeous blue skies this winter! Why the title? We saw that in great big letters on a sign. I don’t think the Chinese quite understand what Hamlet was trying to say…
Also, there are lots of extra pictures on this blog; we have seen lots of really cool things and I couldn't just choose a few!
Quiz time! Here are 10 things seen in China throughout the holiday season. Can you guess which are normal and which are “festive”?
1. People lining the walls of every big mall in the city
2. Skinny mannequins dressed as Santa Claus
3. Street cleaners playing “Jingle Bells” a little out of key
4. Babies freezing their bums off due to the fact that their pants have a hole in the bum
5. Christmas trees decorated in a very…Chinese way
6. Traffic jams caused by complete disregard for the law
7. Paper Santa faces everywhere
8. Girls dressed in a jacket with only tights as pants
9. Red signs with characters on buildings
10.Trees decked out in lights
Now, lets see how you did!
1. People lining the walls… this is very normal. Chinese people LOVE
to shop, no matter what day of the week.
2. Skinny Santa mannequins. Festive, of course! I about died the first time I saw a skinny Santa. To make it better, it’s a Chinese mannequin so it’s much skinnier than an American mannequin…
3. Singing street cleaners. This is very normal. Every day in class we hear them cleaning the street, echoing through the city. Now that it’s Christmas time I can pretend they are playing Jingle Bells on purpose. Once we reach Valentine’s Day I might not be as excited.
4. Baby bums. Also very normal. Makes learning to squat fast and easy. Although, they aren’t always freezing their bums off so you could possibly consider it festive.
5. Chinese Christmas trees. Festive! They are creative in their decorating. They aren’t always sure how to use tinsel, but I’m sure someday they will learn.
6. Traffic. Normal. Too normal. So terrible. Worse than New York and Seattle and California.
7. Paper Santas. Creepy, but festive.
8. Really cold girls wearing only tights and a long(ish) jacket. Normal.
9. Red signs. Normal. Have I ever mentioned that red is every Chinese person’s
Museum
Colors! favorite color? Seriously. I have yet to meet someone who can prove me wrong.
10.Trees decked out in lights? Normal. I do love this, though! The Chinese are very good at decorating with bright flashy lights. It makes their parks come to life at night.
Sorry our blogs haven’t been weekly the past couple months. Things get really busy in November and December no matter what part of the world you are in!
The last blog Jarek filled you in on everything up to my 21
st birthday. Party! Now I will fill in what happened next.
Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving night our branch went out to eat at the Sheraton hotel. They specifically cater to foreigners so they had an actual turkey! And a ham! Mmmm! We were in heaven! The cool thing was that, because it’s China, they had everything from octopus on a stick to sushi to pizza to turkey with cranberry sauce. So good! Oh, and their desserts! They were actually sweet without bean paste or mysterious ingredients! Pumpkin pie, mango tarts, chocolate mousse, macaroons, ice cream, and more! I ate a ton and Jarek ate the most. He finished everything he was going to
Buddha
Lots and lots of Buddhas. eat and topped it off with ice cream, which apparently makes you feel as if you can eat more. It “cleanses the palate” so to speak. So, he heard Tiffany and me talking about how we wish we could just keep eating and he decided to go for a second dinner! One more plate of turkey with cranberry sauce and ham to wash down the first dinner. Finally, the cooks brought out a massive plate of mashed potatoes made specifically for us so Jarek had to partake (we all did). I almost had to leave him in the restaurant for the night!
Needless to say, Thanksgiving was a success! We skipped school to explore more of the city and ended with a delicious dinner with the family we have in China. We are very thankful for each of them and we are so happy they are all in our lives.
Thursday was wonderful, delicious, happy; Friday was different to say the least. There was a provincial speech competition in which Jarek participated. On top of his 4 minute speech, we both had to MC the whole competition – a task that originally was very simple and consisted of
Baby characters!
Look how tiny! They are perfectly carved into stone. They are hard enough to paint with a brush... one dialogue between us. Gradually they gave us more and more to learn during the week of the competition (which also happened to be the week of Thanksgiving). They wanted us to practice during Thanksgiving but we refused; that is not a fun way to spend any day, let alone a holiday. Well, we practiced everything they gave us and Friday morning arrived. When we got there, they gave me a list of names that I needed to memorize by the end of the competition so that I could read them without a problem when announcing the winners. That was an impossible task for two reasons: 1. I have the worst memory of anyone I know. 2. We had to introduce every contestant so we were on stage every four minutes.
Jarek said his speech and everyone loved him! He spoke about his future plans and why he came to China. He also spoke about how we met and got married. It was wonderful! I was so proud of him.
The end of the competition arrived and they were tallying up points. They brought me the results and told me I needed to read the schools, the names
Treble Clef Character
Do you see the treble clef? I had to get a picture with it. of the winners, and another random little speech that they wrote out in messy characters that I couldn’t read. It wouldn’t have been too terrible, but everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. The winners were organized in three groups: Third place had 9 people, second place had 6 people, and there were three first place winners. That makes 18 names and schools that I had to read perfectly clear so everyone knew who won. The names were fine, but the schools… there were too many and the writing was so small! I couldn’t line up the all the names with the correct school so I looked like a complete fool! Then I got really nervous because I couldn’t see it well and it just made matters much worse. Then, Jarek won second place, hooray!!!!!!, so I had to read his part of the ending speech. There was music blaring, Chinese people running all over the stage, the microphone stopped working, and I had no idea what they wanted me to do. My teacher was standing right next to me shouting in my ear what to say, a method that does not work under such circumstances. But hey,
Alien Fruit
Believe it or not, this is my new favorite fruit! It is a pomello, or a "Chinese grapefruit" at least I look American! Points for that one. Finally, a really angry Chinese man took the mic and started shouting in it, probably saying what I was supposed to be saying. Nobody was listening, though, so I didn’t care. It was over. I left so fast!
Turns out, that angry guy was really angry. The unfortunate part about the whole thing is called “mianzi” or “face” in English. We thought that doing bad would only affect us. We don’t really care about our mianzi; we are here to learn. But doing a bad job actually reflected on our teacher who so kindly helped us through the whole thing. She was so sad because the angry guy got mad at her for “not preparing us” even though she had nothing to do with the sudden changes and problems – she wasn’t even there. This is a huge difference between American and Chinese culture that we hadn’t fully understood until this point. Mianzi has everything to do with everything here. If you do a bad job, it reflects on the people above you. There are many wonderful things about the culture here, but mianzi makes it very difficult for a
Cats?
We died when we saw this! "Cat Play!" Hahaha Chinese person to progress and have proper motives and intentions. Mianzi affects your family, marriage, schooling, career, even taking people out to eat. It is everywhere.
There are many difficult things about living in China, but the truth is, I love living here. I love that every single day is an adventure. I love that everyday teaches a different lesson about life. I love that just a smile can go such a long way in a country of a billion people. Honestly, when I think about leaving, it makes me so sad! Life will never be like this again and, even with all its frustrations and inconveniences, I feel so blessed!
Next week we will post another blog with a special Christmas surprise! So stay tuned! 😊
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G'ma Osburn
non-member comment
Love reading your blog!
I always have to read a little to decide who is writing. I usually can tell after a few lines. I look forward to seeing your pictures and reading what you have talked about! Gee! It would be fun to be a mouse in your pocket just for a few days! You two are on such an adventure! I hope you're keeping a journal with the real thoughts and feelings about being in China, the spiritual stuff, and things that you will never experience again. your first Christmas together will certainly be different than most peoples first Christmas's as a married couple. Looks like I'm out of space. Just know that we love you and pray for you always. Congrats Jerek on the 2nd place win at your speech contest! Whoo Hoo for You! LOVE & (((HUGS))) G'ma O