Come rain, come shine, come snow or sleet, the post will still be lost.

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Ok, time to test how well you're learning from our blogs:

Question: what do the tallest mountain in northern China, a spontaneous choir competition, and a package all have in common?

A: Wasted time

B: Misinformation

C: Disappointment

D: All of the above



If you are unsure of the answer (or simply seeking greater elucidation), please continue, then try again 😊

Before we went on fall break, we took a trip to Tai Bai Shan with other students. Tai Bai Shan is a beautiful mountain with colorful trees and clear air. Just like previous hikes, it wasn’t really hiking as much as it was just walking up tons of stairs. The lady in charge of the foreign students planned this outing and told us not to tell anyone because only a few people were invited (and it was during class). She also told us to arrive at 7:45 and not to bring any food. The day before the outing, we decided to double-check the time with her. This time she told us 7:15 and to bring food… this is not the first time this has happened… we thought Hawaii was unorganized but China gives her a run for her money. Well, we arrived at 7:15 and instead of a few students going on this “secret” hike, there were about 60 students. We split into three buses and drove for a couple hours listening to our so-called tour guide tell racist jokes. Keep in mind, this whole bus was full of foreigners, but because the rest of them were Asian, he singled us and the few other Belgians out as foreigners. My favorite quote was “Foreigners, don’t touch the water because you will contaminate it.” He made sure to say that in English – he was only speaking to the white people. He needn’t worry, though. Chinese people contaminate the water in more ways than I ever would so there is no way in heck that I’m touching open water in China.

The road up the mountain was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The switchbacks did not allow room for two cars because they were so tight. Between each switch back the road ascended at least 30 feet each time. I was extremely impressed with our bus driver! Once we made it past the crazy road, we stopped at random spots and took group pictures… my least favorite thing to do in China. Jarek tried to run off during one of the sets of group pictures, but they would not let him get away! These things are very important! And of course, they have to take a picture with every single person’s camera. We literally spent more time taking pictures than hiking the mountain. Anyways, once we finally made it to the end of the road, we stopped at this area with a little ropes course. It was a baby ropes course compared to anything else I’ve seen or done, but Asians are easily pleased so it was entertaining to watch them scream while grasping onto a rope 10 feet above the ground. From there we took a cable-car up to the part of the mountain we can “hike.” Unfortunately, after all of that traveling to get to that point, they only gave us 30 minutes to get to the top of the mountain. What a disappointment! But out of the 60 foreign students there, only about 6 of us hiked as far as we could. Everyone else stayed at the bottom of the mountain and sat around. Lazy! We didn’t have time to get to the very top, but the parts we did see were absolutely beautiful. Plus, it was the cleanest air we have breathed since being in China. That made everything worth it!



Now I will tell you of an experienced that may or may not have ruined my career. The lady in charge of all the foreign students, we call her Sun Laoshi, asked us to take part in a little choir competition with all the foreign students. She made it sound fun, inviting and chill. Well, I am here to tell you it was none of those things. I have never met a person who is as good at leaving out details as she is. We went to the first rehearsal and literally sat around for an hour while Sun Laoshi and this Korean girl who they chose to put everything together tried to figure out what we were singing. They wanted Jarek to do a Chinese rap (hahaha) and he refused then left me there all alone! So I had to go through this all by my lonesome! It is really hard for me to say no to people, especially when they don’t tell me all the details. Anyways, the song selection turned out to be this random Chinese song that the Korean girl sang, followed by “Mamma Mia” (my least favorite song), followed by a rap version of the classic Chinese song “Molihua”, followed by the real version of “Molihua”. Talk about random. And the songs definitely did not start that way; every day we sang something different until Thursday, our second to last rehearsal, we finalized everything.

Let me give you a little taste of how things went: The Korean girl is NOT musically inclined at all. She has a great ear for sure, but she knows absolutely nothing about music. She knows the key of C and D so, naturally, we sang all the songs in those keys. Sun Laoshi wanted the girls to sing the high octave so that put us singing high B’s in Mamma Mia… awful! For one, these foreign students study Chinese, not music or singing. Two, nobody should ever ever sing Mamma Mia in a shrieking shrill voice… it is already bad enough! Okay okay, I will calm down. This was a big problem, you must understand! I humbled myself though and took a breath and… told the teacher it was terrible. Haha. Yes, I couldn’t stop myself. She agreed though and asked my advice. At that point, the only option was to change the key. I spoke with the guitarist, a Chinese kid, and here is about how that convo went:



Me: “What key are you playing in?”

Him: “Um… I don’t know…”

Me: “Okay… can you play a chord so I can figure it out?...”

Him: *Strumming some notes “What is after B? No,… after G?”

Me: “Why don’t you just play it so I can figure out what it is? And C is after B…”

Him: “Oh…it’s A. No, it’s D…”

Me: “Okay. Play it in G please.” The easiest key for a guitarist to play in and much lower for us to sing in.



If this competition ever gets out of Shaanxi TV I’m ruined.



So, needless to say, I wanted to drop out, but they conned me into being interviewed on TV. Curse them! They said we were making a video of the song so I came to the rehearsal and a bunch of TV people were there. Sun Laoshi grabbed me and said, “You can say some Chinese words for them.” I told her no but that did nothing – they needed the face of their choir to be an American and I was the only one. So Sun Laoshi told me what to say and I had it all planned out until the TV people told me to say a whole lot more and tell the world I have a great voice so they should come listen to me. I refused to say that! They modified it so instead I said “my friends say I sing really well and I think my friends sing really well too so you should come listen to us!” It took me forever because I didn’t understand some of the words I had to say. It is hard to memorize Chinese on the spot with cameras in your face! The TV people were extremely amused. Now that I was the American face of the choir I had to participate. It was their evil plan all along.



Sunday came and it was competition day. (She didn’t initially mention the competition was on Sunday either…) I hurried to get to the TV station only to, you guessed it! Stand around for hours. We finally got to go on stage and the mics didn’t work. After they were working and we performed, I thought we were all finished but that was just the rehearsal! We had to do everything again for the TV. And when we were going off stage to wait, the producer lady in charge yelled “Meiguo ren! Hui lai!” “American! Come back!” I wanted soooo badly to pretend I couldn’t understand anything, but my teacher wouldn’t let that slide. I went back and they chose me to be the one to accept the results on TV. I knew it was going to end so terribly. They gave directions on how to accept the results (most of which I didn’t understand…) and sent me away. Performance time.



I wish I could go into all the detail about the performance, but there just isn’t enough room or time. It was hilarious to say the least. There were three judges, just like American Idol, and they were crazy! At one point they came on stage to learn the dance the Indonesian girls did. It was hilarious. Also, before we went on stage, the MC lady asked for a few people to come down and be interviewed after we performed. The Korean girl and a couple guys from Kazakhstan were chosen. Did the judges talk to them when the time came? Of course not. They asked the American girl who sang Molihua to come forward so they could ask me questions instead! I told them my Chinese wasn’t great so I just accepted their complements and nodded my head. The worst was yet to come…



Judgment time. I went on stage with the other representatives of the other choirs to accept the results. The judges each chose one person and they went off stage. That left me and one other lady on stage. They had the crowd vote for who got to stay. The other lady was part of a huge choir that had been practicing for years… I was part of a tiny “choir” that practiced for one week. The other lady stepped forward and the audience cast their votes by holding up signs. Almost everyone voted for her so I knew that unless they could vote twice it did not look good for me. I stepped forward and they asked row one to raise their votes. Nothing. Row two? Nothing. Row three? Nothing. I was so mad I was there! I knew we would lose but I didn’t think they would make me stand in front of everyone and watch us lose on TV! Finally some people voted for us, but it was 68 to 20… embarrassing. I tried to run off stage so they wouldn’t interview me but, alas. “Meiguo ren! Hui lai!” Mustering up all the fake confidence I had in me, I turned to face the cameras and MC’s. They asked me something I did not understand so I just said what I knew how to say. “We were so happy to sing today and participate in this competition.” Or something like that. They asked something else I didn’t understand. I just smiled. That’s always a winning move. They then asked me if I was sad to lose. Was that a trick question? Did they know I did not want to participate at all and couldn’t care less if we lost? I said yes, I am sad. Hahaha! But then I said but we love singing so it’s okay. They said something else and I quickly got out of that awful, embarrassing situation! It’s amazing how much Chinese I don’t know when the cameras are pointed at me.



It was a learning experience. I learned how to say no next time they ask me to do something like that. Check that one off the list!



Ok, this is Jarek with a slightly more recent adventure. We’re a little behind… too busy having fun to write about it. And, whenever we’re not having fun, China is wasting our time anyways.

About a month ago, Kaylee’s mom sent her a package filled with loads of goodies and, more importantly, some medicine and stuff. Well, getting packages was one of the first things we looked into upon our arrival here. We went to the foreign student office and asked, “Where do we send packages?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” they replied. “Just put your name on it and send it to our office. We’ll call you when it arrives.”

Great. Easy enough… well, after two weeks we stopped by to ask if they’d received anything. The very same teacher (Sun Laoshi, as a matter of fact) who had previously talked to us asked, “Did you get a phone call?”

“No,” we said, “We just thought we’d check. It’s important.”

“Well, if they didn’t call you, it’s not here yet.”

“Ok…wait, who is ‘they’?”

“Why, the post office, of course.”

“Um… how did they get our phone number?”

“You wrote it on the package, didn’t you?”

“Uh, NO, you didn’t tell us we had to.”

“…”

“So what should we do?”

“Well… maybe they’ll call us, since it has our address.”

Of course, that inspired confidence, especially since we see mailmen all the time just sitting on the side of the road with packages, waiting for people to come pick them up. Very secure. “Why won’t they just bring it to your office? It has your office address.”

“…”

“Whatever, thanks.” We resolved to wait with hope for the best, but after another week and a half and time running out until medicine was due, we tried again. Our teacher still had no word, so we went to the post office directly across the street from the school (since apparently mailmen aren’t allowed on campus or something). After explaining our question, the man at the window said,

“Oh, well, we don’t deal with packages for the university. You need to go to the big post office on the other side of the campus.” He gave us directions ad we started off. We got there to see that it was ‘closed’ for the two-hour lunch break, i.e. the workers were just sitting inside smoking, so we went in anyway. We again voiced our question, and they said,

“Actually, all packages are next door. Just go out and the next door down will help you.” Away we went. The man there was very friendly but of course, said,

“You’re looking for an international package? That will be next door.” We told him we were just there He insisted, “No, no, tell them it’s international. We only have local.” We went back. Can you guess what they said?

“What are you doing? We told you to go next door!”

“Yeah, well we did, and they said to come back here because it’s international! What do you have to say for yourselves?”

That gave them pause. “Oh… well, if it’s international, you need to go up the street to the next post office.”

“What the…?!”

“Don’t worry, it’s only about a hundred yards away.” Then, pray tell, why are there two?! We continued our journey. We approached the service desk. By now I was much better at explaining what we were looking for. Nonetheless, the lady said,

“International package? That will be around back. Just go outside and it’s right there.” Imagine that. At last we arrived in this tiny room filled with postal workers and packages. For the last time I explained our situation. The woman said, “Do you have the package number?”

“No, as I already explained, we have the name and address but no package or number.”

“Then I can’t help you.”

“Can’t you please check?”

“No.”

“…” Let’s just say I was not filled with the kindest of thoughts towards China. We abandoned our search in despair.

Fast forward a few days. Time is running out and we have no idea what to do. In desperation, I go back to the student office, asking the same questions. This time, a different teacher says, “Oh, you’re missing a package? Let me check.” She disappears only to return a few minutes later. “Sorry, we haven’t received anything, but I’ll keep looking and let you know.” At last, someone trying to help us. An hour later we got a text message: “Your package is in the campus post office. Pick it up any time.” Wait, there’s a campus post office? Why didn’t anyone think to tell us this before now? We went in at the first opportunity. As soon as we walked in the postal worker said,

“I know what you’re here for!” And ran into the back room. There, in all its glory, was our package. He said, “Why didn’t you write your phone number on it? It’s been here for two weeks!”

W.T.F.

Or, as our friends put it, WTC. Well, that’s China.





Ha ha, at least we have plenty to laugh about in retrospect. Well, this story lasted much longer than I thought it would, so I guess our English-teaching adventure at a high school of 5000 kids will have to wait until the next installment. Stay tuned!

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Photos

Government + Nature
This is a beautiful waterfall... unfortunately it is man-made. I'm pretty sure the mountains are real though.

Temple Clothes
Not of the kind you might be thinking, haha. In order to work around the clock, a lot of construction workers live on site up here, so they set up camp in the temples and stuff.

Seven Sisters?
There's some sort of legend about seven stars/goddesses coming to live on earth- they became these beautiful peaks.

I just like this picture... it's at the little park where the ski-lift starts.

Hips or skirt?
You decide.

Switchbacks
If you think they look tight now, try riding in a tiny Chinese bus passing a steamroller taking up most of the road.

Check out that road...
Need I say more? A picture is worth a thousand words...

We were so delighted to have fresh air that we filled up our empty water bottles, ha ha.

Ever...yellow?
These trees are awesome. They're like pine trees that are always yellow. Beautiful.

The "hiking" path was new and really nice, actually.

Glad they're keeping us safe.
Yes, those are guards. What are they guarding on top of a mountain? Confucius say, "Don't ask stupid question."

Yours truly!

Prayer Platform
There's a rocky outcrop that has a legend about a monk praying for rain, so now people put locks for luck on the chain fence.

Beautiful girl, majestic backdrop... need I say more?

Friends!
This is Veronica from Ukraine and Martin from Belgium... and some other people I only vaguely remember.

Blue sky!
Yes, it does happen sometimes!

Same idea as the other gate picture, but this time looking down.

One more view... just couldn't get enough of it.

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