Blogs from Dalian, Dongbei, China, Asia - page 9

The pages of my own diary have been scattered intermittently with the pages of a book entitled Da Vinci Code which has been indeed difficult to put down. These pages have included a very long and difficult journey to the US and back as well as a few days of recouperation here back in China. I have already posted some of my previous entries from the States themselves and am now starting on the plane back here. I was sitting next to a man from China who I almost immediately started talking to in Chinese once my friend passed by us "I'm sitting in the back but I'm sure I'll see you later," he called. His name is Shen Qin Min and he was on the same flight to New York that I was on. After ... read more

Aqun left today. I don't know what the probability of my seeing him again is. Probably just as good as the probability of my seeing anyone again. Life is a strange place filled with people constantly going in and out, no matter where you go (or don't go). So I suppose this is it. I finally got bored tonight and it helped me make my decision. I don't think I can stay in Dalian next year. It's been something I've been struggling with for a long time. Camillo and Merry are really important to me as are some of the other people I've met here but in the end it comes down to something Hui told me a long time ago. I've gotta live my life for me, not for other people. And if I follow ... read more

Three hours. That was all the sleep I was running on. Five hours. Teaching from nine in the morning on. The first day starting at nine for one week. Ten minutes. Into the sixth hour of teaching. "So, they just changed the rules. The kids aren't allowed outside any more. We have to watch them for ten minutes during the break and then we get the first ten minutes of the second hour off." My brain exploded as she told me. The wonderful images of the kids playing soccer outside just three days before. The sight out the window of a beautiful courtyard with people of all ages constantly playing in it. "Why?" I was tired but I barely had time to question this before I was jolted back to the realization that my kids were ... read more

"The bathroom's open now." "Go. Go. Go" he says in a very flat voice without even looking at me or making any motions. He's been translating for the past twenty minutes and I'm not even really sure why. Granted some of the translation has been helpful as he's translating Cantonese to English but a lot of the times it's completely worthless as he's translating Mandarin to English as well. I have to say people translating to me is sometimes extremely annoying. First of all he's translating what Camillo and Akun are saying. I've been hanging out with Camillo for ... oh .... about eight months now, and I've been hanging out with Akun for ... one month off and on. I know what they're saying if they're speaking Mandarin, and my Mandarin is better than his ... read more

I don't really think about it this way most of the time but here I am almost completely illiterate. It's an interesting experience - not being able to read books or magazines that I normally love to read. But it's so much more than that. In India I also couldn't read books and magazines, but I could read signs. Here I can't even do that. I need assistance filling out forms or trying to find a place. I just walked up to a machine to get a number for line at a bank and I looked at the machine and said in Chinese. How do I get a number? The man had to press one button for me. It's only one simple button! But there was no way I was to know which button to press. ... read more