The Stale Taste of Recycled Air

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It's a Sunday night, exactly 10 pm. Normally I'd be avoiding lesson planning and getting ready to start the week all over again; steeling my reserves for the students' antics, both of the funny and frustrating variety. However, last Thursday I stumbled upon an unexpected light in my schedule. I was informed by my contact teacher, Erica, that all of the Junior 2's have "technical training" this week, before she broke out in a wide grin and followed it up with a "very good, right?". I was quick to agree with her and then hastily sent out a text message to several friends to brag about my good fortune. Five minutes later I was on the airAsia website looking at what flights I could possibly get out of SZ with a few days notice. Eventually I learned that Zak only teaches Monday and Tuesday this week so we decided on Sichuan province. On Wednesday morning we will fly to the city of Chongqing, spend a few days there, then head out to Chengdu and the immense panda breeding and research center located there. I'm really looking forward to it and feel somewhat spoiled by my school. As of now, I have had the first week off of every month I've been here. It's a sweet gig.

I've been picking up some tutoring here and there and have an established time slot with an 11 year old genius named Amy. She is the daughter of the dean of the English department at my school and also a pupil of my friend Carrie's. If you thought your parents pushed you hard when you were younger, I guarantee that she has it worse. Her schedule every Sunday is as follows: 8-10 am: math lesson, 10-noon: spoken English lesson with everyone's favorite waijiao (me), 1:30-4:30: English writing and grammar lesson, 7:15-9:15 pm: ballet class. EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY. In addition to that, she has more tutoring sessions Monday through Wednesday after school from 7-9. Keeping in mind that they get out of school at 6 pm and start at 8 am, I have no idea how she stays sane.

On my way to our session today, I stumbled upon a most curious happening on the street. Immediately upon disembarking from the bus, I was found myself face to face with a street butcher. She had several live chickens on a towel on the sidewalk. I assume their legs were broken as they made no attempt to run away and could clearly see their fate in front of them. Someone walking by would see the chickens and think, "yea I could go for that" and point out which one they wanted. Miss Street Butcher would then grab the chicken by the legs, cut off its head, drain its blood into a large bucket and proceed to pluck out the feathers. Bear in mind this is all at a bus stop on one of the more major thoroughfares in Futian. The strangest thing about this whole scene was not the scene itself however. It was the first thought that came to mind upon witnessing this. "What a convenient way to make sure you're chicken is fresh". I have officially been in China too long. Not that that's a bad thing though. I love it and every day gets better. The other day I had my first attempt at telling a taxi driver where to go. As in, giving him directions in Chinese as he drove because he didn't know where the place I wanted to go was. I am proud to say that it was a successful and enjoyable ride. If I keep up this pace I'll be passing Zak in no time.

Apparently there is a way to post pictures on this thing also so I'll try to figure that out soon(ish) and put up pictures of my school, apartment, and neighbor due to popular demand. Well not really because of popular demand but more because I was recently called out by someone (ahem, Andrew) that I have yet to do this, very much a first week activity. Also, as long as I'm calling people out: Patrick Dewey, I know you read this. Send me your next few entries. You know I can't keep up with your Moroccan adventures here in the PRC thanks to our glorious great firewall so email them to me. Ummmmmmmm I think that's it. I've gotta go take a walk through the neighborhood and stop for some baozi. The locals are starting to love me. My muslim noodle people smile really big when I walk in the door and the younger kid always tries to talk to me and give me free appetizers. Not a very exciting update but I'm sure I'll have something better to write about upon returning from Sichuan. I'm looking forward to seeing a new part of China and traveling again with Zak. We got on very well last time and it'll be good to stretch these traveling legs of mine outside of the SEZ. They're getting antsy. Peace and love.

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Comments

[Jamie Ronning]

Awesome story
damn, China sounds a lot like central america. The overcrowded, smelly buses, butchers killing pigs two doors down from where you live on the side of the street (I had the privilege of seeing that). You're a great writer Tori. I'm sure you have been told this my many but I love reading your stories