Blogs from Qingdao, Shandong, China, Asia - page 13

Today I participated in the filming of a Chinese talk show. The entire episode of this local talk show was about Ohio State's Chinese program and the Americans in it learning Chinese. Terribly interesting, should do wonders for their ratings! We were on this big stage with purple lights and white sheer fabric draped in the back and a green teletubby...ok so it wasn't a teletubby, but they did have a green little pudgy alien looking cartoon character as the backdrop. My Chinese professor who has lived in the US for twenty years and so can no longer decode the Chinese thinking process asked "what's that?". The host said "that is a cartoon character." So that resolves it. This reminds me of how you pass by random "Merry Christmas" posters with a big smiling Santa Claus ... read more

Tomorrow morning I am going to the Qingdao Unemployment Agency with my boss to talk to people about becoming a maid - yes, the kind that cleans your house. And then on Saturday I am teaching a class called "Basic English for Maids" or something. You need to have a graduate degree in order to qualify to teach it. I'm kidding. But it really isn't all that easy. The main point of the class is to prepare maids to work in the homes of Westerners living in Qingdao. First of all you have to remember to bring your armor to protect you from the blatant stares of everyone. Perhaps foreigners don't go in government builidngs much? Then, I think I forgot how to speak English. Because everytime I try and think of the usual thing to ... read more

This is my show and tell entry. Here are pictures of all the bugs that were in my apartment. When I first got here it was filled with roaches. I must have killed at least 30 of them all together. They are ugly and fast and I'm a girl and I was scared. I slept at my friends' place for a week! I felt like such a burden on them and a big baby too, but I couldn't sleep knowing one of those suckers could crawl on me at any moment. I bought myself this huge canopy bed thing that is actually a moquito net so now the roaches can't get in my bed. I haven't seen any since I got back from Beijing! Here is "the numbers" a la Time Magazine: Dead Roaches - around ... read more

img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3085/97/200/DSC_6568.jpg" border="0" alt=""We are kind of winding down to our last days in China. We've seen and done a lot so it seems as though we've been here a lifetime. When we browse through our pictures we don't really comprehend our faces. It all seems as thought it's someone else staring back at us, someone else that had all those experiences. Today was just a walk on the beach. Our taxi dropped us off at the far end of the beach and we worked our way back. There was lots of activity considering it is the middle of the week. Wedding photographers were everywhere. Women in wedding gowns and men in tuxes dotted the rocky beach bent in impossible poses that looked terribly uncomfortable but I guess looked good ... read more

img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3085/97/200/DSC_6526.jpg" border="0" alt=""Qingdao ALSO has shops. Believe it or not. We wanted to pick up some Chinese language learning books so went to the largest book store in the city. They didn't have what I was looking for. The same books on Amazon cost $30 each. Bill bought his in Beijing's Wangfujing for $8 each. It seemed so strange to go into a book store and not be able to read a single book! Weird. Some looked really interesting too. Rats. While I was looking for books in the Chinese Learning section a young student approached me. He said that he's a paid trannslator. He's currently trying to translate a technical business book from Chinese to English but he's having problems with a section on injection molding. He wanted ... read more