Happy One Month Anniversary

I have officially been in China now for exactly one month. It's weird the way time passes here. Truth be told, I hated it here the first couple weeks, but once my I adjusted (to the smells in particular), the last two weeks have absolutely flown by.

Let me elaborate on the smells if I may. I don't notice it anymore, but there was such a wide range of odd foreign smells that drifted by my nose as I walked down the street that it was enough to delight me, confuse me, and disgust me all within the span of about one city block. It would go from garbage smell, to roasting chicken, to garbage, to flowers, to garbage, to some odd other food smell, to B.O (which coincidentally, smells a lot like garbage.)

I know I haven't updated in a week but it has been a pretty uneventful, rainy, humdrum week. So I decided to just comment on some random things about my life here. For starters, I do indeed use chopsticks for every meal. It was pretty hard at first and my hand would spontaneously cramp up during a meal. But apparently I was going about using them all wrong

Chopsticks(quatse) are used for picking up big things, and shoveling everything else right into your mouth, something I'm still not used to. 75% of the time, I have no idea what I'm eating, but it tastes semi-ok. So ignorance may not be bliss, but ignorance certainly is edible...most of the time. I do however eat white rice with almost every meal. It makes people feel fuller and eat less.

October 1st-8th is the moon festival. This is sort of like the Chinese Independence Day and the entire country basically shuts down. I have this entire time off to not spend money so I can afford a place to live after I'm done house-sitting. This autumn festival also marks the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, so security is extremely tight everywhere. What this means for me is that the government has shut down all of my internet proxies so I can't get onto blogger, facebook, youtube, or basically any other site that really matters.

One last thing, I hate rainy days in China. Let me start by stating the obvious...there are A LOT of TINY people here. HOWEVER, when it rains they all carry umbrellas which makes them all exactly 6'7", my height. None of them can see me however because of their umbrellas block their view up and they're all packed so closely together. So whenever it rains, I get smacked in the face with about 1000 umbrellas. I eventually wised up and started using my own umbrella as a homemade shield to protect me from others rather than the rain.

Things I've learned...

1. They can take your temperature by shooting a laser at your forehead.(They do this before letting kids into the school)
2. The ball pit at my school is off limits because apparently it is a breeding ground for H1N1 and foot and mouth disease. (We've had 3 cases of H1N1 in the school during the 2 weeks I've been there. A little unsettling).
3. All the cashiers bow to me after I check out. (Not sure if I should bow back?)
4. Everyone looks at you strange if you say "Bless You" after they sneeze.
5. I saw an item in the grocery store that was called "Priceless." I'm not sure what it was, but it cost 150 RMB.
6. The motion for "come here" is actually your hand turned upside down and waving it like you're shooing them away.
7. The worst insult you can ever say is "Wo gwo won ba da" (wrong spelling). But it means..."Your sperm moves as slow as a turtle." From what I've heard, you can get punched by everyone around you if you even mutter this. Weird, I know.

Miss you all lots.

Love,
Ezra