A mother would be proud

Well last Thursday was the first time I've been proposed to in my entire life. A man came up to me wanting to know where I was from, yada yada yada, the regular stuff, well he wanted to take me to lunch on Monday and I was like ok, he probably wants me to teach him English. At the end of our conversation he hands me a letter. So The first paragraph is how teaching English in Shijiazhuang is easy, it's much cheaper than Beijing, but very close to Beijing, blah blah blah, live and work in Shijiazhuang. Well the second paragraph starts with "I have 600,000 yuan in my bank savings account. If you were to marry me I could spend 100,000 yuan on the wedding." At this point I'm like WHAT?! so I continue reading... The last paragraph is about 2-3 sentences saying I want to learn English and that I will pay 100 yuan an hour.

So I'm thinking, the Chinese are indirect so those first 2 paragraphs were just leading up to asking me to teach him English, so I say "yes, I'll have lunch with you on Monday." Well unfortunately, when I met him for lunch I tried to talk to him about setting up a date to "teach him English" but he was a little confused by my specificity on saying "teaching English" where he replies with I want to have a foreign girlfriend. It's more important than learning English. (Now it's starting to make sense on why he refused to have me and a friend of mine split the tutoring and he said he only wanted to make friends with me) I repeated to him "Oh, I thought you just wanted me to teach you English, because I already have a boyfriend in America"

What an awkward situation. "No, sorry I don't want to marry you or be your girlfriend" I think he was also much older than me...maybe 30's??? If anyone has had to reject a proposal I feel for you, very uncomfortable. LOL one of my other friends here have gotten proposed to by their student too so I'm not the only one!!! Oh silly Chinese men, you probably shouldn't have killed all those baby girls.

Grave cleaning

Well last weekend, China had their "grave cleaning" day. Basically they take out the old flowers, put new ones and sweep more dirt on top of their graves. We had an extra day off so some friends and I headed to Qinhuangdao, a small city of only 1 million or so people. It's also the city where the Great Wall begins in the ocean at Shanghaiguan. We stayed with some friends of some friends so I made some friends on the trip and had a great experience hanging out with some different people. Qinhuangdao is much cleaner then Shijiazhuang so it was great to get some fresh air but it was a bit chilly and windy on the water and we got a little carried away with obnoxious pictures. I also didn't enjoy being on the train for 10 hours both ways so it was a bit of a stretch, but we got it done and have some good memories. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/cccapper/Qinhuangdao

I also had a near depression experience. When you look at the pictures you notice one of them will say "that's where I found it 30 minutes later" Well I got so excited about doing my track poses that I forgot to pick my purse up again. Well I remembered when we were on the other side of the park so I ran after it. God took it upon himself to bless me that night and thankfully it was where I left it with everything in it...including my passport, money, phone and life. I definitely have someone watching over me.

Also, on a side note, remember those tigers I went to go see in Haerbin? Turns out they ate a man a few weeks ago. I'd be shipping myself home if I would have seen that.

The baseball game

So the baseball game was a great time. Lots of foreigners and good entertainment. I even got to work on my trash talk. Made some comments about their mommas and threw them off their game. I started the wave (meaning I started the wave not only at a major league game, but at the official Olympic baseball field. We snuck onto the field and ran the bases, I slid into home plate and have a great video of Joe Torre (the Dodgers head coach) giving an interview. I'll try to put it up but there's no guarantees. Here's the link there aren't to many, just a lot of us being really silly and excited.

http://picasaweb.google.com/cccapper/DodgersVsPadres

Homework or needles?

Well I've been meaning to get this post up for a while since it was such an odd occurrence. Last Wednesday about 2 minutes before my class was going to have break in between sessions, there were 3 ladies in medical outfits with facemasks and such. I answered the door very curious. One of the foreign teachers in the next city had an outbreak of TB at her school and they failed to tell her. The students had urged her to get chest x-rays and tests (I believe the school never did notify her) so I'm thinking, great I have some disease and this is the schools way of telling me. Well they come in, I'm looking at the students for help but they aren't getting the hint. The ladies then proceed to bring in 3 trays of syringes and a styrofoam box full of used needles. I, of course, am aghast and I can't believe what is happening. The students proceed to take their jackets off and pull down their shoulders to allow proper access for the injection. And the ladies just go at it, the students present their arms and they proceed to offer injections. (also they were giving out the medical swabs and using rubbing alcohol first, but they would give the swabs to the students to ensure the bleeding stopped...and one of my students left their swab on my podium where I urged a student to remove it promptly.) The students are just staring at me a little confused on why I'm so shocked and I tell them this would never happen in America. There would be trained professionals with name taking and screens and prevention services and information cards and etc... I asked them what it was for and they continued to say "mouse, mouse?, mice, bad mouse, bad mice, mouse mouse?" so I'm thinking "great, there's a break-out of the plague at my school, of course...fantastic" Well I never figured out what it was for but I'm thinking it was rabies perhaps? I did have the encouragement from one of my Tibetan students to "have a try?" Where I graciously refused. Nope sorry China you can't get me under your mind control so easily.