Chinese dreaming 梦...

on such a winter's day...

this post will be dedicated entirely to a sample of the dreams i have had while in the Chinas. Usually i'm not a rememberer of my dreams; they may shock me awake or cause me to have an odd deja vu later in the day but i rarely remember them in detail. the Chinas is different. i have had some of the strangest dreams of my life here, and what's even more strange is the fact that i can remember them with such vivid imagery. Thus please enjoy, and try hard not to think that i have gone completely insane (this second part may be difficult):

so the first really strange dream involved a large, almost anaconda sized snake and me. i was a man. a man of color. i can't be sure exactly what ethnicity, because i never saw my face, but from my vantage point i could tell that i was very muscular and enjoyed wearing short shorts. i was floating down a river with a large group of people. the scenery around the river was very beautiful, covered with mountains and trees. for some reason our group was not in a river raft or boat, we were instead, merely floating down the river with our heads barely above the water, no life vest, no nothing. it was kind of like sitting, but there was no chair. i'm not a good swimmer so this should have been scary enough, but to add to the stress a giant snake appeared in the water. it swam through the river and slithered amongst my muscular body. for some reason i thought it was a good idea to grab its head, like i've seen so many times on the Discovery channel, to expose its large, poisonous fangs. i think this was to prevent it from biting me, but i can't be sure. i then was overcome with fear at the fact that i had no idea what i was doing and promptly let go of the giant snake from my strong man hands. it continued to swim around me, narrowing in on my spine and going in for the bite... i woke up. throughout this dream i was very calm in my man body never speaking outloud. My mind was racing with thoughts like, "i'm not a man" and "this snake is going to bite my spinal cord", but outwardly i was a rock.

The next dream was somehow more terrifying and involves betrayal. i was in a house at night, just a random house, not my house. i was in a victorian nightgown and the window was open letting in a cool breeze to the bedroom where i was about to get in bed. My mom was already in the bed, asleep. On the nightstand next to the bed was an assortment of food: bags of mixed greens salad, a small and a large loaf of bread. On a table in front of the open window was a mouse who was, of course, talking to me. We were discussing how to keep the demons from escaping from their food prisons. The mouse told me i had to win one of the demons over to ensure that it would help me with the other ones. So apparently, all the western food that i miss so much, like salad, was possessed. So i got in bed after making a pact with the smaller of the loaves of bread. But for some reason, as soon as i lay down, i began goading the loaf of bread. it was not happy. when i looked at the table again the food was all missing. it had all dissappeared. i woke my mom "the bread dissappeared, we've got to get the demons back in the food or they will eat us!" we both got out of bed and went down the hall where the bathroom was occupied. i remained in the hallway while my mom went to the living room to turn on the radio. Out of the bathroom emergred an old, skeletal woman demon. She was kind of like a banshee, or the female Mummy with the giant mouth that unhinges... she was walking towards me and i was yelling for my mom. But my mom was oblivious and dancing to the mellow showtunes eminating from the living room. The last thing i saw was a giant demon mouth about to eat me!... i woke up.

i can't make this shit up.

Two more.  I had a serial murderer/mystery dream where i was sort of floating among the cops and victims and trying to figure out who the killer was while they also put the clues together. Maybe the killer killed me and i was a ghost seeking closure, i don't remember.  But the cops finally got a break and knew the killer was going to strike again at this old house where an attractive, single lady lived.  They tried to storm the house but the killer was already inside!  Guess who it was?  If anyone has watched Scrubs, it was the old senile guy who only said "pickles" over and over again.  He was dressed as a woman, complete with lop-sided wig and really frightening makeup.  There was a giant, ancient wooden door with one of those tiny doors for seeing who it is.  And in the "pickles" guy's killing euphoria he actually opened the little door all crazy-faced with lipstick all over himself.  My full field of vision was of his scary/clownish face.  He was of course cackling.  The cops busted open the door.  i woke up.  i'm not sure if he had killed the woman already or not...

The latest dream, about a week ago was my first, and hopefully only, zombie dream.  i was in a strange city and me and some friends were attending a huge party that was being hosted in a mall.  The stores had been cleared out and the different shops were just rooms with party-goers drinking and dancing.  Everyone was dressed up like it was prom or New Year's.  For some reason there were giant sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling, signaling some kind of check-point within the party.  At some point in the night it became clear that something was terribly wrong.  Everyone started to run around, trying to get out... some people were infected.  With what i don't know.  They weren't the normal dead-looking, disgusting zombies, but there was something about there eyes that you could tell they were infected and wanted to eat you.  So the giant plastic sheets kept the zombies at bay for a bit while healthy people ran for the exits.  i lost my friends somehow but also managed to get out on my own.  i was then in a small cobble-stoned alley where there was a cute clothing shop and i went in.  it appeared that this part of town had not been infected, yet.  i think i tried on some clothes.  then i heard the proprietor and and salespeople plotting their escape from the city and i asked if could come along.  As soon as this happened though, some of the shop people's friends came in and i could tell they were zombies, the shop people did not seem to notice, so i ran out.  i was then on a strange college campus that had a large garden in the middle.  in the distance i could see Jackie, Nicole, Yesenia and some other people i haven't talked to since high school.  They were studying and seemed unworried by the recent zombie attacks all around the city.  i walked toward them but ran into Josh Short! (a boy i haven't seen since high school graduation) i asked him what was going on (he was our valedictorian, and very smart)  and he of course knew.  he had been working on some research with a professor and they found that pumpkins were emitting some kind of fume that turned people into zombies.  Yes, pumpkins.  He showed me all these notes and we happened to be sitting right next to a pumpkin patch.  then suddenly i realized that we should then, logically, be infected.  i grew fearful and realized that Josh was lying to me, when i looked at him again i realized he was actually a zombie himself.  i woke up.

what's weird about this one is that of late i have gained a new found appreciation of pumpkins as food, and can now say they're one of my favorite vegetables...

last note: i'm not the only one.  My friend Nellie has had some strange dreams involving me while in the Chinas too.  One in which my mom came to visit us here.  She's never seen my mom but in the dream my mom was Megan Mullally, (Karen from Will & Grace) and we were bickering. she kept trying to talk to me and make me feel guilty that i wasn't paying attention to her and i was on the phone telling her to shut up, "i'm on the phone!".  Other than my mom being Megan Mullally, this dream is surprisingly accurate.

The other one involved another foreigner here, her name is Ellis, she's only been here a little over a month.  In Nellie's dream Ellis and i were getting married.  We were wearing victorian-era, lace wedding dresses and getting married in the park.  Nellie was frantic because she didn't know what kind of gift to get us...and because she was shocked to learn that we were lesbians.

So, in conclusion, China is giving me a serious case of the crazies! 

huo ji tian zai zhong guo (火鸡 天 在 中国)...

and what a day it was... well not really anything to write home about. But it was interesting to see the substitutes that i and my fellow foreigners made to try to keep tradition alive. We had a small feast for Thanksgiving - China style: including duck a l'orange, where no turkey (or fire chickens, as their name translates to) could be found; stuffing made of the usual dry bread; pumpkin nangua 南瓜 pie with ginger; also an intriguing chutney of pomegranate and orange, a little spicy. All of which was created by Ellis, our resident culinary expert. That is putting it lightly. This girl lives for food, constantly takes pictures of food, i think if possible she would rather breath food than air...

anyway Nellie made cornbread and a blueberry tart, blueberries being a rare commodity we savored every spoonful of the juice left over.

A Chinese friend, Lulu, was also in attendance and she brought the essential snacks for grazing pre-dinner:

sure pistachios and peanuts are great, and so is, the uniquely Chinese, twice-popped corn kernels, but i still would have loved a veggie platter and a cheese ball! All in all, it was a surprisingly good Thanksgiving in the Chinas. i think i have to attribute the reason for this, for me, being that i made the mashed potatoes and even acquired sour cream (rather a sour cream want to be) from Shanghai! The Chinese don't know what they're missing with the beloved tudou 土豆, mmm potatoes!

Enough about that. i know you would love me to regale you with an epic poem about my love and fervent admiration of tubers and dairy but i won't do it.

Turkey day was good, despite the fact that i had to work both on the day and the day after! Here's looking forward to working Christmas and the Eve. Bah Humbug! At least it should probably be the last time that i have to do that for a long, long time. So enjoy your days off, you lucky Cratchets. China is like the biggest Ebenezer Scrooge ever! If you can guess i have started gearing up for the impending Holiday Season in my heart by listening to Christmas music (downloaded and courtesy of itunes holiday radio) and decking everything i can in tiny, twinkly lights! A side note: copious amounts of hot chocolate have also been consumed in the name of "the Season", or so i tell myself.

i'm mentally preparing for my last month of teaching in China, but i'm also preparing my bank account by trying to save money for the month of traveling i will do before i take the long flight back home. This means that i will only be making two more trips before i leave Huzhou for good. One of said trips was last, last weekend to Nanjing. One of my most beloved professors from Seattle University, Kan Liang, is doing research at Nanjing University for this semester so i went to visit him. He's really the reason i am in China now. i took his China in a Changing World history course a year and a half ago and came to China for the first time with that class. Without that experience i would never have dreamed of coming back to teach.

It was a great reunion with a familiar face and Nanjing is an amazing city. The one thing i didn't get a chance to do last time i was here was to see the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. i think for justifiable reasons, this war memorial reminded me strongly of the Holocaust Museum in Berlin, both in subject and design. Despite its very sobering affects i was very thankful i was able to see it.

i had just enough time to see the devastating exhibit, get dinner with my mentor, engage in a heated debate over ice cream with John, Gino, Ellis and Kan and then the next morning i did a little shopping in the Fu zi miao district near our hostel, ate some egg tarts and grabbed a 3 hour bus ride back to Huzhou in time to tutor at 4pm. It was a quick trip, but i had a good time due in large part to the wonderful location of our hostel.

i strongly recommend staying in Fu zi miao, it may be a little touristy but its really beautiful in a kitchsy way. i really enjoyed myself as i walked around the surprisingly busy shopping district in the early morning. It was kind of refreshing to see Chinese tourists, i had many "they're just like us!" moments while i people-watched. Sometimes it's important to remember that sentiment amidst the daily bureaucracy of school, banks (choice curse word), the post office and constant public spitting (on bus floors, in super markets, you name it). i think one reason that i really love this time of year is that i buy into the crap about remembering what's really important. Maybe i'm naive or gullable, or maybe it's just because i'm so selfish the rest of the year. but i'm trying to appreciate my time here a little more and really enjoy the Chinesey-ness of it all. that's right i said it. Happy Holidays everyone!

ICE COLD!

seriously, what a difference can be made from standing in a courtyard flooded with sunshine and, i don't know, say a flourescently lit classroom... it's like the difference between standing next to a bonfire and being locked in a walk in freezer for 40 min.  Every day i wake up at 7:30am and i never want to take the covers off.  i know as soon as i do i will step into icy slippers and when i go into the living room the air from the drafty windows will hit me like ice picks.  It's only November, right? i feel for my students. They don't have heaters in their rooms.  Granted my heater only warms things that are within a 3-foot radius, but it's something.  The real shock i think is that i was not prepared for this cold.  i'm in a city about two hours outside of Shanghai.  Shanghai is pretty far south, but apparently not south enough. To keep me warm i have a twill jacket and a cozy grandma sweater + some scarves and multiple pairs of socks... i have to wear at least three layers of clothing at all times.  Including, but not limited to wearing my leotard under my jeans!  It's not going to be enough when the temperature starts dipping below freezing in a couple weeks.Noodles also help combat the cold.  There's a great halal noodle place right near our school that we often frequent.  They make the noodles right in the tiny shop on a counter in the corner.  As i slurp up the broth i hear the familiar slapping noise as the guy beats up the dough and strips  the noodles into a boiling pot.  Here's hoping i don't get frost bite, or become a solid human block of ice, so that i can no longer go to class... wait that might not be a bad idea.

With only seven weeks of teaching left, time keeps on slipping, slipping into the future.  They took away some of my grade 5 classes due to one of my co-teachers retirement half way through the year. What? Weird, but i'm not complaining too much.  Now it's the grade 1 kids that are killing my soul slowly.  Sometimes they are cute little angels, other times they become monsters: kicking each other, hitting each other with their books, yelling about nonsense. i can't handle the randomness and lack of attention span that 7-year-olds have.  It's madness i tell you!  When i'm not teaching them though and see them around campus they're so cute and inquisitive i have to forget that earlier that same day they made me want to shoot myself.  i kid (not really), it's not that bad, but through this experience i've learned that educating elementary children is not my forte.  In the beginning i dreaded the middle schoolers, but they turned out to be my favorite class.  

This is a good thing because i got my final placement, and i accepted my position in the 2009 corps of Teach for America, and i will be teaching middle school science in New Orleans!  i'm very excited, but it's going to be a lot of work.  i can tell simply by the registration process and the preparation for training, not to mention the 5 week intensive training this summer! i think i can handle it after five months of not understanding a damn word/being understood... consider me prepared for many more things and my patience infinitely expanded.  In other news, i bought my return ticket finally!  i will make my triumphant return

to the States on February 24, 2009.  Rejoice, rejoice!  i will spend a couple weeks in the Tri-Cities and then head up north to Seattle to perpetually couch surf for a couple months, looking forward to it!

Last but not least, some random things to share that are a little strange: pickled roses.  They look a little bit like alien babies, and at first i thought they would taste the way it does when you accidently get some of your perfume sprayed in your mouth. But, no.  They actually are a delightful snack, something like dried cherries or other sweet, chewy snacks, but it's best not to look at them too long, just pop one in your mouth and it's quite nice.  Secondly, China has not especially impressed me with its hygienic practices, but this was really thoughtful: microphone condoms. So many people spend their time at the KTV, 

and who knows where their mouths have been! So each patron is given a nice foam cover for their microphone, as shown in the diagram, slip it on and it keeps oral herpes at bay. However, i wasn't surprised that after examination of the package it's actually Japanese.

Wan Sheng Jie (万圣节), Hallowe'en, Dia de los Muertos

Halloween in China, much to my surprise, was a lot like previous Halloweens of y'or, my costume was wack (i was Jem, from Jem and the Holograms, the '80s cartoon), some people are always resistant to dressing-up, and drinking & dancing are generally involved. We went to Shanghai for the blessed occasion, to a club called Candy and got our dance on! Huzhou had nothing going on and most people have never even heard of the holiday here, in fact they tend to confuse it with Thanksgiving (speaking of which if anyone wants to send me a can of cranberry sauce now would be the time to do it...whole berry is preferred, but at this point i can't be too picky, or can i? it is me we're talking about...) i digress.

As i was saying, most Chinese don't know what Halloween is so i gave a lesson on it to my Junior 1 class and learned a little myself  in the process.  For instance, did you know that it should really be spelled Hallowe'en? Apparently the progression of the word went from the Gaelic Samhain (pronounced like Sau in), to the old English-Catholic influenced three day festival known as All Hallow's Eve Oct. 31, All Hallow's Day Nov. 1 and All Soul's Day Nov. 2 that was created out of thin air to discourage pagan rituals and to bring in converts. Hallow, meaning saint, as in hallowed be thy name... holy, saintly etc. you get the picture. Funny that this holiday kinda represents the opposite of that now. So the Chinese name for Halloween literally translates to 10,000 Saint's Festival. Which means, no one knows why we parade around in scary costumes and ask for candy or we will TP your house! Then again, do we know why we do this? i'm done being teacher for now, suffice it to say i got a few creeped out 14-year-olds when i showed them this:

also i wore a bright pink wig to class and gave them skittles, am i good teacher, or what?

Back to the weekend in Shanghai... it is such a major metropolis i really don't know what to do with myself when i'm there. This trip, my one and only goal was to find a caesar salad and eat it. Ambitious, i know.  Mission accomplished. i also did some chilling, coffee drinking and window shopping.  Shanghai is famous for its impressive, and somewhat other-worldly architecture and the neck-breaking speed with which it has developed into the international hub it is today and it continues to do so, reportedly adding a suburb the size of Houston, Texas every week! (Source unknown, but someone told me this, i'm sure of it) i promise to take pictures of this famousness the next time i go... but what i have taken pictures of and what has caught my eye in all of China, not just Shanghai, is the way this whole country operates on a system in tandem. Old, traditional cultural relics stand amongst sky shattering modern monstorsities, gleaming of glass and metal, or in less developed areas hulking masses of concrete. 

They all work together some how... i don't know how.  This is Jing' An Temple, really close to the hostel we usually stay in and it is an actual temple but it's on one of the wealthiest shopping streets in the city and the sides of it have been turned into storefronts themselves.  Along the temple side you'll find Burberry, Rolex and Pizza Hut hocking their wares among other luxury items... luxury used lightly in regards to the Hut. it's mind boggling.  The golden temple would be really beautiful nestled between the towering office buildings but with the bright lights of Louis Vuitton blinding me i don't really even want to go in... is that wrong?

in other language-related news: 赫伊! this is my Chinese name, or rather the way they pronounce and write Hoy (said he yi). it's a bit difficult to write... why is the alphabet so wonderful? in studying Chinese, even at my basic level i have come to appreciate the roman alphabet like you would not believe... i don't just know my ABC's i love them and miss them dearly. Another interesting thing about my name is that in the local, Huzhouhua, dialect my name, Guen Hoy, loosely translates into "beat you, ok?"

湖州新世纪外国语学校  体育场路  355 号 

湖州  浙江  中国 313000

this is my mailing address in Chinese, pretty cool, right? right? our computer in the office has a program that lets you type in the pinying and then pick the correct character, i'm slowly learning how to use it based on the very minimal number of characters i know. but still i'm impressed and therefore you should be too! So the English/pinying translation of this is:

Ms. Guen Hoy

Huzhou New Century Foreign Language School

Huzhou Xin Shi Ji Wai Guo Yu Xue Xiao

Ti Yu Chang Lu No. 355

Huzhou, Zhejiang, CHINA  313000

in case you wanted to send me a much needed care package...mail takes about three weeks to arrive and i only have 11 weeks left at this address. what? that ish is crazy. so getta sendin' if you're gonna be sendin'. 

also everyone better vote on Tuesday, it'll be Wednesday here, but unfortunately i will not know the outcome of the election just by virtue of being in the future... as my friend Nellie said, say your Obama prayers! eg. keep Obama safe and let him be elected the next president of the US of A...

Sheng ri kuai le!

before i get into the nitty gritty of the birthday celebrations i forgot to mention a very important event, Susan's dance troupe performance.  For your exclusive viewing i have a video of Susan and her four friends practicing a dance that Gino helped choreograph, and that they will perform for their school this Wednesday. Tell me when to go...

enjoy!

as far as my birthday is considered, it was fantastic! i awoke early to find text messages from some Chinese friends wishing me a happy birthday, great way to start off the day.  Then throughout my classes i had multiple singings of the birthday song.  Lunch, which i have mostly come to dread these days because as a vegetarian it now always, undoubtedly includes a green mushy ball of some kind of vegetable that appears to be a cross between lettuce and bok choy, overcooked and swimming in a puddle of oil, on my birthday actually there was tofu, eggs and taro! we must celebrate small miracles...

as i mentioned previously i was treated to a birthday party with my 704 class and it was so fun! these kids are really great, very generous and kind.  they constantly ask me for my qq number which is like a messenger website like AIM that everyone here in China has... i have yet to acquire this but i will soon, i think. i was given many interesting gifts from my students, mainly, this is very exciting for me, earrings!  We had a lesson awhile ago about favorite things and collections and i shared that i like earrings a lot and showed my students a sampling of the ones i have from around the world.  They were impressed with how many places i had been and i think they wanted to make sure i had plenty of earrings from China, so i got probably 16 pairs! Other highlights include a set of traditional Chinese fans, a bracelet and hair pin from Yunnan province, a set of tea cups, five stuffed animals, a couple of music box/snow globe things and some paper weights... some are very interesting and some are very beautiful, thought that counts right?

i later went with Penny to buy a cake and go to the restaurant to get a table and choose the menu.  The restaurant is called Wan Jia Deng Huo, which i think loosley translates to One Thousand Family Homes Lighted... it is a gaudy, over decorated monstrosity decorated from floor to ceiling with plastic, gold plated pomp and circumstance.  Golden chandeliers, sconces, and frames around the italian renaissance paintings screened directly on to the walls, gave the place a yellow, hazy tint in all my pictures. In short, it was a sight to see.  It's also difficult i learned to order food for 18 people ranging in dietary restrictions and also arrival times, but i made it work, with the help of Penny, of course, translating the all Chinese menu. 

Food was pretty good and so was the cake that i bought, it had blueberry filling to my happy surprise!

*a side note, it is customary in China, and maybe other places as well, for the birthday person to pay for everything. i think the idea is that if i invite you out to a meal, i'm paying.  needless to say none of the Chinese people paid for dinner and me and five other foreigners were stuck with the bill. Luckily, despite are fake and fancy surroundings, dinner was not too expensive. However, this tradition left me with some mixed feelings. When it was Penny's birthday she wouldn't let any of us chip in for the KTV room so i guess it evens out.  But i still think i prefer the American tradition of treating the birthday person. It's the one time when they shouldn't pay for anything, this is my feeling, let me know what you think of this predicament.

A couple of us went out to have some drinks after dinner at the Forrest Blue & Jazz Bar near the river, it was raining and i had many gifts including a giant Panda bear pillow so we took taxis.  All in all a very nice evening was had. 

For the weekend Gino, Nellie and i went to Hangzhou to continue the celebrations. Unfortunately, the fall is finally coming and it rained and was surprisingly cold all weekend but we still had a pretty good time, including a little boat ride on Xihu (West Lake) in the rain. We went to an Indian buffet, Hangzhou is a much larger city and has a lot more diversity in terms of cuisine.  It was great to have something different, but it was not the best food i've ever had... nonetheless daal is always delicious, as is Coconut rice! Last and least of all we went out to a supposed "hip hop" night at Club G+, but it was a let down... they played two songs that were to be considered  "hip hop": Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls and 2 live Crew's We Want Some Pussy... i'm ashamed to admit how excited i was to hear these atrocities of songs but in comparison to the bad, really bad, techno house music they were welcome to my ears! The next day we tried to eat something resembling mexican food, but except for the existence of sour cream i could have sued them for false advertising in calling what i ordered a "burrito", no beans in the whole joint! So what i ended up eating was a tortilla full of lettuce, tomato, some cheese and sour cream! We called it a draw in the end because that's the first time i've had sour cream in two months... don't underestimate the importance of sour cream to me!

Those who can't do, teach...

this saying is bullshit! teaching is hard.  anyone who says this about teachers is a) an idiot and b) has never taught in their life.  That being said i've realized that i have mentioned very seldom the reason why i am here in the Chinas: to teach English to the children of this country.  At first, i'm not gonna lie, i was drained completely and scrambling for time and ideas.  However, as the semester has worn on i've adapted to the planning that's required.  i've even developed new techniques for discipline, including but not limited to, slamming the textbook on the front desk to command attention and throwing a note back at the person who threw it across the room, and considering my bad aim actually hitting them in the head!  Below is the motto of the Huzhou New Century Foreign Language School: 

"Read Diligently and Write Attentively, Behave Kindly and Be a Noble Man"

but i think a better translation would be "person" because that's what the last character means

...

Last week was so great it made up for all the crap i've had to put up with from the administration and uppity students 

(it was my birthday and the students went all out, more about this later). i've begun to develop more of a relationship with my students and other kids on campus; they try to teach me Chinese and are down-right shocked when i use Chinese in class, even if it's just to say the page number! During a break one day last week i attempted to show some 12-year-old boys how to correctly pass a volley ball, they started to get it and it was really fun.  Every time i walk down the hall or stairway i'm greeted with the usual hello! how are you? and sometimes surprised to hear good evening appropriately used in the right time frame.  i don't think i've said hello so many times in my life; considering the over 2 million Chinese in Huzhou and the fact that there are maybe 25 foreigners in the city and almost everyone wants to say hello when they see one, i don't think the number will be curbed anytime soon.

i wanted to share a little bit about the campus that i teach at and the schedule that these children keep.  Living on campus (not for long, maybe, we'll see) i know more intimately than i would like the habits and schedule of my students.  so it starts:

• they awake at 20 after 6 in the morning so they have time to get ready and eat breakfast. then sharply at 7:30am the loud speaker goes, playing cheesy, probably very patriotic music for the students to jazzercise to in military fashion.  Sometimes there also little pep talks in the morning with a teacher leading chants of "I'm the best!" 
  
• first period begins promptly at 8:20am and i have class at this time every day of the week with 7-year-olds, needless to say after being awake for two hours they are tired, but somehow have full bursts of energy when we play a game!
• these kids have class until 4:35pm with only 10 minute breaks in between each class and an hour and a half lunch period.  
• They get dinner time until 6pm.  This usually means that they wolf down their food and then go out to play with their friends for as long as possible.  
• This is so because at 6:20pm they begin self-study, when they go back into the classroom and silently do their homework while a teacher sits and guards them to ensure no talking, it lasts until 8pm for the younger ones and 9pm for the middle schoolers.  
• Lights out for everyone between 9:30 and 10pm! 

Can you imagine having this kind of schedule when you're a kid?  It makes me a little more sympathetic to their plight during class, but still i have my limits, you know.  + it's hard to be sympathetic when the torrent of children screaming down the stairs at the crack of dawn makes so much god-forsaken noise and then, on their way to bed they insist on banging on my door and running away into the crowd of no-pants, tighty whitey wearing, pre-pubescent boys in the hallway!

Enough about that... so actual teaching consists

of me drawing many pictures, playing musical chairs, teacher says and pictionary with the little, little ones; a lot of hangman and acting out dialogues for the Primary 5 classes; and the most fun is to be had in class 704, Junior 1.  They have the best textbook, they're the best behaved and they have the best command of English out of all the levels of my students.  Not to play favorites, but really, there are only 22 of them and i see them three times a week, so yeah, i like them best.  We do many different games like, telephone, 20 questions, and we did a scavenger hunt with Gino's class; it was a lot of fun for them i think to just get out of the classroom. 

i give them treats to celebrate their individual

birthdays and i think this might have had some influence on their decision to give me a birthday party during their homeroom period.  Over the weekend three students gave me the cake to the left.  Apparently at one of the cake shops they have art cakes, which means you get to decorate it yourself!  How cute is this winky, dribbly-faced panda bear, i ask you? The party was on my real birthday, so fun, they were really creative

 and cute! + they gave me all kinds of presents, and we all know how i like presents! 

It was a big celebration with lots of games like musical chairs, they made me act out clues and then they guessed what it was, we also drew a face on the chalkboard blindfolded and they taught me some Chinese like "ni xihuan hanbao ma?" 

meaning "do you like hamburgers?" There was more cake and one of the students played the traditional chinese violin-like instrument called the erhu, very beautiful! What a great way to remember my first birthday overseas! Then the festivities continued but that will have to wait for another post...

i heart my bike!

time is a creepin' up on me... if i put off updating the rest of the world on my many goings on in the Chinas more things happen, and then there's not enough time to fit in everything. oh what a vicious cycle! i'll try my best, regardless.

first thing's first: i bought a bicycle, finally! she's a beauty and only cost me a 100 kuai + another 35 kuai for a lock, basket and bell ting ting! (that's about $20). i'm so, so happy.  i was beginning to forget what it felt like to ride around the city, slightly fearing for my life at every turn, with the wind in my hair... i really love it, despite the traffic in China. (side note: since Nellie, Gino and i now all have bikes, when we ride around we are a gang of people, hence we have formed a bike gang. we are called Cao mei sha sho, which translates to the Strawberry Killers. We are badasses, and we will kill any strawberry, on sight.)

now, you may have heard stories, but you really don't know the horror that is Chinese traffic until you experience it.  It doesn't really matter if you're in a taxi, scooter, bus or personal car, there are no rules, no lanes and everyone refuses to stop for any reason.  At first i thought i was going to die every few minutes, then i realized that i actually would die by giving myself a heart attack from watching the road and the many, many close calls, so now i try not to pay attention when i'm a passenger... that being said, riding a bicycle is very different.  of course i pay attention to the traffic around me and i use my bell when needed.

this brings me to a topic that has been on my mind: the use of the car horn in China.  at first, again, i was extremely put off by the frequency and volume of car horns on the roads in China. Excessive, to say the least. but now, i am able to equate their honking of the horn to the ringing of a bicycle bell. They don't honk like we do in America, rarely, and only to say "hey you ass, get out of my way!" or "what the hell are you doing, MOVE!" No, the Chinese honk, as if to say, "hey, i'm here, i'm not stopping, on your left!" so though it is incessant, i think it is somehow more polite. maybe.

other things that happened this week are i got a haircut at a literal mom & pop place where Penny used to get her hair cut as a kid, for about $3! i learned the word for hair, tou fa. we were invited to do KTV with a fellow teacher whose wife is Chinese and she wanted to use us as eye candy to impress some local government people.  it was kinda fun to hang out with Paul, Annie and their daughter, Susan, but there was a down side. the government men were SO drunk a) i thought they might puke on me, b) they forced me to dance with them and c) we think they may have tried to drug me.  now don't freak out too much.  i'm fine.  but Annie, the Chinese lady who invited us, got pretty sick, like she was given something, sick.  we later put it together that she drank a drink that was poured for me but i only took a sip from and then left to select a song.  Annie is also fine, but it was a little scary.  if nothing else this has taught me that i don't want to be eye candy for Chinese rich people, even if there are lots of free peanuts!

anyway the weekend ended well because Nellie, Gino and i got foot massages at Tian tian foot massage and it was very relaxing.  They don't just soak, massage and lotion up your feet, but they also give you about a 20 minute body massage after they do your feet! so nice, we were there for over an hour, and again only 60 kuai ($9)!  and then we got some fantastic street food, bao zi, pan fried.  granted this is a breaded meat ball, and i have avowed to not eat the meat; the crunchy crispy bread dipped in hot sauce was still delicious.

despite the whole, apparently being roofied thing, the KTV night was not a total bust. Gino was able to show Susan (in my opinion one of the coolest 16-year-olds i have ever met) some serious dance moves and she therefore thought of him when she needed help to put together a performance for her school.  i truly hope to be able to witness the final dance, but if not i will at least record the practice session this saturday and share with the world four Chinese girls dancing to "Tell me when to go" by E 40, choreographed by Gino... stay tuned

Annie invited us over to dinner after Gino was practicing with Susan and i had some of the be

st food i've had in China thus far.  She kept saying that if she had known Susan was going to invite us over she would have really cooked, but it was still so good! Mushroom, tofu, and broccoli, oh my, hen hao chi! (pictured to the right are Gino, Susan, Sunny and Annie, the chef)

i have decided to become a vegetarian, in China of all places

i awoke on a Saturday morning at 6:45am so i could be at the house of the groom's grandmother by 8:30am.  just in time to see Tina, the bride, getting her hair and make-up done.  She looked like a princess, she even had a tiara. We sat around in the bedroom with the other "sisters" drinking green tea and waiting. i felt bad for Nellie because she hadn't eaten breakfast and it seemed like it would be awhile til the food, little did i know that this food experience would change me in profound ways...but i'm getting ahead of myself.

Suddenly, there was a commotion of fireworks, drums and cymbals outside we all went to the balcony to see a procession of the groom and about 15 friends and family members plus a four-person band heading towards the apartment.  i had no idea how all these people would fit in the tiny apartment; really i had no idea what was going on most of the time because, well, it was in Chinese.  They mounted the four flights of stairs to the front door and we promptly closed the door to the bedroom, placed a stool in front of the door and opened the little window above the door so Nellie could talk to Alpha, the groom.  She asked him several questions about his relationship and then asked for money, a ceremonial bribe to be let into the room to see his bride-to-be.  He offered cigarettes and all the sisters yelled "No!" then another sister got up on the stool and said if he didn't give us money he had better sing a song.  After this ritual humiliation, Alpha and the grooms party and wedding camera man were allowed in.  he gave Tina flowers and then had to hunt for her shoe and place it on her foot.  it was silly and romantic.

we headed out to the street to the sound of more fireworks and music.  i was shuffled into a car with Tina's parents and the makeup girl and we headed out to Alpha's childhood home in the countryside, about an hour outside Huzhou. i slept.  We arrived and a parade of still more fireworks and music lead us past the Nebraska of China, fields upon fields of corn, to the village.

 

Everyone came out of their houses to see the procession and once we arrived there was tons of confetti and really loud fireworks right in the middle of the crowd; there are few, if any regulations on the acquiring and/or exploding of fireworks in China... i'm very excited about this by the way.  The bride and groom made a mandatory stop at a shrine-like table with incense and candles, said a prayer, bowed a few times, everyone clapped and then it was time to eat lunch.

So lunch started out innocent enough, a bowl of candies, peanuts and sunflower seeds on every pink table-clothed table with beer and sprite for everyone. Then came a bowl of what looked like little white balls of dough. And that's what they were, in a sugary soup, very sweet and it kinda reminded me of doughy Kix. Then came trouble.  

I was feeling adventurous, no overwhelming urge to eat nothing with a face had hit me yet. they brought out steamed buns and egg role type things containing unidentifiable meats, i ate them. Then came the onslaught of whole animals: chicken with feet attached and contorted neck, it's little eyes looking at me; turtle, the shell softened into an apparently edible goo, underneath stewed bits of turtle meat, i was served a leg, it had toe nails; next came whole small crabs.  i thought i could eat that with a little instruction, i have had crab legs, after all. no, no and more no. 

One of Alpha's friends showed me how it's done.  First things first, you take the under shell off and suck the contents of the crab's ass out.  then you break off all of its legs, next you look it straight in its beady, crustacean eyes and creepy, creepy mouth and break open its top shell.  i am almost vomiting just writing this.  it was seriously like being forced to eat on of the aliens from Starship Troopers... i couldn't even open the top because i would've had to touch it's face, so Nellie did it and she is a vegetarian!  

once it was open i couldn't contain my disgust anymore, i probably embarrassed myself but i gave it to the guy who showed me how to open it and he was more than happy to receive it.  In fact, he said, "Oh, this one's pregnant! it'll be more delicious" and slurped out whatever was inside.  At that point i was eating sticky rice and edamame... finally the last straw came at dinner, same house, different types of meat, this time it was shrimp.  Because there were only three dishes of vegetables, one of them being pistachio nuts, Nellie was struggling, so she attempted to eat shrimp, but ended up just examining it and taking it apart. She officially grossed me out by tearing off the shrimp head and squeezing out its brains! i again, almost vomited.  The wedding was fun but the lasting impression the food made will outweigh everything else in my memory.

 

i wish my reasoning for attempting to stay away from all forms of meat was more noble, out of respect for all living things, but its not.  i've flirted with the idea on and off, but i always decided that i love cheeseburgers and bacon way too much.  After this experience, and the fact that all food in China is served at the very least with the maximum amount of bones in it, if not the whole animal on your plate, eyeballs, tongues, assholes, feet, everything, i can't stomach it anymore. Really seeing where the food comes from rather than prepackaged, neatly trimmed chicken breast and bacon strips, which in no way resemble the animal they come from, makes me not want to eat them; they gross me out.  + i can't get a good cheeseburger, or real bacon here anyway. 

Shanghai nights...

So Shanghai was just as i remembered it, a big metropolis, a little stinky, with millions, literally millions of people.  as you walk through the streets you can feel and see the masses walking, sitting, squatting, blocking your direct path into the metro station, they're everywhere.  Pictured below is a little fella called Hai-bo, the mascot for the 2010 Shanghai expo, already he is strewn across the city in parks and on populous street corners... i don't know what he's supposed to be but to me he looks like toothpaste with a face.

i had two goals while in Shanghai: to check out the Shanghai Book Traders Foreign Language bookstore and look at some modern Chinese art.  done and done.  At first i was disappointed by the bookstore because, though they had a surprising selection of English language novels everything from William S. Burroughs to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Michael Crighton, everything was 85 to 250 yuan! that's roughly $15-39 for a 200 page paperback? i don't think so, especially when i'm used to buying books from Twice Sold Tales for $3 (shout out).  Luckily i found a table of sale books and bought The Souls of Black Folk and The Jungle by Upton Sinclair for about $3 each! hooray for bargains.

as for the other matter, amazing.  if you're ever in Shanghai you must go to 50 Moganshan Lu and check out the galleries in this bizarre complex of art and design. we walked from our hostle near Jing'an Temple for about 45 minutes through a very strange and dirty part of Shanghai until we came across this small street with a retaining wall full, chalk full of graffiti. in Huzhou there is no graffiti whatsoever, and other than this seemingly state-sanctioned display very little in Shanghai as well.  This stuff was beautiful, futuristic with vibrant colors.  we even witnessed a dude complete with spray paint mask with a work in progress, sadly i did not take a picture of him... there were also what seemed to be several photo shoots happening on this street as witnessed below:

once we actually made it to the gallery complex down the street with a dozen or so galleries mixed in between looming, concrete apartment building and old two story wooden houses with mini-marts in the front and paper lanterns hanging off the balconies, i was so impressed. there are about 20 buildings with multiple floors of galleries ranging in styles, some clothing, some art book stores, but mainly painting and photography.  below is my favorite piece:

yes, these are real. a taxidermied tabby cat humping a dog, incredible. there was a lot of great painting and we were even able to go to the roof of one of the buildings and get a pretty good view of the city and the Suzhou creek that borders the complex.  it was a tiring adventure, as per usual, when you spend the day looking at art that baffles and bewilders you, as evidenced by Nellie's face. some other highlights i will have to give a verbal description of: a four-foot ceramic sculpture of Mao Zedong decorated completely in that blue-white traditional chinese china design, entitled the future, old mirrored dressing tables rigged so that the mirrors displayed digital, red-glowing messages about appearances, and beautiful classic black and white photos of Chinese daily life with  one or two objects like, a paper lantern or a mop expertly, brightly color-tinted.  

Our last night out in Shanghai we went to Sena and Mustafa's fantastic Shanghai apartment, it's small, modern, and has a really amazing view of Shanghai's gigantic skyscrapers.  the view was especially beautiful at night. we partied it up there with mojitos and loads of cheese and crackers for a few hours.  then, finally at 1am we went out to a club called, Zapatas!  yes, indeed the club has a giant mural of the Mexican revolutionary on the front of the building, but i was too intoxicated to take a picture of it, next time.

the last day was spent shopping in the French concession, they have H&M, Mango and Zara, oh my! plus a french bakery and a grocery store with foreign foods. including, but not limited to, pinto beans, babybel cheese and LU petit ecoliers, all of which i purchased for an insane amount: 72 yuan ($12 on three items in China is a crap-load)! back to Huzhou just in time for a country-side wedding...

the National Holiday begins

to start off the week long holiday i have, of course, contracted the sickness.  i'm still determined to have fun though, cold or no cold.  i will be leaving for Shanghai this morning and hopefully staying there in order to catch a glimpse of a very rare species in the Chinas: an electronic music festival on the outskirts of Shanghai's technology park... when i get back i'll give you all the details. + on saturday i'm going to a wedding in the country side, traditional with lots of food and if all goes well a little KTV in the city to finish the night... more stories to come!

wish me well and a safe bus ride for the next two hours

the shaky, shaky game!

So this week was awesome!  it was a short teaching week because of the previously mentioned holiday and started out with my friend Nellie's birthday dinner.  Super fun, met some of her friends who also live in Huzhou.  It was a grand mix of Chinese, Americans, Turks, Spanish, Australian and Canadian + delicious cake! pictured here:

I met more girls, Senat and Maria, this is really exciting for me because though i love hanging out with Gino and John, they are boys.  In case there was any confusion.  And they talk and joke like, well, 15-year old boys.  i find this funny most of the time but sometimes i need another feminine perspective to say "that's disgusting" so i know i'm not completely overreacting.

Anyway we had plans to all go to Shanghai for the weekend, but they fell through and instead we ended up partying it up in Huzhou.

Gino and i were invited to Penny's (our assistant and chinese teacher) cousin's birthday party Saturday night.  It was awkward because her whole extended family was there and only Penny speaks English to a certain extent.  We sat at the kids table and tried to tell her cousin, Niu, thanks for having us in a melange of Chinglish while he tried to tell us "nice to see you".  We were told not to bring a present and instead we were given gift boxes full of Chinese bakery deliciousness.  We also ate tons of seafood, including crab legs and a dish called Huzhou very valuable fish. Food was great, and this birthday meant an even larger cake but in the same style as the one pictured above, hen hao chi!

So, Penny has been asking us every weekend if we want to go to KTV with her and we finally said that we would do it after the dinner.  The condition for doing karaoke in China or anywhere for most people is to get loaded.  So we went to a grocery and got some alcohol and prepared to make fools of ourselves.  Little did we know that Penny is a KTV professional.  She has a really pretty singing voice but she only picked slow ballads in Chinese while we made a mockery of the whole thing picking songs from Ace of Base, Mariah Carey, Tears for Fears and we even found Bad Touch by the Bloodhound gang...ridiculous.  It was midnight and we were closing the place down yelling down the halls "I swear by the sun and the moon and the stars, I'll be there..." All-4-one.  i think Penny was thinking what have i done, i've created karaoke monsters!  Even though the boys protested at first it ended up being really fun + they give you tea, watermelon and popcorn with the price of your room!

Side note: every bar in China serves watermelon as a snack.  sometimes there's popcorn or sunflower seeds, but there's always, always watermelon and cherry tomatoes. Always.

Penny went home, maybe a little bewildered by the effect that the combination of whiskey and singing had on us.  John, Gino, Nellie and i then all went to a couple bars and i was introduced to the shaky, shaky game.  Another bar staple.  Through my very thorough chinese lessons i have learned how to count in Chinese.  this is very important for this game.  And by counting i don't mean just the words for the numbers but also how to count, meaning they use different hand signals.  i will demonstrate my proficiency in counting Chinese style with this video:

so basically you have dice in an upside-down cup and you shake them, hence shaky shaky.  you try to guess the total number of dice of a certain number, like four, sixes or five, threes.  whoever is wrong loses and has to drink.  Suffice it to say i kicked John's ass and it was all thanks to my new sister Cho cho.  Since we were four foreigners in a Chinese bar at 1am we drew a little crowd.  We met the owner and we were served copious amounts of watermelon.  There was good music and the place was pretty full, we sat at the bar and the bartender girls began joining in on our game speaking Chinese to us. Cho Cho began to help me as i had never played before and was losing early on.  The only things she could say in English were "very good!", numbers 1-10 for the shaky shaky game and when we won she would give me high-fives, hug me and call me "sister".  

Word of warning, the peace sign will be used abundantly in any and all photos of people in China, drunk or sober, doesn't matter. At 3:30am after spending 20 kuai a bottle on beer that costs 3 kuai in the grocery it was time to call it a night.  Luckily we were really close to the school and just walked home. night well spent in the Chinas...

so pretty...

so this weekend was a holiday, we got monday off for Mid-Autumn Festival (sometimes called moon festival due to these lovely moon cakes filled with anything from red bean paste to meat to ice cream). The red bean one was pretty good.

In this long weekend i did a whole lot of nothing but chilling out.  I went to get my nails done with Gino's and my assistant, Penny.  She is adorable. She's teaching us Chinese in hour sessions, twice a week.  Her Chinese name is Xie Bing Qing, loosely translated to "thanks, ice clear".  Her command of English is far from fluent but without her life would be hell. Whenever we have a problem or a question she takes care of it.  She may look like she's fifteen but she's actually a year older than me!

i tried to ask her where i could buy nail polish remover because my nails were looking pretty haggard but she didn't really understand so we just ended up going to her friend's girlfriend's nail salon in a big mall near the center of town.  i've never had my nails done in the states so i thought, what the hell, it's probably less than $5... and it was, to be exact it cost $1.50! i decided to go all out: purple with white flowers and glitter, when in China...

they turned out so pretty, i think i'll go get them done on

 the regular just for fun.

watch out when i come back to the states i'm going to be totally asian-ified, i already have plans to get a haircut next month. you'd better believe it's going to be Chinese mullet-esque or some form of it. 

So after getting our nails did, Penny went home and i met up with John.  Gino was ill for thursday and friday and i had to teach one of his classes on thursday, it was no problem.  But i really, really hope he doesn't get me sick... that reminds me i have to buy halls vitamin C drops at the corner store as a preventative measure. 

Anyway so John and i wandered around, i made him try bubble tea, which he had never had! Unfortunately i wasn't sure how to order it and we ended up with plain tea flavored ones instead of fruit flavored. It was still good, but he was not big on the tapioca pearls... later we met up with this girl, Nellie.  We all met her about a week ago, she is a god-send.  She's lived in Huzhou for two years and she's from Iowa.  She speaks Chinese pretty well and knows where everything is.  (It's actually her birthday tomorrow and we're going out to dinner in a few hours to celebrate, but i'm getting ahead of myself).  We went with Nellie to an outdoor eating spot where people just set up tables near outdoor street meat carts and buy anything from fried rice to squid on a stick.  We had some beers and some fried potatoes and peanuts (eaten with chopsticks).  We met Nellie's Chinese friend, Yang, he is cool.  

i caught a taxi home around 1:30am and thought i was going to pee myself before i could get the gate open to our building.  i think my late night rabble rousing has started the rumor mill a churning.  A teacher mentioned to Gino that she heard we were staying out quite late and that most teachers are back before 9pm!  Of course we don't have to be back by then, but maybe a little earlier, this is what she said.  Now my suspicion is that they really could care less what time Gino comes back but because i'm a woman i think i'm going to get some shit talked about me.  We'll see how that all turns out.

We went to Nellie's apt for dinner Saturday night and had salad and pasta, amazing! Her apartment is a little far away from the center but it's so cute and she has an actual kitchen and it's clean!  She gave me a coffee pot and a hot plate.  So 

now i will love her forever and owe her my first born child... she also let me borrow some bootlegged movies which miraculously work on my laptop so i don't have to buy a DVD player!

Sunday was super chill: i did laundry, worked out, read some, watched Sex and the City (finally) and then had dinner with Gino while we

watched another movie and in the evening i even studied some Chinese.  Today i actually have to prepare some lesson plans for the week...boo.  it has gotten easier to plan for now though.  i borrowed a bike from this australian guy and rode it to the giant supermarket Da ren fa, this morning. Riding in Chinese traffic, even for a ten 

minute bike ride is stressful, but all my eggs made it back unscathed!

Last thing, we had some typhoon-type weather on saturday so when Gino and i went into town to meet John and didn't bring umbrellas we ended up being stuck under an awning for an hour and a half while it rained to rival biblical tales.  We watched as the Chinese went about on their bicycles and scooters undeterred, if not for making funny squinting faces as the rain beat them up. i mean it was raining hard, the picture doesn't due it justice!

Pros and Cons

There are many ups and downs to the Chinas...

a small sampling of the things i like and don't like at the same time:

Cons

1. it's raining now...
2. squat toilet in my apartment, yeah.
3. really oily cafeteria food, coming from what part of the animal? 
4. my cheap ass will not turn down free food from the cafeteria, at least for now... 
5. things often break here, a lot. 
6. the students are a little crazy, foreign teacher to them = run wild time!
   

Pros

1. when it rains it pours! (None of that non-committal drizzle crap from Seattle!)   
2. i will develop strong thighs... 
3. appreciating grilled chicken more and more
4. food at the cafeteria is free  
5. someone will come to fix it 
6. the students seem to like me

proofs in the pudding:

 

Sept. 10th is teacher's day in China.

here's a card from a Primary 5 student and some

flowers, so cute!

Chinese children kicked my butt!

So the first week of teaching English in China has come to a very unceremonious close: i missed my last class because i was told it was at 13:20 when it was really at 12:30, oops.  oh well, not my fault.

So the teaching, by the numbers: i have 23 classes a week and about 260 students.  I walk up at least 13 flights of stairs every day going from class to class! i was so tired the first two days all i did in my free time was sleep and go out to by some fruit.

i teach two classes of Primary 1 (6-year-olds) and four classes of Primary 5 (10 to 11-year-olds) and one class of Junior 7.  It will take a while for me to get a handle on the whole planning lessons, making them fun and interesting thing.  Since the week is finally over i'm gonna try to plan out next week in advance and make sure we don

't have any mishaps like this week.

Example 1: duck, duck, goose is dangerous.  i injured at least two little girls by introducing them to this diabolical game.  Running on concrete in shiny, new sandals is not a good idea, they face planted and it ruined the game for everyone else!  Really i felt so bad, and i was pretty sure they would hate me forever, little did i know that 6-years-olds have the memory of a goldfish and therefor the next time they saw me they were all smiles.

Example 2: i have been instructed by the administration to skip tea

ching the primary class the alphabet (you know the building blocks of the English language A-B-C) and instead to teach them words with pictures and lots of repetition, how fun and effective that will be!  i'll work it out, at least this way i get to draw a lot of pretty pictures...

The weekend is upon us, and i'm so glad!  TGIF for reals.  I will commence exploring the new city that i live in, Huzhou, Zhejiang province, China! 

Gino and i live on campus, yes this means in the boys dormitory. These little monsters tear down the stairs everyday at 7am and then again for a solid three hours in the evening.  Luckily they go home for the weekend, so we'll have some peace and quiet, it might be kind of spooky actually...  John lives in an apartment in a really good part of town.  But he found cockroaches! and his a.c. doesn't work, but he does have a full kitchen, which i am seriously lacking (components of my kitchenette below.)

ok this is all for now, i will leave you with this jem: when purchasing cell phones from a kiosk downtown, i was on the phone and then i felt something in my hair... it was an old chinese woman petting me, she looked so happy! as she and her companion walked away they mustered up what must have been the only English words they knew "I love you!" they shouted to me. it was surreal.