All it takes is tears

Alright guys, I had a pretty rough week last week. Nothing extreme was happening, but things started piling up I guess. I was starting to feel overwhelmed in my classes and was having lots of negative feelings about China. One day I had to go get a registration permit so I can continue to live in this place, so I took my scooter to the visa issuing building and was ushered through doors and kept going to the wrong place because nobody would just talk to me. When I finally got to the right place and went through three different booths going through all the paperwork, I went to the final booth to finish up, and they told me that I was lacking one of the necessary papers to finish the permit application. I knew that I had it, and that I had simply left it at my apartment. So instead of going back home and picking it up and bringing it back, I sat down on a bench in the office and I cried. Like a little girl. With a hundred different eyes staring at me. One of the girls that had been helping me noticed me crying and came over to talk to me. She assumed I was upset because I didn’t understand what was going on, so she continued to speak to me in English and tell me not to cry. One of her reasons was that my country wouldn’t like it or something. Like since I’m an American, Obama is going to find out about this and it will turn into a diplomatic incident. It’s all about face. She wouldn’t want people to think that an American had a bad experience in China, so they were totally willing to help me once I started bawling, which made me angry so it was harder to stop crying. So I walked up to the counter COMPLETELY embarrassed. There were people everywhere! Have I mentioned that? In China, you are NEVER ALONE. I couldn’t just walk to the bathroom and get all of my tears out, I had to take a walk of shame through the staring to get back to the counter. When we got there, the lady was like “So we’ll just have the police department fax the paper over”. Apparently they had easy access to this paper that they had neglected to mention. REALLY? You knew all along that you could easily obtain this paper, and instead of helping me out in the first place, you were going to make me go an hour out of my way to get it? It doesn’t make sense to me! In America, when you have a problem, workers go out of their way to help you. Customer service! It does not exist in China.

But I have learned some valuable lessons from this experience. 1. All it takes is tears! I got something unthinkable accomplished, in a government building, IN CHINA. This never happens! There is a commonly used phrase in China: “没办法”, which basically means “there is no solution”. When a problem arises, a lot of the time people give up. In this bustling world where people work harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, there is too much to do to spend too much time on one little problem. But there is a 办法！Every problem has a solution. For the people in that building, all it took for them to find the 办法was an adorable blonde girl crying. Maybe someday everyone in China will find a 办法.  2. I need to stop blaming my problems on China. I tend to lump a country of 1.351 billion individual people into one huge entity fighting against me. That is racist, and single-minded, and will help me accomplish nothing. I need to take responsibility for my own problems and stop giving up so easily.

That was last week. I am much better now. I am still a little inconsistent in how I feel about being here. Sometimes I love everything about this place, and sometimes I want to punch China in the face, but overall it is getting better. I have been playing volleyball on the school courts which is so much fun. We went on a flagship outing last weekend to the Ming emperor tombs and the mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen. 

My friend Crystal being awesome

I have been to both of them before, but it was still nice to get out and get some sun.

On Saturday night, some of us went to Pizza Hut for Eric’s birthday and it was amazing. They do have some really strange flavors and offer a lot more than pizza, but I had a slice of regular pepperoni pizza which was divine. I am going to need to restrain myself from eating it all the time because it’s pretty expensive. Afterwards, we went shopping at the market called Fashion Lady underneath the main shopping district in Nanjing. When everybody else left, I hit up H&M and was basically there until it closed. Luckily I didn’t bring a lot of cash or I would have bought all the things. They actually have my size! No sneering stick-skinny Chinese girls telling me I have fat thighs. It was a beautiful time. I have a feeling I will become great friends with that place while I’m here.

I started another one of my classes today. It was in a classroom with probably around 80 seats and there were kids crowded in the aisles and out the backdoor. I thought signing up for classes at BYU was hard, I can’t even imagine China enrollment fiascos. Oh wait, yes I can. Here’s a picture:

I can’t decide if that was worse, or my class a few hours later. I had attended this class twice before, and there were about 10 students in it each time. Many master’s courses didn’t start until this week, which means that a lot of the students haven’t even been in Nanjing until now. When I got to class, there were about 5 more people than usually, filling up our classroom of about 15 seats. About 10 minutes into class, 6 more students arrived looking for places to sit. Another couple of people filtered in over the next few minutes and the teacher had to find more chairs. At this point, I didn’t think that the classroom could possibly fit any more people. It was small to begin with, and there were chairs lining the walls on every side of the room. Oh how wrong I was. In another 10 minutes, another 10 students came looking to sit down and somehow they all managed to fit in. It defied the laws of space and time. Literally all of the space in the classroom had been taken up, but somehow more space appeared. I have not ruled out that the room could either be a TARDIS or under an expansion charm. Further investigation results to be posted.

That’s pretty much it! Nothing terribly exciting. In other news: yellow fever. Asian boys are getting cuter every day.

China pics of the day:

My China escape

My adorable roommate

Pork deliciousness

 

 

 

 

 

What does this mean?

Freakin

Well everybody, it has come. The day that I have dreaded above all others. I thought I could avoid it, it was taboo to me. If I never spoke the word or allowed the thought to enter my head, then it wouldn’t happen. But it happened, and I am still shuddering. Cockroaches. The word that every expat fears. I stepped out into my kitchen from the bathroom to wash my hands, and a gigantic insect striped orange and brown with WINGS dropped out of nowhere onto the sink right in front of me. I promptly shrieked and ran from the room, and proceeded to jump up and down wringing my hands while contemplating whether to attempt to grab the Raid from under the sink, or to jump out of my four story window. Meanwhile, the hellish beast was ominously crawling around the sink, apparently attracted to the bright yellow lemon soap my roommate had bought. I figured that it was pretty well distracted and, while holding a frying pan for protection, I slowly opened the cabinet under the sink, grabbed the orange scented Raid, and started spraying for my life screaming all the time (“ohmygawshohmygawshohmygawh go back to hell!!!”). After I had sufficiently sprayed it (I was feeling lightheaded) and confirmed it dead, I continued to freak. I had been talking to my friend Mindy earlier and I called her back in a panic shrieking, arms flailing, and, well, panicking. She talked to me and calmed me down.

I think this counts as a panic attack. I haven’t heard myself scream that loudly since the 10 minutes directly after I met Tyler Glenn at In N Out Burger. I haven’t spent more than thirty consecutive seconds in my kitchen since. And I can’t stop thinking about what else there could be looming in my China future. Where did it come from in the first place? What if there are more? What if there is an entire colony of them in my ceiling??? What do they do up there? Like when I am sleeping? I can’t do this. Nowhere is safe. They are everywhere, waiting for their moment. They’ve been waiting for millions of years, growing in numbers and evolving WINGS APPARENTLY. I am having daymares about future face-offs with the roaches. I must arm myself and fight for my home. They will not take this away from me. Ugh my throat hurts from screaming. I need to relax…

Phew. Okay I am much better. Had some food. Had a coke. Removed a lot of profanities from what I had previously written. Did I overreact? Not in the least. Although I have since discovered that it was most likely not a cockroach that I saw, and just some other gigantic and terrifying insect. With WINGS might I remind you. I am currently sitting in my Poverty class waiting for the teacher to come and all the students think that he’s not coming. At least the other students are here. Not like the fiasco of last week. I went to one of the classes that I potentially wanted to take, which is all the way at Xianlin campus. I live and have most of my classes at Gulou campus, and they are about half an hour away by bus, 45 minutes by subway. So I arrived in the classroom and NOBODY WAS THERE. Apparently it was a class that doesn’t start for another three weeks. It didn't say that on the course list. Nope. They just left that little detail out. And it is totally normal for the teacher to be twenty minutes late in this world. In the America, if a teacher were to be late, they would send you 8,000 emails and apologize. I don't even know my teachers' email address! Things are different here, people. To add to my disappointment that I had just gone two hours out of my way for no class, it was raining. What? But I love the rain! Not in China. Normally after rain, everything is beautiful and clean and smells fresh. In Nanjing, although rain does clear a lot of the pollution from the sky for a day or two, it mostly just sort of spreads all the dirt around and makes everything humid and muggy for the next few days. 

Am I complaining a lot? I don't mean to! I've actually had a great week. I don't feel sick anymore, I have a great new roommate, I went shopping this weekend. I guess some days things like dirty rain and cockroach-like hell beasts and being constantly stared at can get on my nerves. But I promise I am not constantly in a bad mood. Like I said, this weekend I went shopping with the study abroad girls (Woot!). Shopping in China is the best. You can find any possible style that you want, and if you aren't satisfied with the price, you can haggle for a better one! Sizes are kind of annoying. I went into a jeans store and asked the lady if I could try some on, and she sneered at me and said "We don't carry your size here" and I said "Oh, is it because I'm such a fat American?" and she just smiled and I walked away. But other than that I pretty much love everything. Also we found the coolest cellphones!

Oh it's just a cute little toy car

NOT! It's a cellphone!

 So Cute right? The Asian people are connoiseurs of cute. I bought a shirt that makes me look like a sailor and some stripy patterny leggings. Also I saw this:

Communist Panda

For my friends who speak Chinese I died laughing because it's a 毛泽东的熊猫, A 毛猫。Well I think it's funny! It was a fun trip.

Also I mentioned that my roommate moved in right? She is fantastic! Her English name is Maggie and she is adorable. Last night we were talking about Chinese stereotypes towards women, and we had just finished our conversation and I absentmindedly started whistling Mario. She said "hey did you know that in China, girls aren't really supposed to whistle? It's seen as a guy thing". She has never been able to whistle! So I spent the next 20 minutes wikihow-ing how to teach someone how to whistle. We made excellent progress. I'll have to post some pictures of her soon because she is the cutest.

I think that's pretty much it! Upcoming events hopefully will include a trip to Qingdao and definitely include lots of homework. For now,

China tip, never lean your head back against any headrest, ever, and

China pic of the day:

Why is there a picture of Santa Claus in my composition classroom in China in September? I do not have the answer to that question.



Bye now!

上课！

My best friend in the WHOLE world got married on Saturday. In America. Luckily I was able to fly back for three hours and make it to the reception. NOT!!! I was here in China, sleeping soundly when they got married and getting ready for church during the reception. Luckily I was able to Facetime the beautiful Natalie Fielding during the reception so I could say hi to her, but it was not the same. I missed the most important day in my best friend's entire life. And no matter how many baby births (probably eleven) or anniversaries (one million) I will get to congratulate her on,  I will never be able to change history and be there to celebrate with her that one special day when her life changed forever. I feel like this is yet another evidence of me choosing my future career and life goals and whatever over my family and friends and things that are actually important. Is this going to be who I am in life? That girl who really wished she could be there but was too busy doing things that actually don't matter? Just some food for thought. Yucky food like hairy meat or black bean sesame balls. I'm sad, guys. But I am still ridiculously excited for her and know that I will get over it.

Good! So I'll stop being such a bummer. On the awesome side of things, China is still awesome, and usually never fails to make me smile. I went to my first Nanjing University direct enrollment class yesterday! It took me an hour to get there because it's in a different campus in Nanjing, and I walked in completely terrified and sure that I was going to forget how to speak Chinese and then die. Other students started arriving, looking at me strangely and then whispering to each other. I attempted conversation but couldn't think of anything to say, confirming the former of my fears. And as more students came in staring at me, I was pretty sure that my face was going to burn off from embarrassment which would have confirmed the latter of my fears. Don't worry, I am still alive and can speak Chinese. But then the teacher walked in and made me feel much better. He was extremely welcoming to me specifically and asked me my name and where I was from. He had studied abroad in America previously and mentioned it a lot during class, looking at me like we were sharing a special secret. During the class break, he asked me if he was speaking clearly enough for me to understand. It was very comforting. After class, I conversed normally with the other students, walked around campus for a while, and got on the train back home. I didn't die! and my next class is closer and I have a friend in it so I am much less nervous. I can do this! I think I can I think I can.

Last Saturday morning, I finally made time to go out and get groceries, and I decided to go to Carrefour, which is the greatest Western influence in the whole of China. I bought spaghetti and broccoli and peanut butter and Doritos!

sooo good

 

Never before have I seen Doritos in China. It was basically the best trip ever. However, I had decided to treat myself to wearing short shorts and a tank top because I have been super awesome at keeping the honor code lately and felt like I deserved a tiny break. It was a Saturday so I wouldn't be a bad example of BYU because no one I knew would see me right? Wrong. The second I got to Carrefour, I ran into a member of the bishopric and two other older guys in the ward. Really? Really. We had just had a lesson on For the Strength of Youth the Sunday before, talking specifically about dress standards. Mega fail. And then later that day when I was going to pay my rent,

￥12,000 to pay rent with. Rollin in the Mao's

 I ran into a bunch of the BYU study abroad kids that had just arrived and were looking for a house. DOUBLE mega fail. I'm so bad at rules! Working on it.

I'm starting to get to know the neighborhood a lot better. I am almost a regular at a couple of places, and I'm riding my little scooter around everywhere. Some people are starting to recognize me in my building too. There's this little grandma lady that glares at me every time she sees me. I think some Chinese people are still really afraid of foreigners and will therefore not be my friends. I blame Chairman Mao and the cultural revolution. Not your best idea, sir.

That's all for now! I'm headed off to my second direct enrollment class. Wish me luck!

China pic of the day:

China comic book store. I had no idea they liked ET.