I'm never...

There are many times when I say, "I'm never..." but the trend seems to be that I always end up doing the thing I thought I would never do. Like going to China to teach English, and eating a river snail, and being a vegetarian. Add to the list: Owning a car that isn't a Chevy. Two weeks ago, my dad and I decided to look for a car for me because SD is 5 hours away, which is just long enough that anyone who would come pick me up would have to stay overnight before driving home. SD is also, I hear, crazy cold in the winter, so a car will be better for errands and emergency runs to Sioux City when I can't bear it any longer.

We did some research on consumer reports and Edmund's. I had driven a few cars, but we found a 2005 Elantra with low mileage, which seemed kind of perfect. The 2005 Elantra is the used car "best bet," and it's considered to be pretty reliable. Besides...look how pretty!


Perhaps you remember when I wantonly threw out my favorite shoes in China. It was really sad, but I got some new shoes, which are better, if only because the soles aren't falling off. Actually, I think these shoes are a bit more awesomer because they have different colors of brown and stylish stitching on the toe area.


New car, new shoes, new school...and coming soon: two birdies!

-吴碧芙

Stepping Out

My old roommate and I were busting up Iowa City this weekend. Things have changed, but things are also the same. There is a feeling to IC, which can't be described. It seemed that almost everything was the same, including some of the people we saw, people who have been walking the streets probably every day since we were in school. Shock highlights included the empty store front where Baldy's used to be, flood damage, and many new buildings.

We, of course, had dinner at Masala, and spent the rest of the night at, of course, Dublin Underground. The evening included us, ex's, ex-band members, and a few surprises. When we got hungry, we skipped out to Marco's Grilled Cheese cart and George's Gyros cart. We took over the jukebox, and played the less-known alternative and indie songs. In the morning we had breakfast at, of course, the Java House, where they make a Tahitian Coffee that can't be beat. We walked around checking out downtown, and we eventually went to the Co-op to get those few hard-to-find items (Coconut oil was on sale).


After the Co-op, I met my friend and her four-year-old for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Then, I went to the best HyVee ever, where I used to work. They had gerbs, buy one get one free, and I couldn't resist.

I miss IC...It was good as escapism, at least for two days...Now I'll be going back to Starbucks coffee and beer to drown my sorrows.

-MsLin

TAC (Thursday After Class)

Looking through my China photos, I found the pictures from our last group barbecue. We used to go every Thursday after class, around 9pm, to have barbecue at the university's East Gate, where there was also a smoothie stand and the small restaurants that we frequented. Everyone would meet for beer and things barbecued on sticks, ordered with the instruction yidian la ("a little spicy"). This stand appeared in the evening and was completely open to the air. The blades of the fans were missing, and instead metal wires with plastic bags attached to the ends spun on the fan apparatus to keep the flies away from the food. The grill was next to the stand, also open to the air, with an exhaust fan to the side of it, in order to draw the smoke away from the customers.


I liked that there were enough vegetarian food choices in the stands, including tofu skin that was wonderful with the spice mixture on it.


My food (above) from top to bottom (kind of): tofu skin, sprouted garlic shoots (green), mantou (bread rolls), cilantro wrapped in tofu skin, green peppers (underneath).

The owner always remembered who ordered what, and how much they owed, so we could pay at the end of the evening if we wanted. We sat at metal folding tables and plastic patio chairs under a tarp, and wait for the food we chose to be delivered to the table.

Last Thursday I was traveling. This Thursday I will miss the weekly barbecue and all of my friends from China.

-吴佩芙

The Leaning Tower of Lianzhou

The two cousins accompanied me to Lianzhou and we stayed with their older sister. The evening of the first day we ate snacks by the river. This was where I tried a snail, which is a local specialty. I ate one, and it was ok, but sucking on the snail and biting off the head to eat seemed more disturbing than the idea of eating snail in the first place, so I didn't try it again, but at least I tried it once.

The second famous attraction in Lianzhou is the leaning tower. It seems to have been built with some kind of Buddhism in mind, but the exact reason is not completely clear. It leans slightly because of a problem with the foundation years after it was built.

At the top levels the stairways and passages get shorter and narrower, but high on the top-most level there is one of the best views of the city.


After returning from Lianzhou to Guangzhou, I stayed for two nights with Cousin James, who has an apartment there. We had dinner with his girlfriend on both nights and we spent Monday looking around the city, where I bought an English book for the trip back to the US, and we had the best foot massage ever for 40 RMB.

I took the early bus today, back to Shantou where I had to start again with bartering for a cab after just stepping off the bus. Now I'm at my apartment and getting ready for the inspection and check-out procedure tomorrow before flying home on Thursday!!

-吴佩芙

A Time for Spelunking

I just returned from a visit with the cousins to Lianzhou, which is a small city in Guangdong Province. I went from Shantou to Guangzhou first. Despite the "theifs and racketeers" my student warned me about, I found Guangzhou to be a nice city, although a little large. I waited for the first cousin at the mall, and then we met the other cousin at the bus station, where we hopped the 5-hour fast bus to Lianzhou.

Every city has it's own claims to fame, and Lianzhou has the Subterranean River. It is a huge cave with amazing rock formations, so far down into the ground that the cousins joked that if you went much further, you could go to America.


Just looking down from the entrance, as we waited for a guide, was pretty amazing. It's called the "Big Mouth Cave," because the cousins explained the opening of the cave looks like a big mouth. Their four-year-old niece was a little frightened by the size of it. It's true, though, that it looked like the mouth of Monstro (the whale who swallowed Pinocchio).


The bottom left formation is called a "lotus flower," and the pieces really look like the petals of a flower. We walked up and down staircases for 40 min. and the tour ended with a 20 min. boat ride on the small cave river.

-吴佩芙

I'm no longer afraid of spiders...

...except the kinds that eat birds, which my distinguished colleague reminds me are prevalent in the mountains and hills of this area. However, I have a few jumping spiders in my apartment, whom I have asked to jump under something so that I can't see them anymore. So we live happily in this way. Sometimes I jump when I see one, but the jump is followed by the thought: It's just a spider! Thank goodness!

We have geckos here too, more than in Arizona, but I don't mind those either. If I see one scurrying across the floor, the same thought goes through my mind: It's just a gecko. And I call it "Baby bihu (house lizard, 壁虎)" and talk to it in Chinese. I usually pick it up and put it out on the front balcony.

In China, small harmless spiders are a small harmless worry when there are 2-inch roaches threatening to squeeze through the cracks and streak across the room when you turn on the lights. Roaches give me the heebie-jeebies (a word that I taught my students during a slang warm-up this semester). Even thinking about them makes me jump and have formications.

A few weeks ago, as I was walking to ACC to work out I saw a glitter of gold on the ground. This was the first day of sun after a few days of rain. I looked down to see a iridescent beetle, stuck on his back and flailing to flip over. I grabbed a leaf and turned him over. It was the most beautiful natural thing I had ever seen, mixed specks of gold on a background of emerald green that sparkled in the sun like a gem. I grabbed a piece of paper with the intent to wrap him up, go work out, and then take him home to take a picture. However, a slow and steady escape artist, he worked through the folds in a few minutes and flew away before I could put him back inside. I lamented that I wasn't able to take a picture, and would probably never see another more stunning insect ever again.

Today I went to exercise early, and on my way back, I saw the iridescent beetle again, on the ground. This time I wrapped him in a towel, but as I was arranging this, a man who swept the streets took an interest and came over to see. He picked up the beetle off my towel and started shaking it around. I thought he was going to crush it. "No, wo yao! Ack! No, no, no.." He said something like "Bu yao dinxin" and put it back on the towel. I have no idea what he said, maybe "You don't want to touch it," or "You don't want a beetle," or "You don't want to capture it." As I rewrapped it and started walking home, the sweeper laughed and shook his head: Crazy laowai!

Well, I did get my picture, and the beetle is still alive on the balcony, although I'm hoping he will fly away before the cleaners come today.

-吴佩芙

Toes

Some of my distinguished colleagues and I decided to go downtown yesterday. Some of us hadn't had a pedicure before, even at home. However, we were persuaded when we saw that one of our colleagues had some cute nails done at a nice and clean salon. She said that we could get fish painted on our toes, and she told us about some hideous design examples she had seen. (Well, maybe not "hideous" but a little too bright, a little too busy, and a little too China-fabulous.) We each got either fish or flowers, and it was a fun girl's day to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of the rest of our lives. Can you guess which toes are mine?


I couldn't resist the fish, and I think the did a good job. My first pedicure, and maybe my last for a long time, was very fun and cute. Some of us also went to buy some gongfu tea sets, keeping in mind room in our suitcases and breakability of tea sets. I found a pattern I really like though, and a little yellow travel set in a zipper case (without a base) for under 2 USD.

We came home and got dressed for our year-end party. It was held at a nice hotel with a buffet dinner and then there were speeches and karaoke. It was also my first time singing any karaoke. I sang "I Just Called to Say 'I Love You'" by Stevie Wonder and "Top of the World" by the Carpenters (and was quite impressed that they actually had that one).

We took an extra hour to get to the hotel, though, because our fancy coach broke down right after we got out of the STU gate and onto the busy road. We got off the bus, and then they said it was fixed, so we got back on the bus. It wasn't fixed, so we got off the bus, (did the Hokey Pokey), and finally a new bus was called.

If you still haven't guessed, here is an extreme close-up of my toe painting:


-吴佩芙