"20 years from now...

...you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

(Often attributed to Mark Twain)

Leaf Sweeping

Wednesdays are cleaning days here at Qufu Normal University. None of the students have afternoon classes, so they are expected to clean their classrooms, their campus, and their dorm rooms. They will be fined if their dorm room isn't clean enough. When I dismiss my Wednesday morning class at noon, within minutes there are students standing on chairs cleaning windows, wiping down the black board, and dusting the sill by the building door.

I wanted to share these pictures with you, which show the wide brooms that are always used to sweep leaves and trash. I've never seen a rake here. (I've also seen these wide brooms being used on snow and even on water.)

Don't you love seeing those bright winter coats on a rainy December day?

May happiness follow you everywhere... Just like we do.

I laugh every time I read that. "May happiness follow you everywhere, just like wedo." What a lovely sentiment: happiness is an obsessive stalker! It appears on the cover of a notebook which is, fittingly, emblazoned with the word "Romantic" in beautiful script.

My writing students are required to keep journals for class, and many of them have cute little sayings on the front, often in Chinglish. Hope you enjoy this small selection.

First Chinese Haircut

After rocking a mediocre bob from home for the past 5 months, I decided my hair needed a little sprucing up. I didn't want it much shorter, but I wanted a few more layers and to get the ends thinned out a bit. So I turned to my adorable and stylish student, Jessie, for some help.

She took me to a salon in the East Market, where she knows the assistant manager. He is the man in the white and black shirt who cut my hair. When we arrived, all the stations were full, and they were waiting for the water to heat up to wash people's hair. (You can see the water heaters near the ceiling.) They never did quite get working that day, but soon enough it was my turn to have my hair washed by the assistant.

Then I walked over to my guy's chair. Jessie told him what I wanted, and he spent about 30 minutes meticulously sectioning off my hair, thinning the ends, and fixing my bangs. Overall, he did a pretty good job. At one point, I asked if he could do something about a particularly annoying piece of hair that always wants to flip out. His solution? He suggested that we chemically straighten my hair. I was a little tempted, but decided that I couldn't live with a year of bad hair if it somehow got ruined. When he finished cutting, the guy just used a blow dryer and comb to style my hair. No product, no curling iron, no straightener. I don't even think they had used conditioner.

Of course, having a foreigner in the salon created a bit of a stir, since foreigners are few and far between in Qufu and don't often frequent the salons in the East Market. I could hear the customers and stylists asking Jessie questions about me (where I'm from, how old I am, what my job is, etc.), but my Chinese isn't good enough to catch everything they said. The girl next to me decided to request exactly the same haircut as me, requiring her to chop off about 8 inches of her hair!

The best part about my haircut? I got it washed, dried, cut, and styled all for the low, low price of 8 yuan. For a mere $1.20 a pop, I could go back every week!

Jealous...

Catch 22

A blogging dilemma: When there's nothing to blog, there's plenty of time. When there's plenty to blog, there's not enough time.

My eyes are drooping and I should go to sleep instead of regaling you with tales of life in the Middle Kingdom. But never fear -- I have been amassing pictures and stories for your viewing pleasure. Soon, you will have the pleasure of vicariously enjoying at least some of the following adventures:

First haircut
Superhero skits
Student friends
Chinglish notebooks
Leaf-sweeping
Joseph's resurrection

Yes, my friends, these tantalizing treats -- these delectable morsels of China life -- are coming soon. Until then, good night!

Progressive Christmas

My teammate Lisa teaches a sophomore culture class. To help the students experience some Western holiday traditions, we invited them over for a progressive Christmas party. They were split into groups of 12-20 students, and they spent 25 minutes in each of our three apartments:

1) Lisa -- listening to the Christmas story, eating oranges and candy
2) Tarah -- learning Christmas songs
3) Alison -- gift exchange

For my apartment, each student had to bring a wrapped gift worth no more than 5 RMB. We had a white elephant gift exchange (although most students were too nice to steal desirable gifts from their friends). I've never seen so many stuffed animal keychains, cutesy piggy banks, and cell phone charms in my life. The most popular gift was a shapeless gray blob with an LED light inside. Seven different colors. So beautiful!

As you can see from the pictures, there was one point in the evening where Joseph from my nativity scene committed suicide by jumping off the shelf. Overall, the event was fun and I think everyone had a good time. Except maybe Joseph.

Ao Ba Ma

Chinese word of the day: 奥巴马 aobama. It's the Mandarin transliteration of "Obama."

Most of you know that President Obama visited Shanghai and Beijing during a recent trip to Asia. I didn't pay too much attention to his visit, although a couple pieces of news stood out: Obama meeting with Chinese leaders to cooperate on issues of global importance, Obama's remarks against internet censorship, and Obama's chilly visit to the Great Wall. There's an interesting article at Asia Times Online about the cooperation between our two countries: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KL01Ad01.html

Anyway, sitting around with my teammates talking about his visit, someone wondered aloud if Obama had slid down the alpine slide after visiting the Great Wall. This began a flurry of speculation on what only-in-China experiences our President enjoyed while he was here.

Sliding down the alpine slide?
Walking through the row of vendors? ("Hey, sexy man! You need a man bag?")
Using squatty potties?
Walking arm in arm with his new friend, the premier?

Our favorite one was imagining Chinese president Hu Jintao pinching Obama's sleeve to see how many layers he was wearing. "Wear more clothes!"