A very Chinesey Christmas

Ok ok, no more crazy dinner party stories. I've got a real one here about Christmas.
As many of you know, Andrea, Cathy Lee, Aubrey, Brandon and I stayed at the Beijing Crowne Plaza Hotel for Christmas. This was, by far, the most pleasant thing we've experienced here in China, but the only reason it beats out the flight from Xi'an to Beijing is because the China Air plane didn't have a jacuzzi.

I shall start my explanation of our week of gluttony by describing the truly "Lost in Translation" moment we had when we arrived at our 5 star hotel and a swarm of cleanly pressed and polished Crowne Plaza workers greeted us at the door, insisting on carrying our bags and pushing any and all elevator buttons for us. The hotel is actually still being renovated which means that check-in is on the 8th floor. It also meant that we got a 30% refund on my credit card when we checked out. A sincere letter of apology begged for our forgiveness that they only had floors 7, 8 and 9 open including the heated pool, jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, work out room, tanning bed and massage parlor... darn... we supposed we'd just have to be satisfied eating our continental breakfast with pretty little made-to-order omelettes in the 8th floor lounge instead of the huge dining area on the first floor.

The beautiful glass elevators took us down one floor while the bellhop opened the door to room no. 719 (aka heaven). Inside I found; a king sized bed complete with down comforter and four down pillows, many light switches for me to control my mood lighting, a bathtub with powerful massage shower head, bath accoutrements including shower cap, toothbrush, razor, lotion, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, cotton swabs, and everywhere I looked (sans bathroom of course) CARPET! Carpet, carpet, carpet, carpet! Ahhhh! I took my shoes and socks off and pranced about for a few moments in my beautiful room until I remembered that I smelled like China and immediately showered and soaked myself in a lovely, lovely bath.

We decided that some Christmas Eve shopping was in order so we simply walked out our front door to Beijing's finest Western shopping experience - WanFuJing Street. I perused the Nine West store and wandered around the many Chinese clothing stores in awe at the general hideousness of so many of their clothing items, and not in a good way. I do have to thank Brandon for being a particularly good sport as I ran from one ugly purse to another and even pretended to think that it would indeed be funny if I bought him the men's purple sweater with the word "pirate" written across the chest in big, cursive, pink sequins. and I thought women's Chinese clothes were weird...

Christmas Even dinner was then to be had at TGI Fridays. It was so perfectly TGI Fridays that you would almost think you were in America until you notice that all the workers were Asian and I don't care where you are in the States, that just doesn't happen. But really, the bar tenders were ringing their crazy "tip bell" and everyone had on their goofy hat and required 35 pieces of flair. The menu was also exactly the same, so I got some Electic Lemonaid, split the Mexi-tower appetiser (complete with jalapeno poppers, quesadillas and chicken nachos) and had a bacon cheddar burger with onion rings all to myself. We all vowed to eat everything on our plates even if it meant sitting back and waiting till you were hungry again to finish. We all know how much I like bacon and fried things so, no trouble there.

Jacuzzi plus food coma plus feather bedding equals the best nights sleep of my life.
We woke up for church on Christmas morning with bleary-eyed smiles. There was a beautiful Catholic church within walking distance of our hotel so we trekked on to wish Jesus a happy birthday. The mass was completely in Chinese, including the Christmas songs which were also translated. We were five of maybe seven foreigners in the place so I got my picture taken on my way up for communion, the procession of which was also incredibly Chinese in the way that it was a complete free-for-all to line up. No orderly line what so ever, though there was no pushing, so I guess it wasn't completely Chinese. The preist smiled and spoke to me in English when it was my turn which I thought was a nice touch.

Continental breakfast and then back in our jammies for presents! We had quite the pile even though it was only for the five of us. Brandon was ready for a fiesta with his bottle of Cuervo and Cuban cigars. Aubrey was ready to stay up for hours with her Starbucks gift certificate. Andrea got some pretty stuff I can't remember. I got some sweet paintings and a kick ass Puma bag, and Cathy Lee was regrettably given a bb-gun by yours truly, a gift I think I might soon regret.
Mud mask, bubble bath and brie in the afternoon and onto a hearty Christmas feast at the Outback Steakhouse. Two bloomen' onions, a fillet and loaded backed potato later and we decided that it could have, quite possibly been the best Christmas ever because we were appreciating every little detail of even minute luxury.

It was a holiday to remember. I missed all of you, though not too much...

Mr. Zhong is god

Now, you may be asking yourselves, "when did you give up religion and start worshiping a highly communist, Chinese deity?" "Stephanie aren't you Catholic?" "Andrea, I thought you
were Presbyterian..." (Cathy Lee's part of the story comes later)

Here now comes another story of drunkenness as supplied by the staff of Chengde Medical College.

Andrea and I were invited to dinner (about an hour before it was to take place) with the English Department. Apparently it is office Christmas party season/ aka New Years Party time. Again, we were the super duper guests of honor and were not allowed to sit with the cool, fun, young staff members, but were placed with the crusty, old, heavy baijou drinkers that don't speak English as much. This restaurant was pretty good, especially when compared to the dinner we had the night before where the president of the school insisted that we eat squares of fat because "they're good for your health". (it wasn't that bad, I just had to pretend I wasn't eating lard... it was kind of sweet...) The shots of baijou were passed around and we drank quite a bit before the meal started dying down. Don't worry, we taught everyone to chant "chug, chug, chug!" as they were downing pijou(beer). It was at this time, however, that the president of the school walked in. We had no idea he would be coming and because we had had dinner with his office staff the night before we didn't expect him at all. Regardless, he ordered us to drink more beer and then asked us if we like beef. Uh... sure, we like beef. "Yes, we have heard that Americans like beef." yeah... ok... We were then told that President Wang had ordered not one, but two more beef dishes for us, and only us, to enjoy. The night before President Wang was promising us hospitality for the Beijing Olympics, but last night we were promised big, lush apartments and a higher salary if we became permanent members of the Medical College's staff. We told him we'd think about it, but really all we thought about was that if we stayed we'd be going to a lot more dinners like the very one we were enjoying at the moment.

At this point we were reintroduced to the lovely people sitting around the table with us. Ms. Yee pointed out Mr. Wang, the VP of the English Dept, Mr. Wang, the Secretary of the English Dept, Mr. Lee, an English teacher... and of course President Wang. So the table set up was; Yee, Wang, Wang, Lee, Wang, Klaassen, Cosgrove. Riiiight... this is also about the time that Ms. Yee needs to tell President Wang my name again. He can not remember it because it is so long. So I tell him I need a Chinese name. What does Stephanie mean? According to my "Baby Name Book" it means "crowned one, noble and intelligent". He came up with Gui Hua (gway hwah) which is "noble flower". "It is the sweet smelling, princess flower", he says. Andrea kindly chimes in that I don't always smell so good, to which I sniff my armpit and grimace, thus causing uproarious laughter from all the Wangs. I also admit that my parents sometimes call me a princess... not so much out of love and adoration, but out of irritation at my ability to take 25 minute showers and need at least 1 hour to get ready for anything. Ho ho ho... and President Wang had to leave.

Enter stage left: Mr. Zhong, everyone's favorite and incredibly INTENSE English teacher. I was once invited to an "after school lecture" given by Mr. Zhong where I sat as the horrified honored guest, while he bullied the students into believing that if they didn't ALL know English that China, as a country, will never succeed. He's intensely communist.

So there we were; drunkity drunk drunk drunk and only mildly prepared for what Mr. Zhong might throw out there. All I remember is that at one point I made the ridiculous claim that, "communism and capitalism are really the same because they both have the same goals at heart! In fact! All religions are also the same..." There was a moment of quiet contemplation before my asinine comments were met with cheers of agreement. Andrea sat silently, hiding her face in her beer hoping that after opening up the topics of politics and religion that I wouldn't go for Tibet or Taiwan next. It was after I opened up that fat can of worms that Mr. Zhong proclaimed that he is god. Everyone is god! Andrea is god! I am god too!

KTV was next on the agenda. I came out of the bathroom to find Andrea looking like hell, so she went home, but I was led by the arm into a car and driven to... somewhere. I walked into the karaoke room to find about 30 Chinese people that I've never met before. I pointed to a random song I knew because they asked me to chose something. I found then that it was actually my turn next... so I sang "Like a Virgin" by myself, to 30 Chinamen dancing and egging me on. A nice older gentleman asked me to dance. I complied. I was driven home. I ate reheated spiral noodles and marinara sauce with my bare hands as Cathy Lee wondered how Andrea and I got to be in such a mess by only 10 o'clock at night.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Cathy Lee had quite an interesting night of her own. After returning some wonderful literature written by horrible English writers at her school, Cathy Lee jumped on a bus and prayed that she would make it in time to sneak into my house before we went to dinner... unfortunately she was too late and ended up having to think of different ways to pass the time until we would come back home again. After thinking for around 30 seconds, because is was REALLY cold outside, she figured that the US embassy in Chengde (aka KFC) sounded like a good place to waste an hour or two. With "The Bridges of Madison County" in hand she went to KFC and enjoyed some extra crispy chicken and a diet coke while reading about the adventures of Francesscaand Robert Kincaid. At about 7:30 she decided to try getting back into my house again, but to no avail. Luckily (or perhaps unluckily depending on how you look at it) my upstairs neighbor found her and decided that the cold stairway was no place to wait for a friend. So Cathy Lee was taken hostage by the upstairs apartment lady. While she was there for the next three hours, she enjoyed such new foreign delicacies as milk in a bag and the nasty sour grape juice they call wine. Then, for the second time here in China, (Cathy Lee's a lucky one) she witnessed a native dropping trou. Upstairs lady felt it was time to strip down to her long underwear, you know, since they were becoming such good friends and all, she felt comfortable enough, or rather, uncomfortably hot enough to depants. Upstairs lady then asked Cathy Lee to come back the next day for breakfast at 8 pm which confused my homeless friend a little until they reached an agreement for dinner at 6 pm with the help of the woman's English speaking son. Sadly, around 10 pm Cathy Lee finally told the woman that she was going home and thanked her very much for her hospitality. She decided to try my apartment one more time before finally giving up and going back to her own apartment (aka the dungeon of doom). This is where the story comes back, full circle to me eating pasta with my hands... Good night.

Successfully surviving two consecutive nights of office dinner parties, we now look forward to the New Years party taking place tonight. Greek Helen's students have invited us to a party and we're fairly confident that the 17-year-olds won't be toasting our good health with baijou... though I wouldn't put it past them...

Mr. Wang

For the record, President Wang of Chengde Medical College likes to make the foreign girls drink baijou and pijou as much as possible. It is then Chinese tradition for us to toast him back. We just had our office New Years party and Andrea and I are now officially Mr. Wang's "little sisters". He wants Andrea to come back next semester and for me to "stay in China as long as possible". He also wants to go to Harbin with me. He doesn't know when we should go, but we should because it's very beautiful. What? Everyone else in his office also wanted us to drink and because Andrea is getting a cold I took the brunt of the good wishes. I busted out what little Chinese I know (like when they asked me jigga shi baijou ma? this is baijou right? and I said dui, shi baijou... yes, it's baijou... I got a round of applause. Man I love it here) I will also be Mr. Wang's honored guest for the 2008 Beijing Olympics...

Don't worry, I'll post about Christmas tomorrow or something. I just had to share this...
Tipsy off fire water and crappy Chinese beer,
Stephanie

Mmm, yam...

Nothing quite like a hot yam from my friendly corner street yam man on a cold winter's day. Odd? Heck no! You'll find most of Chengde munching on a hot yam these days. Walking down the street... shopping at the black market... people are snacking all the time. In fact, just the other day I saw a man take a bite of his 3 year old daughter's hot dog, chew it a bit and then attempt to feed it to her like a bird. Yay China!

Christmas is upon us, blah blah blah... I'll have more to say once it's over. So far the Chinese have done a wonderful job of decorating for a holiday most of them don't celebrate. Scary Santas and oddly colored (and placed for that matter) tinsle are their special-ity.

There is also, officially, a job opening here at the Chengde Medical College. Anna, the girl who was to take my dear Andrea's place has bailed out for reasons idiotic to me, but I suppose that's why I'm here and she's staying in the US. Hey, I'm sure we'd all like to be a live in nanny instead, but the job market's just too tough for me... Anyway, Laura, my foreign affairs officer has asked me if I have any friends who'd like to teach. I laughed, knowing most of you pretty well, but then realized she was serious and thought I'd atleast throw it out there. You all know I'm having a blast, so if you're unsure about what you want to do with your life from March to July maybe you can consider eating yams in China with me.

My students have all been studying like mad for their upcoming exams, which, from my observation of the time they spend reading their crazy medical books, would make me cry and curl up into the fetal position. Because of this I have decided to make my exams the easiest thing I could possibly imagine, which for some is still a strugle (meaning I gave them a B instead of an A). "If you were very very rich, and had a lot of money, what would you do with it? You say you'd buy a car? and a house by the sea for your parents? What's that? You think I'm beautiful? The whole class does? A+!" How am I going to go back to America where no one tells me I'm pretty or makes me oragami swans?
I have a favorite class of Junior English Nursing students. There are supposed to be about 42 students in my class but only about 10 come on a regular basis. When Cathy volunteered to be first for the exam I was surprised but she's pretty much always smiling at me so I didn't think too much of her enthusiasm. After sitting down and picking a topic to talk about for the next 2 minutes she was very quiet at first, which made me a little worried that I had overestimated her English skills or perhaps just made her really really nervous. No. Soon she just blurted it all out... "Oh, Stephanie... I'm afraid my English isn't very good today. My head is just so full from studying for these exams (and points to a particularly thick book). We study every day! Sometimes until 11 o'clock at night! and I hate it! Ohhh, it's so dull. I'm so happy I have a chance to stop and talk with you." God I love her. Attitude so rarely comes through with many of my students because their English isn't very developed. Any time they get a little sassy just makes me giggle so much.

And speaking of sassy, I have a new obsession: the hot Chinese girl band S.H.E.! Selina is the really pretty, cute one with long, light brown hair. Hebe is the really pretty, sassy one with bangs. Ella is the odd, butch one with short hair and a low voice. Aaaaaaaaaand I love them. My favorite class continued to secured their "favorite" status by writing the lyrics to my favorite song, "Super Star", for me. Brandon has loned me his VCD of S.H.E. music videos, which I might lose by accident... so Cathy Lee and I have been rocking out and practicing the best song ever. THEN tonight on the news I heard that the girls of S.H.E. will be in Beijing this weekend promoting their new CD. Where, I don't know, but if they're anywhere near our hotel you better believe they will have 3 overly excited white girls, and Brandon, jumping around in line to get autographs. This is yet another reason why Cathy Lee and I have to practice Super Star... so that we can wow them with our superb and shocking knowledge of the Chinese language and subtle nuances of their genious lyrics! Next year for Halloween I shall be Hebe. Cathy Lee really likes Ella, so I guess she'll be wearing some sort of mullet-esk wig... and Andrea will have to constantly squint into the cutest little moon shaped happy eyes you've ever seen. And we will rock out on our air guitars at you singing "ni shi dian, ni shi guang, ni shi wei yi de shen hua! wo zhi ai ni, you are my super star..." (you are electric, you are light, you are only a thought of a myth. I only love you, you are my super star) I might piddle just thinking about it.

Tomorrow I'll be on the happiest train ever, drinking Great Wall wine and knitting my lovely mother a scarf while humming "Super Star" and drooling over thoughts of TGI Friday's and OutBack Steakhouse...