mastercard's got nothing on me

1 backpack for the whole week= $50
round trip train ticket to beijing= $60
hostel fee= $3 per night
entrance fee on to the great wall= $5
zip lining off the great wall= $7
a week of unsupervised fun with 7 college girls vacationing in china= priceless

catch you on the flip side!

an ode to you

DEAR CHINA,

oh, how i love you. i love your culture. i love your history. i LOVE your people. i love how willing everyone is to help each other. i love the smells. i love the lack of dialogue i have with the chinese people i've grown fond of; the need for physical touch and hugs as way of communication brings people closer than words. i love "chinglish", the strange english translations (a zoo sign that says "tiger dissapate into the atmosphere zone" and a shirt that says "i want to show you enaything." what?) i love the way my kids hug me and yell "i love you, teacha miss giesel!" my name is virtually un-pronounceable in china. but china, there are some things i do not love so much about you. i did not love that one time i had to scoop my poo out of the toilet with a ladle because there is no such thing as plumbing or plungers in china. i do not love eating squid everyday at lunch, but i am beginning to not love it less and less, which may soon turn into me not remembering what it was like to not eat squid every day, which will inevitably turn into liking it. but i love you so much more than not. i (along with my fellow americans) love looking at the gym teacher, charlie, aka "asian brad pitt" or the one teacher dubbed the "asian next door" for lack of known given name. HOT. i love learning about your mannerisms and etiquette. i love everything about you! you've further confirmed the travel bug in me. as much as i love school, i would be perfectly content spending the rest of my life seeing the world. doing yoga in india, climbing ruins in south america, cage shark diving in africa.
so, china, here's to you! thanks for further opening my eyes to the world and for making me truly appreciate a good old american toilet.

love,
rachael

a few things on my mind...

1) i've done some stupid things in my life. the half-brained-teenage syndrome was not lost on me. when i was fourteen, my friends and i suffered from a bout of dim wit and thought it would be funny to “have feminine problems, so could i sit out please?” and draw PERMANENT MARKER∗ on the giant $250 crab soccer ball in gym class. our tracks weren’t well covered. when i was eighteen, i took a long flight from korea to america and after the doctor said to take half an ambien, i decided (being the smart high school student i was) that if i took a WHOLE AMBIEN, i'd sleep twice as long. well….that was the worst episode of transpacific hallucinatory, drugged-up hell I think anyone has ever experienced. When I was nineteen and living in china, I decided on a whim to lose my hair virginity (aka color my hair for the first time) with a streak of RED in my bangs in a FOREIGN COUNTRY with a language I don’t understand in not a credible salon, but a STINKY HOLE IN THE WALL. an hour later, i walked out with bright orange bangs and to endless laughs from the locals. well, ok. we went to a more legitimate salon to get it fixed and my bangs turned from bright orange to bright orange and dark blue spotted. back to work. i came home the way i left only a few bucks poorer, but let this be a lesson to all those who are contemplating getting their hair done in a foreign country where you can’t understand the language: just don’t do it. my roommate decided to get bangs and came home looking like lady gaga. out with the walmart scissors.

∗caps inserted to emphasize stupidity.


2) i just finished reading “life of pi” and absolutely loved it. i can’t believe i hadn’t read it till now. it’s incredibly captivating. i even read it on the bus the other day and missed my stop. it is fantastic. read it, if you haven’t already. it’s not just a regular novel; it had different dimensions to it and the way it’s written is so interesting. yann martel is freaking awesome. he writes the most amazing tale that makes you laugh, cry, ponder, underline, and overall, it makes you sad when it’s over…and then- and i love books like this- he challenges the reader at the end and lets you use your imagination. it wasn’t one of those books that i read and say “well, that was good.” i spent a good two hours after i finished researching, reading interviews with martel, and finding out more about this book. and then i stayed awake for hours after i turned the lights out just thinking about it. definitely a must read. and now i’m dying to go to the zoo.


3) lastly and of the utmost importance, my shower has been broken for two days.

it's a chinese life for me

oh man, so much to write and so little time! i may or may not be using a proxy to write this blog post. heaven forbid blogspot is allowed in china. well, i'm here! all i can say is that i'm basically the miley cyrus of china. just kidding, but they do love us here. the city i'm living in isn't a tourist city, so americans rarely come through....hence the feeling of a zoo animal with strangers looking, laughing and talking about you in a foreign language/a pop star with people taking pictures of you wherever you go. i feel just as worn out as the barbie at the end of toy story two.."are the cameras off? good! my cheeks are killing me!" a few days ago was the end of the chinese new year, so the boarding school we're teaching at built a huge float and stuck us on it in the biggest parade i've ever seen! people were running into the street and reaching up to touch our hands. i am not kidding. i just hope my self confidence isn't shattered when i come back to america and no one comes running up, asking to take a picture with me.

a few thoughts on my adventure so far:

1) here's the thing about living in a different environment than your own....you are forced to adjust because that's the only way you'll survive. there's no such thing as being picky...this is real life! when i first got here, i thought the food was absolutely disgusting. contrary to my own belief, orange chicken only exists in america or in my head, when i'm trying to imagine that's what i'm eating instead of slimy, noodly, stew for breakfast. but instead of starving myself to death, i had no choice but to buck up and eat the unidentifiable meals in front of me. now i know what i like and what i don't like and things i would never eat under any other circumstances are beginning to taste really good compared to withering away and having no energy to teach. survival of the fittest, baby.

2) china's kind of like camping. they never drink water. and the water here is not drinkable. bring out the resourcefulness! every night, i fill up my water bottle with boiled water and stick it in the fridge so it's pure- yet drinkable- the next day, and i have to remember to take it everywhere i go. the mattresses are like sleeping in a sleeping bag without padding. with a rock and a tree root under you the whole night. it's a generous slab of plywood with a little fabric covering. bring out the $13 beach futon i bought at the store! dryers don't exist in china so you have to drip dry your clothes and then get over the cigarette smell like everything and everyone here. your clothes are always wrinkly and you never look cute. you get over it really quickly!

3) i really really love my group. i don't think i could have asked for a better one! the girls are so chill and funny and i like them all a lot. i've had a bunch of fun with them and i can't wait for the upcoming adventure together! i know i'm making lifelong friends. they really are so great. i'm lovin' my girls.

4) i think i'll spare you the teaching part of my week until things have calmed down a little and i don't refer to my kids only as "spawn of satan." one of my boys locked me in my own classroom. yesterday, i had to refrain from hopping on a plane and coming home. it was a rough day. my head teacher said it's always like that for the first few weeks until you establish some routine and discipline. i sure hope so because the next few months look dismal if i can't stop the kids from throwing knives at me (kidding!). i know it'll get better. i think i just had too high of expectations about the first day, so now i know that it's not going to be a bed of roses all the time, and especially until i can establish a good teacher/student relationship with the kids.

overall, i am having SO much fun and i can tell it's going to be a great few months. of course it's not going to be easy, but i'm living the dream right now! off on my own, seeing the world...i can't believe i'm here!

p.s. survival of the fittest aside, i'd really kill for a red robin bonzai burger right now...