A word on Presents

Giving presents in China is something that is done much more often than in America.  For instance, when we first came to our school we gave a present to the principla and our contact teacher.  Since then, we as teachers have recieved several, well not several but a few presents from the school and in one instance from my students.  I thinkied I already talked about Teacher's Day when the students all gave flowers and sometimes cards and in one case a small statue of two pigs smiling and hugging and from the school a large box of small mongolian milk boxes.  For the Autumn Festival the school gave me shampoo and body wash and also moon cakes, which at some point I am going to send home examples of.  I just got a new present from my school in the form of toilet paper and kleenex.  I'm not sure how to react to these presents.  I mean on the one hand of course any time someone gives you a present it is a very nice gesture and this is a very nice gesture and I can certainly use all the things that have been given, on the other hand I have to say that when i came to China I did not expect to be given these as presents.  It is very nice of them and I really do appreciate them but it is just a cultural difference that I still take some pleasure in noting.

Give me access to random info or give me death!

It is very odd coming from America which despite what people say and what may or may not be true is still one of if not the most free country on earth, at least in terms of speech and the like to come to China. There are of course many many things to come to terms with in China and on the whole it has been a ver painless switch, except in terms of not being able to have the choices at the grocery store and the speed of the internet. However, a particular vexing problem and one that is not going to go away is the censoring of the internet. I don't know about you but I have many random thoughts throughout the day, and I had become used to simply logging on to wikipedia to answer the questions that these thoughts raised. now i realize that wikipedia is not always a reliable source blah blah blah BUT as compared to the published tomes of information na dtheir web counterparts it is always nice to get more than a small paragraph. While in Beijing wikipedia worked fine but now it never works, the "server never responds". AND nw youtube has followed suit. I find this particularly amusing since the largest problem that I have read about youtube having is the copyright issues and we all know how seriously China takes those. The odd news article is laso off limits such as the gold medal awarded to some Tibetan or other, though a few days after it came out i was able to read those articles. The youtube thing happened so suddel that I am inclined to blame the meeting of the party congress and maybe they don't want people to publish video blogs or the like but even that doesn't make that much sense. Anyways, I use it to download music videos to show to my class and I have enough in reserve to last a good while but I might be forced to switch to simple mp3s. Eh.

So my first break had not as a student but as an educator has come and gone.  I went to Hong Kong on Monday and Tuesday and then left for Hainan Island on Wednesday night.  The trip took about 16 hours each way so we got settled in and on the beach around 2 on Thursday.  Hainan was alot of fun, maybe not as culturally signifigant as the Great Wall but very relaxing after the stress of a new job with actual responsibilties and everything.  
Friday night we were out at a bar around 4 and after we left the bar went to grab some street food, meat on a stick to be precise.  We then decided that we were going to stay up and watch the sun rise on the beach.  I have to say that sitting on the beach in pitch black and listening to the waves and yes, going for a late night/early morning swim was amazing.  And watching the sun rise was also great!  
I don't know, it's been very up and down so far here in China, the experience itself is amazing but alot of times the kids make this a very difficult and frustratingjob, especially since there are always a few kids who you can tell DO care about learning but instead of trying to help them you are forced to deal with the loud kids who are talking and horsing around.  But sitting on the beach really helped to center myself.  I'm not saying that it's not going to be just as difficult now, in fact one of my classes today already had me at the end of my patience.  However, it does help to know there are moments when you can just be alone in another cuntry with your thoughts.  I didn't get that at the Forbidden City though after walking for two hours on the Great Wall and looking back at where I'd come from and watching how far id have to go since the Great Wall went all the way to the horizon I did get a certain moment there as well.
I don't know, being here has decidedly been an up and down experience, especially with things going on back in the states that make me want to stay or go.  Anyways, tomorrow I have an interview for tutoring which if it goes through should more than take care of my weekly expensives with a little to spare which would allow me to save my salary from the school for trips or just savings.  We'll see.

Chinese Women(written and read to the theme of Jaws)
Walking down the street in Shenzhen
(dumdum...dumdum...dumdum)
Walking towards us is a chinese woman
(dumdum...dumdum...dumdum)
As she get closer we see her face
(dumdum-dumdum-dumdum-dumdum)
Wow she is stunning, face, eyes, everything
(dumdum-dumdum-dumdum-dumdum)
As she gets close she gets a phone call
(dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum)
She raises her hand to her ear to answer
(dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum)
Suddenly we se it!!!!!!! Body hair!!!!!
(dumdum...dumdum...dumdum....DUM)

honestly it was one if the things ive only just now begun noticing but I realize that I had been aware of it since Ive been ehre but its never really registered.  Regardless of age, women here have arm pit hair, and maybe it is just because I am American but it came as something of a shock to me.  Im not sayng Im checking out beautfil women or anything Im just saying that I am not a monk and when i see a woman who could be termed beautiful I can appreciate it from a purely ascetic standpoint and then BOOM the hair.  I guess I should just be more accepting and open my mind etc etc  but until I gain that next level of enlightenment it can be dangerous swimming in the metaphorical water.

So I went over the border to Hong Kong yesterday.  I didn't realize that it was National Day, well I mean i did but I did not really think about it beyond the whole it's a holiday and I have the week off.  National Day celebrates when mao declared the People's Republic of China so it's 4th of July, only in China, and the first day of October.  Anyways, because it was National Day there turned out to be fireworks over the bay which was pretty fun to watch along with the huge crowds of chinese people.  Though I like the fireworks in the US better, mostly because I am used to it being set to music, also the presentation was only so so.

Anyways, so, Hong Kong.  We checked into our hostel but they tried to switch the room on us but luckily the bulding we were in had many many hostels.  What happens is that people basically renovate their apartments and turn them into hostels, it was very small but nice.  The day we got there we just explored the ex-pat bar area of Hong Kong.  The next day we stayed in kowloon and went to a temple that had over 10,00 buddhas, it was a looooong climb up all the stairs to the temple, the stairs were flanked by statues of buddhas in different poses so that was cool and at the top were....more buddhas.  After that we went to the Museum of Art, but they did not have any of Bob's pieces displayed which was a little disappointing but the Museum was still interesting.  next time I want to explore more of Hong Kong proper.  Tomorrow I leave for Sanya on Hainan Island so until then...