Hello - the blog is back!

I came across this page listing blogs by ‘Western women who love Chinese men’ and suddenly had a flashback to the brief period of time when I also wrote a boring blog… well when I wrote short essays every 6 months and uploaded them here. 

Now that I have reconnected with my 19 yr old self on her initial eastern experiences, I think it’s time to gradually explore my last 4 years in China and bring that one follower of mine back up to date.

This is going to be quite an epic task which I plan to tackle in short and sweet instalments HA! As if... I’m sure you can imagine a lot has happened since I moved to Kunming in Autumn 2010 for another year of study. Currently I’m living & working in the toxic wonderland of Beijing, but well today the sky is actually extremely blue.

For the moment, I just want to say 哈啰! 

This is my favourite spot in Beijing, Jingshan Park 景山公园, with the Forbidden City in the background. I had arranged to meet friends visiting from Shanghai, who called my name just as the photo was taken - hence the goofy smile and my cheek dimples. These friends are actually classmates from Edinburgh who I also studied with in Dalian. Even though we graduated several years ago and now all live in different part of the world, through our shared experiences during that first year in China we found lasting friendships and more importantly, karaoke soulmates.

Life as a graduate..

Despite the distinct lack of proof on this page that anyone has actually ever read my blog (except Loz, cheers mate!) I have convinced myself that once again it is time to start documenting my goings on.
The visa application is in, I'm preparing to fork out for over priced insurance that I'm 97% sure I'll never need, hoping the doctor won't make me buy malaria tabs and desperately trying to remember all the things that I missed last time I stayed in China. So far I've got oregano and my (p)leather jacket. But preparations are going well, and in a months time I'm going to be embarking on Year in China part two (with a possibility of several sequels). The questions posed by people regarding the trip so far have been pretty similar:
You getting a job? No, I'm studying at university.
Oh, studying what? Eh, Chinese.
Ahhh, well what are you going to do with that? Talk with Chinese people.
Well I'm sure you could always be an English teacher! Suuuure.

It might happen that at some point I need to make some cash and teach English, but if I wanted to do that for a living I certainly wouldn't waste my time studying Chinese for another year. Having received a scholarship from the Confucius Institute I am simply taking up the opportunity to study for free, make some new friends and see a different part of the world. If it had been a scholarhsip to study anywhere else in the world I don't doubt I would have gone there instead. Basically I'm too scared of getting a job I'll probably hate so will try and enjoy myself for a bit first.

Anyway, I made the choice to go to Kunming! I have dreamt of going there since I visited neighbouring Guangxi back in February 2009, unfortunately I ran out of both money and time after I reached Guilin and never made it to the Spring City in the famously stunning Yunnan province. Several close friends have studied at Yunnan Normal University (云南师范大学) and Kunming seems to be a staple of every backpacker's diet in China so I guess I want to see what all the fuss is about!

There is one negative in all of this, anyone who is familiar with the geography of China will know that Yunnan province is at the opposite side of the country to the Liaodong peninsula where my beloved Ayi continues life as normal in Dalian. But don't you worry yourselves my faithful readers, despite the expensive flights (roughly £200 return) and long train journeys (make that an average of 55hours one way) Ayi has promised to visit me in Kunming and I will no doubt be saving all my pennies, or in this case fen, to make the journey North East and see her again.

So here's to another year of new (and old) friends, places, tastes and general mischief. Oh and I'm sure I'll learn a character or three as well, Mum and Dad.

Life in China coming to a close..

So after spending Christmas in Japan with my big bro and new Japanese family, who were extremely welcoming and fun for the whole week, I sat some exams and was informed by my classmates that we have 7 weeks holiday… eh what?
As you can tell I’m not too on top of how things work out here. After much consideration of what to do/where to go/who with, I headed down with some friends to Hong Kong to crash at our friends student dorms (apart from one night when me and Andy ventured to Mirador mansion, just down the road from notorious ChungKing Mansions) where we celebrated the new year. While the new year parade and fireworks were uninspiring and/or hidden by a mass of people, our 10 days on the island were sweeeeet! I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to drink magners and pay £8 fish supper in my entire life. The things to do, whilst great fun involve spending a lot of cash… quickly back to the mainland then.
I decided in the end to head off by myself to the most southern part of China, an island called Hainan and stay in the city Sanya for two weeks. I’d managed to get in contact with an American couple there who run a centre for disabled children and they kindly put me up for this time feeding me all day and giving me a very comfy bed in a room all to myself. Who said volunteer work didn’t pay? It was probably the best part of my whole trip, while I’ve never worked so hard in my life (8am-8pm almost everyday) I also did things I never thought I could. Working with Chinese people the whole time who spoke no English (except telling me that Jesus loved me - I quickly found out they were devout Christians) and looking after children who had learned to live with conditions such as autism, cerebral palsy and down's syndrome was a hugely grounding experience. Despite my fears of not knowing what to do or how to look after the kids before I got there.. they are probably the most open and loving kids I’ve met in my entire life and all the workers were great at keeping me in line! Apart from me there was only one other full time volunteer over the two weeks, Anna from Sichuan, who was helping with English/Chinese translations. We got really close over the two weeks which surprised me when I think of how different our backgrounds are. She also introduced me to Mr Xing, a friend of her lecturer and a well-off Chinese man who insisted on taking us out for expensive meals and trips to exotic beaches so he could practice his English with me. Nice!
Also in Hainan I “bumped” in to a couple of classmates from Edinburgh, it was nice to see some people I knew while down there.. even if someone happened to be face down in the sand bottle of gin in hand. Did you ever get all the sand out your beard?
Two weeks of hard work and burning the front half of my body bright red, I headed up to Guilin/Yangshou area where I got to do some proper sight seeing.
Going via Guangzhou I was nervous about heading off travelling by myself after being so settled in Hainan, however China being China, I was well looked after by the cute old couple next to me who insisted on feeding/watering me and generally making sure I was okay. I can’t get over how generous and friendly the people are here sometimes, all without being asked and with no expectations of anything in return.
Reaching Guilin at 3am wearing flipflops in the pouring rain with no idea how to get to the hostel or even what it was called in Chinese (I’ve never claimed to be organised) I was again totally lucky to meet a girl from Harbin who happened to be looking for the same place, all this just as I was about to head of in the opposite direction from the hostel, in the dark, by myself. Phew! Guilin had some crazy people and a lot of the basics were a rip-off, but reaching Yangshuo the scenery was breathtaking and making the effort to speak Chinese again got me far! I met a girl who taught rock climbing classes and took me out for the day then showed me the cheap and tasty places for dinner – hard to come by in these big tourist spots. I also bumped into a couple of German guys who I’d met in Guilin, they showed me the most beautiful pictures I’ve even seen of China and were great to sit and talk to with some beers down by the river. Also in Yangshuo I met Fiona from Oz whom with I adventured to the LongJi (龙脊）rice terraces, we travelled on the bus hoping to get off at the popular Ping'an only to be tricked by the lady on the bus into going to the next town, DaZhai, and staying at her sisters’ house.. Which actually turned out to be the best trick anyone could have played on us! In DaZhai the people were sparse, weather was beautiful, rice fields a plenty.. and we came across this amazing little vegetarian hostel/restaurant run by the most lovely Mongolian lady I’ve met in my life who had a great understanding of how tourism should be in China, an insight into the culture rather than the overpriced and nasty hotels we came across when we later went to Ping’an. The trip ended with a stop in Beijing where I met a few more class mates, drank quite a bit, and avoided the clouds of smog. The most important day for me was when I went to Tiananmen Square, which was full of tourists both Chinese and foreign, but knowing the history of the square and finally being there after 6 months of living in China was a very eerie and poignant feeling.

On another note, since then 2nd semester in Dalian has been really awesome. While some friends from semester 1 have left, new students have come and our year abroad continues. Now I can’t think what exactly what we’ve been doing, there were certainly parties, nights out, exams, and class dinners, oh and of course the trip to Beijing! This time with Carly, for what was probably the most unexpected trip of my life (we were planning on Thailand). Going in May rather than February meant Summer Palace was beautiful, the beer garden was open, and the days loooong. After haggling at the markets, 6 hours of kareoke with some random Chinese students from Sichuan and avoiding Carly's pleas to eat shark on a stick with her at the tourist-aimed snack street I finally made it to the Great Wall! Despite having to head out on my own as Carly had already been a few months before and wanted to spend a day chilling out, I soon met two Chinese girls the same age as me (again from Sichuan!!) and we spent the day hanging out, climbing the wall all while speaking Mandarin. I was amazed that how compared to when I first arrived in China, I could actually have such a good laugh with these girls without speaking a word of English! A really fun day, and not for the fact I got my must-take picture on the wall.

Back in Dalian, our good friend English Rob had his last night and headed off on travels round the rest of China, Edinburgh classmate Justin came back from Singapore, had an awesome but far too brief visit from Loz who’s been in HK, and a few of us took a very last minute and fun trip to Tongliao, Inner Mongolia. Outside of the China bubble my brother and his wife had the arrival of my beautiful niece, Islay.
All in all, it has been an amazing 9 months and I while I miss everyone from home I have to stop myself thinking about heading back because right now things are going too well! I’m still living with my Ayi, who’s trying to teach me how to make good dumplings as well as other recipes without that dreaded MSG! Leaving her is going to be very hard for me but instead of worrying about what I’m going to miss, it is time to make the most of my last month and a bit in China, 'cos who knows if I'll ever make it back.

Christmas in China

d(I wrote this blog in December so a few months late.. sorry!)


As suspected I haven’t been at all committed to this blogging business, to be honest the last few weeks have flown by, which is probably down to the fact I’m counting down the days that I go to Japan for Christmas.
Things have been a lot more festive here than I thought they would be and started off with my first ever Thanksgiving! It was a wonderful night of bottomless glasses of red wine - thanks to the wine waiters and of course our own stash under the table! The food was amazing, my first three course meal 6+ months. Okay four course, it was a buffet. I've never been happier with a plate of mash potato in all my life... As the dreaded “tell us all what you’re thankful for” speech came up I floundered a bit, and could only really think of what I’m not thankful for. Shit. Now that’s led me to think, what has China really got for me?
One thing I’ve heard everyone moan about at some point is…..*drum roll*… the staring. Yes, that glazed look of wonder, which seems to haunt me everywhere I go. Sometimes I can get a smile out of them (old men), sometimes even a bit of embarrassment(teenage boys), usually I just try to stare them out(everybody else). When I first got here it really bugged me, I’m just me, from the outside I thought I looked normal enough.. I really didn’t get what there is to stare at. After countless Chinese people telling me it’s just out of interest, I’ve come to accept that it is not offensive and even stopped noticing it. In fact it is my Chinese friends who now say “Gosh everybody is staring at you, that’s so weird”… Thanks for pointing it out. Anyway I’ve always been good at zoning these types of things out, even the cries of “Lao Wai” (foreigner) don’t bug me so much anymore.
I do love people’s reaction though when they hear me speak Chinese, now I know that my Chinese isn’t great, and my tones seem to depend on my mood at the time, so its funny to be praised for even the simplest “Ni hao”. I love the way they falsely give you complements. They know and I know that I am making no sense, but they'll keep telling me how great I am. Chinese people are so encouraging! What is bad is if they ever catch you doing your homework, I was in a park with some classmates, and the number of people that came up to us and marvelled at the fact we, real life foreigners, were writing characters and proceeded to grab our books and examine what we'd been doing (without asking of course) then take photos of what seemed to be the highlight if their week, was a bit ridiculous. We were discussing the other night how being a foreigner in China kind of gives you a taste of celebrity life. And it is not fun. I don’t need people pointing out to me all the time that I’m foreign and oh, my skin is so so so so so white, just like I imagine people back home don’t need reminded that they work in that box in my front room.
However, I am becoming a lot more sympathetic in regards to the great amount of social problems in China. It seems that in some sense people will never be considered more than a number, in the hospitals where the treatment of patients is get them in and out asap, and of course there is no such thing as privacy, to the simple task of using the supermarket/ buses/ lifts where you are usually being shoved out they way or cramped into a corner. The reason for all of this is simply because in China, "there are far too many people".
Now there are some habits, I don’t believe there are any excuses. For one there’s the spitting, it is so gross. People spit everywhere, needless to say restaurants and buses are common spitting ground, of course the home is often a favourite, my morning and night time soundtrack is usually my Ayi hocking up in the bathroom. And the excuse, “it’s a reflex we can’t help, like throwing up…” so they’re all puking on the street.. nice.
The way of eating fish is also one that gets me queezy, while I’ve never really eaten boney fish because, well it takes too long to get those bones out, the Chinese save time by putting it all in their mouth and eating the flesh as they spit the unwanted bones simply on the table top, or if you’re feeling really fancy onto a tissue. The same goes for nuts, the floors in tea houses are usually littered with these soggy shells.
I have to admit I’m used to is all now, but I don’t think I could have grown as used to it all as I have if it wasn’t for the people that I’m sharing it with, we might not all have the same experience, but whether its our Listening teacher exerting all types of gas through class, or that horrible time we had at the doctors, I know that there is always someone to tell who will be equally as disgusted and find it just as hilarious.
One thing I would like to mention when comparing China to Britain is that in general, people treat foreigners really well, if there is racism then from what I can see it only comes in the form of ripping us off or taxi drivers refusing us. Nothing like the violence that goes on in "developed" countries that is caused by racism. I have only seen one fight in the whole time that I've been here and that was two old men in their underpants who drank too much baijiu and then came over to give us a personal apology! (I'm sure if I came across the same situation in Glasgow on a Friday night knives and buckfast would be involved)

What was probably one of my best nights in Dalian so far was our evening of decorating the tree at Carly’s as she made some awesome brownies, singing Christmas songs (with a guitar and everything like) then trying to handle mulled wine and egg nogg. I really did just think, as this year draws to a close, in the end, there were some positives after all. I’ve met some great people from both Edinburgh and beyond that have ended up feeling like a family, everyone has fitted so well together, which may be surprising considering how different we all are. But it’s the people that I’ve ended up being here with, including my Ayi – spitting and all - that have really made the difference. And even though it is now far too late for thanksgiving I finally realised that I do have something to be thankful for, and China isn’t so bad after all.

Finding Ayi

So, its actually been two and a half months since I left Glasgow International Airport to embark on my year abroad in China, and I can’t believe I’m finding myself saying what everyone would tell me.. but time is passing faster than I thought and I’m actually starting to enjoy it!

While the reason that I’ve put off writing any sort of blog for so long is because my first month or so didn’t go too great, I’m feeling a rush of inspiration to look over my time and think of all the good moments – I won’t bother with all of the bad and ugly for the time being.

So after an amazing three months in Peru and Bolivia doing some volunteer work, but mainly fulfilling my dream of being a travelling bum, my fleeting trip home entailed two weeks of trying to organise visas, say hello to all the friends and family I’d missed for the last three months, get my head around trying to pack for a year in China, eat the food I’d been craving all summer, a 5 day break in Rome(!) and some very emotional goodbyes…

I honestly couldn’t wait for the flight just for some peace and quiet. Luckily, it was cancelled so I had the whole trip worrying if, that when I arrived four hours late, someone would still be waiting for me at Dalian airport to take me to wherever the hell I was supposed to be going. Thankfully, no problems! In fact there was a very nice Chinese student with a large piece of paper with my name on it (that’s the second time this year.. awesome!) not that I’m particularly hard to spot amongst my fellow flyers. I was also very happy to hear this student, who had named himself Scar (I still have no idea why), was a very apt English speaker and saved me the embarrassment of trying to remember anything from those few Chinese lectures that I actually attended over the last two years… (Oh I remember…! Wo shi aidingbao daxue xuesheng…Boo ya!)

Now, I’m happy to say that I’m really lucky to be staying where I am in Dalian, I’ve got a great Chinese Auntie, “Ayi”. Although I probably appreciate her more because I’ve already had two pretty rubbish places to stay!

First there was the shared “hotel” room, which although I had a lovely Korean room mate and Phil across the hall, I also had an 11pm curfew, a hardly existent kitchen and the prospect of living in a dank hotel for one year. Working out that for around the same amount of money I could stay with a host family in a real house, get two meals a day, and speak a ton of Chinese... I promptly moved out after one night. I think I lasted that host family about ten days. After a few weird incidents with my host mum telling me about the neighbours seeing me (again I kinda stick out) and not allowing me and my friend to sit on the couch in case somebody saw us… sitting… I was told by my teacher that I was getting thrown out! As it turns out my house was in an army run housing estate which didn’t allow foreigners, a small fact that must have slipped that woman I was meant to call my “China Mum”. Then, to make me feel even better, asked me what was taking me so long to get my act together and actually leave… Obviously moving out the next day wasn’t soon enough. I have to say I’ve never been so happy to get out of somewhere! After a quick viewing of my current Ayi’s house I knew that it was definitely worth a shot. I’m also pleased to say that despite “China mum’s” half hearted hints that I should come back to visit her and give her my clothes to wash, living on the other side of campus has kept me safely out of view.

Host family number 2: When I say family, really it’s just me and my lovely Ayi, although I see other random family members from time to it’s the two of us sharing a wee flat together. I think I can learn a lot from this woman, one thing I have already noticed in myself is my growing tolerance, never have I seen such an eater, sucking meat out of all sorts of animal parts, talking while slurping, burping, showing me what she’s got in her mouth, for someone who used to get irritated by the slightest sound of chewing I'm getting pretty used to it all. In fact I am impressed she can eat in such a way and not make a mess (after every meal there is always odd piles of foodstuffs between my plate and me) so time to practice slurping me soup.

One thing I am pretty gutted about, is that even though Dalian is on the coast and renowned for producing some delicious seafood delights, I’ve totally gone off fish. It may have been my spout of dodgy belly whilst having to witness Ayi suck the face and brain off a fish, bones and eyes crumbling into the spit bowl, or even that time she took me out to hotpot, and, one by one, massacred a bowl of live prawns by ripping them in half and sucking the flesh from their head then tail leaving the legs still flailing about on her plate, I thought the point of hotpot was to cook things… in the pot… that’s hot... Anyway, along with crab for breakfast and getting those eeny weeny little fish bones stuck in my throat, I’ve been convinced that my only option is to avoid any seafood delicacies as much as physically possible.

I think the thing that’s turned out to be one of the most important aspects of my stay is how comfortable I am here. Not only do I have something that actually resembles a mattress on my bed (most in China consist of mat not much thicker than my grammar textbook). Seriously, Ayi is friggin’ awesome! The house, although covered in lace, is also covered in stuffed toys! And although I find it a bit weird to be looking at some wide eyed mousey type Asian stuffed animal whilst sitting on the fluffy pink seat covered loo, I also find the big love heart pillow featuring a cat on a sun lounger on my bed, and the giant tiger on top of my wardrobe rather comforting. I’ll definitely never be alone in this house.

But honestly, its not JUST the stuffed toys, she’ll go to so much effort to find out what I like to eat, if I have a cold she’ll feed me in bed and get me hopped up on Chinese medicine before class, even when I come home at 3am, after drinking over half a bottle of bourbon (yes I know.. I should have been able to finish it) and quickly make friends with the toilet, she’ll bring me a cup of warm honey water to settle my stomache and ask if it was something I ate.. I love her! And I’m excited to be spending a year here, Ayi is definitely one of the best people in China.