Dear Shakira...

You've been around since I was in 6th grade. That's a long time ago, chica. I know you're a famous singer and all, and with all that fame comes a fence, and people stand on either side of it. The world has different opinions about you. I don't see how--you're just awesome and you got hips, and you sure know how to shake 'em.

Basically Shakira, you are the woman. I don't know if you're aware of this but you've already broken a ton of records in the music industry and you're pretty well off. You lived a tough life and now you're known all over the world. You've done a lot of great work too for UNICEF and even founded the Pies Descalzos Foundation. That's pretty sweet and something I highly commend you for. I can't think of any other music celebrity who has done more for our world than you have. Keep up the awesome work.

I must say thank you, Shakira for the instantaneous pick-me-up that you have given to me and to the world. You have released into the galaxy a song that not only unites the world, but [most importantly] makes us get up and dance as well. Prior to you, the term "Waka Waka" would have been thought to just be childhood jibberish, but now it is a motto, a uniting force, a way of life...bringing the world together through the power of song and dance. This one's comin' at you from China, Shakira. Hopefully the students at Dong Fong Shui Yuan [Heilongjiang East College] did you proud.

City Team Spotlight #2

We meet people everywhere we go;sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you meet someone and within minutes you feel like you’ve known them your whole life. You can’t quite place who they remind you of or what that “special quality” is about them, but all you know is that when you walk away you can do nothing but smile and love your life because that person made it that much better.

This blog, right here right now, is featuring one of those people. Harbin is ever so special to be graced with the presence of Lizzie Talcott. Lizzie is a member of Team Lin Da and this is her first time teaching in China. Lizzie has signed on for [at least] two years and has already made quite the impact on the city, her students and team. 
“My time here in China could also be summed up by saying, "Wow, I didn't see that one coming."  Time and time again I just laugh about how my life is unfolding.  Who would have thought that I would be here, in Harbin, working with these students...and loving it?!  So all that to say...I love China, I love Harbin, I love our city team, and I'm so excited to see what the next year will bring.”  

Lizzie hails from Indiana, but both of her parents are Texans. Simply, don’t mess with her {because she’s got Texan blood in those veins}. She is the prime organizer of anything “party” and knows how to have a good time. Her bubbly personality is loved by all who surround her and she always has a joke to crack or a funny story or adventure to share. Her life has been awesome [and will continue to be awesome]. China is something that just kinda… “happened”. It’s taught her a lot in the process.

“I guess I would say that the biggest thing I've learned so far in China is the absolute need for reliance on Him and others.  We can't do it alone here!  Language, culture, etc all work to make sure we are an interdependent group that relies ultimately on Him.  Bottom line: I can't do it on my own.”

That is in fact a lesson that we are all learning here, not just Lizzie. I know that I and my fellow bean-teamers are super stoked that we get to work with and around her for at least another semester. If we could guarantee that we could be placed in Harbin again, I’m sure some of us would reconsider returning home, just to live another year in the life with Lizzie.

Oh, and another 'destiny' reason as to why we're friends is because Lizzie was infact a music major in college. Well...at least for a little bit ;)

Lizzie has her own blog documenting her time and adventures here in China. I encourage you to check it out here!

Playing 'piano' together in the park

Dear Father...

Clearly you knew I was coming to Harbin. Thanks for keeping the snow away as long as you have. I do have a question though… why did you have to create -26◦F? Just so you know, it really hurts.  But then again, You know more about pain than I’ll ever know. So, never mind.

I know I don’t always get it. I know I don’t always get who You made me to be. Quite frankly, it’s a little weird don’t you think? You seem to have given me this overflowing and outpouring for everything music. It doesn’t stop, ever. I’m sure it’s really gotten on some of my teammates nerves by now. That doesn’t matter to you, does it? I’m sure they’ve taken that up with You on a personal level. Okay, that’s none of my business, you’re right.

Awhile ago I had told myself [and You] that my days of writing music were over. It’s even written in purple to make it stand out against the droning writings of everyday. And now, two months later here I sit with two new things, creations, clearly inspired by You. Were you just trying to prove me wrong? You tend to do that a lot, which—I mean—is fine. Keep it up. Clearly I don’t even have the fraction figured out that I thought I did. I’ll just…keep writing?

You love this country, you love these people, and you love my students more than I ever could. Keep them safe in this season of finals and in their time of festivities. Restore them, body & soul. And somehow, in Your Majestic way, remind them to practice their English over their vacation.

Thanks!

*Kayla Marie

City Team Spotlight #1

What has the bean team been up to recently? Well, little did you know that when you shipped us off to China, that you’d actually aided in the assembly of an all-star movie-making cast. We’ve recently discovered our natural ability to make movies and our knack at just having fun together [apparently this is what happens when you don’t have four lesson plans to write].

 

If I haven’t mentioned it before, our Harbin city team is absolutely ballin’. There’s one *special* person in particular who has won the hearts of the Heilongjiang East College team. Her name is Jodi Poon. She’s been in China for about 4 years. She’s from California. We call here “Aunt Jodi”, or “Jodester”.  We have sleepovers at her apartment and watch really good movies. She loves taking pictures, just like me. It’s soon to be her birthday, and to celebrate a party was thrown on the opposite side of the city. Our team provided the entertainment…but I’ll let Jodi tell you about it. You can hear about the story here.

~Jodi, so glad we’re going to be friends forever!!!~

what's in a name?

Traditionally, if your name is on a piece of mail, you will get it. But I’m getting ahead of myself, perhaps I should explain one of the processes of life over here: the mail system.

We are able to receive mail here, which is a wonderful system as physically holding pieces of parchment filled with encouraging words of loved ones [and boxes of familiar sugary sweets] do something good for the soul. We do not have mailboxes; everything is shipped through the “mail room”. Usually, Dan, our leader is notified as to when a package has arrived with one of our names on it. Sometimes they’ll tell us that Michael has a package, but when he goes to pick it up, it will be for Tiffany. Sometimes they’ll tell Laura that she has a package, but she’ll return with packages for Wes and Dan. “Perusing the mailroom” has been a weekly chore that one of us volunteers to do each week. We quickly found out that just because one of us receives a package, doesn’t mean that they will notify us when it arrives. We’ve found packages from September a few weeks ago just chillin’ in a corner of the mailroom.

Some of us have also been so lucky as to receive a special slip. This special slip notifies us that a package has arrived for us. However, in order to get these packages, we must take a visit to the post office on the other side of the city (an hour and a half bus ride, people). Two days ago, I was honored with such a slip. Along with it came the urgent message of “If you don’t pick it up by tomorrow, it will be shipped back to America”. We call that a critical time crunch. That’s never a good message to get.

Why these packages can’t be shipped to our actual school, we don’t really know. What makes these packages different from the other packages that actually do make it to our school, we don't really know.

Thankfully, Tiffany was willing to come along on the adventure with me. We arrived at the post office {which, by the way, is so much calmer than a US post office at Christmastime}. We were the only two people in there except for the employees…and an old man. I was able to walk right up to the counter and present my slip. I handed over my passport and other Chinese documents. The woman disappeared and quickly returned with not one but two boxes!! They compared my documents to the boxes and… it all went downhill from there.

In case you don’t have a passport {or haven’t renewed yours in a long time} it is optional to have your middle name on your documentation. As I made this decision two years ago I distinctly remember the arguments I had with myself over whether or not to include my middle name on my passport. The winning argument was this: “Having my middle name will only further clarify who I am. It can’t hurt anything.”

They were spelling my name over and over, aloud.

K-A-Y-L-A-M-A-R-I-E-M-I-N-I. Looking back and forth.

“Oh no,” I said to Tiffany. “I bet you they’re comparing my name to the name on the box. I bet you anything that the boxes do not have my middle name on them.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Tiffany said.

One of the ladies took my passport and disappeared to an office in the back. The other stood, looking at us. The old man came over to see what all the commotion was about. “Wo shi Kayla Marie Mini.” I gestured. “Wo shi Kayla Mini”. I did the same gesture. Kayla Marie Mini and Kayla Mini, are in fact, the same person. We, being American, do not pay as much attention to the middle names. They are only used to make it evidently clear to a child that they are in trouble. Major cultural difference.

The woman returned from the back and picked up the phone. I continued repeating myself, hoping and praying that it would make some type of difference. The old man started speaking to us. For the record, they all ask the same thing. We told him we were English teachers from America. He continued asking questions. Some, we didn’t know the answers to, some we didn’t understand. Then…we didn’t understand anything. “bu dong, bu dong.” He kept trying. It didn’t help.

The woman handed me the phone. Who in the world would I possibly talk to on the phone in the post office in China? “Hello?” I asked, hesitantly.

“Kayla, this is Vincent. The woman says that you are having a problem.”

VINCENT! I had never been happier to hear his voice [if you don’t know who Vincent is, we went to his house not to long ago…you can read about it here]. He asked me a few questions and then tried talking to the lady again for a very long time. She then handed the phone back to me. “Kayla, the woman says that she cannot give you the packages because the documents do not match. I will have to write you a certificate of approval that proves you are the same person, but you will have to come back to the school to get it.”

Let's play a game. It's called "…do you know what it feels like..."

- to live in a foreign country?

- to live in a foreign country around the holidays?

- to literally have a counter (all of two feet) separating you and two boxes of goodness and familiarity from home?

I can’t lie, it was a very discouraging visit to the post office. What did we learn? That China takes our loose term of “what’s in a name?” rather seriously. Maybe from now on my middle name should be included on all pieces of mail.

A Fairy Tale

[In light of the previous blog post, I thought this would also have to make it on the blog. If you haven't read the previous blog, I suggest you go read that one first and then scroll up here.]

So recently I was checking some homework. The assignment was to write a story using the given vocabulary words:

sit ups, jumping jacks, running, jogging, aerobics, swimming

 You can imagine how shocked I was to find that the main character was, in fact, me.

"Once upon a time Miss Guobaorou was doing jumping jacks in the jungle. Suddenly, Lauren and Laura

ran quickly towards her and started doing aerobics together with her. While Guobaorou was surprised,a

handsome prince came and said “have you thought about dancing with me?” Then, Laura and Guobaorou
nodded their head quickly. The prince went, but they had to walk to the palace. Boom!....what happened?
A young man with a scar and a broom called Harry took Lauren to the palace, while another big bird took
Laura away. Miss Guobaorou had to walked alone, but she was stopped by a bear. The bear put her on
the back and said “I suggest you lose weight by go swimming, running, and lifting weights.” Guobaorou
was annoyed and tried to do sit ups on the bear’s back. After they arrived, the prince invited Guobaorou
and said “maybe you should try dancing with me.” Guobaorou accepted it, but the bear didn’t. Then, Miss
Guobaorou had to dance with the prince and the bear."

...not gunna lie, I'd dance with a prince any day. 
Even if my life was in jeopardy due to the presence of a bear bear was involved.
[want to read more of these assignments? ] 

Trouble Making Team

 
One of the best parts of being on a team is getting to know the students of my teammates.
It creates for an interesting relationship as even though I am a teacher, I am not their teacher.
There is one student in particular who has won the hearts of all of Team Harbin and thankfully she is not my student [or else there is no way that we would have the relationship that we have]. I have even mentioned her before in a previous blog post; her name is Julia.
Julia is a sophomore student, a class monitor, and a very responsible one at that. She is the most outgoing student I have ever met and she talks incredibly fast. Her English is faster than mine. Her friends often tease her because speaking fast is a part of her ‘dialect’. Julia’s hometown, unlike many of the students here, is really far away.

We have had several opportunities to have dinners with students. At one of these dinners we were telling “the sophomores” that we needed to find Chinese names for ourselves. I was telling Julia the story of what happened in my classes when I asked my students for help.
“I told them ‘the time has come for me to choose a Chinese name. I have no idea what it should be', and then one of them shouted ‘di san xian! Your favorite Chinese food’ {at which point Julia erupted in laughter, barely able to contain herself} And then I quickly told them that ‘di san xian’ could not be my Chinese name but then they shouted ‘guo bao rou!’ at me!” At this point, Julia erupted into a much deeper laughter. Obviously, naming your English teacher traditional Chinese dishes is not the recommended thing to do, and although I was completely aware of the fact that my students were only messing with me, I did not expect the following to come from Julia's mouth:

“Guo bao rou. This is the perfect name for you”
“Julia, I want my Chinese name to mean something. I don’t want to be remembered as a slab of meat.”
“Guo bao rou. It is delicious, it is sweet, and it is everyone's favorite. It is you!”

You can bet there was much arguing after this point, yet any argument I find myself in with a student, I always end up losing. Nonetheless, my Chinese nickname is officially “guo bao rou”, which Julia has proclaimed to every student of mine that crosses my path. [yes, nickname, I eventually got a real one too]. It has become quite the joke amongst the freshman class that their teacher, Miss Kayla, has an alias of a sweet and sticky fried pork dish. Not going to lie, guo bao rou is absolutely delicious and a special dish that is only found in the dongbei [northeast] China. Super special.

Julia and myself are what we jokingly call a "trouble making team". We read each others minds. We get each other. We finish each others jokes. It would only be fitting that both parts of the team would have a nickname; Julia also has an alias known as "gong pao ji ding" {Kung Pao Chicken, for all you Chinese scholars out there}. It is quite the common knowledge that we are a pair, that we are a team, and that any time Guo Bao Rou and Gong Pao Ji Ding cross paths on this tiny campus, chaos and energy are released into the universe. A very special relationship, people. One that will forever continue no matter if miles or oceans separate.

Winter Adventures Episode 1

Today was not your usual Saturday for quite the variety of reasons. First of all, it began on a celebratory note because my body decided to wake up at 10am! [I haven’t been able to sleep well for the past several months so it seems as though my body finally got the memo and took the time it needed to rejuvenate itself] This is a miracle, people.

Today was the first day I (well, we) were ever invited into a Chinese persons home. Our “supervisor” here at the school and his wife invited us over for lunch to their apartment. Sunny came along with us [some of you know about Sunny and how she is near and dear to our hearts]. The day began by getting there. Half of us hopped in a taxi, the others of us hopped in  

…this…

The driver of this vehicle was insistent that he could take us wherever we needed to go. He and the real taxi driver struck a deal that he would follow and charge the same amount as a real taxi. So we hopped in the small yellow vehicle and signed to ourselves “only in China”. All in all, the man was super happy to say that he had Americans in his car. You know he’ll be telling that story at the kitchen table for years to come. I’m glad we could make your day, sir.

We got to Vincent & Tina’s apartment; it was absolutely beautiful as if designed by the Barbie Dream House team. Every wall was pink, the curtains were pink, the bedspread a hot magenta, and splashes of pink and red everywhere we turned. Vincent was even cooking in a pink Snoopy apron! :) {In China, the colors of pink and red symbolize good luck}. We were greeted with such hospitality and for hours we sat, talked, shared stories, and poked fun at each other.

Our meal was specially prepared by Vincent, himself. He cooked everything. This includes steak and vegetables, miniature sausages, Russian style sausage soufflés,  fish, fruit salad, warm pumpkin drink, orange&apple juice [blended together], shrimp & red wine sauce [still with heads, eyes, tails and legs attached], and freshwater crab. Before today, I had never needed to rip the limbs from a shrimp before. That changed all of 6 hours ago. I had also never needed to remove the lungs from a crab either. Alas, there is a first time for everything.

 

We were also joined by another colleague from the English department and her daughter (who was too shy to talk to us). We enjoyed such pleasant company with these beautiful friends of ours. I’m so thankful that they are in our lives and that we are able to share pieces of our lives together. We finished the night with some Chinese tea and homemade apple pie {thank you, Laura Baker}. While we were enjoying company, Harbin’s first snow began to fall and stick to the ground! That made for a very fun taxi ride home as 

A. our driver got lost 

B. “snow tires” although most likely made in China are not used by those in China 

C. The de-fog option either doesn’t exist in their cars or they opt not to use it. I’m thinking the latter. That means that driving with the windows down is a natural solution to the problem.

{mom and dad, pretend that you didn’t just read that}

What a better way to finish a day than with watching your favorite movie [Invictus] with fellow teammates and a cup of hot tea? I’m just saying.

 The snow has fallen. It is officially winter. I guarantee there will be many more adventures to come.

My Lists (not the Christmas one)

What’s so great about teaching in China anyways?

-I can freely text all of my students. No qualms or moral issues about that [as there would be in the states]

-I can wear jeans to work everyday if I wanted to.

-I can wear the same outfit multiple days in a row and no one will think anything of it [because they do the same thing].

-Their standard of fashion is “Pretty + Pretty”. This means that if you have two things that are pretty on their own (say cheetah leggings and fuzzy sparkley boots), wearing them together makes them a whole lot prettier. That basically means no fashion “rules” whatsoever.

-The love language of China is words of affirmation. Having a bad day? Give it two minutes and someone will tell you something to make you feel better about yourself.

-If you ever end up with an extra 5 minutes of class, your students will always be more than willing to learn a song

-If you’re the type of teacher who wanders around the classroom while the students are doing work, be prepared for the free food that’s about to come your way as students hand you the entire contents of their desks.

-Listening to other people speak a second language all day results in tiredness, no doubt about it, but it also results in funny. Life is hilarious when communicating with second language learners.

-I’m the foreign teacher. It’s my excuse and my hindrance. I have every given right to be as crazy as I want to be. Be sure to use this to your full advantage.

-My students are full of grace. No matter how poorly the previous class was, each day is a clean slate and they are willing to give {almost} anything a try [with a little prodding and persuading, of course]

What have I learned since being here?

-The internet is as trustworthy as a quarter. Heads or tails?

-It is a wise idea to remove the song “I’ll be home for Christmas” from any iTunes playlist you may own. Failing to do so may result in ugly.

-My bathroom is able to receive text messages, but can’t send them.

-Everyone in China is on the internet from the hours of 5pm to 10pm. That is approximately 1.3 billion people. Good luck.

-My teammates are everything: we help each other survive.

-Sometimes in life we have to do things we don’t want to do. Up until this point it usually involved not wanting to go to my 8am class or clean my room, but sometimes these things we don’t want to do involve relationships and the people around us. Often, it’s hard.

-Sometimes the handle on the right brings forth hot water, sometimes it’s cold. You just never know.

-It is a necessity to sweep…every weekend.

-If you have a hot plate, there is only one setting: hot.

-Pure childlike joy can come from the most unexpected and simple things. This may include [but is not limited to] letters, emails, being attacked by your students, successfully ordering a new dish in the dining hall, catching the drift of a Chinese conversation around you, discovering that your campus has a playground, being witness to Tiffany’s happy noises, and other various, random things.

-Don’t trust the sun outside. It can still be sunny and -8 degrees.

-Cheetah print is the most fashionable pattern I could ever invest in [by China standards].

-Walking stairs is just a part of life.

-The media and truly ridiculous TV shows that America puts out are truly what people think our country is like. You have no idea how many times I’ve had to explain that “Vampire Diaries” and “Gossip Girl” are not real.

-You can make an apartment feel like home with nothing but scissors, markers, and some poster board.

...this list is to be continued. I promise.