With Heels, Come Balance

Valentine's Day. A day where couples everywhere are somewhat guilted into buying things for one another to proclaim their love, regardless of how long they've been together. The day that reminds you that if you survive it, your reward is discounted chocolate. So when you're in a country that has not one, but three different versions of this holiday, you're single, and it's the tail-end of Chinese New Year, there's only one thing you can do. Get some friends and go to a night club.

In reality, it's quite rare for me to go to a nightclub. I don't like being touched by people I don't know, nor do I like feeling like a piece of meat. But that night, I wanted to dance and see friends and simply have a good time. So I put on a black outfit donned some makeup, and a pair of heels. Pay attention to the heels. They're actually part of this story later.

That night, my friends and I went to three clubs and danced the night away. I, myself, realized just how shy I really was when out of the three men at approached me that night, only one of them I was comfortable with talking to. In fact, I was so unused to the attention that when one person invited me to dance, I grabbed one of my friends and had them come with me cause I wasn't sure what was happening. On the plus side, it was quite the confidence boost. So kudos to the confident men that kinda freaked me out at first!

Moral of the story: Learn not to be so shy.

But wait! Why did I say to remember the heels? They weren't brought up again to this seemingly pointless story. Well, here's the reason.

With decent parties come alcohol. With thirst-quenching, comes bladder release. With bladder-release in China comes one of the funnest games to play, especially when you're a little buzzed. Squat or No Squat? The game is actually pretty simple. When you go to the bathroom and look for a door, make a mental guess in your head if it's a Western Toilet or a Squatty Potty. Then when there's a stall free, you go in to see if your guess was right. I've never actually played this game with other people, so I'm curious to see how well this would play out as a drinking game, but I'm getting off-topic.

There I was, staring in the stall, mentally cursing cause I'd guessed wrong. My feet were already starting to hurt from the heels as I stared down at the porcelain hole. I already sucked at keeping a good balance when I squatted cause I tend to be on my toes. If I ever found myself at a squatty, I'd need to literally hold on to the walls because my balance sucked. And now here I was about to do this again, slightly buzzed and in heels.

In the two years that I've been in China, that was the first time I didn't have to hold on to the walls for balance. The heels actually helped. For the first time, heels had a real purpose in my life.

Moral of this story: Learn to keep my feet in heels so I can go out more often. But man, did it feel good to finally take them off once I got to my apartment.

Chinese New Year Behind the Great Firewall

On a normal Chinese New Year, I'd be traveling. I'd probably be exploring wherever I was at, taking as many pictures as I could then coming up with a witty name for the photo album on Facebook. I'd pick only the best pictures and post them while bugging whatever hometown friends who've kept WeChat to scan Facebook and like those same pictures.

This year though, I planned on a quieter Chinese New Year. This time around, I didn't really travel. Instead, I found myself curious on what Beijing looked like after the Great Migration. Was it really like a mini-hibernation? Or was I just talking out of my ass? I'd heard stories about how the whole city shuts down on Chinese New Year. Nothing's open. Buy your food the week before the holiday so you have something to eat during the holiday. While to an extent, that is true, staying in Beijing on Chinese New Year turned out to be not bad at all.

Except for when it came to technology. I found myself in two battles with technology. The first one I'll affectionately call the Battle of the VPN. The other one, the Battle of the Computer.

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The Battle of the VPN

At some point, on this side of the Great Firewall, when I turned on my VPN, which will remain nameless for now, I'd had a notice right when I signed on saying that it was temporarily out of order. The Great Firewall had found out about it, and had slammed its fiery you-know-what on it. If I read the notice correctly, they were blaming journalists and said that it'd be fixed after the holiday. My slight Facebook addiction got the better of me. And, well, there are only three people back in the States that talk to me without the use of Facebook. So like it or not, I kinda need my Facebook at the moment. Fortunately, things have been okay with that, but it ended up being a short, but annoying battle for a holiday.

Lesson I learned from this battle: Get more people from home to add you on WeChat.

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The Battle of the Computer

Exactly one month ago, my computer started slowing way down. To the point that in the middle of videos it would stop, and I would have to completely restart my computer. One day, my computer didn't even load, and I found myself running out to SanLiTun to figure out what was going on. Without my computer, I had no way of really contacting anyone back home.

The downside of going to the Apple Store is all the waiting. It's no one's fault. In fact, the service I received was wonderful. The problem is that everyone is very busy. In Chinese culture, even if there's someone helping you, it's very normal for people to just interrupt so they get serviced. As a downside, it takes longer for you to get helped because the people working feel obligated to help someone that's interrupting your service. As I said before, I don't consider it bad service. This is culture. And when they've got your attention, the service is wonderful.

After many many hours, we realized what the problem was. Turns out, my hard drive was taking a crap. So after attempting to save whatever I could on a tiny external hard drive, I saved what I could, which wasn't much, if anything at all.

When I got my computer back, it seemed okay. It was running faster, but there was still the pesky problem of it beach balling at times. It would still freeze a little at random points. Two nights ago, my computer started restarting on its own every five minutes until it stopped restarting all together. Back to the Apple Store!

Was it my hard drive? No. This time, there was a cable next to the hard drive the broke. It probably broke when my hard drive died, but it wasn't caught right away.

Lesson: Back everything up. Because of this, I lost a lot of pictures and music. :( Not to mention  I'll have to find a copy of my book just so I can retype it and put it in my computer.

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Despite the random battles, the Chinese New Year break wasn't bad. I bought so many books so that I could get back to reading. I didn't go out as much as I liked, but as I said, with all the reading I managed to get done this time around, I'm not butthurt about it at all.

Not only that, the one plus side to having the Great Firewall sometimes slam down on your VPN is that copyright in China is on a meh level. So it's surprisingly easy to catch up on any TV shows that you missed while you were in America. (I now know the joys of PC Principal, for starters).

This Chinese New Year was a lot more toned down than my last one, but it was still a decent Chinese New Year. :)

A World Map

When I was a kid, my grandma and grandpa traveled around the world. They were part of a group that would go to a different country at least once a month. They'd stay at that country for at least a week, then they'd come home and sometimes bring back something from that place. She'd decorate both her lakeside cottage and downstate home with the random souvenirs she bought.

In her house downstate, their basement seemed like a mini-shrine of all the places they'd been. The moment you were down the stairs you saw pictures on the walls of each country. Grandma's favorites from each place. On the other end of the basement, there was a bulletin board with a large world map attached to it. Grandma pinned every single place she'd been with a red pin. Every continent had multiple pins inside. Some places were  a more red than others.

Last time I was in Michigan, I went to her house and went straight to that world map. It hasn't changed that much since I'd been there last. My grandma was in a quad accident when I was in college, so she doesn't do a lot of international traveling anymore. A lot of the traveling is within the U.S. now. I still studied the map like I was seeing it for the first time.

When I travel, myself, I immediately think of that map. Of all the red pins on it, and how there would be even more from me whenever I decided to settle down. It's quite a challenge. But I think about my own world map like that. Every time I go somewhere, even if it's a trip within the country, I can add a pin to my own world map. Maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to have more pins on my own map. One day.

Some Days are just Days

Sometimes, regardless of where you are, there are days you just want to do nothing. Sometimes you just want to sit at home and finish that book that's been sitting in your apartment for months, or watch that movie that's been laying around for a while. Sometimes, you need a break from that excitement.

That's the one downside I've noticed from living in China. If there are blog posts to be had, or even youtube video. It's got to be exciting. Hell, you wouldn't get much notice if your youtube video was you sitting on your ass and talking. Unless you're funny as Jenna Marbles. That girl knows how to make people laugh. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The thing that no one ever mentions in blogs, vlogs, or youtube videos, is that there are going to be days that you need to do nothing. You need days to recharge. This is one of the reasons I only post once a week. I won't be able to have excitement every day. I tend to feel bad at times, cause I know that's one of the reasons people come to this page. They're curious about China, and what happens there. Well, things do happen. But not every day. The bright side is, when excitement does happen, it happens. And I have a ton to talk about.

Adventures in Hot Pot

Hot Pot. One of the tastiest, yet in some ways the laziest ways to use food to make money. You walk in with a group of friends, and you sit around a table that has a large stove in the center of the table. Everyone sees a menu, usually written in Chinese, and you write down what you want. Meat, vegetables, etc. A lot of the time, if you have a Chinese friend with you, you have them write and translate. Especially if you're not confident with your Chinese. (Two thumbs and not confident with her Chinese? Me!) Then a bowl with two halves is placed on the stove, which has been lit. One side is a regular, probably a little more bland broth while the other side is spicy as hell. While you're waiting for both broths to boil, the food arrives. When it gets here, and the broths boil, you place the food in the broth and let it cook. It's all fun, games, and great eating until someone brings out the duck blood.

A few nights ago, I went to hot pot with a few co-workers. There were four foreigners and two Chinese co-workers. We went to a lesser-known hotpot and ate our fill in potatoes, beef, lamb, lotus root, you name it. As we filled up, a white container was brought out with red gelatin-like cubes. Curious, we all asked, "What's that?" And they answered, "Duck blood!"

Even though I had no interest in trying it, I was curious on how it worked. I was expecting a red liquid, but instead it looked like red tofu cubes. They put some of it in when the foreigners were done eating. Instead of melting, it hardened up so that when you ate it, it would actually be chewy. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen.

Later, I found out that this isn't just a thing in China. In a European country that I can't remember, maybe Germany, but don't quote me on it cause I'm not sure, duck blood is  a thing. The more you know.

Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to try this? I don't know. But for now, I can only watch in fascination that something so strange can be thought of as a food.

9/11 Flashback

It's technically September 12th in Beijing right now, but I know it'll still be Friday when people read this post. On a normal day I'd be looking for some sort of awkward topic to post, or talk about some lingering culture shock, despite being in this country for 2 years now. But since most of the people reading this post will be reading it on September 11th, it's only fitting that I talk about where I was that day. There are some things about that day that are surprisingly vivid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~FLASHBACK~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was 8th grade. My second class of the day was Choir. I was in the choir with the guys. I don't remember what song we were working on when another teacher suddenly burst into the room, talking in a surprisingly low voice and waving his arms everywhere. No one could hear what they were talking about, but we got some glares from the two teachers when the chatter started up between all of us, students. One of my friends and I still argue about which teacher it was that walked in. I said it was the Geography teacher, while he said it was the History teacher. After he left, we turned on the TV.

There are two times in my life where something stunned a whole class into silence. The second was in Senior Year. The first was that very moment we turned on the TV. For about five to ten minutes we watched the TV. We saw the second plane hit the tower, and we saw the smoke raising from both buildings. I remember thinking this was one realistic TV show, not realizing it wasn't fake. I didn't realize how real this was until my choir teacher turned off the TV, shook his head, and simply said, "Wow." Then we kept rehearsing our choir songs.

To this day, I question why my teacher turned off the TV and simply had us continue with the class. One of my friends said that the teacher didn't care. I personally found that hard to believe. Maybe the teacher expected us to thin whatever was happening in New York City at the time was going to happen to us at any minute. Maybe he thought going through the class and giving us something to distract us from what was happening was better than trying to supervise a class of freaked out 13-year-olds. Whatever it was, it's hard to say if it was a good move or not.

After class, I ran into my epic friend, and she asked me if I saw the news. Everyone had. The whole school was talking about it by the end of class. We kept seeing the same images of people covered in white dust guiding people away from the site. After lunch, it was common knowledge that a plane hit the Pentagon, and another plane crashed in a field. Rumors spread around that school was going to be cancelled. And that we were the next target. In English class, a boy passed a note to me telling me how scared he was. I quickly wrote back, "Don't worry. We're in Houghton Lake. There's no reason for anyone to come here." At lunch, the principal announced that no, school would not be cancelled, and we'd continue the day.

When my mom and stepdad came home from work, we all gathered in front of my mom's TV. My mom, stepdad, sister, brother, step-brother, and me. We watched continuing footage. The whole country shut down. Even the Disney parks were closed. It was one of those few moments where everyone sat around the TV. For once, my mom wasn't loudly shushing someone for asking a question.

~~~~~~~~~A FEW DAYS AGO~~~~~~~~~~~

Recently, I'd seen a facebook post claiming that 9/11 didn't happen. One in particular showed a picture from 9/11 claiming that it was . All I can do is challenge them to go to New York themselves. I was there in 2007, and there was no sign of any Twin Towers. We'd be hearing about it if there were. Dwight D. Eisenhower once ordered the Army to take tons of pictures of Concentration camps in World War II because there would be people claiming the Holocaust didn't happen. It reminds me of that.

If there's anything to point out about that day, I believe it's part of the reason my generation has become so informed. With this event, and the events that followed, it's made us want to find out the information for ourselves instead of trusting one source. That's an interesting side effect of that day.

How to Fight the System and Win

I don't always lose my Chinese bank card. But when I do, it's around the time the Chinese government has started up some new, weird regulation making it harder to bank in China. Essentially making the Chinese banking system more bullshit than it already is.

On this particular Tuesday, I realized I didn't have my bank card. So, being that it was my day off, I decided to take a trip to the bank. Normally, you'd have to take a number and wait for it to be called. Since my Chinese is very hit and miss, I decided to wait in line at a desk and explain the situation. The first thing they did was take my passport. They do absolutely nothing with it. But they have to make a copy each time. So if you lose your card while you're getting your visa renewed, you're kinda screwed. I don't understand the point.

Anyway, they did the usual paperwork, but then out of nowhere stopped. They'd told me that because I used my passport number I had to wait seven days. I'm not sure if it was because I told them that it wasn't happening, or because I had my Foreign Expat Certificate, but with a little patience and very strong, "No, I'm not borrowing money from other people when I have money" I managed to get a new card.

I'd like to say it was cause I never once changed heart and kept telling them no, but I'm not sure that was it. I'd like to say it was me FEC that saved me from going a week without money, but I'm not sure. Either way, thank goodness for my pride. One thing I hate more than anything is being in a situation where I might have to ask someone for money. It's a pride thing. So if I'm actually asking someone for money, I'm really hurting.

One of the big mysteries, maybe, will be what got me to win the system. Or with my luck, someone will read this and tell me exactly how I did it. Either way, it sounds like a shock to most people when I tell the story. Random bit of pride for the win!