Fun With Mice

My brother sent me a link to this Engadget article about some benches in the Shenzhen subway that are giant keyboard keys. This reminded me of these mice that I saw in Xiamen while I was visiting last January.

I sent it into engadget and low and behold they put it up. Which I think is pretty cool in a totally narcissistic sort of way :). Next thing I know my picture is being featured on Swedish public radio, with a photo credit. The text translates in google as:

You are on vacation, but what direction you look you see things like the job. Hard. Thought then that IT-intensive office rat encounter this on the beach. Tougher. Or, quite funny. It is Riley Gelwicks who have found the large concrete mice during their stay in China.

I wouldn't call it my 15 minutes of fame, but certainly put a little smile on my face.

Long Time No See 好久不见了

Small update on my life after nearly seven months without posting, I'm now in Beijing working and living. I love it and would say that only miss Longhu when I ache for the "real" China, the one that you read about in travel guides. Beijing is so modern and westernized that nobody really stares at me or really cares that I'm in their vicinity. I've lost the pseudo celebrity status that I loved to hate in Zhengzhou. I'll try to keep this updated a little more sorry about the lack of effort on my part.

Soy Sauce

Last night we went out to dinner with some students and happened to order fried rice with dinner. Fried rice is typically seen as a snack food, not normally ordered at dinner (not fancy enough).
When the rice came, I asked if one of the students could ask the waiter if they could bring me some soy sauce. Soy sauce is only used to cook with and add color and a bit of flavor, not doused on the rice like we do in the west. But I happen to think that fried rice with soy sauce is great.

The student looked at me like I was crazy but he did it anyway and came back with a liter-sized bottle of soy sauce and watched as I drizzled it on (amazed). I told him and the other student to try it, they were hesitant at first but once all of the other foreign teachers started to do the same thing they acquiesced and gave it the ol' college try. Within the first bite both of them were like wow, this is really good, you could see in their eyes "a little blowing of the mind".

And we have done our best to convert some of the country folk.

Backwaters

Living in a foreign country can be very frustrating and annoying with new customs and things that don't make any sense. Many of these topics I have already covered, but after going to the supermarket yesterday some of these people will get a little bit of a free pass. There is a relatively new supermarket in town like 8-9 months old. While most shops are little mom & pop places this is a proper supermarket with all sorts of Chinese food goodies.

It just also happens to be 3 stories tall, so in order to move the masses up and down they have installed some amazing modern technology (escalators). So anyway, onto the point of this post, I walked in yesterday and grabbed my basket to do some shopping and was waiting to get on the escalator and noticed there was a little backup. "What could be holding up a constantly moving escalator?", I thought to myself. Then I noticed it was an older woman early 50's probably who was having trouble timing her step onto the escalator. Kind of swaying back and worth as if she was getting ready jump in and do some Double Dutch. After about ten seconds she picked her step and went for it, and mounted the escalator without falling (phew!).

After witnessing this I couldn't help but laugh a little bit as it gave me some insight into some of the activity that we see the locals partake in every day. I think some people could call it a moment of clarity.

Back and Forth

I finished my first year in China and went home back to Fort Lauderdale. It was amazing how quickly I fell back into life in the States, it took me about 12 hours to get over the fact that I was back in America. Maybe it's because I went home and knew the area so well, or maybe it's because I'm American and felt comfortable in the US, either way it was strange to me that I fell back into my routine after being gone for 10 months. I worked for about a month at a Law firm and realized that I really don't enjoy working in an office, it's just too confining.

I'm not gonna lie I definitely thought about not coming back, about just staying where it's easy and comfortable, but I felt for my sake I needed to come back and try to learn as much Chinese as possible. Once I bought the ticket I felt a little at ease and almost excited to come back, I guess my life for now is here in China.

I plan on staying in Longhu for only another semester, leaving at the beginning of January and then plan on going to Beijing or Taipei. I think living in the big city will help with being a foreigner, as there will be a bigger expat community. Overall all is well back in the HU as we call it and I will be updating once again.

Here is the new google earth satellite view of where I am living It is the big White building in the middle of the frame. That is the foreign teachers apartments, if you zoom out you can see the rest of the school. Zoom a little more out and click the map button to see where I am in relation to Zhengzhou and then a little more out to see where Zhengzhou is in relation to Beijing. I always like to know where someone is.
View Larger Map


That's all for now until we meet again.