Holiday Time Off

So I open up my email the other day and this is what I get.

Dear All

The college has decided the new year's holiday as following:

We will work on Saturday (29th, December) and make up classes for Monday(31st, December). The holiday will be on 30th, 31st, December 2007 and 1st January 2008.

Thanks.

xxxx

I have withheld the name to protect the innocent, but does anyone else see what is wrong with this? There are two things, for one how can they call it time off, when you are working those days, you are just working on a different day, also one of those days (30th) is a f@#$!@# Sunday, no we don't work on Sundays here.

It stipulates in my contract with the school that I get 3 days off, two of them are made up and one (the 1st) is not, they are trying to pull a fast one on us.

Layers, Layers, Layers

Everyone says that if you want to stay warm you must wear what?.......Layers. Well ladies and gents it has begun to get cold here (last night it was 32/0 depending on who is reading this)brrrrrr. But come on it is not that cold, I mean I might be from Florida, but it gets much colder than 32, right?

So I went to class today and my four senior students show up (that's a whole 'nother story), and they are covered head to toe in clothes. This is nothing new, in fact, it seems there is a date when people start wearing their winter coats (November 1 is my guess, although I can't ever get a straight answer). It doesn't matter that it is still 50 degrees outside by god it's November 2nd and I need to wear my coat or I will get sick. Sound familiar? Isn't that what your mother always tells you?

Today was different however, I decided I was going to get to the bottom of my students clothes wearing habits. Because they always ::gasp:: when I take my coat off (inside), I mean why would I take my winter coat off when I am inside a heated building? Then, inevitably, they ask me if I am cold, and I always say, "If I were cold would I take off my jacket?, and, why do you care anyway?" They say it's because they are worried about me. So then I invariably ask them, "Why don't you take your coats off?" And then they always answer in unison as if rehearsed, "Because it's winter silly." I added the "silly" but it might as well have been what they said.

There are some things in China no foreigner will ever understand and the layers issue is one of them. I asked them how many layers they had on, they answered 4, keep in mind these are healthy twenty year old kids. Four layers!!! An undershirt, Shirt, Sweater, and Jacket (that's the top) then the bottom, regular underwear, long johns, another set of long johns, wool socks and finally pants of some sort. I mean my god two pairs of long johns it was 34 degrees outside, not -34. To top it all off, this is indoors!!!! indoors!!!! Crazy, crazy there is really on word and it is crazy. They almost fell died when I told them I was only wearing jeans.

The best part of all is that they will sit there and sweat in the classroom while I am more than comfortable. Ahh China, gotta love it.

Riley GwiX

The Great Haze over China

I'm not talking about being hungover either. The pollution here is something else, it's really crazy. It's hard to really show people how bad it is other than the sunsets and now this image from NASA that is honestly astonishing, I have modified it a little so you can see exactly where I sit in all this.


According to NASA (Click the Picture to enlarge)

Thick haze collected in eastern China, south of Beijing, in mid-December 2007. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture on December 17, 2007. In places, the dull gray haze is thick enough to completely hide the land surface below. The haze appears confined to low elevations, only cresting the Taihang Shan Mountains in a few locations.

Here is a picture of a beautiful Chinese Sunset. (Don't stare you'll go blind.)

Red Pajamas

While on the topic of superstition, I thought I would mention a funny one that my students told me about. Apparently nobody here where's red pajamas, I didn't believe it either but just like green hats they are impossible to find. There is a supersition that says if you die wearing red clothes at midnight that your soul will be stuck in this world forever. That you will haunt where ever it is that you die.

Strangely enough they sell an insane amount of red underwear, while I consider underwear ,clothes they are not included in this superstition because you are supposed to wear red underwear when it is your zodiac calendar year. So because I was born in the year of the pig (this year) I have gone out and bought a nice pair of red undies for good luck.

Crazy Chinese

Translated Brands

So I have decided to start a new blog devoted to Chinese Western Brands. It is one of my favorite things do when I am bored here and that is find brands I know and recognize. So if you are bored there will be some more content for you to look at. "Misadventures" will be personal observations "Familiar Brands" will be more formulaic.

Leave me a comment to tell me what you think.


Riley