Sixty Five

I have been in China for a total of 65 days and have hit the half way point of my four month adventure. Sometimes I feel like I have been here FOREVER, but most the time I feel like I just got here. When we had our training a big topic we covered was Culture Shock. I remember thinking, “Pffft, I’ll be fine.” Culture shock is REAL, people. I don’t know if I realized that when I had a taxi driver yell at us angrily in Chinese at a stoplight in Shanghai, when I went to a restaurant and saw that all the plates of “food” had creatures that were still wriggling around, or when I saw the first Asian adult casually pooping in the street. China is a very advanced country, but I tend to forget that when the public bathrooms are porcelain holes in the ground or when the guy next to me just hocked a loogie in the middle of a very busy Beijing train station.

Don’t ask questions when the rolls they give you are purple, or when you’re served hot water with your meal. If you’re susceptible to getting car sick you are toast. There are no rules to driving in China. If there are, no one follows them. What’s a speed limit? What’s a lane?  There are 456879 cars driving towards me? I’m still going to turn left right now. I learned that they have to take five drivers tests to get their license here. I don’t know how anyone passed. If you don’t feel like walking back to the school from the grocery store you can catch a taxi for about seventy five cents. The catch is that it’s a white little three wheeled car that could break down at any given moment. If you are any race other than Asian you will receive a lot of attention. Cars will be driving past and slow down or stop to record a video or take a picture. Some try to hide it and be sneaky while others will stop right in front of you. People will put babies in your arms, take a picture, frame it and put it above their kitchen table. They make me feel like the most beautiful alien.

China has a very particular smell to it. Anyone who has been here understands and anyone who hasn’t has no idea. There is a China smell and there is a China taste. Some things taste more China than others. Sometimes the China smell is worse than others. The point is that I can’t tell you how many times I have said the phrase, “It tastes like China.” It’s not always bad and it’s not good. It’s just China. We will see American brand foods and buy them sometimes. They will be good, but not like at home because they taste like China. China has become its own adjective. I am living, breathing, eating, and smelling China.

If there’s something you need to know about Natalie Nicole Draper it’s that I have an irrational fear of octopus and people walking in on me in the bathroom. I’ve decided in this moment that that’s the most important thing you can know about me. Well, let me tell you, being here has made these fears seem a lot more rational. Get that squirming octopus out of my line of sight! NO. I do not want to eat it off my plate. I do NOT want to eat it off a stick. I saw a couple sharing an octopus kabob and all I could do was stare at them with disgust. DISGUST. They’re creepy and they’re slimy and their tentacles are going to rip your face off. Fact. Probably. I hate them and they’re everywhere and it’s ruining my life. Okay, not really. As far as being walked in on while being in the vulnerable state of relieving yourself…. I had a previous traumatic event that stemmed this one. A lucky few know the story, but I will spare the rest of you the details. However, some coworkers at H&M liked to make fun of me every time they heard me lock the bathroom door twice. I just had to make sure that I was safe. Judge me, okay!? As previously stated, western toilets are a rarity and you usually find squatters. Sometimes there are individual stalls with doors and locks, sometimes there are no doors, sometimes there are no stalls. Sometimes I want to curl up and die. Isn’t it awkward enough having to squat in a weird way,  pull down your pants and maneuver them in such a way to withstand peeing on them or your shoes, in the comfort of your own privacy!? Well, please do it in front of all these people now. Don’t even get me started on peeing on a moving train. TMI? Boys have it so easy. Maybe my parents should have taken me camping more as a child to prepare me for this.

Fireworks go off at all times of day and almost every day of the week. The ice cream they serve at McDonalds is pink and picking your nose in front of everyone is no big deal. I actually gagged in class today when one of my students was digging for gold and found some. He was showing his nose treasure to his friends and I physically GAGGED. I’m not ready to be a mother. Being surrounded by people that speak a different language than you can be fairly stressful. On more than one occasion have I had a Chinese member of society say something to me in Chinese where I just freeze and stare at them. “Oh, maybe if I say it slower this blonde alien will understand me.” No. I don’t speak fast Chinese and I really don’t speak slow Chinese. We’ve all had to master moving our hands around and pointing to what we need. It feels normal having to do this now. A perk involved is that you don’t have to filter anything you say while out in public. We have freely talked about our periods or the diarrhea that the food has given us in the back of a taxi, but felt perfectly comfortable because as far as our driver knows we are talking about getting our nails done.

If anyone wants information for a future trip to China I would say these three things. First, your money is going to go a lot farther here than it would in America. For every US dollar is 6.5 yuan. The converse I bought were 120 yuan which ended up being around $18. Or my Beats headphones were a solid $25. I get a massive bowl of noodles for $1.07. This helps soothe my anxiety when I think about how I haven’t been employed for the last two months. Second, it is more than possible to travel in a country without speaking the language. Don’t feel stupid because everyone else in the same boat is stupid too. But really, enough people know broken English that you can make your way around. What’s even more helpful is that in big cities all the signs are in English as well as Chinese. Third, and most importantly, buy all the snickers you see because they are so cheap and so much better here than they are in America.

This face was not staged

Cafeteria Food

From our favorite Ramen place

One of the babies I plan on stealing

Growing a Brain

Don’t ever listen to Adele when you are feeling sad. I don’t know what it is that gave that woman the power to perfectly encapsulate all human emotions into a three minute song, but damn. She does it. I’m not particularly distraught or anything, but have been feeling a little down on certain days here in China. Maddy, my best friend I came to China with, and I often joke about the bad luck that I always seem to have. It’s just little things, but when they keep happening it starts to become funny. For example, I will be sitting on my bed about to open up a snack but will open it with too much force so it goes flying behind the headboard. Or when opening a Crystal Lite package to put in my water I drop it into the bottle without being able to reach it and have to pour it all out. Or when my favorite pants ripped as I sat down. I bought a Chinese SIM card so my phone will work, but my phone wouldn’t me log into my Apple account so it is basically useless. It magically worked for a week to only be logged out again. Due to the fact that all internet sites are blocked in China my phone has become the perfect torturing device. I still get notifications from Facebook and Instagram, but am unable to look at them. I am also able to text my roommate here in China (who has a Chinese SIM card that works like a dream).  Anyways, I’m just still trying to look at it with some humor.

               Maddy and I are a lot alike, but this last week she uncovered what it is that makes us different. She is a very logical person and always thinks with her head. She jokes saying she doesn’t have a soul because of this, but we all know that’s not true. So while she only thinks with her head I always seem to think with my heart. She has no heart, I have no brain and we make the perfect match. Haha. I have the tendency to be irrational and put everything that goes wrong on myself. I’ve somehow been convinced that it’s easier to say it was me that did wrong than admit that someone I care about would choose to hurt me. I won’t admit it often (ever), but am sensitive and often feel things too deeply. This can be both a blessing and a curse. I don’t get attached to too many people, but when I do it can be hard for me to let go. So while I’m here one of my goals is to “grow a brain.” To let people go when they want to go and to not be so hard on myself when something doesn’t go as planned.

We have now had two of our vacation breaks while doing our time in Weihai. Our first was to Shanghai and our second to Beijing. I’ll back track and some point to talk about our Shanghai adventures, but am going to start with our latest to Beijing.

We took the sleeper train from Weihai to Beijing and left around 9 pm. We were put on a triple decker sleeper. We were all on the top bunks and were so high up that we weren't able to sit up straight. While waiting to get on the train we made friends with a girl that goes to the University here. She spoke English fairly well too. I asked her if she had an English name and she didn’t. So I named her, Casey! I figured I should take advantage so she doesn’t end up with a name like “Applesauce.” It’s still funny to me that anyone can randomly give them an English name and they love it.The train ride was 15 hours, but not too bad since it was overnight and mostly slept. We got there and figured out the metro to get to our hostel. We checked in and then wandered around downtown for awhile. The food in Beijing is so good. There was a lot of really good Asian food but THEY HAD WESTERN FOOD. We were all ecstatic. We all had burgers and pancakes and salads and couldn't be happier. Drastic change from what we are used to eating here in Weihai.

We went to the Summer Palace the next day and it was SO crowded. Beautiful, but crowded. It was literally like Disneyland. We didn't get as much attention for being white in Beijing as we do everywhere else. I think they are more accustomed to seeing us around. However, we still caught people taking our picture. Trinity, a girl we have been traveling with, and I decided we were just going to photo bomb everyone we saw taking pictures. It's really fun and hilarious because we  run up and hop into their pictures and they say "thank you” like we are doing them a favor. After that we jumped on the metro and went to the Pearl Market. AMAZING. So many good finds for so cheap.

The next whole day was spent at the Great Wall. We were lucky enough to run into another teacher that teaches in Weihai on our sleeper train. He is Australian and owns a school here. He was telling us how he had four extra spots for his venture out to the great wall and invited us to go with him. This brought me a lot of relief because I didn't know how we were going to navigate getting there. The spot closest to Beijing is said to be crawling with people and I didn’t want to go to that section. So we got lucky and went with them on Monday to the Mutianyu Section of the wall. I swear, when people ask me what I did while in China when I get home my response will be, "I climbed stairs." From the 200+ stairs on campus and living on the fifth floor to climbing a mountain of stairs to the Great Wall, my butt does not lie. There is an app on the Iphone that tells you how many floors you climb every day. My average is 38 floors a day. We hiked around the Great Wall for about five hours and it was AMAZING. Pictures just can't do it justice. I just couldn't believe I was actually there the whole time. We even saw a bride getting her pictures taken up there. Once we were done climbing and wandering (it was quite the hike on the wall) there was an alpine slide you could take back down to the bottom. SO FUN. How many people can say they have tobogganed down from The Great Wall of China!? We waited at the top for awhile to wait for all the Asians to go down at a painfully slow rate. For those that don’t know, the people here are not fans of speed. We were able to cruise down pretty fast and I loved it.

The next day we were on the bullet train back to Weihai leaving at around 3:30. That ride was about 7 hours. So we woke up and stuffed our faces with more western food, wandered around downtown Beijing a little more and headed to the train station. We are planning on going back to Beijing at the end of June to camp on the Great Wall and to go to The Forbidden City. Since we were planning another trip back we didn't feel to rushed trying to get all the sites in. It was perfect. Had the best time and bought a lot of fun souvenirs while there. However, I still think my favorite souvenir I’ll be bringing back is my butt.

 “What’s comin is comin and we’ll meet it when it does.” -Hagrid

                                                                "In her natural habitat."

Jobs fill your pocket, adventures fill your soul

I don’t know how I came to be a person with a blog, but here we are. I often (always) keep the ramblings of my head to myself, but had the urge to share some of my thoughts and experiences with the world. My mother will be ecstatic. If you find yourself reading this you probably already know that I am in China volunteering with ILP until July this year. It is April, 9^th here in Weihai, so I have been here for seven weeks. The opportunity to come to China honestly just fell into my lap one day. I had just gotten home from work to a text from a good friend from high school letting me know there were open spots for the next semester. I was like, “okay” and moved to China three weeks later. I’ve actually received a lot of compliments about how I am brave to drop everything and move to another country or how people wished they would have done something like this. In all honesty, I’m not brave at all. I was able to drop everything so easily because I have no idea what I am doing with my life.

 I am your average 23 year old without a boyfriend, a Bachelor’s Degree, or any idea of what it is that I truly want. I didn’t come to China because I was brave. I came to China because it was a convenient escape from “real life.” Ironically, even after I moved 6,142 miles away, life still seemed to catch up to me. Duh, Nat. I wouldn’t say I’ve had the hardest life by any means, but I have had my struggles and I am known to be an A+ “bottler.” If you don’t know what I mean when I say “bottler” it pretty much means I stuff anything that has to do with feelings into a bottle and screw that lid on real tight. However, you can only bottle for so long. My “feelings” bottle has gotten pretty full and it’s starting to resemble a 2 liter of soda that you’ve just violently shaken. THE FEELINGS ARE ESCAPING. We have a lot of free time between classes and adventuring for me to think and I’ve finally realized there is no avoiding it. Poor Maddy has had to go through some of my meltdowns while being here. She’s a champ.

I guess my point is that no matter how hard you try to run away from big life decisions or your struggles there is no getting away. It always catches up. Maybe if I had chosen a different country where I’m not taller and blonder than everyone I wouldn’t have been so easy to find. So that’s my goal for the once in a lifetime opportunity I have here. To tactfully remove the lid from my “feelings” bottle and let it out without revealing too much of my crazy at once. To decide what my major will be and where I want to end up. The clichés I have used in this post make me want to throw up a little bit, but we will just have to look past that for now.

               So much has already happened for the seven weeks I have been here, but I think I will just start with today. Today I was able to go on my first “home visit” with one of my students and his family. His family had invited me and his other teacher out for a little adventure. We were informed of this last night, but our coordinator hadn’t let us know which student it was that had invited us. We walked down to the front gate of the school at 8:30 this morning and saw our second grader, Cha, waving excitedly at us. My heart has grown so much because of these kids. I already can’t imagine what it will be like saying goodbye to them. Anyway, Cha and his family speak very limited English. I speak even more limited Chinese. Cha does know enough English though to convey the idea that I am a monster who ate a baby that is now in my tummy and that baby is now dead. He did this with hand motions and the words “baby,” “monster,” “you,” and “game over.” If these kids know any English at all it would be the words, “game over” whenever anything unfortunate happens to anything or anyone. Pencil fell off your desk? Game over, pencil. Toy car just ran into your friend’s hand? Game over, car. Getting shot with finger guns? GAME OVER, TEACHER.

               Anyway, we drove to a part of Weihai I haven’t been before and parked in front of a beautiful field of yellow flowers. I died. If you need to know anything about me it’s that I am in love with massive amounts of flowers and Harry Potter. So here I am typing about flowers and listening to the Harry Potter soundtrack. Irrelevant to anything and everything right now. Another thing to know about me is I am distracted easily. We taught Cha’s family the word “picture” as they took a lot and we made our way to a green house area. As anyone in the world knows, Asians are always throwing up the peace sign in pictures. I’ve learned the real reason why. Here, it means they are happy. So it makes me feel good every time one of my kids throws up a peace sign when taking a picture with me. It’s also just become a natural thing for me to throw up my two fingers in every picture taken out here.

             

 
We wandered into a green house that was filled with flowers where I lingered for as long as I could and then went into a strawberry patch where it was an all-you-can-eat. They have the best strawberries here. My mom tells me not to eat them. I ate them. Behind the green house area there was a river that was surrounded by cherry blossom trees. We ended up playing games that we taught each other how to play with gestures and broken Chinglish (Chinese English). It has been the most awkward, enjoyable experience getting to know people without actually being able to speak to them. It’s the oddest thing, but I kind of like it. However, translator apps are heaven sent. They let us know that they wanted to get lunch and we all hopped in the car again. We reached our destination where we walked into a room filled with fish tanks and an assortment of bowls. I became horrified when I saw what was on display for lunch. Cha grabbed a net and thrust it into a bowl where he was trying to wrangle in the biggest shrimp I have ever seen. It was flopping around among octopus and I just stood there wide eyed while watching. We went into the room where we were eating as I tried to prepare myself for what I would have to force myself to eat.

          The food came out and was actually pretty good for the most part. Since we are in a coastal town they serve a lot of seafood. They served fish you eat off the bone, eggs that tasted like they had been dropped in the ocean, but a lot of other good things too. More vegetables than I’ve seen the entire time I’ve been here. Give me all the broccoli in Weihai, please. One of their favorite dishes is oysters. So they bring out these huge plates of giant seashells. I, personally, don’t really like eating things where I can see organs, but ya know. We ate and they started driving us back to the school. Cha knows English letters and started to spell something out on the backseat for me on the drive back. He spelled out “Chab.” I sat confused for a minute and switched his “b” to a “d.” THE BOYS NAME IS CHAD. So what makes me a worse teacher? Not knowing his actual name the whole time or actually contemplating continuing to call him Cha instead of Chad since that’s what I know him as. In my defense, it took him seven weeks to tell me and said his name “Chawwww” when I asked him weeks ago when we met. Cha seemed mild compared to the kids I know that are named Ice Cream, Blue, and Appel. (Not Apple, Appel. Pronounced “uhh-pell”). So I’ll keep you posted on the Cha, Chad, Chab situation.