October 2003

Yesterday was really tough. By the time of the special dinner in celebration of China's National Day I was so emotionally fragile that Tom's ordinary drunken jabbering was basically unbearable. I am reasonably sure that Sarra even warned him off, which was very sweet of her, cause if he'd laid into me again I probably would have started crying. It was very fortunate that Andy wanted to go out to find something else to eat. I really needed that. And I did enjoy the Uighr salad which is called "Xinjangban" or something like that, and is usually available in Uighr restaurants, if I can only figure out which restaurant is Uighr and not Hui, since Hui and Uighr both are Muslims in skullcaps with the moon and star sign on their restaurants to let everyone know they are you know, safe, pork-free. It was really hard for me to believe that Karjam wasn't just fucking with me, that he really had made some turning point mentally in the relationship. I told him his heart was cold, which is true sometimes, and what he understood was some other word, that from his explanation means something like rabid, I haven't looked it up in the dictionary yet. He sat down, and he thought to himself, "Am I rabid?" "Why did she call me that?" and he thought about what else I'd said, and as he was thinking he felt something in his pocket and took it out and it was the key chain with my photo on it that I'd given him, it's a really good photo- I look really happy. And he just looked and looked and he realized that if he wasn't lucky, he probably wouldn't meet anyone else to love him like I do. I mean, you all cringe that I'd consider having a kid when I don't want to, or that I'd agree to eat meat (as long as it was meat in Ahwencang raised by his family but not in any other place) and put up with his constant efforts to reform me, even the way I walk (I stride, I gallump, I sidle, I do not wave my ass around and take short steps like a woman 'should') but that's cause I really seriously love this guy. And even if his demands may doom this relationship in the long run, I want to try rather than lose him. I know he's a great person. I was so grateful yesterday for Michael's understanding. He just said "It's because you love him." and it was so -simple- and so unadorned and it just felt so clear. That's it, love. But I was still scared, scared it wasn't true he'd figured something out, scared of the next time, whatever. So I wasn't exactly rushing home to say "Happy Anniversary" either.

Karjam and I woke up and left, buying breakfast on the way to the station. Unlike Koreans, Chinese do eat different foods at different times of the day (well breakfast is different than the other two), the most common breakfast street food in this area is a sort of thick pancake with an egg fried into it, rolled around portions of whatever vegetables you choose. I had potato slivers, Karjam had green bell pepper. Of course we didn't actually eat until we were on the train.

We got the same type of train as with Misa, and we were on the top deck. Karjam said it felt a bit like an airplane and I think he's right. It has that high off the ground feeling of sitting in an airplane on the runway. We got to Xining a little after 11 and checked into the Post Hotel. We talked for awhile. We actually always talk a lot. More than I think I've ever talked in my other relationships excepting my ex-husband. I mean, what... Sarfraz? All he wanted to do was have sex. Gwun? He had nothing to say most of the time, and most of the conversations we ever had were him trying to get me to meet him, or not to leave him... Kurt? Kurt had too many women in his life to have time to talk to me about much. What does that leave, Tom? Tom and I were never heading in the same direction in our lives. I guess Sung-gwang and I probably talked a fair amount, but not as much as Karjam and I do.

Eventually we took bus #1 downtown and had noodles in the market. The noodles are served with a very hot and spicy sauce swimming in tons of chili, but it's still enjoyable, it doesn't make my nose run (it does Karjam's, but he didn't spend the last seven years in Korea, either). We finally found a car to Ta'er'si. Apparently it's against the law to do what they do- take four people out for five Yuan each. In the car Karjam did something that really made me happy. The driver started smoking and Karjam said "Excuse me, but I've got a bit of a headache, would you mind not smoking?" Of course it was easily twice as polite as I would have been, and the driver stopped smoking.

By the time we got to Ta'er'si it was seriously overcast. There were tons of pilgrims way more than last time, but we never started talking with any of them, or any of the monks, except one I met last time who was in a rush, and another who attacked some Han Chinese who were posing for a photo with me (this is common in non-white countries, they want their photo with you, even if they never talk to you). As I understand it the 'no photos rule' applies to photos in the interior of the temples, no photos particularly of Buddha images, and certainly asking permission before you take photos of other people- but to take a photo of themselves, with a background of the temple wall- what's the problem?

As I set up for a shot using my tripod I suddenly heard someone say in English "You are still in China taking photos?" and looked up and it was Ward, a Dutch guy I met last year in Langmusi- a really nice guy. He was visiting Ta'er'si with his new Mongol (Chinese) wife. He works up in Inner Mongolia. The four of us spoke in Chinese to accommodate her and Karjam. I got his email so I can send some photos to him that I had taken before. That was really the most memorable part of our visit- running into someone I'd met 14 months earlier and never expected to see again. Most of the time at the temple was spent spinning prayer wheels and bowing at different places. I am learning which ones to bow at and how to bow, Tibetan style. Karjam was very happy I did it without him asking. I did feel a bit self-conscious, though. Like as though I was pretending to be something I wasn't, or like I was one of those freaky people who are really "into" Eastern Philosophy and change which particular philosophy every time the wind blows from a different direction.

It took us awhile to find a car back, but when we did one passenger was a Tibetan traditional pharmacist, so Karjam had a good talk with him while I napped.

Back in Xining I took Karjam to the street food stall market. I had a bit of noodles, then he had a boiled mutton dish, then we bought some huge cooked potato disks and I had some squid slices on skewers. Each skewer has four pieces about the size of a quarter or a silver dollar. We took a bus back and then stopped in a tent for Karjam to buy skewered lamb off the skewers inside a hard bun. Karjam only wanted to buy a little and the owner was razzing him about it. Karjam told him he didn't have much money and the owner blithely stated, "then ask your foreign friend." After a bit of conversation Karjam pointed out that I can understand. Since my cover was blown I made the point that I earn money in RenMinBi just like everyone else. So the guy asked Karjam if he was my student and Karjam replied "No, she's my fiancee." The owner and his wife just cracked up. "Karjam, he thinks your lying." I needlessly stated. I am not sure if the guy ever believed us. To a Chinese person the thought that a Western woman would want to marry not just a Chinese guy, but one from a somewhat, well, not exactly everyone's idea of a glamorous minority group is preposterous. People think that Tibetans are strange people who don't bathe, get educations or stop breeding.

It was hard to get out of bed, and harder to get Karjam out. In fact, if I wasn't in the middle of my moon, and in desperate need of a tampon change, I might not have made it out of slumber land. Our cement floored room was cold, but we had two nice heavy quilts on top of our single bed (our bags used the other bed) and it was incredibly warm and cozy. We made it to the bus station by 7:30 and bought a ticket for 8:15 to Tongren. Then we sat down to breakfast at an outdoor table. The metal table was adorned with hairless sheep heads- the specialty was sheep tongue soup. Tongue was the main ingredient but any part of the head that wasn't bone (you know, like the skin of the nose) was chopped up and thrown into a bowl with a couple ladles of slightly colored boiling water and some minced cilantro. I stared at sheep's head eye sockets as I ate hwa-juan and had some boiled rice in water (like a flavorless soup). Karjam of course had the specialty. Some beggars came up while we were eating. They were older Tibetan women, maybe on their way to or from Lhasa (Xining is on the common overland route) and so I had Karjam buy them hwa-juan, too. It's not like they are career beggars. They are just relying on the goodness of the world to be able to do their pilgrimage.

The bus ride was only about five hours, thought I started to get really worried when we hit a long snowy area, we topped a pass and this side isn't snowy. That's good. I have to buy some shoes, or better yet, hiking boots. All I have is work shoes (as in teaching shoes- high heels or somewhat high heels in all cases) and my Tevas (which is what I am wearing, even with snow!). We talked to the people behind us on the bus for awhile. They weren't traveling together, just sitting together, but the man urged the high school girl to try her English on me, and she managed to shyly ask me a few things. Very pretty girl.

In Tongren we took the second room we saw- twenty Yuan for both of us (yesterday we paid 36) but no bathroom except a pit between too shit-encrusted boards in an unlit room (well the stench means you want the door open anyway) and no way to wash up except a spigot in the courtyard and we're on the third floor. I don't want to scare you, but the blankets don't smell so good, either. On the other hand, you should've seen the first place we looked at- now that was -really- nasty.

We were both hungry but this being a Tibetan town it took asking at over ten restaurants before we found a place with veggie dishes. Then it was more expensive than meat, and not very good. We'd met some people Karjam knew and they'd tipped him off that the big monastery in town had a special event going on. We made our way there, it turned out to be the last day of a twenty day teaching by a famous Lama from Maqu who has written many books. People were spilled out of the temple courtyard and the side courtyard and into the area outside the temple walls, not even the monks could all fit inside the temple itself. I'm off the Lonely Planet out here- though Tongren is on the map. A heck of a lot of that crowd was pretty interested in taking a good long look at a foreigner. When we'd only been there a half an hour or so monks came out with teapots. People stretched out their hands, a plastic bag, or if they had it a proper drink receptacle. Everyone drank and many wiped their wet hand or plastic bag across the top of their head afterwards. A few minutes later a monk came out with an important thing, which he waved over our bowed heads. I got photos of both activities. After that Karjam and I went into the side courtyard and I found a high vantage point from which to take some shots. A young Tibetan college student woman approached me and we talked for awhile. She's studying English in Xining. The entire time there was either lecture or chanting going on. At last it came to an end and everyone started throwing barley and white silk prayer scarves (occasionally yellow or blue). The scarves didn't fly very well, to they were thrown over and over again towards the front, where a monk collected them. The worst part of the day was later when the monks came out with food everyone mobbed the monks so much that they couldn't give out food in a systematic, fair or orderly fashion I suspect many people got none and some more than their fair share. Finally everything was over, so we bowed and took a circuit of the prayer hall and came back to our room.

We slept in cause it was raining. A good long walk netted us some popcorn, hard boiled eggs and we shared a plate of bok choy and two hwa-juan in a restaurant. We found a nice place to stay but they won't accept foreigners (the gov't can hassle them)(the places we stay don't know the gov't can hassle you without a special permit, otherwise they'd refuse me, too). That hotel directed us to a place that foreigners can stay, but it was impossible for our budget. So we moved to an even cheaper place, 16 for the two of us, but it has a flush (squat) toilet with a light. The blankets aren't any cleaner, but they gave us a lot of them. I sat and went through a small stack of students papers while Karjam went to eat some Tibetan meaty thing.

Tongren is a perfect little Tibetan town, complete with muddy streets, monks on motorcycles and tons of restaurants with not a single veggie dish. There is one traffic light, but I've seen streets on Lopez with more vehicle traffic- no kidding. The streets are full of foot traffic, the majority of the pedestrians on this side of town are Tibetan, almost all in big Tibetan wool coats (often lined with sheepskin). The weather has definitely cooled off now, I haven't seen a single person in shirt-sleeves, Karjam is in long johns and not complaining about getting hot, either. Everyone here is wearing a coat or a sweater, if not that plus the full on to your knees for men, to your ankles for women traditional coat. Well, except the monks, who just layer tons and tons of robes and often the odd jacket in their somewhere. They have big monk warm cape type things, but those are worn when sitting in the freezing cold prayer halls without moving for long periods of time and apparently aren't appropriate the rest of the time. I can halfway sight-read my way through the signs in Tibetan and there are a lot around. All the music is Tibetan, even the DVDs in the restaurants cater to Tibetan tastes (the new movie with Chow Yun Fat as a Tibetan monk and Genghis Khan reenactment stuff seem to be very popular when one is not watching a VCD of some Tibetan music). The Tibetans and the Mongolians are quite friendly. Tons of stores are selling prayer flags, prayer wheels, jewellery and felted wool. The town is quite hopping with activity, and it all feels very not-Han.

In the afternoon it was partially sunny for all of twenty minutes, I took a few photos before that ended. We walked back to the temple and ran into another ceremony where I got to take a high lama coming into the crowd of waiting people, then I had to quickly kneel and bow my head, too, when he passed by. I am almost becoming adept at spinning prayer wheels. They come in three general types, wood, smaller metal (that are light and spin fast) and wood so big you lean into it and heave to get them to turn. The difficulty is that they all spin at different speeds. You can try so hard (to put your hand on the grip to spin them) but you end up missing a spinning hand hold on one, or stubbing your finger on another. And it makes you dizzy if you concentrate on looking at them to get the right spot. The easiest is to have whoever is in front of you so far ahead that the wheels are not moving, but when you are being a good Tibetan woman and following your man this is not possible. I've noticed now that the Tibetans don't seem upset if they miss a wheel, or if they don't add to the speed of it's spin, just sort of brush it. But at first it never occurred to me that you don't absolutely -have- to get your hand on each one of the things.

We walked around the grounds of Roonggoombae Temple (actually Goombae is temple in Tibetan) and when we came to the site of yesterday's big occasion a monk opened the doors and we were able to quick go in. One old woman was so happy to be able to go in (I gather from Karjam's explanation that they think that the place like soaks up the energies and that it's still potent or something) that she was crying. It was very dirty inside, but being proper and following my man I had to kneel down and bow three times which was hard with my cameras and bag hanging off me. There are other places you bow as you walk around the temple. Mostly you raise your hands above your brows, then in front of your upper chest, then your belly and bow about 45 degrees, not holding it too long. But in other places you bow and touch your forehead to the wall, and in others it's common to do a full kneeling bow, or ever prostrations (a full stretch out belly to the ground or floor). I couldn't keep up with Karjam to see where all we were bowing, (the monks wanted to lock up, so we were going fast) but I did a fair job of bowing at anything that looked important (like any place where people had placed offerings of money, butter, barley or silk scarves). Roonggoombae, incidentally is most famous for Thanka, a sort of religious art work used for wall hangings. We didn't buy one, though I saw some really nice ones.

We walked back to town and I had some eggs and tomatoes and rice in the place where we'd had bok choy earlier, then Karjam and I went to another place where he ate a meaty noodle soup. Then, as he often does after meals, he fell asleep while I corrected a stack of student papers. He woke up after a couple of hours and we talked until I was going cross eyed from tiredness and not making any sense. We talk about a million things, about the future a lot. He wants to figure our everything now while we have so little information. But we also talk about our pasts and we often talk about what happened during the day. I ask him to explain something more a lot of the time. He's really happy to help me understand and doesn't get annoyed with too many questions or having to explain things in his third language to me listening in what I suppose is my third, since my Chinese has far surpassed the remnants of my high school French, though I still suppose I could relearn it very fast if I tried. Have I mentioned that he told me he doesn't speak Pyotunghua? I mean, he doesn't speak standard Mandarin Chinese! No wonder his pronunciation seems so off to me, he's speaking a Gannan/Gansu dialect. That's why everyone understands him around here, but I find his Chinese to be "off". I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before to ask.

Raining again in the morning, so we just headed to the bus station as we'd agreed. If it was sunny we would have stayed in Tongren, as I still haven't gotten a quarter of the basic photos there I could if it wasn't either drizzling or threatening to. Those white/grey overcast skies are hell for shots of architecture or landscapes and the landscape is amazing. Trees are rare, mostly limited to a sort of birch or elm, by the size and clusters all replants. This are was seriously deforested, the pressure of the population you understand, but China has a pretty big "Help your country, plant a tree" campaign every spring. Anyway, the tree leaves, replants or not, are yellow browning and the hills are incredibly steep- grass or just erosion exposed earth, no trees on the hills. Rivulets and streams and rivers run through every valley and down the hills. There are still some blooming flowers, though I expect frost to kill them soon. If only it wasn't for these glowering skies, the only barrier I'd have to perfect landscapes would be electric lines.

At the bus station Karjam asked some Tibetans where to go. Young people about our age recommended a spot they were going, Xiachong Monastery, one of Amdo's most important monasteries. It has neither guesthouse nor restaurant, but Karjam assured me it'd be okay. We first rode a bus for who knows, maybe three hours, then got off at an intersection and the four of us hopped in a two-cycle powered three wheel vehicle pulling a small cab with two wooden benches. We rode that for an hour of exhaust fumes and road spray and then got out someplace that looked like a driveway off the road with only a tiny convenience store. We had to wait there for another bus and I corrected a good bit of papers while standing around. It's a measure of my trust in Karjam that I was able to feel comfortable through this whole day and not worry about where we'd stay or what to eat.

The bus set out on the scary mud slick road fish-tailing a bit to the delight of none of the twenty-five or so (more than the number of seats) passengers, only four women and mostly all monks. We climbed and climbed for over an hour and a half until we were a good 500 meters higher than we'd started traveling on the ridge (at least that meant the road was dryer as the water had nowhere to come from except the sky). We rounded a corner, though, and the sun peaked out and Xiachong Monastery came into view like a fairy-tale castle perched on a mountain peak and I stopped contemplating whether it was possible to get out of the window of a bus that was tumbling sideways down the mountain without being crushed.

Having read a nice English explanation of the temple, I'll give you the details. It was established by Venerable Tongdrub Rinchen in 1349 (that's earlier than Ta'er'si or Labrang)(this same monk later founded other famous temples in the TAR) and it is the origin of the practice of combining study of both sutra and tantra. This is called the Kadampa lineage. This method of teaching was first practiced when the Ven. Tongdrub Rinchen taught the famous lama Losang Dragpa, who was born Je Tsongkhapa. (This individual was not further explained, I gather that I am -of course- supposed to be familiar with him.) The monastery was very important with many schools- Tantra, Medicine (Kalachakra), Philosophy and the Namnan Ngoshian Institute. Many famous lamas started their study at Xiachong, including the 7th Dalai Lama, the tutor of the 10th and the guru of Jiamuyang Jiapa. On August 13th, 1958 the entire monastery was destroyed including the statues, scriptures, stupas and temples and the area was turned into a farmland (how, it's the top of a mountain!) It has slowly been rebuilt starting in 1981.

We walked around and I took some photos. The sun was playing peekaboo, but I think I got a few good shots. Then Karjam started talking with two monks who invited us in for some really gross dish that Karjam seemed to enjoy. You know I am non-dairy, but there was nothing out there, so I accepted some mushy reheated rice fried in tons of rancid yak butter. The room we were in had a wooden bed covered by some blankets and with others for over the top folded in the corner. One wall had shelves with a few possessions, mostly teapots and such. There were some other robes and stuff on the bed but it was pretty darn spartan. While one monk fried rice, the other twirled some cotton and then suddenly there was melted butter to pour into a lamp and the cotton became a wick. That was the first time I saw a candle made. The other monk kept knotting silk scarves into this pattern one often sees. That was fascinating to watch. I took their photos to send to them. Neither of them can sepal Chinese, or they refuse to. Karjam says they can. The one monk razzed me about my sandals- why have such nice cameras and not even buy shoes? Guess they don't know how expensive good Tevas are! The monk whose room we weren't in offered for us to stay at his house, so we came to where we are now, a comfortable little house where there is English info about the temple and a bed for the two of us to share. Drinking tea and correcting papers while Karjam and the monk talk in Tibetan.

We woke up a little past my alarm when our monk friend came back to his home at 6:30. Going outside I couldn't see a single star in the dark night sky, nor could I hear the bus, which was supposed to depart at 6:30. We quickly got ready, and the bus picked us up at about 7:00 by which time there was a bit of light all around us, and the tops of the mountains were starting to appear as the foggy mist drifted lower into the valleys. By the time we got on the bus it was packed, and we were standing in the aisle. I find the small tight buses easy to stand in the aisle, though, as I just make it so my legs and hips have me wedged tightly. I don't even need to use a hand grip. Which was good, as all available hand grips were being gripped tightly by people who didn't have my advantageous position between two seat backs, or who don't have strong enough leg muscles. About halfway through the trip to the road (during which time we stopped and picked up many more people) a large group got off, then I had a seat, but I had to get out of it when we came to the wettest deepest mud area, when we all had to walk about half a mile through sucking red brown clay mud. This process turned my Tevas into platform shoes. Eventually with judicious use of shovels and good driving the bus made it to where we were waiting. Right then a mountain appeared like an apparition in a break between a higher and a lower cloud. Snow dusted and majestic, but unfortunately no way to get a sense of scale on things for the photograph.

At the main road Karjam and I had the freedom to get at our bag and we had two hard boiled eggs and a package of lemon biscuits for our late breakfast. The trip to Xining passed quickly from that point. I mostly read in the Economist, since I don't like talking much with Karjam when other people can hear my mistakes. The Xiachong bus stops in a different station than the one we left from. We took a bus to the train station and bought tickets for Lanzhou on the 7 p.m. train. Dropping one bag off at the Post Hotel we went to the market and had spicy noodles and looked around. Karjam bought a VCD for his friend and I bought a CD which was called "Folk Music Cafe 3" and Karjam said was definitely traditional music. Not Tibetan, just Chinese folk of whatever kind. Karjam said a lot of it was Mongolian. Then I had thought we could go to Beishansi, since my black and white from there was also ruined, but I realized we had enough time to go to Ta'ersi so we did... that was nice. It was sunny (for the first time in TOO LONG) and I got some nice shots, even if the sunlight was a bit stronger than optimal. I also managed to with Karjam's help get a few people shots- a beautiful woman of about twenty-five years who had her hair in the little tiny traditional braids and about five pounds of necklaces on, the hair-ornaments on an old woman, and a monk with a bunch of silk prayer scarves. Of course Karjam and I also spun a bunch of prayer wheels and I got more pieces of education about this and that aspect of Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhist culture.

Back in Xining Karjam had a meal, there wasn't enough time for me to, also, so I just bought some potatoes and we took a bus back to the train station. At the station this guy was staring and I assume at the foreigner, but then it turned out he was Karjam's KOREAN friend who used to live in Hezuo! He now lives in Lanzhou, thirty-seven, married, his name is Jung-min. We exchanged numbers and I am very excited to know a long term in China Korean couple, so I will call them very soon. Then two of Karjam's friends from Xiahe turned up, one of whom is now married to Karjam's ex-girlfriend, so he was uncomfortable. The train ride was uneventful except for I told off a guy across the aisle from us when he lit up a cigarette (these are air-tight carriages, no way for smoke to leave, besides, the real desperate smoke in the bathroom or at the carriage break). Then that man looked so chastised I almost felt sorry for him. I mean, he looked like a child that's been scolded for dipping into the cookie jar- well if that guy was going to react that strongly to being told not to smoke in an air-tight place, I wonder how he justified lighting up in the first place! The two girls across from us ate chicken feet for most of the first hour. That was so gross. Talons and all, crunch crunch crunch and then they spit out the little knuckle bones. Ugh!

Karjam and I were SO excited to see our home, and best of all, Liu Yu had them turn back on the hot water, so we could get clean! Oyy! That was joyous.

The day was a bit uneventful after our travels. We slept till around eight, and sort of snacked on fruit and stuff and talked and puttered unpacking until the laundry was done and it was time to get out of the house. That ended up being nearly noon. Incidentally I want to point out that since Karjam is one of those old fashioned men that's like "Bleeding woman, ugh! Dirty!" We didn't have sex for seven days. And he got nose bleeds almost everyday. So at least he can't try to say they are because of me. I do wish I knew why they happened though. There must be something seriously wrong with him to have blood flowing out of his nose so often. It's not like he sits around and digs at it until he breaks a blood vessel. They just happen.

For lunch I had a fried sandwich and Karjam had noodles. After eating we took a bus downtown to do some shopping. First I went to drop of two rolls of film- the only TCN I'd shot (fortunately including our monk friends) and one roll of Black and White (to test them that they wouldn't screw up) but they couldn't do it- they told me flat out we can't do Black and White. What a freaking drag. So I guess I have no real choice except to send everything to Korea. It's either send it to Korea or send it to someplace in Beijing or whatever that I do -not- have a relationship with yet, and it may or may not come back the way I want it to. I am going to have to send it to Korea, and fairly soon since some has been exposed for more than a month now. Of course when I went there they tried to speak to Karjam instead of to me, I had to physically march the girl back behind her desk telling her "He's not a translator and he's not working." I mean, I had already told her at least twice to speak to me, not to him. He'd said the same. I don't know if I will ever bother to go back there, even if I take more TCN. This is supposed to be the best place in town?

We found a comforter cover for our monk friend, since his new cover to match his comforter was too small. I suggested to Karjam it'd be nice to send a gift, it was Karjam who thought of the cover. Very good idea. He's got to be happy when he gets that package! We saw some desk lamps in the market for really low prices, but they were all ugly as sin, and I'm doing okay now. Next we managed to find some ointment for Karjam's foot- I'm not sure what he has going on there, but he's had it for a damn long time and never bothered to medicate it at all. It's probably some sort of Athlete's Foot-esque thing, it looks like a nasty rash and it itches. If I hadn't insisted I am sure he would have just kept on suffering through it. Then we went to the Century 21 store, the one with the imported foods. I bought Karjam new toothpaste, and some face-wash stuff (J & J). For food we bought some Korean ramyun and tomato paste (I found some that is packaged I think by Arabic folks by the look of the label) and a thing of spaghetti, ketchup, non-Korean soy bean paste (we'll see how well it makes a Dwenjangchigae) and some instant coffee for Karjam (it came with a free cup, which I thought was a better reason to buy it than to drink the coffee). The other thing we were really looking for was a rug, since our carpet is freaking nasty and we don't even want to sit on it. We couldn't see any rugs downtown, but I'd seen a series of rug stores off the 31-34 bus, so we went to that place and the rugs were great, really really sweet- handmade high-quality, but the one I liked the most was over 3,000 Yuan and the cheapest one we liked at all was 500. If that same one was about 300 I think we'd buy it no hesitation, but I am not sure I like it as much as I'd like to use 500 Yuan to buy some other stuff. Karjam feels about the same (except he didn't think the 3,000 Yuan rug was pretty- which it was, in that classic sort of Pakistani/Middle Eastern look with a really complex pattern that sort of blends together if you stand back from it).

Back on campus we ran into Chen Sheng-mei walking Jim, the new teacher through campus, so we made a date to meet him for dinner at 6:30. That gave me enough time to get more of our trip typed into the computer and then we headed back to the main gate to meet him. At the main gate that Uighr guy who hangs around the Japanese students was waiting. His name is Murutaessa Ali. I wrote it down, but I did mostly remember. Since I always see him, I should know his name. Jim is American, a bit short, probably late forties but keeping very well- he will have no problem getting dates here (even if they may all want to get married). He wears glasses, and has an agreeable affable personality that says "California" even though I gather that's not where he's originally from. He has never been to China or taught before. Dinner was much like when I first went out with Michael, explaining things about teaching and answering questions about the school. Except Michael seemed a bit, well, jet-lagged and stressed, whereas Jim actually arrived on the 2nd, so he's had some time to adjust. We went to my favorite restaurant, and it turns out Jim is basically a veggie, so that was nice! They put him in the other housing, and he's really not happy with it, especially after he saw what Michael and I have (I introduced him to Michael).

The Dunhuang trip ended up being six days (originally seven, at the training they said it would only be five), and they just got back around eight p.m. Talking to them it seems that if you spent much of the trip drunk you had fun, and if you didn't, it wasn't so much fun. Michael had a great time, and bought himself a dark blue Mao outfit, some classic long-johns, sunglasses that are half the size of a face (old people's style, I think because hand-grinding glass to that size is easier than smaller), a belt with a big star buckle, and two hats- one a Muslim skull cap and one a huge fur lined ear-flappy army sort of hat that you'd wear when the weather was unbelievably cold and still be fine. Gavin said the trip was hell, and he wasn't drinking. Tom apparently has been drunk since they left, and didn't stop drinking the whole time. I didn't hear from Rob, but Sarra said the Gobi was unbelievably beautiful and the grottos at Dunhuang were great, too. She didn't have much to say about the rest of the trip, so I gather the rest of it wasn't so exciting. Sarra came up for tea, and we had a good conversation, but I kept losing my train of thought cause I was too tired by the time she left to be coherent. I hope I didn't sound like a total idiot.

Today I worked around the house, typing in the rest of my trip journal, correcting papers, teaching Karjam English, answering emails (a lot of Korean emails, two from my bike club friends, and one said that the Hwaejangnim had been injured in the race last weekend, so I called him. He's okay) and stuff like that. Not a very exciting day. I made Shin Ramyun for lunch, and I have two kinds of kimchi and garlic pickles, and we had it with egg, leeks and rice. So it was a real Korean meal. Right after lunch Mina stopped by. She's doing well, she went home during the holidays, and her parents were giving her grief about not having a boyfriend. When a woman is as pretty and sweet as Mina I think that the problem isn't not having a boyfriend, it's choosing between all the men who'd love to be involved with her. She said she thinks of the Yuzhong teachers as being like her children. Well, I guess that means none of those young men have much of a chance of getting a 'special' relationship with her.

For student essays "The Best Invention in History" was pretty boring. Everyone said computers, electricity, paper, printing, the telephone... I don't think typing one of those essays in here will teach you anything about the thoughts of Chinese people, or interest you in anyway. They sure bored me to read! The essays on the famous person you'd like to meet (either live or dead) were much more fun. Lu Xun, the writer whose book got several mentions had a couple fans, so did Einstein, but the most popular choice by far was a guy I'd never heard of before (don't groan if you think I'm silly that I don't know him), a chemist named EJ Corey, apparently he's at Harvard. Here is Gao Shuanhu's essay.

"Before I came this university I didn't know who is E.J. Corey. When I was eighteen years old, I entered Lanzhou University and learned Chemistry. I began to know who is E.J. Corey from that time. E.J. Corey is a real scientist. He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry because he invented the art of organic synthesis. He was so great and famous that people called the era of his was 'Corey's Era'. I always dream to be a member of Corey's group. That's why I want to meet E.J. Corey."

Other answers included Mao (but only -one- student), current and past government officials including the Minister of Medicine ("Why are drugs so expensive?") and education ("Why aren't schools equally good?"). There were two for Clinton, none for Bush, one for Bill Gates, one Michael Jordan, about three actors, including Jackie Chan and one singer. Edison, Marie Curie... But Corey- maybe twelve students! My students are such geeks! I love it!

Karjam and I ate dinner at our usual restaurant. I had their best dish, which is egg and tomato noodle soup. The noodles are flat squares, hand made on the premises, and the soup has a negligible quantity of oil. Karjam of course thinks they have a different best dish and his favorite is a soup with meat and long noodles as fat as Japanese udon noodles. Then he walked me to the bus stop, and I hopped the 82 downtown. Last time I went near the photo studio I got off too early, so I figured they must have a stop a little past the one I used last time, and stayed on- and ended up a good ten minute walk away, when I could have gotten off a two minute walk away. I hurried past some things I want to check out later. My TCN wasn't ruined, though I don't think much of their abilities, that's for sure. The shots for our two monk friends from Xiachong came out fine, so tomorrow we'll send the comforter cover and photos to them. The rest of the roll didn't have much too special on it. I took a lot of shots from the hip, and some of them (if you tilt the photo so the image is level) look like with a crop they'd be good. TCN isn't really any good for architecture, and I do have too many arch shots on that roll.

I just made it to the Wushuguan before class started. The woman instructor was there again. I think that's going to be normal from now on. But she doesn't do anything. I think her leg is injured. She keeps it elevated (when sitting down) and she moves pretty slow. We only did one of the routinues that I have learned, and I remembered it despite my long break, and then we practiced a new one we are all learning together. Except I was there for about 10 moves two weeks ago, and the moves on each side of those ten I don't know. Well, now I kind of know them, and I know the new ones from today. Apparently there is -no- fighting at all in this art.

Then when I had stopped looking for him, I met my friend Zhoong-xi playing his guitar in the underground street crossing. He was with one friend, who he shamelessly ignored to flirt with me. He said he wanted my number, cause if he'd had my number before he could have called me to arrange to give back my CDs and he was really worried that I thought he was a bad guy. I told him it had occurred to me that he was avoiding me specifically so that he could keep my CDs. Oh well, maybe our timing was just off. He's a cute kid, but I don't go for that not-quite-fully-grown type. Great lips though. I'd like to take some black and white high grain shots of him playing guitar with his ripped up jeans in some dirty alley. I think they'd be good. Anyway, I told him to bring me my CDs at about 9 on Friday.

Back at the building I stopped to talk to the Czeck girl Paulina, and the Kazak girl Amina, they were talking with a middle school teacher Chinese man whose name I already forget though I am typing this less than thirty minutes after meeting him. They are really sweet, and they asked me to do some Taekkyon so I did. When I said I was doing Guobiao (at the Wushuguan) the Chinese guy called it dance. Unfortunately while I was talking to them someone called, and Karjam told them I was teaching (that sentence being higher on the list next to the phone than "-- is at the Wushuguan."). So now I can't use the Internet because they said they'd call back and so it'd be rude of me to use my phone line... it turned out that it was my mom who called. We had a nice talk, even if everything just about that I have to say is on this site.

I had a funny thought today. Karjam is trying to make me deal with three Ms. As in Monogamy, Motherhood and Meat. What could be more contrary to my track record? Today when we were talking we were back on that sleeping with other people thing again. He informed me he wouldn't even beat me if I slept with someone else, but he'd throw me out and never ever take me back. Damn. Must keep my dick in my pants. Oh, wait, I'm a woman.

Back to work again. Okay, actually it was an easy day, as all I had was my evening class.

Kim H wrote me appalled by the paragraph above. In many ways I am worried that I have ended up with another abusive man. My ex-husband was verbally and physically abusive (to property usually, but on occasion to my body). Certainly Gwun my psychopathic stalker (I still get chills when I see someone from a distance who in some way reminds me of him) was abusive, for Christ's sake, I had to get brain scans, and though they came up clear, I feel I get more headaches now than I did in the past (or maybe I'm being a hypochondriac). In considering how serious it is that Karjam can speak of beating me, remember that he comes from a culture that finds (of course I believe this is wrong) beating your wife to be a perfectly acceptable thing to do in order to make her "behave". So, even though he talks about this to me casually, I don't think he's planning to go buy a 2 x 4 and take it to me. He tells me that some Tibetan men beat their wives out of alcoholic haze or their own frustrations with their own limitations and that this is wrong- so I think what we are dealing with here is that if I don't want him to revert to a cultural standard of behaviour, I have to treat him kindly and with respect. Which should be a given. What does he worry about? He worries about me embarrassing him, he worries about me being rude to his family, he worries about me getting it on with another guy. I think that these are pretty reasonable things to worry about considering that I am a very strong minded woman from another culture, who has embarrassed him in the past (badly) and who has slept with more people since first meeting him than he has slept with in his life (understatement). I think that the operative thing here is that so far Karjam has -not- said anything to me in anger (and he has gotten angry). He has not hurt me, or even made me feel physically threatened. He has given me the silent treatment, he has threatened to leave. But I am no picnic to live with, either. Though I do not say things in anger, or kick people or whatever, I am prickly as a cactus at times. Such as when I am tired, hungry, or it's been too long since I've had an orgasm, not to mention before and during the beginning of my moon, or when I have an overloaded schedule. And, let's face it, I get tired and hungry everyday and my moon does happen every month. So, there is certainly a lot I can work on in myself to make living with me easier. (But Kim, I am still happy that good friends like you worry, especially since you know how stupid I can be about men).

Today I caught up on some emails, including erasing over 500 spam from my least used email acct. What a blight on the face of the Internet! Ugh! I also did some correcting of student papers, dropped off a test garment at the dry-cleaner, we sent our present to the monks, we shopped at both Home World (dried fruit, cookies, peach juice and new undies for Karjam) and the market (potatoes, apples, oranges, shitake mushrooms, zucchini, carrots, chili peppers, tofu, etc.).

Mina called to invite herself to dinner, so I started cooking, then she called back to say she'd missed the bus, so I invited Michael and Lanka (Slovakian) over. I thought it was a bomb, Lanka said almost nothing and Michael didn't like my Korean food, off I went to class, came home after an hour to grab a sweater and Lanka was demonstrating Slovakian traditional dancing. Came home after class and Karjam was learning Slovakia's capital city (Bratislava). Mina arrived then so I reheated her some food (which she enjoyed greatly) and I read over the draft of an email she is going to send to all the teachers and helped her to formulate some phrases she needed for it. By and large the English of the email was great, but there were a couple spots where I helped it become more -well- clear. Her visit was interesting, in that she apparently is not feeling as happy about all the Yuzhong teachers as they seem to be about her. I can't say much as Sarra now has this website address, but anyway Rob R. has skipped a couple classes and Dave has skipped at least one, neither of them have made up the classes, and someone else rescheduled class but didn't check to see if the room was in use at the new time (not sure who did that), and someone approached Mr Liu to complain about one of the teachers (not you Sarra) and the drunken behaviour at our table at the dinner on the 30th and at another table for the dinner on Thursday a couple weeks ago shocked the Chinese members at the tables and choice comments about "not properly representing Landa" were passed on to the Foreign Affairs Office. Mina didn't even touch on that sort of issue in her email, but since Sarra knows already, she did have a lot to say to me about Tom kissing her (cheek) when he was very drunk. She was quite offended. So, I felt really bad for her, she seriously feels that the teachers aren't committed to being good educators, and she's scared about what might happen later on. Ultimately, it's her responsibility to manage them and keep these things from happening and if she doesn't then her job is the one on the line, cause she can be replaced on two weeks notice, no need to fill a spot in a classroom schedule. The teaching staff are generally secure until the end of the term at the least. Anyway, she seemed worried about the men, mostly. Figures.

My class, in case you are interested, was 14 students, one new and one visitor, the daughter (16) of one of my students. She was a firecracker who neither shut up nor quit smiling. She really disrupted my class but was so funny, good-natured and excited about English that I think everyone was happy she was there. We talked about our holidays. Opera Professor's daughter was sick and in the hospital, and another professor's husband's cousin died in a car accident and she spent the whole holiday consoling the family and making funeral arrangements but everyone else had a good time. A lot of people talked about spending time with their kids. One woman told us about a TV show she'd never had time to watch before, but now she was really excited about. Another guy visited a different city and thought it rocked (8 lane roads!).

Getting up was unreasonably difficult. I didn't get to do Taekkyon, I barely had time to put together breakfast and get my classroom appearance set (a bit of make-up, nice clothes, uncomfortable shoes). Class was okay- I did a comparison of two people (who must have the same general job) for the first class and two geographical features for the second class. After class I walked home as usual meeting all the exchange students on their way away from morning class and towards lunch. I started feeling really like Karjam would be impatient, cause I talked with Karen and then the Korean students and then even with Lanka in the stairwell, but when I got in he wasn't there and I was starving. So I thought maybe I could catch up with Lanka, but I didn't, so I just bought a fried sandwich and came home. My favorite fried sandwich these days is one skewer of eggplant, one of green pepper, one of potato, and one of a sort of mushroom. With lots of red chili sauce brushed on inside a nice bready thing. When I got home with my sandwich Karjam was there, he'd just been out using email someplace else (I think he's scared now of screwing up my computer).

Jabu called, and after Karjam talked to him we went out so Karjam could have noodles for lunch. Jabu said that a good friend of Karjam's is in or on his way to visit Lanzhou and that Jabu told him that Karjam was here. So maybe we'll meet him later today, but his cell phone isn't working so far.

Understand this, in Korea a full on teaching position like this one (14 hours of class, full vacations, giving grades to the students, etc.) would be competed very heavily. Perhaps 1,000 resumes would come in if the job was posted on Sperling's ESL Cafe (http://www.eslcafe.com). So, even though I know that many jobs in China do offer more money (but the majority of jobs I'd previously seen offered topped out at about 5,000 with only the rarest job higher than that and in previous job searches in Lanzhou the highest I'd seen was 2,600) I also knew that 3,000 was not unreasonable, especially not in this area. So, even though I didn't expect to have much difficulty securing the job for myself with all my experience (and self-confidence) I also didn't think it was -given- that I had the job, or that they'd have problems filling their positions. I assumed that my co-workers would have roughly equivalent experience to me, not necessarily seven years of ESL teaching, but at least three or so years, probably time in China, and perhaps Chinese language ability. I chose to take the Lanzhou Main Campus instead of the Yuzhong Campus (with it's 4,500 salary) for a variety of reasons, primarily that in Yuzhong I wouldn't have the freedom to go places on the weekend easily or the chance to study Chinese martial arts. Also, once Mina emailed me that the higher level students were here in town, that sounded interesting to me professionally. Something new after teaching basic conversation for too long in Korea.

Then when I got here, at first I was a bit unhappy, but not too much so. I mean, even though Dave is 20 and hasn't even gotten close to a college degree, I don't think degrees have much to do with teaching. Most of the Yuzhong teachers have no degree, though some, like Sarra, have had lots of higher education, it just didn't add up to a diploma yet. I do think that especially for someone who has never taught before an ESL certificate means something. Even if the classes they are teaching here aren't exactly the same as what their trainers prepared them for, they got some good ideas, and they aren't hitting the ground blind, like I did when I arrived in Korea. (I arrived on Saturday night and jet-lagged they tell me, "You'll be starting class at 6:00 a.m. Monday, here's your book. Do you remember how the car just drove here so you can walk back to the institute?"). Teaching, I believe after spending quite a while doing it, is at least 70% innate talent. The remaining 30% is experience. Sure, I may not need to prepare for class as long as most of the Yuzhong teachers in order to have an equally good lesson plan, but that's cause I am recycling (and improving on) lessons. The most important thing isn't what degree I have but whether I can motivate the students. Whether I can explain clearly. Whether I can direct the energy of an entire classroom full of students and mold it to my will.

After realizing that I am the most experienced and most qualified person here (with the possible exception of Melody, who is so mellow and unassuming that the administration seems to forget she's got five years experience and TESL qualifications) I had two options. 1) to be bitter about being paid less than less qualified people for a year, cause there is no employer I've ever heard of who is going to offer you more money after you've been silly enough to sign a contract or 2) to just to believe that they must surely all want to teach students well, and that after an initial rocky period they'd all probably do a good job.

The only problem I am having now, is that with Mina's visit last night, I am questioning again whether they -are- trying to do their best, or whether they are just laughing all the way to the corner store to buy another bottle of beer.

So... the only problem is going to be if the Foreign Affairs Department, specifically Dep. Director Liu, insist on trying to put me into some sort of "Head Teacher" role without the title, the extra pay or anything. If they want me in that position (which will breed some resentment coming at this late date) they will have to offer me a title and pay, I am not going to be manuevered into a position for free where I end up the bad guy/brown noser.

This essay has got to be something memorized the student wrote down, cause it's so --exactly-- the party line. (My teacher's comment was not very sweet, I told the student if he/she couldn't do better than to copy something down they'd end up failing the class, because I needed original thought.

My hometown is a beautiful place. It stands near a wide river at the foot of lowgreen hills. It has many tall building and wide streets. There are trees and flowers every_where. But it has not always been like that. In the old days. It was a sad dirty little downs. Landlords and merchants lived in the few good houses. For the working people there were only dark unhealthy rooms in old buildings and huts in narrow muddy strees. Nearly everyone was poor and many had no work. Everything has changed liberation. The people, led by the party have got rid of the mud and dirt. They have put up schools, theaters, shops and flats. They have an assembly hall and a hospital. ALong the river they have sprung up. On the river streamers and boats come and go busily, day and night. They carry the products of our industries to all part of country. I love my hometown. I with I can visit my hometown again.

We went to visit Tserang Dunma at her dorm room. It fits eight beds (bunks) but only seven people are using the room now. Three of her roommates were there and at first I felt quite shy because of my Chinese ability, but I got them to try to use their English and soon we were having a grand old time, and understanding each other just fine. We stayed with them for about two and a half hours, and ate dinner together. It turns out that Tserang Dunma (and her roommates) are studying at Gansu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and it has only that one major. Pretty neat!

I love Friday. I know, La loves Tuesday and has a special Tuesday celebration, but I just love to know that tomorrow and the next day I do what I feel like doing. Also, I only have one (two hour) class today and the students seem like a really special group. My best student, so smart if he was a native English speaker he'd probably find me boring, two women who are just kicks in the butt, the student with only functional hand who I meet often on campus (he works as an editor for some publication of Landa's)... it's a really special group. It has my geography majors, which seems to include a lot of cultural geography- they are an interesting bunch. I had them do a comparison and contrast of two countries (but China was not allowed as one of them cause I didn't want to see some student such as the one who wrote the above propaganda passage comparing China and America) or of two singers or actors.

I came home and Karjam and I took a nap together. The weather is draining... all my energy seems to be sucked right out. We went to our usual restaurant for lunch. I am teaching him the names of meats, fruits, vegetables and various assundry other things including sugar, salt, oil, etc. Yesterday he figured out he'd only actually had English class for nine months before I started teaching him, and remembering he had to start at the ABCs I guess maybe he's not so bad at languages after all. Still hope for him, anyway. He is making big progress lately.

There are too many differences between Lanzhou University and Yantai University. Fist, one of them is in Gansu Province, northwest of China but the other is in Shandong Province, near to the sea beach. Lanzhou University is an old university with 94 years brilliant history while Yantai University is just 18 years old. Another difference lies in the campus. Yantai University is almost as five large as Lanzhou University. Furthermore, because Yantai University is a young university, her buildings, are more newly and beautiful than those of Lanzhou University, the trees and flowers are the same. more over, the differences among the communication is the most important part I think. There are so many famous professor in Lanzhou University and you can listen to lots of speeches by specialists even from abroad. But, in Yantai University the chances like these are too poor.

Gansu and Shaanxi Provinces lie in the Northwest of China. They have some common and different aspects. Their common aspects are as follows. Frist they both lie in the Northwest of China. Second the population in these two areas are very seriously. Third, compare to these East provinces of China, the two provinces develop very slowly and poverty. There are some different aspect is these two provinces. Frist, Shaanxi province is a historic region. It has so many ancient landscape, such as Binmayun, but Gansu province is very scarely. Second, compare to Gansu, Shaanxi's agricultural development is very fast, as a result, farmers in Shaanxi province are rich than in Gansu province. Third, people in shaanxi province have a openning mind. On the contrary, people in Gansu province are traditional. In a word, there are so many different and common aspects in those two provinces that I don't illustrate points by points. I can only write out the main aspects in my eyes.

In the evening I asked Lanka if she wanted to come and ask my Wushu people if there was any Wing Chun in town (which she's studied before). She and Amira (Krygyz woman) came with me and Lanka watched the whole class. My teachers don't even know what Wing Chun is, nor recognize Lanka's moves (and she looks competent, and graceful). The first half of class was great, cause these are advanced students, so lots of kicking, but the second part they practiced staff routines, and since Lanka was there I talked with her instead of practicing my routines in the corner.

Back at Landa I introduced her to fried sandwiches. We bought two and had them at my house. Karjam thinks Lanka is pretty swell these days, so no problem on that account.

I wanted to get stuff done today, but Karjam wanted to talk. So, I ended up reading only a couple short articles in the Economist, correcting about 20 papers so far and cooking breakfast. Oh, and I cleaned up the house some, too. Karjam really doesn't do anything in that respect, though he now has been trained to rinse a dish instead of just setting it in the sink. And he did vacuum the other day, when I hinted that I had to do it but he knew I didn't have time. But I think maybe he likes the vacuum, it's more of a masculine thing- running a piece of equipment.

Got caught up on your China journal - sounds like things have come a looooooooooooong ways with Karjam - good news. How old is he again?? He sounds impressionable re many things, but you need to give him credit for working on his things. The main thing you two has is that communication. BUT...

I do think things have come a very long way. It's hard to believe I've only been here for less than two months. Karjam is 27 or 28 or 29, his mom isn't sure. But they usually say he's 27. (Born in '77.) Funnily enough he hates to tell people we have an age difference of five years, so he usually adds to his age, and calls himself thirty. Which he definitely isn't.

DO MIND THE 3m's and the fact that even though you are a woman, that infamous saying "keep your dick in your pants" also needs to be MINDED - even if you are the woman - you can say that to the guy you happen to want to seduce.

Good idea, never thought of it that way before. But it's not going to be easy. I know that if he stops giving me the amount of emotional attention I want, it won't take long for me to get a roving eye. And even if I have gotten over my small crush on Adlet down on the 1st floor, he won't be the last sexy man to come down the 'pike. It's really not about sex, it's about feeling -sexy- being able to get them in bed is usually more exciting than the sex is. For the moment Karjam does satisfy me completely, but I am NOT used to monogamy and find the thought of being in a monogamous relationship makes me feel trapped or crowded.

Oh, and if I were you, I would send the film to Korea or at least a place you know - especially if you know the shots were good. It sounds like the place you are going - the woman has no tact, and is rather a bitch.

Couldn't agree more. The problem is all the film bags I have have the phone number and not the address of my place in Daegu. I asked Jin-hoeng to get it for me, but he hasn't yet.

You are a GOOD WOMAN and it is amazing how much energy you seem to put into a day. IDEA to reduce the marking: Target mark - Tell them you are looking for a specific grammar point or literary element; Tell them to submit the assignment on tape (my old colleague used to keep their old tapes to dub his music) and you will be assessing their pronunciation and oral speaking abilities; Do a class assessment in class (if you have the overhead and students agree to share their work with one another. IT JUST SOUNDS LIKE YOU SPEND WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY TOO MUCH FREE TIME MARKING for what you are making.

I would like to do that... but I don't think I can. However, I've left your whole idea here cause lots of other English teachers read this journal. For one thing, they need the attention and it's my job to give it to them. For another thing, it's a writing class so I can only do written assignments. Most importantly, I am targeting something pretty small already: one focused paragraph- the first one focused on general ability, second on topic/supporting and concluding sentences being present and this most recent one on comparison and contrast writing a paragraph that has unity, and is cohesive, comprehensive, and complete. This is what the book (which is pretty good) is talking about, so I am just making up an assignment to correspond to what they are reading in the book. Yes, I do spend way too much time on the marking. I worked 14 hours of class or so at Daegu Tech and spent (other than when grading exams) less than two hours a week on outside the classroom school related work.

Always wonderful advice and I've left it here just so that everyone else who reads this can have this reminder from you. Of course I will try hard to remember your point myself!

I went to martial arts after a really quick meal with Karjam and that was pretty good, I was practicing with a pretty low level group, so it was a good full work out. After class Zhong-xi was in the underground playing guitar and he did hand me back my CDs which was great. I asked him if he wanted to go to Malte and Amina's housewarming party and he jumped at the chance, so we took the bus back to Landa and unfortunately as I have just figured out, I was balancing too many different things (only my little bag and my new shoes they insisted I buy (Zhong-xu walked with me to help buy them at the woman teacher's orders) and my magazine in my hands plus my bag with my headphones coming out of it cause we changed CDs and were listening to the Iris DeMent) so somehow with all that balancing I lost the three CDs. They could have slipped off my lap so easily. It was dark, I was being scatter-brained, we had to hustle to get off at the bus stop cause we almost didn't realize we were there... so I lost my Himalaya CD and the Red Hots and Van Morrison CDs I had loaned Zhong-xi. From now on I am going to refer to Zhong-xi as Dengz, which is his nickname, so you don't get confused between Zhong-xi and Zhong-xu. Anyway, I am pissed about it. If anyone wants to burn me a new copy of Red Hots "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" or Van Morrison's greatest hits (I was going to try to teach Karjam Moondance, too!) that would be great. I actually already have another copy of Himalaya, which I bought to send to dad next time I was sending a gift package, but I can buy it again. It's a selection of songs from ten Tibetan artists, and is a rather well produced album.

So, Dengz and I hurried home and got here just after 8. There was a note from Karjam (this is the first time he's ever left me a note) that said he'd gone to see the movie on campus and would be back before 8:40. Of course he didn't know we were supposed to meet Claudia (German) at a different place, not this building. Good thing I told him 8:40 when it was 8:45. Dengz looked through my music and I made us some quick Ramyun. Well, all Ramyun is quick. But at 8:45 I was all dressed and Karjam still wasn't back, so we went running off to the movie and I hollered "Karjam" into the dark and we three rushed off to the corner where everyone was supposed to meet, arriving about 8:55. No one was there. So I started to worry they'd left without us, but shortly more and more people showed up.

At Malte (German) and Amina (Kazak)'s new house (which they share with at least two Chinese guys and smells like mildew and costs the whole group 450 a month, which means each person pays like 15 US dollars a month) there were a ton of people. Karjam was being a bit overwhelmed, which is silly cause in a big group of Tibetans he's the center of the action guy. Or close to the center anyway. It was also silly, since he knew (well enough to nod and 'ni hao' on campus) as much as 70% of the people there, which was a lot more than most people knew. He sat down in a small room with no one in it and refused to stand up and leave! So I went and asked Yeung-moke if he could join us in there, and he and Hyun-sook did, and soon enough we had a group of people all singing songs (I helped Yeung-moke since Miryang Arirang). Karjam sang part of one. Other people sang lots, and we had a merry rotating group. At one point I left the room and told Amina that Dengz would probably add to her party atmosphere with his guitar if she asked him, so I could hear him playing Nirvana in the background. At last Karjam sang a really beautiful song. He has so much control over his voice, it's just amazing. We left right after that, as it was eleven and the Koreans and I were tired. I pulled Karjam aside outside and tried to explain how his song made me feel. It's like my heart swells up and I almost want to cry cause he makes such a beautiful sound. He was pleased but told me I was being a girl. The Koreans, Karjam and I all had foods on a stick (or on a stick when we picked them out) on our way back to the Guest House.

The most amazing part of the day was that after we got home Irene V. my brother's wife called me! I have been living outside America for over seven years, my brother Zack has never called me once. He's been married to Irene for about five years now, and that's the first time that she's called, either. In fact, she's never written an email, and he's written perhaps six in the whole time I've been gone (and none of them longer than ten sentences). Perhaps a half dozen cards. Likewise very short. She called to tell me that she thinks of me, and loves me and that she wants me to know that I have a niece that many people say looks like me, and she's a bright little girl and she wants me to be part of her life. When I explained to Karjam I cried, and then now, I am crying again, typing it. I have really felt like my brother and his family were sort of, well, not interested in having a close family relationship. Last time I went home (almost two years ago) they were in town for only two days of the time I was around, and didn't make an effort to spend time with me.

I woke up and made it to the Wushuguan only a few minutes after eight. Karjam wouldn't wake up, and I am not his mom, so I left anyway. He was supposed to meet a friend at eight, also. From the look of the house when I got home, he must have left in a big rush. I had a pancake with veggies in it on my way. A darn good breakfast. At the Wushuguan I practiced hard, the class again was pretty low, so it was full on for me. Then I marked some papers while my group left and the ten group came in and stretched. Then once they started kicking I practiced with them. So I did nearly a four hour workout today.

Unfortunately checking my email, I have not one but two messages from guess who? Gwun. It makes my stomach knot just to see his name in my inbox. He's demanding I give him money to pay until the end of the two year contract he signed for so that I could have Internet in my apartment. (I left him enough money to pay until when I left). It's a lot of money, much more than I have to just throw around. And I thought about not answering, which would have been wisest, but instead I answered in English (he can't understand English) and told him if he wasn't a psycho I'd still be using that Internet, still living in the same happy little apartment (his constand harrasment is what spurred me to get off my butt and move) I had a comfortable position and a good life in Daegu, and sometimes I miss it so bad I want to cry, especially when I get nice emails from Suyun telling me he's so lonely without me, or the guys in the Buildings and Grounds office at Daegu Tech telling me all the latest gossip, or my bike club friends, etc. and everyone can't write an email without saying "hurry back to Korea".

Yesterday when I was talking to Karjam and he was on that "move to America" thing again and I just started crying, cause I don't want to live anywhere but Korea, and living in Ahwencang milking yaks is more attractive to me than going back to America and feeling lucky to have some job that gives me dental, medical and two weeks vacation every year. I tried to tell him that we'd be lucky if we could earn enough to afford a plane ticket to China once a year, and even if we could afford it, it'd be hard to find employers who wanted to send us off for a significant period of time each year. Why couldn't that English woman and her Maqu man work in accounting or human resource management or something normal? I mean, that guy does TV special work, long stories. They finish a story, they have time to go where ever. According to Karjam at the moment the wife isn't even working. I mean, we're talking two people who are earning a pretty darn nice living. Not the same as a would-be full time photographer/author, and a hopeful singer.

I am playing with my Yahoo News page, and setting up personal settings, and I just set it for the weather in Lanzhou. It's 4 degrees Celsius with light rain. Wow! It's right! I am going to make reading the news on the Internet part of my daily routine. It's too easy to get out of touch, and the Chinese English language newspapers... well, I don't trust them. Not that Yahoo News is some hard hitting source, but at least I can see the AP, Reuters, etc. so it's standard, and I already know how to read standard and guess when they are, well, a bit off. Lopez is between 8 and 12 today, in case you wanted to know.

I got side-tracked and took an on-line IQ test. It's the first time I ever took an IQ test, and I am a bit tired and off my mark, but I still scored, I suppose, quite well. I would have preferred higher, I suppose. The test is on emode- http://www.emode.com and I am not going to tell anyone but my mom my score (well except Teressa, I am three points lower than you), but it said:

So, I guess no surprises there... So I took the "Find the Right Job" Test. I should have known right off it would be a waste of time, since the choices were always Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree... no middle ground.

Of course, If I sign up for a paying membership, they'd give me a lot more information. I think it sounds the way it does partially cause I had to answer that "Winning is more important than having people like me." with "Strongly Agree" and "It's my goal to be rich." with "Strongly Disagree". I think those two things are not supposed to be answer that way. So, the computer got confused.

When Karjam came back from meeting his friend today he had a VCD of cheesy English songs- a sort of mix of all the songs non-English speakers love. I thought I'd share you some of the titles, as written on the VCD: The Rier of Mo Retwrm; Sealend With Kiss; Cross my Hecnt; Puffel (The Magic Drag On); River of Baby On; You Decorufed My Life; Phineston Cowboy; Auld Lang Synod; You Weecled Me... etc. I can't even tell what some of those are!

In the evening I went to buy us take-out cause Karjam was watching something on the TV that he was really enjoying. It was a fight back against the Japanese (when they occupied part of Eastern China) martial arts movie, and featured a Chinese guy who really did say "wooo-aa!" when he was fighting. On the way to buy food I met Dave and Sharna (Australian woman who is teaching a couple hours for Landa but doing research at the Grasslands Institute). Their body language (or at least hers) said they were involved in some sort of physical way. But I have no other evidence. Then I met Vahid and we talked for a few minutes and last of all on the way back the Japanese prof who is now being moved (against her own desires) to Yuzhong, vacating my coveted 408- but if I moved now I'd have to tell everyone a new phone number and all that... moving my stuff, seems like a hassle and a half.

Kimberly called me when Karjam and I were just finishing up with the first sort of bad time we've had since the 30th. He got his panties in a bunch cause I asked him a question, ("Is it possible that the bus company has a lost and found?") then he asked me another and I (being focused on my own question) told him that's not important, what's the answer to my question? So he got totally bent out of shape. Hello, who is the angry one here? I was perfectly happy to answer his question, I just wanted to clear the slate of my question before I went into something I knew would take several minutes to explain (how and what I lost on the bus). I cleared it up with Karjam by finally getting him to look at me when I asked him if he really thought I'd had any bad, or disrespectful or unkind thought in my head when I said the simple sentence "That's not important." Kimberly and I laughed about all the painful things and all the happy things and all the other things in our lives. It was good to talk to her. Toshi is in Tokyo, and she's getting ready for the big KOTESOL conference on top of too many teaching hours (extra for more money for graduate school).

I had two classes this morning. New lesson plan is completing chapter one in the book (only about a page and a half left, plus my explanation of such), then asking students to make a convenient group (it depends on if they are in the side aisle or middle row seats how many that would be but four is about normal) and have each student write 8 adjectives from their -reading- textbook or any other source so long as they still haven't memorized the words in question. Each of the students in the group must have different adjectives, that's why I make them form the groups before they write the adjectives. Then I write a model on the board- each student speaks two sentences, using first an adjective from his/her own list, then one from another students list. So, for example:

So, that means student A's paper has the word vacuous and student B has the word considerate. So the students made lists of really tough words, and I was called in several times to settle disagreements about whether it was a proper use of the word in question. But I think by the end of the exercise they had a much higher understand of quite a few difficult new vocabulary words. Of course they also practiced speaking English, which is great. Then I started (first two pages) of Chapter Two, where we start talking about Essays instead of paragraphs. Keeping in mind Mark's advice, I decided to make them write outlines and told them (multiple times) that I would not correct spelling or grammar, that the point was whether their outline was a reasonable and complete outline of what they'd stated in their general statement and topic sentence. We did a practice one on "How I Can Improve My English" and then the one they handed in for the first class was "Chinese Education Policy" and for the second "Medical Care in China" with multiple entreaties to define the topic much more narrowly. I still have quite a few papers that are broad essays not outlines (I made a sample outline for them to see on the board).

Karjam and I ate lunch, then I had class with Tserang Dunma. It was fun. I think I can now -more or less- site read Tibetan (in some cases referring to my notes). The problem is really the compounds. Some of the compounds get really technical. I tried to ask again (getting one of the Korean students to supply the word 'tone' as in the four tones in the Chinese language) whether there are tones in Tibetan. She said yes, and pointed me to the -vowels-. So, I guess that means there aren't any tones, or at least there aren't any unless you call a mark that changes a 'gah' to a 'gee' a tone. Which I don't. We taught each other how to say "Let's do XXX." So now I have several Tibetan sentences I can maybe use on Karjam...

After class I walked with her to the gate, and went to the post office to send mom's letter that I hadn't been able to send the previous day cause I missed closing time. Then I realized I didn't have my money on me. I went to Liu Zhiyu's office and he asked me 1. to take classes at the elementary school and 2. to evaluate the other foreign teachers. I told him 1. yes and 2. I really don't want to and it's not part of my job. But it seemed that he didn't hear what I said. He also asked me to write a sort of English employee manual since Landa is planning more and more foreign staff members as time goes on. That's much more the sort of thing I'd like to do. I asked him to have Mina make an outline, and I'd fill it in and make the sentences complete and appropriate for such a document.

I shouldn't have written Gwun. I got three more messages today! Might be worth it to pay him this money I don't owe him anyway just so that I never ever have to think about him again. (He promises never to contact me after that). But, he's said a lot of things before, too.

So guess what? Karjam went to the 82 bus office, and got back my CDs! Not only that, but he -loves- the idea of learning the Van Morrison and thinks his voice and singing style is appropriate and sounds good. So I was very happy. He told me if he hadn't been such a touchy dickhead (my words, obviously) the day before, he wouldn't have gone. My evening class was uneventful, they didn't get competitive when I had them play R/L bingo (fill in the blanks with words that sound almost the same except for the R/L difference. Students are given a list of much more than 25 words to use, ex. pal/par, hell/her, razor/laser, road/load, really/leery) they were completely unable to do my transcription game that I used in Korea on middle schoolers (maybe I shouldn't have used a passage about the current situation in Iraq), but spent lots of time discussing pet peeves, so I didn't use the fourth thing I'd prepared for class.

For the second night in a row Karjam got glued to the TV and didn't want to go to bed when I did. I've been having a hard time waking up, so I want to start getting a bit more sleep, and it's easier if we both get up and go to sleep at the same time (very hard to get up when an alarm brings a response from you bedmate of reaching across and pulling you into a close warm snuggly spoon right when you should be getting up in the pitch dark and cold to exercise). We haven't had breakfast together since we got back from Qinghai. So, I was ticked off that he was watching some dubbed made for TV movie thing and not jumping off to bed with me.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet, cause I wanted to get more of an impression on it, is the behaviour of Chinese students. These students are so well behaved it's amazing. First of all, tardiness and absences hardly exist at all. I get notes every class that say "Professor, please forgive me, I am attending XX important conference and can't attend your class this week." or they are doing research work in the field, or something else completely legitimate. I bet you none of them are lying, too. It can be as many as four students in a class- but that's cause they are all the same major, and are all doing the same research or attending the same seminar. By the time I finish calling roll (still quite painful, as the Pinyin system is so odd at times and I have no idea what the tones are for the names...) there might be ONE more student that appears for the first class of the day, but not the second. No one is late for the second unless they were constipated and in the bathroom. If a student's cell phone rings they look chagrined, even turn red, fumble it out and turn it off. They NEVER answer it and I didn't even make a point about it on the advice of Ms. Song that it wasn't a problem. If I -clear my throat- then EVERY student in the room immediately ==snap== no noise, no shuffling, staring straight at me. Today I had told the students you can go, and it was lunch time and they were all standing up and getting out the door and I call out to one student (who I knew was going to avoid handing in his paper) "I'm still waiting for your paper!" and you could have heard a pin drop in the room it was that quiet- students literally frozen with their leg raised in the air! I tell them what to do, and if they understand it, they make every effort to do it, no slacking, no laughing low voiced conversations with their benchmate about the weekend, no goofing off at all! Now, let me admit, this may be in many ways what every teacher dreams to have in a class, and it may not be the same for the teachers who have less of a, well, commanding presence, but it can also be boring as crap! I mean, my Korean students would razz me. They'd tease me about anything at all, they'd guffaw in class at my antics, and they'd be HIGHLY competitive whenever I asked them to play a game. These Chinese students they don't see the point of 'winning' in a classroom game. Well, the point is to give you incentive to try hard, but it's hard when everyone just wants things to be fair! These Chinese students don't act like I'm human (my Korean students who knew me well might -wink wink nudge nudge- about getting action the night before if I was too happy in class).

Not all my students are angels, though. They are still older, some of them think they know more than they do... and they have bad habits. I do have some annoying students. The most annoying tries to tell me things are words which aren't, and not just once, but repeatedly (I only have one other student who tried to contradict me, he told me antibiotics was singular, and he told me that's what the dictionary said, but I looked in the dictionary and the dictionary has the word antibiotic no 's'). He has an electronic dictionary right in front of him, why doesn't he just look up 'root-sourced' (including the 'd') if he is so sure it's a word (not only that, but an adjective). So this morning this particular guy lights up a cigarette sitting at his desk during break time! Obviously this is -not- acceptable for your's truly, the Anti-Smoking-Nazi. I raised my voice for the second time in class (the other time was a different class and I was trying to break through to a student who was concentrating on what she was writing so hard she didn't hear me say "this is NOT a writing assignment"). I bellowed "Get the fuck out of my classroom!" (Picture me with finger dramatically sweeping from offending student to the door). Oy, I think every student in the room stopped breathing, including Mr. Smoker, who never even exhaled that puff. When class started again, I told the entire class to please remember that when I announce break time by saying "Break time! If you want to get cancer and die, go smoke. If you want to ask me a question, I'm right here." That means I hate cigarettes and that I think the worst thing about cigarettes is that cigarette smokers don't have manners. They smoke near non-smokers in public places, and they drop their butts and ashes all over the place. If they want to pollute their own lungs I can't object, but why do they have to pollute mine?" (Chinese smokers manners make most American smokers look like freaking Miss Manners herself, they are even worse than the smoking manners of Koreans, who would never consider smoking in a bus, for example).

So the first class the topic was "Chinese Minority Issues" and the second class was "Chinese Foreign Policy". It's getting late and I'm tired, but I will have to type you in the ridiculous piece of propaganda one of my students handed in in the first class about Tibet. Ugh!

I had lunch really fast, actually I bought some mashed potatoes mixed with a bit of peanut, green onion (not cooked), chili sauce, cumin, oil (maybe peanut oil) and I'm not sure what else and a fried sandwich. Which I ate at home. In class with Tserang Dunma we studied how to talk about emotions. (I'm happy. I'm not happy. Are you happy?) After she left I tried to say some of them with Karjam. He is hellish on me about pronunciation. I think basically Tserang Dunma is one of those people who figures that being in the ballpark, or even in the same section of the stands in the ballpark is enough, whereas Karjam wants it to be absolutely identical to what a Tibetan would say. I figure part of this comes from me correcting his pronunciation rather a lot. But, really, I only do it until he's in the ballpark The problem is he starts at best in the ballpark parking lot, and sometimes several blocks down the street. Teaching Tserang Dunma really does, however, make it clear that Karjam is a terrible language learner. Tserang Dunma can barely write down a work. If I spell it for her, if it's six letters long, she'll get one of them wrong. Her reading of English is not very hot, and she still often writes words phonetically in Tibetan. But... she can remember everything I taught her in all the classes we've had so far, she sees the connections between them, and she's just plain sharp sharp sharp. Give me a month with her studying as hard and as many hours as Karjam does, and I bet she'd be having conversations with me. I get him TOTALLY polished on something. Like responding when I ask him about the items of clothing he's wearing, including their colors, then don't practice it for two days, and he can only remember shirt, black and yellow. I've done this now five times at least, and he still can only reliably remember shirt, black and yellow. He now usually gets somewhere close on brown and shoes. (Both his pairs of shoes are brown).

Mr. Liu called and asked me to drop by, he gave me the schedule for the elementary school. I am working another four hours, that brings me to twenty two hours of class a week (not counting teaching Tserang Dunma or Karjam) and also brings me to over 5,000 Yuan a month. That's good. Mr. Liu reminded me that my two hour lecture to the public is on the 28th. I guess I better get writing. I think I will talk about how to live an environmental life.

I went off to the post office, and dig this- the envelopes (expensive and pretty ones) they sold me AREN'T good! I can only use them the day I bought them, cause they have a post mark (sorry I hadn't noticed what with the four stamps, the colored printing and the Chinese and English description of a historic location depicted in the stamps. I started having a really "bad China day". In Korea there was really no place I liked going to more than the post office. The Korean post office is like a world of it's own! They have the post office bank, they have health insurance, you pay your bills (any bill, phone, electric, you name it) there, they have free Internet, they have a comfortable room for you to sit, or have a small meeting if you want, they have wrapping paper, gifts, all kinds of envelopes and boxes- they will help you box your stuff, or photocopy something... they are just the neatest, sweetest, most wonderful people. They even seem to have a policy of only employing people who know how to smile all the time. I love the Korean post office. The Chinese post office is another extension of the Chinese government. So they seem to want only one thing- to make you feel small and lacking in power, and they definitely are NOT interested in helping you. I stayed there twenty five minutes then gave up. The previous time they made me use a Chinese envelope and refused to accept a Korean one, the other time they charge more than America for Christ's sake and of course, I have to go get my packages they don't deliver. So I hate the Chinese post office.

Then I went to Home World and it was crowded and I couldn't find anything interesting or fun to buy, and I just wanted to hit something. I was so annoyed at China at that moment. I came home and fortunately Yeung-moke was outside, so I vented a bit before I went inside, so Karjam who can't understand culture shock stuff didn't have to listen to me.

At the Wushuguan only the woman teacher was there. I am starting to feel more comfortable with her. She's definitely a power-house of a woman. She is forty years old and has a twelve year old son who does not do martial arts. She wears too much dark eye liner, and her hair is parted in the middle and straight down on both sides with razor-cut ends at just past shoulder length. She always wears a pair of sort of sweat pants that makes her butt look huge and saggy, but I'm not sure it is. She's not very tall, maybe 5'2", so she struts around in flat shoes, these baggy sweat pants (with her hands in the pockets) and this black fakey-leather jacket that is sort of poofy on top and stops right above the natural waist with a very large band. She rarely demonstrates any leg work, I gather she's injured, but she does show us the arm stuff and tell us what to do with our legs. I mean, she lifts her legs, but she won't get down, and so much of what we do involves bending our legs, or even getting right down so our behinds are only a few inches above the carpet. After tonight's class I got the nerve to ask her to help me with something. It's this routine that two of the classes I join are working on right now. It hasn't been formally taught to me, but I've learned some of the later part as they learn it. So I asked her to show me the beginning, which starts really oddly.

Walking into our building I could see the lights were off, so Karjam was still with his friend, so I stopped to talk with Paulina, Amina and Amira. The exchange students are so lucky, if they want, they can just skip class and go explore. Misa just arrived back today from the TAR! She and one of the other Japanese students went there and back in fifteen days. She is dark dark brown from the high altitude sun.

My day "off" more or less... I basically wasted the entire day. Karjam and I talked and talked, and I was getting mighty tired of talking and just wanted to do some work looking at student's papers and such. We mostly talked about an idea of mine to run like a program... family style, come learn about Tibetan culture. Do it for I don't know, two week or four week programs- participants spend about four days at our house (discussion "Langmusi or Maqu?") then we go off to some place for special stuff for a couple nights (like go to Xiahe or Xiachong or whatever) then back to our base. Participants get part of each day to learn something (take them to a temple for a lecture on tantra, Karjam give them lessons on Tibetan history or whatever) but most of the day free to have quiet time, wander around, hike, use our bicycles to take a ride, etc. Perhaps do a special program for photographers... That kind of thing. Other than cooking a nice breakfast (French Toast for the first time, since I found -real- bread at last) and shopping for some stuff in the market we were inside talking all day until around 3:40 when we went to the Post Office (I refused to go in) Karjam spent thirty minutes to send the one freaking envelope to my mom! Then we went to my favorite restaurant but our meal was sort of sucky. We got three dishes and one of mine and Karjam's meat dish had these sort of weird peppercorn-ish but tasting awfully odd things in them.

Back home I got maybe fifteen papers corrected before teaching my night class which was a boring introduction of everyone's hometown (except mine cause I don't believe in monopolizing the classtime as I've seen too many ESL teachers do). The best thing about that class is my worst student comes consistently and he is trying, I was afraid he'd get discouraged he's so noticeably the worst. Other than those two things, the only other thing I accomplished during the day was getting the culture calendar for Daegu posted through to the end of the month. I can tell that's going to get old, soon. I see all these great shows I want to see on the program and there isn't a chance in hell of me making it there for them.

Karjam made it out of bed and ate breakfast with me this morning. In class I had the first class address the topic "Chinese Economy" and the second "Problems in Modern Chinese Society". There was nothing notable about either class. When they were finished as arranged I went directly to our usual restaurant to meet Karjam who was twenty minutes late, and I was half done by the time he got there.

I started the elementary school classes today. I have four classes a week, but only two lesson plans. I had a fifth grade and a sixth grade class today and I will have different groups of the same level on Monday. The students were great. They were very well behaved and very curious. Looking at their books I had prepared something that was just a tad easy for the fifth graders but way too easy for the sixth (I was hoping to use the same lesson plan). I had to spur of the moment and seat of my pants come up with another activity for the sixth graders. I taught them bathroom language. We practiced "Brush your teeth", "Wash your face", "Take a shower" etc. It was fun cause we could pretend to brush our hair with our hand, and we could wash bizarre things like our eyebrows. The kids had a lot of fun, and I impressed the Chinese English teacher, Mr. Wang, who looks about sixteen years old (his first teaching appointment after teacher's college). They were not as instantly attentive as my PhD.s but they were darn well behaved, and Mr. Wang was only in the room for the second of the two classes.

I ran into Michael who asked us out to dinner, but when the three of us were walking off to eat, we saw Jim so it became a foursome and I think Karjam was probably quite bored. I like eating with Jim since he's an non-strict vegetarian, so it ups the chances of me getting to eat good stuff.

I ran off to the Wushuguan and had a wonderful class. I like the Thursday kids. They are less advanced than Friday, but even though they don't see me often, they try hard to help me (well, that got a little much at one point cause the teacher got a phone call and I had about eight kids -all- trying to teach me at the same time so I couldn't concentrate. I think I am going to make an effort to always go to their class after this. At the Wushuguan aside from when things happen like the teacher getting a call the only noise you can hear is a foot striking a hand (we kick our hands a lot) or the massed movement of bodies into a new pose. There are no grunts or yells at all, and the kids are amazingly well disciplined. They seem really sharp, they remember stuff fast and easily and they are all disciplined. In Korea the younger the kids the more likely they were to be screwing off the moment you turned your head, but these ones are self-correcting and concentrating. If they -talk- during their lesson -at all- they are told to stand in the corner (not even looking into the corner, just standing there) and you'd think the humiliation was the same as getting their bottoms whacked. They don't even barely laugh when someone cuts a fart when exerting themselves. (It's so quiet a decent strength fart is fully audible to all present). These are fourth graders who aren't barely laughing at a fart! That's practically uncanny!

We have to do this one thing in our warm-up where we reach behind ourselves, grab the windowsill, then sit down (so our arms are bent at the shoulder upwards in this extreme angle). I have been doing this on the windowsill, but sitting down is so easy (my shoulders are really loose, anyway) that I started using a higher spot, and now by the time we get told to move to the next stretch my arms are tingling because I am not getting blood flow because of the extreme twist of my shoulders.

I came home and managed to finish tomorrow's papers just in time, and now I simply must sleep. I wanted to type in some of their terrible comparison and contrasts of two countries, I mean, their knowledge of the world is so -twisted- but I am beat!

My morning class went just fine. I had them write about "Environmental Problems". Came home and Karjam and I talked. I am starting to feel that less talking might be nice, cause it takes us more time than two fluent people to communicate information, so I spend so much time having conversations that I could encapsulate for you in just a couple minutes of fluent English. Right now my most urgent issue is to plan this nearly two hour lecture I have to give. I can't believe I have so little time to prepare, and I need to find a bunch of visual aides cause otherwise this is going to be too boring, and even hard to follow for people who aren't fluent in English.

gen. focus on environmental problems in China: type, severity, distribute through time and space

1) Definition: on different subjects- air pollution, water pollution, classification

3) Spatial distributions of the types of pollutions across China on a basis of time -summer/winter

A) East industrialized region: definition: sorting of individual pollution type based on their severity

air pollution- exhaust of automobiles, water pollution, deforestation, acid rain

pasture desertification, landuse shifts toward lower agricultural production, winter coal-burning induced air pollution

metropolitan air polluion- exhaust gases, land subsidence, fresh water deficiency

desertification, soil degredation, agricultural water shortage, sandstorms at the transitions from winter-spring and summer-autumn.

Conc. environmental problems in China can be viewed from a temporal, spatial aspect regarding the variations of pollution types and their severity.

Pretty smart student, it's actually a good encapsulation of the main problems in different regions. (Not sure about fresh water down south, though. He could be wrong about that. He's the one I described as so smart he'd find me boring if he was a native speaker of English. And his handwriting is so EASY to read. I love it! Chinese usually use cursive, and it can get pretty sloppy and hard to read.

I invited Misa over for lunch and then prepared it, as Karjam had to go meet a friend of his. By the time I went to tell Misa it was ready, Lanka was there, so I had to stretch the food to make it enough for three. Fortunately, Misa brought a small tin of sardines, so we had that to supplement our meal. Misa and I talked and talked, and Lanka just sort of looked back and forth. Her Chinese is still so poor. But she studies hard so she'll undoubtedly surpass me at some point.

After lunch I started working on my speech, then headed to the central square and waited for Kes. He's this English guy I met at the training who is connected with and active in the local mountain biking scene here in town. He arrived and we walked his bike up the street that he says has turned into a real biking street. There are four bike shops on it, one is an official Shimano dealer, one is a Giant shop and the other two are sort of general. The one he took me to is a new one that his friends he rides with opened up. They were out front doing all sorts of repair work, which made me happy to see- knowing how I take care of my bike I always need someone to be poking around at it. The guys were all quite young and super into biking. Unfortunately they have almost no bikes that are put together, they mostly assemble bikes to your specifications. I told them that I wanted to spend 3-4,000 and that I wanted to use Shimano XT on the back and LX or Deore up front, and Rock Shox... so that means I am spending almost my whole budget just on that without frame or wheels or tires or pedals or what have you. Rock Shox will cost me 1,500 right there! Anyway, no money exchanged hands yet, partially cause I really ran out of time. It was fun to talk with Kes who is a really mellow guy, into mountain climbing and biking and his friend Andy, who also works out in their same sort of suburb of Lanzhou (40 minute ride). The bike shop two I mostly talked with are really sweet, too. They didn't do any of that "Oh you're a girl, you don't need X." behaviour I was a bit worried I'd get. And they really know their bikes.

I rushed home, stopping to ask Mr. Liu if he had my airfare reimbursement yet. (No, cause Amaya just arrived (another for Yuzhong) and I want to do it all together). Karjam was super happy because he'd picked up some Tsampa that Jabu's mom had sent him from the friend he met today. He mixed some up. First he dissolved some lumps of rancid yak butter in some water, then he added two kinds of stuff, one which is actually called tsampa and one I need to ask about. The tsampa is a ground up (presumably roasted) grain, but the other seems more like hard little lumpies- but also some sort of grain I presume. Anyway, he mixed these together with his hand until he had balls of dough and then fed me one. The yak butter taste was almost imperceptible, so I told him it wasn't bad, and then he added some of my brown sugar, and then it was halfway palatable. He was beamingly happy, and ate lots and lots of dough balls relating happy stories of eating tsampa. He said even his brother won't eat it now without sugar.

After that I headed for the Wushuguan. Practice was okay, despite being with the older class that never gives me any hints at all. I did fairly well, all the same. After all, I am practicing with people who have been at it for 3 years or more and mostly keeping up...

Ah blessed Saturday! I slept in until 8:30! Partially cause even though I woke up at 7 and 7:30 the bed was so darn warm and cozy I couldn't see getting up just to come and type in yesterdays journal and work on drafting my speech.

When I did get up and start working everything was going really well, even Yeung-moke came to use the computer which prevented me from spending too much time on it, but then Dave showed up with Amaya the new teacher. She's Spanish, but has an English passport, therefore she got hired cause they don't check too closely... her English is flawed (I knew she wasn't English within two sentences). At first I was being nice but sort of rolling my eyes inwardly. As if it wasn't bad enough they hire people with no experience, bad enough they hire people with no degree... now they are hiring non-native speakers with flawed grammar and pronunciation. But I warmed up to her. Even though she was sick and looking for me cause Dave thought I could find a traditional Chinese doctor to get her an herbal cure, and less than thirty hours off the plane from London... she was totally upbeat and friendly. She is a bit, well, non-native in her methods of speaking, in that she'll sort of go on really odd tangents and she'll misunderstand but think she has... but that was a problem when she was responding to what I was saying (describing my speech outline, etc.). When she started her own conversational gambits she was really super interesting and fun to talk to. After a few minutes I found out she's got a Master's (she did her thesis on something like the political ramifications of the spread of English around the globe). She hung out with me while Karjam went to meet Tsephel's younger brother, so I couldn't get anything done at all. While talking with her Gompa called me and I promised I'd come to Xiahe next weekend, so I guess I am really going!

We went to meet Karjam a little more than an hour after he left and then found a doctor. She got all prescribed and we ate noodle soup for lunch. That was when I really started thinking she'd be a good teacher. I had said to her already that Karjam was studying English and if she talked to him slowly and with very easy subjects that he'd understand. I've said that to all the staff members, I'm sure. But Sarra is the only other one who has really made more than a one or two sentence "How are you?" type attempt with him. She talked with him most of the way through lunch and refused to let me translate, and he got part of it, anyway. She didn't always stick to stuff that was easy enough for him, but seeing her --enjoying-- speaking with him and very naturally correcting and asking him to repeat things and what not, I know she'll be a great benefit to the students in her classes. I walked them back here, then ran off to go to the bike shop, but on the way I met Jim and so I took him to the foreign foods store instead. Actually I took him there, and I went across the street to look at hiking boots. There were two that I liked, and while I was trying them on and trying to choose Kathleen came in. I met her at the training, she's veggie and super super outdoorsy and fun- reminds me of Anne S. one of my housemates from college. Very warm and enthusiastic. She helped me choose the more expensive ones. Unfortunately, I didn't have that much money on me (the cheaper ones were 385 and I had 400 with me, the ones I chose are 485). The more expensive ones are less shoe- no ankle support. They are from Timberland, made in Macau. They have good flex and ventilation, the others were heavier and not much flex. Basically, I don't go hiking much. What I really need are sort of "tough" shoes, and these short ones will be just fine for that. Also, they won't look funny just walking around Lanzhou, so I can wear them in my free time when it's cold and I need the space for socks. They are unfortunately the ONLY pair and men's size 9. So, that's what I am going to buy, tomorrow.

Wushu went well, though very repetitive. Partially cause we got a new girl! Middle school, maybe early high school, a former dancer who wants to learn Wushu now. She'll be good at it, I'm sure. She actually looked at me and asked me the correct way! And I knew! So I am not the new kid on the block anymore. I rushed back home, only stopping to eat my favorite new snack. The snack is a bunch of fruit on a skewer (boy the Chinese love to shove a piece of wood through food!) then rolled around in hot sugar syrup. It dries with a hard transparent coating of sugar on the outside. I've tried several, but the best, absolutely, is the hawthorns, or rather haws stuck on that stick. The sour haws with the sugar is SOOO good. When I got home, however, Karjam was off watching a movie somewhere (he left a note).

After Karjam got home I wanted to tell him about my shoes, and meeting Kathleen but halfway through the story he got pissy. He started ragging on women again. "Women can't just make a decision and buy something." I mean, this is coming from a guy who goes to the same restaurant about once a day and still looks at the menu (all four pages) for 5-10 minutes before ordering! When we went to buy him undies he looked over undies at about five locations and didn't buy them, they all had some problem in his mind. That amount of thought for something that costs less than 20 Yuan and without much risk of causing health problems, whereas paying almost 500 for a pair of shoes- 1/6th of my base salary for the month- and since good shoes can really keep your feet happy and you in good spirits, but bad shoes can cause all kinds of blisters and other problems... So he wouldn't shut up about it, either. I tried to raise points about spending large amounts versus small amounts, and buying important things versus unimportant things and he was off on this kick of how you have to throw them out after two years, anyway (of all the shoes I have here, only one pair, my pretty beaded grass sandals from Thailand were bought within the last two and a half years). He got more pissed off the more I tried to argue my point, when all I'd set out to do was tell him about one aspect of my day. This coming from a guy whose two biggest budget items of clothing are so completely mid-eighties it's unbelievable he bought them in the last three years. (Actually yesterday morning when he went out it was to give one of those I'd said I'd never be seen in public with him wearing to a friend who will pass them on to some friend in Hezuo). So then he starts ragging on about how women will never shut up. I get really tired of him bitching about "women this" and "women that". Last time he did it I asked him why he wasn't in a relationship with a man if women were so hard to be around. Then he did this thing he does far too often, where he tells me to stop talking. You get mid-discussion, you have a misunderstanding or some bad feelings to work out and he closes down.

I went and asked Misa to walk me to go buy a fried sandwich and vented to her. (Hee hee my Chinese is good enough to vent!) Then when we got back she invited me in so I ate my sandwich and drank tea and talked with her and with Lanka a little. If I marry this guy I am -so- restricting my future life. It makes one think very seriously, is this a good idea? There are so many places I'll probably never go, and so many things I'll never do and I'll always be earning more money than he does (unless he does make it as a big time singer) and supporting him, and then there is the kid thing... I am really having major second thoughts about all of this, or maybe I'm just getting in touch with reality.

So I decided that two can play at the non-communication game if that's what he wants. There were times (not more recently than when I was in college) that I went a week without speaking to anyone. I can certainly wait until he asks me to speak and then some, if he's the only person I don't speak to.

I spent the whole morning on papers and the Internet- primarily, I applied for some jobs. I also looked at a lot of jobs I didn't apply for. There are volunteer positions with this organization that promotes play for kids in really bad situations. They have positions in a lot of African countries, plus a couple Asian and Latin American countries. They pay an honorarium of 8,000 dollars for the year and give you help with housing and food and they pay for your air ticket and insurance. It sounds really fun, and of the two sorts of positions, one interests me and I think they'd take me. It's also probably less of a hassle to apply than the freaking Peace Corps. I always look at jobs or apply for jobs when I am not happy with my current situation. All those headings- Russia, Poland, UAE, and each of them needs someone like me...

I called Babatunde right before I left for the Wushuguan. He's this photographer/animator guy from London that I've known on the Internet for quite a while. We flirt. It's not the first time we've talked on the phone either, and no, he doesn't know I'm living with a guy. I picked up my shoes on my way, and they cost only 435, not 485. I'm not sure why. I mean, if I was the store owner guy, I'd just mark the things at 435, cause it'd make people more likely to buy them! Wushu was okay, but because of that new girl (I purposefully went to the same class as her instead of my usual early morning Sunday class) it went really really slow and repetitive. Zhong-xu was there for the first time in a week. I practiced the new form I'm learning just a little bit by myself. Oh, and I should also mention, that I now do the most kick-ass one handed cartwheels around. The problem is just to get it to be no-hands instead of one. But I only touch the one for a short period of time. All the kids in that (pretty low level) class think that I am "Oooohhh!" every time I do something. I didn't do the next class because it was the little itsy-bitsy kids and I sure didn't want to be in that one! They are like an inch tall! Speaking of tall, there was a female giant on the bus today! No, I shit you not! A female giant! She was so big and tall that when sitting down the guy next to her didn't reach to her shoulder! She was probably about seven feet tall, but she had the big head and big everything that denotes giantitis as opposed to just being a really tall woman. She had to bend over when standing so she could exit the bus, and she had to seriously hunch to get out the door.

After Wushu I wanted to find the last decent bike shop that Kes had told me about, but I couldn't. (Possibly it's closed on Sunday). I got sucked into the Foreign Language Bookstore and ended up buying three books, two are Chinese with one side of the page in Chinese and the other in English, and are traditional and on Chinese themes. The other is a classic I'd never read- Scott's "Rob Roy". Not sure why I never read it, as I am sure it'll have lots of fun parts. The three books were pretty cheap, though I could have bought some others for much more money if I'd been out to spend spend spend. I came home deciding to cook a Ramyun, but instead I got inspired and cooked Kimchi Boke-um Bap. Unfortunately Karjam was home and doing his best to not talk to me. Apparently he's not dying to speak yet. I ate by myself (though I left him plenty in the pan) and then vacuumed the floor. What an exciting life I lead. A man who hasn't even tried to talk to me yet, so he's got no idea I'm not talking to him, and the vacuuming. Whoo-ee! I called Dave to ask how I could make my computer read DVDs... perhaps that was my big social gambit of the evening.

In the morning Karjam didn't stir. Nor did he eat the breakfast I left in a bowl in the kitchen. (I didn't want to leave it on the burner, as when I did that yesterday he didn't turn off the burner after using it). My classes went fine, though I think I'll massage my lesson plan a bit more. We start with a few pages in the book, then we have discussions around questions of "Have you ever...?" that I wrote on the board (Have you ever received a love letter, cut someone's hair, been on TV etc.). The students did a good job on the conversations. After the break I had them write another outline but with a complete introduction and conclusion. The first class wrote about "Alternative Sources of Energy" (that's my Ecology majors) and the second about "China Sent a Man to Space." Only two students in the latter class had the independent thinking to say "What a waste of money when education is in the state it's in, it's just a publicity stunt!"

After class I came home, and Karjam ignored me, so I went to eat lunch with Amina, Amira, Paulina and Lanka. We ate in a campus cafeteria. Last time I ever do that! Ugh! So dirty! After lunch I took Lanka to the traditional doctor to get some medicine for her face problem gone wild. Then I cleaned house while Yeung-moke used the computer and Karjam ignored me. After the elementary school class (same lesson plans as last Thursday) Paulina and I went to the electronics market and I bought a humidifier. Unfortunately Karjam can't tell me how it works, and I have some questions, though I have made it work sort of. It cost me about 14 dollars.

Michael and I went to dinner together. He finally made out with the girl he's been hanging around with since practically his third day here. They spend like 8-10 hours a day together. So I felt I had to tell him I knew he was married. I mean, if I didn't tell him, then it'd be really uncomfortable if he later found out that I knew. He was really really embarassed but after a couple minutes I forcibly changed the subject. I also told him it didn't matter to me. But I did learn a few things. For one thing, he considers his wife to be the woman of his dreams and would never want to lose her for anything. He claims this is the first time he's been even unfaithful enough to her to kiss another woman. They've been together for seven years and married for five. There are still things I don't understand, like why she'd just accept him saying "Don't come visit, you wouldn't like it here, it's dirty and frustrating." I mean, if he can stand it, wouldn't she want to at least see what it's like? Of course I don't understand why he'd come here without her if there are no problems in their relationship. As for my own, Michael sees and hears more about me and Karjam than anyone else except Misa, and he is increasingly moving into a position of "the guy is not good for you".

After dinner I was only home a few minutes (I brought leftovers for Karjam, no thank you in return) before I had to start my evening class. Eight hours of class today! Tough! The class went fine. We did qualities/flaws (which didn't work perfectly as some of them wrote down "conventional" and "general" as qualities! What sort of questions can you put to the group to find out who fits those nondescript adjectives? And what in the world were they thinking when I told them a -good adjective- and a -bad adjective- to describe their personality?) and brainstorm rummy and the same conversation on "Have you ever" as my students (but with less success). Only six students came to class today, and I know all of their names, which is great since they are my most reliable attendees.

Back home Karjam was on the computer and since we aren't talking I couldn't tell him to stop practicing typing (what's the point when he can't even write a decent sentence but he is teaching himself --touch-typing-- with this Korean program that my computer came with?). So I called Sarra and demonstrated how women love to talk. She's doing okay. But she took on too much extra stuff cause she's a victim as she puts it of "New Teacher Syndrome". She is actually (with a little help from Gavin and Mina and a lot from her students) making a Haunted House for Hallowe'en, complete with spiders hanging from the ceiling and bodies and stuff... sounds like fun but way way way too much work. Just after we got off the phone and I started typing a few sentences here Jinhee and Yeung-moke came to ask about going to Gannan this weekend. So I gave them the scoop (again). Now I am tired, so I think I'll read a bit more of the book I started yesterday and go to bed. The good thing about Karjam not talking is that I don't teach him English or waste a lot of time in conversation so I actually can type really fast without him interrupting me.

I like having titles on the days. What do you think? Anyway, I had class in the morning. I am a mean mean professor. I gave the students very specific and very difficult topics. My first class had to write about "China's Relationship with North Korea" and the second had to write about "The Exchange Rate for the RMB". Both of these of course are hot issues and in the news a lot (in my case, the Yahoo News). The first because of China's closest of all countries relationship with NK and the ongoing nuclear issue and the second because now that China is a member of the WTO most countries are really pressuring (including the US when Bush talked with Hu Jintao just three days ago in BKK before the APEC summit) for China to stop having their currency pegged to the dollar at a below market rate. The fixed rate is 1 USD= 8.23 RMB but the fair rate would be more like 10 RMB. This gives China an unfair advantage when exporting, and China's not so concerned about importing. It was difficult for some students (of the type who find sleeping an inconvenience as it takes them away from the lab) to have anything at all to say as they hadn't thought about it. But the second class has many economics majors, which is why I'd picked that topic.

I went straight to buy a fried sandwich and some spicy mashed potatoes and ate at home, then when reviewing Tibetan for a couple minutes before class with Tserang Dunma things with Karjam came to a head. First I more or less said "If you act like this, you should leave, cause I can't live with someone who does this." and he packed (mostly) and all that... but he obviously didn't want to leave. I never went to talk to Tserang Dunma. I did lean over the railing and ask Yeung-yoon as a favor to talk with her in English (his English is okay) and later learned he did for thirty minutes. So in the end I suggested that we stop talking about marriage and the future and just live together as friends. He said he'd think about that, if it would work for him. Among various priceless bits of the day "My father never tells me mother thank you for anything." which I countered by pointing out his father also helps his mother in countless ways, whereas he doesn't move his (glorious dancer's) butt. "If we were married, I'd never let you go visit Gompa (his second best friend) in Xiahe and I am very unhappy you are going." (Huh?) "I will certainly sleep with other women after we get married. But I'll use a condom." I didn't bother to mention that since he has an erectile problem and a small dick using a condom was highly difficult. Of course I am -not- able to do the same. "I can't not do what I did for the past few days (the no talking thing) that's essential to who I am." Right, and I have to stop being irritable and also eat meat and have a fucking baby or two!

By the time all that was done it was time for me to go to the Wushuguan (in other words 12:34-6:15 was wasted on this bullshit posturing macho man crap). I was so out of energy from crying and stuff that I didn't really finish the lesson, I almost collapsed. I was so at the end. Also I hadn't had time to eat dinner, so I was running on fumes, or out of fumes even. Completely empty. I took the bus to Tserang Dunma's dorm, she wasn't there, but I left her Korean Ramyun and American instant (vanilla) coffee which should be two special enough little peace offerings that she'll forgive me. Back home I told Karjam what I had been thinking about all through Wushu which was I really don't want to marry him anymore, cause when I said I would he hadn't even mentioned this mandatory baby thing (and in fact I had asked if adoption was fine with him and he'd agreed). I told him he'd changed so much and was trying to force me into so many things I didn't want to say "Yes, I will" now. Not sure he heard that loud and clear, but he did while I was gone arrange to borrow money from a friend, so he'll take care of his own costs, like a friend, not like a husband living off me.

So, this morning we had to waste more time on uncomfortable conversation. If we are not going to get married (it's a possibility but supposedly one to not ponder for a long time) then why the fuck do I still have to listen to this crapola? But we did have sex for the first time in like six or seven days, which is good. I mean, I needed the orgasm to relax. Heck, we may never have gotten into it in the first place if we'd had sex in the couple days before that. Why didn't we? Cause he watches TV until I'm asleep and in the morning I don't have extra time to fool around. And the weekend was when we started fighting... so...

I made scrambled eggs with green pepper, tomato and yellow onion, and a slow cooked (well, I have an option of too fast or too slow) potatoes with a bit of onion. There is ketchup in China, so it really was just like a nice American breakfast. Karjam always likes all my American style food, he doesn't like the Korean at all. I only mention details like what I had to eat because if you ever think of moving to China, you'll know. I could buy oregano and some other spices (no basil) at that imported store, and besides, I brought them with me. So, basically, you can eat "normal" food here if you know how to prepare it and don't mind scrambling your eggs in a wok.

I finally got out of the house at 2, and went to the West Bus Station (I live in East Lanzhou, and Lanzhou is like a long snake of a city straddling the river down the valley, it's quite narrow). I checked out when the last bus leaves for Hezuo (1:30) and talked to the bus station ladies who were quite friendly and nice. I hope they are equally friendly and not all "insurance scam"y when I go back there on Friday! On my way back to town I got on the bus and it was one of those with a seat next to the driver (the other side of the engine lump) and so I got to sit way up at the front and look out at everything which made me spontaneously exclaim "Oh! Interesting!" which drew a snort out of the driver (I exclaimed in Chinese). I told him just cause he sees it everyday doesn't mean it's not interesting to me.

I got out near the bike shop Kes introduced me too and walked up past the Giant shop on that street (there are two in town) and decided to check it out. I was having a really hard time with the full on custom bike thing, because everything I buy, it seemed like it would my heart hurt if it wasn't near the best available, but if everything (from the hubs on up) was that good... well, I'd be spending more than my budget (which is 3-4,000). I would have to make some compromises, and though it's easy to say that the rear derailleur has to be high quality, where do you draw the line and say "I'll buy a crap xxx, cause it doesn't matter."??? So, I decided to buy this Giant. No need for you to check it out on the Internet, the name is domestic name, not one sold in other countries. It's the ATX 740. It's an aluminum frame, maroon and black... pretty. Front shocks, shitty components all over the bike. About 1,500 Yuan. So, I decided to buy it, and have them replace their ugly ass handlebar (which is one of those dip in the middle jobs- ugh!) with another black Giant bar that goes straight across, and the guy said he has decent shocks (another 1,000 Yuan) to replace the crap ones that are on the bike now. So I will have him do that, then I will (I stopped and checked this out with them) have Kes's bike shop replace at first the rear derailleur (with a Shimano XT as I don't quite have an XTR budget) and the shifters (they are such crap!) and I am sure Kes's shop will give me credit for them, as they can resell them as new ones on a custom built bike. Also I have to change the pedals over to clips. Later changes (front derailleur, rims, maybe the chain rings and chain) will come when I have money or something starts to bug me. Oh, the brakes. They'll need to be changed at some point. But, you know me, stopping is never something I am overly concerned with, I just want to go, and go fast!

I felt very proud of myself, even though I ran off from the bike shop in the wrong direction (I thought I was north of Gannan Liu, the street that runs directly to the Landa Main Gate, but apparently I was south of it) I was still in a good mood finding my way back to Gannan Liu and catching the 82 bus to Home World where I bought toilet paper, dried fruit for the weekend bus rides, and 98% peach nectar (cause it was on sale and Karjam loves peach). Karjam was just leaving when I got it, so I made dinner for Misa, Lanka and myself. We had Korean dwenjangchigae and kimchi (radish and cabbage), kim (nori seaweed), rice and a salad that I dressed so divinely with a dressing of pureed (well, chopped and whipped with my fork) soft persimmon, minced walnut and soy sauce with fresh lemon juice and a bit of brown sugar to bring out the sweetness of the persimmon. Lanka sure benefits a lot from my love of Misa! Misa is beyond a doubt my closest friend here. I know I'm not hers, which is always an uncomfortable feeling, but the important thing is, I do have a friend.

I rushed off to class after dinner. Today for the first time I talked a bit, because I picked a discussion topic instead of the usual small small short short little mini-talks I've been doing. My topic (the Exchange Rate again) was too tough for most of my students (my own damn fault, I was just too interested in learning what mature educated adults thought about it). Three of the students (all three women) didn't know the first thing about it, and only one, Mr. Zhao has much to say about it, though Ms. Shi who is very opinionated managed to get up to speed (her listening is better than most) and venture opinions as did Mr. Huan and Mr. Li. But there were nine people there today, and the rest said almost nothing. So I sort of changed the topic and we talked about the disparity in development between the east and west in China. They had some stuff to say about that, but again, Mr. Zhao who has less English than Mr. Li or Ms. Huo (opera woman) managed to find more to say than anyone. I guess that's good, cause everyone should have their day, and Mr. Li has had days and days of speaking more than everyone else. I questioned Ms. Shi about her doctorate work (she's in the middle of getting that degree) and it's really interesting. Cultural Anthropology, studying 5 minority groups, all of which are quite small and all in Gansu and Qinghai. The largest group has 350,000 people. Three of the groups are Islamic and two are Tibetan style Buddhist. She is following and questioning 50 people from each of the five communities she is visiting. Not all of them can speak Mandarin, so she has to use a translator often when she goes into the field. I'd love to do a trip with her, maybe I'll try to mention it to her in private sometime. China has 56 ethnic groups, of which the Han is the largest. Gansu province has 18 groups living in it. Most of the ethnic groups are clustered in the West.

I stopped to talk to Michael before coming home. He has now committed adultery, no matter where you draw the line. That's how he put it. Incidentally Sarra lost the address to this page, otherwise I wouldn't even be able to say anything about it. I refused to give it to her again. I should never have given it in the first place. When I leave here, I'll give it to her. It'll be just as interesting then as it is now. I think only a few loyal friends like Randy and Mark read this as much as my mom anyway. So this is basically an extended letter to my mom which I hope at some point to turn it a kick ass New York Times bestseller. I mean, if freaking "Bridget Jones" is so interesting- I'm real, I'm not overweight, I don't drink or smoke... there are lots of people like me out there in the world. Or do only drinkers read books these days? I am -so- feeling good about my body these days. I think other than having dry dry dry skin covered with lines as much as most sixty year olds on my hands and face, that I am remarkably blessed physically- even my belly looks tighter now than it did in Korea, maybe this Wushu stuff does more for it that Taekkyon or Hapkido???!!! I don't know!

This is the view of Xiahe's Labrang Monastery (one of the 6 largest Tibetan Yellow Hat Sect monasteries and a pilgrimage site) that I took from the steeper non- forested mountains on one side last summer. Even though this looks like so much- this is not the entire monastery, this is about almost 2/3 of the buildings, and about one half of the size of the entire complex. The large sort of open space you can see on the right hand side is in front of the main hall, which is more or less the center of the space here. The different colored buildings off on the left are the start of the Han part of town (the Tibetan part of town is on the right of the monastery). This photo was taken with a 17-35 mm lens near the 17mm end of the spectrum, and the green in the foreground is a bit of the mountain I was standing on. The far mountain looks so dark because of the cloud shadow over it. The honeycomb buildings are monk residences and the taller buildings are different study/prayer/ceremonial halls.

This is one of the monks I met last summer. Walking in the mountains is a good way to meet some of the monks who are taking a break from their various tasks. This monk and his friends were relaxing in perfect late afternoon low angle warm lighting. The film, Velvia, combined with the lighting produced a somewhat overly yellow skin-cast but I still think he looks damn fine.

Today I taught two classes in the morning ("Water Use Issues for the Yellow River" and "Public Transporation in China"), came home, ate lunch with Karjam, went to the dry cleaner, got my shoe fixed, cleaned the kitchen, taught two classes at the elementary school, came home again, left for the Wushuguan eating a fried sandwich on the way to the bus, and practiced.

After class I hurried to Tserang Dunma's dorm. most of her roommates were there and the rest appeared. They set a bunch of snacks in front of me, and a hot cup of water and we laughed a lot. I taught one of her roommates, Wang Riping some Korean and I taught Tserang Dunma some English, it was a lot of fun, but we almost thought I'd missed the last bus, but I didn't. Everything with Karjam was good today, except he's still pissed I'm going away for the weekend.

I taught my class, ("Do You Trust the Media?" which was resoundingly answered no by all my students) and then had some time with Karjam including eating a nice meal before time to meet Michael, Jinhee and Yeung-moke. Karjam was still sniping at me not to go, or he knew rather that it was too late to change my plan, but he was still trying to get me to justify wanting to go to a beautiful famous location outside of this horribly polluted city for a couple days with three nice people who'd never have the guts to do it by themselves.

The four of us hurried down to the main road, where we caught a taxi for the bus station. At the station they hassled me to no end. Despite seeing my green card (which is supposed to preclude me from having to buy the insurance) they still made me, then didn't believe even the Koreans, and we all ended up shelling out 40 each, despite my ardent pleas, efforts, and truth be told, if I knew how to do it, insults (I don't know how to say "scam" and if I did...). The good thing was that there was a Xiahe bus leaving at 2, so instead of going to Hezuo for a night, we just went directly to Xiahe, on a small and fast little bus that got us there by just after 7 p.m. The tickets were 44.5 each. On the bus even though I had a huge stack of student papers I ended up talking with Michael and somewhat with Yeung-moke (who is super friendly) and a monk that he was chatting up. The scenery we passed through was great, especially tons of corn and some corn cobs drying on every flat surface. On roofs, roads, sidewalks, tied in bunches in a circle and looped over poles- really pretty. Most of the crops were in from the fields. Roadside stands had some last small watermelons but not much else locally produced.

In Xiahe we took a cab to the Tibetan Overseas Hotel. Even though I like the rooms in Tara Guesthouse they are always so rude to Karjam (no Tibetans in our hotel!) even though they have seen that I was with him two consecutive years of staying at their hotel. Besides, Lonely Planet has changed their top recommendation to the TOH, so I wanted to check it out. We bargained and the four of us paid 15 each for our room. After checking in we went to Snowland for dinner. It was not as good as before (the owner woman was not in evidence) but it was still scrumptious. I had the pancake with vegetables in it, and the noodle soup, and of course Eight Treasure (Ba Bao) Tea. The other three ate yak.

After we ate I called Karjam, who didn't answer, and Gompa, who came to meet me in the TOH lobby with his wife and their daughter. Actually they aren't married yet. That was a lot of our conversation, since they are getting married soon and he wants me there. The daughter at two years and nine months is active, talkative and precocious. She said to me "Hello! Nice to meet you!" in an absolutely perfect accent. I mean, Gompa's English is good, but the English she uses -sounds- great. The three of us sat in Gesar Restaurant while she ran around, and Gompa and I talked. His wife has some English listening skills, but didn't speak any. However, a few times when I translated, she filled in the rest (this was speaking in Chinese). His wife is about four inches taller than him, which immediately made me like her, since I am taller than Karjam, too. The conversation was mostly me telling Gompa the things Karjam wouldn't want me to tell him, but I KNOW Gompa understands Western culture and understands me when I speak English on level Karjam can't. He's a -much- more liberal guy than Karjam. So we planned for Gompa to manage to thread some explanations of different things into talking to Karjam, under the guise of generally passing on info about how Western people are.

So I got up early, but not before Michael, who is always an early riser. As it was overcast I asked Michael if he wanted to take a round of the Pilgrim's Walk. It has 1,500 or so prayer wheels to spin, and it's pretty darn long around the entire outside of Labrang Monastery. His behaviour was good, which again made me think he's a good guy, though at times I really get tired of his bitchiness. He is so freaking cynical! He was raised as a practicing Jew, but got married to a devout Lutheran, which put an end to that. Anyway, he's very respectful of religion and said that he felt turning the prayer wheels was a way to facilitate prayer regardless of the actual belief system you followed. It was no one but us and the Tibetans at 7 a.m. with the sun not over the hill yet, and the air so cold that the prepared people had big furry gloves or mittens on their spinning hand. It felt great, and I very naturally chanted "Om Mani Padme Hum" which a couple of times got me major double-takes when someone realized I was a foreigner.

I had arranged to meet Gompa at 8, and we were a couple minutes late, but the Koreans weren't in evidence even in the room. So Gompa, Michael and I went to eat breakfast. After that I found the Koreans, and the girl they'd had a talk with the night before was there, too -AND- it was Gyung-ah who I'd met in India in Delhi a few months before!! So that was pretty fun, and the five of us, plus Gompa went off to Sangke Grasslands to visit some nomad friends of Gompa's, who offered milk tea, tsampa and yogurt. The former and latter were better received than the tsampa, especially since Gompa put lots of butter in it. I took photos around there, despite very bright midday sunlight. The taxi out there and back that waited for a us an hour and a half cost 30, which put the lie to last summer when I got ripped off by some idiot who took me to Sangke to a place I couldn't even get a decent shot...

Back in Xiahe we did a little shopping, Michael bought a coat, and then Gompa invited me to lunch at his house. He came back to meet me at 1, which allowed me to ask him across the street to help me buy two shirts. One was for mom, a beautiful traditional shirt, not a jacket, made from silk with a side closure, not straight up the front. The other was for Karjam, a style they swore was a Maqu style, and in a white heavy weight silk with gold thread embroidery, and the cuffs and button opening area trimmed with a heavily embroidered strip with gold and purple and pink flowers, all lined in sky blue. I know it doesn't sound very manly, and Michael didn't think it looked very manly either, but that IS what they wear, and what kind of Tibetan doesn't have a single full on traditional outfit? Even just that shirt is going to allow me to take some traditional photos of my man.... So, he needs the coat to go over the shirt (and jeans) but I knew I couldn't buy one of those that'd make him happy even with Gompa's help.

Lunch at Gompa's was a lot of fun. His wife prepared not one but four vegetarian dishes for me, which was way overboard. Three of them were good, and while the cooking was going on I had fun playing with their daughter, who is at the age that loves to have all eyes on her. We talked a lot, about the future, and Karjam's English (Gompa agreed that he'd never seen anyone study harder and remember/understand less). (Gompa has tried to teach him a fair amount of what he knows, including times like an entire month recently when Karjam was living there with them).

After the long lunch Gompa and I walked through town to the bus station, bought three tickets (cause I knew Michael wanted to leave earlier than our 8:30 bus) and also bought Karjam some meat. I don't know why he thinks that Xiahe would have good meat but in the large city of Lanzhou there isn't any, but that's what he thinks. Anyway, I bought some with Gompa's help. Lamb or mutton, I don't know. Anyway, sheep. Finally Gompa and I sat down for a cup of coffee which unfortunately lasted till the end of the magic sunlight, so I didn't get to take advantage of it at all.

Just at six I said goodbye to Gompa and met Michael, Gyung-ah, Yeung-moke and Jinhee and an Israeli girl whose name I didn't catch. We went to Gesar for dinner as Michael had taken a dislike to Snowland because of some people staring at him when he ate his lunch. However, everyone was so disappointed with the menu at Gesar that we ordered light. After we ate our light meal, we went outside to enjoy the stars since the power had cut out again. We decided to walk down to the little river and listen to the river and look at the stars, but unfortunately the lights came back on. We went down anyway, and it was nice, I saw a shooting star. The river sounded great, rushing and gurgling and churning a bit and I even managed to get the Koreans to be quiet for about a minute so we could enjoy everything peacefully. Koreans are boisterous and fun, which is not much given to quiet contemplation of the star shine (it was the New Moon night). After our walk we went to Snowland and had more food and tea and talked. Throughout the weekend a lot of what Michael said was bitching. He seemed to regret going, and nothing was to his liking. Certainly not our cold (we didn't light the coal stove) four bed room, the food, the bus ride, the things to see... I think the only things he really enjoyed were the prayer wheels and a new hat (he likes hats) that he bought made with fur (rabbit?) and silk. I like him, but it was hard to stay upbeat at times when I have him bitching that nothing is as nice as I said it would be... "I walked down to the Tibetan part of town. There is nothing there except a dirty street." "Michael, didn't you see how the people are living and learn something more about that by going there?" "It was dirty."

We woke up just before seven, but then I realized none of the restaurants would be open, so we did a circuit of the Pilgrim's Walk without spinning the wheels though, which would have taken much longer, bought a warm loaf of bread and took a taxi down to the bus station. They did end up checking ALL of our insurance again on the bus, just as the bus was pulling out of the station. Fuckers! The thing is, since we all have green cards (residence cards) we are exempt from that scam... technically... only apparently no one bothered to tell the current batch of rude bus station ladies. Actually I didn't argue it with the Xiahe people, just gave them a look. Jinhee and Yeung-moke had so much fun they want to go out again before our permits run out in 20 days.

The bus ride back was okay, we had a monk who was wearing layman's clothes sitting between us (we were in the back row as it was the only one with opening windows). He was very nice, and we talked a lot, but ultimately I think he should wear his robes all the time, even when rushing on a four day roundtrip halfway across China and back to deliver a religious text to another temple. He seemed to think it was easier to go without his robes. That probably would have made me feel easier if he was wearing any old clothes instead of rather stylish ones. His name was Gomched Jamtso, and after we arrived we all took the bus to Landa and I called Karjam so the five of us had lunch. Karjam wasn't impressed with the lack of robes, either.

Back at home with Karjam everything was good- really good. The meat was just what he wanted, and the fact that a fly (we've never had a fly before in our apartment) immediately appeared confirmed for him that meat is good. The shirt I bought him is a bit tight in the neck, and a hair short in the arms, but it was the biggest they had, and he does like it. Especially the color. After we had our whole little reunion thing and he fell asleep.

I wanted to go sit outside (in the sun) and get through the rest of Monday's papers, but when I got to the lobby Mina and some of the Yuzhongites were there. When none of them were around she told me that she has a big problem- she told some foreign friends of hers who were visiting campus to check out the empty teacher's apartment which is across from Rob R.s room, and they came back and told her that whoever lived across from the empty apartment was smoking hash. After Mina learned what that was, she got shocked "It's against the law!" She immediately called campus police (who are real police, since it's a public university) and they fortunately had to say they wouldn't know it if they saw or smelled it. But, she told me she was sure that some one from Lanzhou would know and soon go search his rooms! I tried to explain that (those rampant) drinkers on the staff were much more likely to be poor teachers as they could be hungover and grumpy, but that one could smoke hash all day and be a wonderful teacher the next day. She didn't care, she said, cause it's against the laws of China! So, then I mentioned that the school would have a hard time if they lost an employee midterm and also that if they didn't want to be singling out Rob then they'd have to search everyone's room. I also mentioned that he was surely not the only one (though it's a good thing she doesn't understand the meaning of the nickname they use for him "Dimebag").

By the time I had had half a conversation with her the sun was gone, and we still hadn't talked much as repeatedly Rob F. or Tom or Amaya wandered through. We took a raincheck and I came back upstairs to finish looking at papers before Karjam woke up. Karjam and I had dinner together at the restaurant that Michael and I went to the other day. It was not bad, I ordered spinach and made Karjam eat tons of it for the high iron content (as Mark pointed out that more iron might stop his nosebleeds).

In evening we talked a little bit, or a lot, and well, it seems like he's singing a bit of a different tune. It's hard to remember cause it's been almost two days, so let me combine Tuesday, Monday and Sunday's conversations. First of all, he said he doesn't want to change me, but thinks I have to if we are living in Maqu or Ahwencang, as otherwise both of us will have a difficult life. He says he likes me the way I am, and if he wanted a housewife that'd happily stay home and cook and raise babies he would (have) marry(ied) a Tibetan woman. He also said that he wants to keep hold of our money (first he described this as the key to some locked box in our house, but then he described it as carrying the bank card (though he readily says he wouldn't make any major purchase or loan or anything without talking to me first). He considers it the "Master of the House"'s responsibility to be in charge of the money. He thinks that if he married a foreigner and got divorced people'd still be talking about it twenty years after he died. It's the last thing he wants. If he gets married to me, and I divorce him, he says he'd be "finished". I am sure he's exaggerating somewhat, but you know how small towns are, and how people like to gossip. Anything the two of us do will definitely be gossip material. He's freaked out I'll just walk out on him, like I did last summer when I left Ahwencang without a word to him (I was PISSED OFF!). He also said that all that stuff about another woman was a joke, and he'd never do that, and he isn't that kind of guy. Of course, after Gregory I decided that if I did get married again, I'd do a pre-nuptial agreement, and keep separate money. What am I going to do, invest in a home in his hometown, hand him the bankbook and just trust he doesn't start beating me? I don't want to have to scrape 500 Yuan together and run off to Beijing asking mom to spot me a plane ticket back to the PNW! Which is one reason he says we have to have a baby. Because then he knows I won't run out. Hmmph. That's supposing I won't want to run out just dealing with poopie nappies!

My eight hour day. Argh! My morning classes went well, except when rewriting their intro, conclusion and outline of a body some of them ended up handing me three fucking pages! I am definitely going to make a one page limit on corrections. Even though some people of course space things much differently. That's not my problem! Karjam and I ate at home, he had leftovers from dinner last night and I made myself one of my favorite salads with a mix of cooked and raw veggies (cooked eggplant, zuchinni and shitake mushrooms). The classes at the elementary school were good. When I was doing the first I realized Karjam should be there, as it's all stuff I've been teaching him, so I called him and he came for the second class. After class some of the students asked for his autograph, which was very funny. He had a hard time extracting himself.

We had dinner which he went out to buy for us, and while he was gone I got a hold of Rob and told him this BS story about some guy at some other school who the school searched and busted and sent home. I made the point "Be really careful what's in your room, cause I wouldn't put the same thing past Landa cause some rumor now in town has it that the foreigners are a bad influence on the students. Tell the rest, too." I also managed to finish looking at Tuesday's papers before Karjam returned with dinner.

I had my adult class, they were sort of annoying though, cause I felt pretty sick, and my nose kept running like crazy. We had a board game with questions, but everyone kept giving long boring answers... the game went so slow even after I told them to give shorter answers. Especially Ms. Shi was driving me NUTS. She speaks really really well, but she takes a damn long time to do it, pausing for much too long every sentence or two. When class was over Jinhee, Yeung-moke, Karjam and I watched "Donggeh" a Korean movie by Yi Gwuntaek I'd been looking forward to seeing but hadn't seen in the theaters (it was still there when I left Korea). It was really good, and Karjam sat through the whole thing (Chinese subtitles).

My moon came on like a ton of bricks during the second class of the day. Suddenly I had to throw up, and my knees hardly worked. I was about 5% of 100 away from fainting. I managed to make it through the class but I had to leave twice for the teacher's room and the bathroom until I felt well enough to finish. Fortunately I made it to "rewrite your essay" before I got so extremely out of it. The walk home and to our room took forever and I practically collapsed in the door. I was shaking and faint, weak in the knees and contemplating tossing my cookies again. But I got the Ibuprofen into my mouth and had a nice swallow of tea before Karjam helped me into bed. About forty-five minutes later I was feeling human and wishing it had happened in thirty minutes so I'd have time to eat before class with Tserang Dunma.

Class went well, I learned "I like XXX." "I don't like XXX." and "Do you like XXX?" today with a whole bunch of new nouns. Karjam showed up towards the end of class, and then Tserang Dunma made me annoyed cause when I flubbed reading the new nouns she laughed, which she doesn't do when Karjam isn't there. I left them and he came back about thirty minutes later, while I was trying to catch up on this, after a nice late lunch of Shin Ramyun.

Went to the pharmacy, they have no Advil, Tylenol, Ibuprofen or any non-name brand equivalents of any of those. Damn! I finally bought some chalky aspirin type things. (Which claim to be all natural and made from herbs). I must ask someone to send me some freaking pain killers before next month. Damn! Who would have thought a simple pain killer would be hard to find? We shopped at Home World, which Karjam loves to do... we bought him some facial lotion and shampoo and conditioner. Actually he bought it with the money borrowed from his friend. I didn't go to the Wushuguan cause I feel beat and drained, these chalky aspirin are hardly keeping me under the minimum threshhold...

Checking my email Psycho face has emailed and let me know that I am a "bitch" (well that's not what he said, but it's a good translation of what he meant). He still insists I owe him for the rest of the contract for the Internet.

My day went pretty smoothly until I tried to go to the post office. Karjam and I had a nice breakfast of potatoes and eggs, we did the laundry together, I finished Thursday's papers... then after lunch in a new restaurant (but not worth revisiting in my opinion) we hit the PO. I bought a box to fit mom and Juniper's present into (and decided to leave out the present I'd bought for Irene V. since I'd have had to go up to a lot bigger box, and I still want to send other presents later). I also bought some envelopes and a mailing label/customs form (they charge 2 Yuan for them!). But then they started in on something I didn't understand at all. I was feeling really frustrated and pissed off, I tried so hard to be nice, and to understand, and finally Karjam led me off. I totally wanted to cry. He told me you'll understand later, we have to take a bus. So we took bus 33 and got off at that same building where I went for my physical when I first arrived. First we went to the second floor, they directed us to the 8th. Then I saw an English sign for the "Customs and Quarantine Bureau". Ahhh! So, 8th floor gives us a form, back to the 2nd floor, they do something, tell us to go to the 6th floor. The 6th floor points out a problem on the form (mistake of the 8th floor) and Karjam went back to the 8th floor, got the form redone, back to the 6th, another form, back to the 2nd, paid 1 Yuan and got a stamp on the customs form and then on our way! Of course every time they took out the presents and looked them over. Fucking bureaucratic pinheads! They are worried about SARS leaving the country on a slow-boat package and incubating for two months on a silk shirt???? Fucking get a clue! As I told me evening class when I was teaching phrases with body parts "It made my blood boil!" (I kept my head, My heart sank, I was on my last legs... etc.)

We took the bus back, but time was running short both for hitting the post office and for cooking dinner before Chang-geun was due to arrive, so I dropped off the dry cleaning and picked it up (cause that was at the bus stop anyway) and Karjam went to the PO. Dinner was mostly cooked by the time both men arrived together. We had rice and kim and kimchi (two kinds), pickled garlic, dwenjangchigae, and jjim with dipping sauce. Chang-geun said "Noona, shijip baalli gaya dwaeyo." ("You've got to get married quick" which sort of means in that context that my food was as good as that of a housewife.) Chang-geun had brought three fancy cake pieces, all decorated to the hilt (though better looking than tasting). He's doing well, his girlfriend will be here on the 18th, also with some of his family members for a few days, then only girlfriend will stay here. Karjam and I were invited to a "welcome them to Lanzhou" dinner. That was nice of Chang-geun. He's one of the only people that I really feel is "our friend". He's a bit closer to me, but he includes Karjam, and speaks such good Chinese...

I ran off to my class, which was sorely under-attended and Karjam went with Chang-geun to the latter's Internet cafe. He's not home yet, I've showered, Gompa called, he's coming tomorrow, and I called Sarra who said that unfortunately the Yuzhong-ites know that Mina called the cops, but fortunately they all realize she's just being young and uneducated in the ways of the world and the evils or lack thereof of marijuana.

Class went fine. But, when I got home Karjam was just getting home, too. So of course I started worrying that Gompa had been calling for hours, but even sitting around home and checking the front gate did not turn up hide nor hair of him. Eventually I had leftovers while Karjam went out to eat and when he returned the monk from the Xiahe bus called. He was back in town. Karjam was unhappy he called and was coming to drop off his things at our place. Karjam thinks this guy is running books that the Chinese government is suppressing and regardless of what Karjam believes in his heart, he doesn't have the desire to get mixed up with the cops if they bust this guy and they come to me then they'll make problems for Karjam, and even though I am immune as a foreigner to most problems, Karjam is not at all. I'm not sure what's what, but he left all his stuff at our place, borrowed a bag from Karjam, threw a couple things in it and went to Northwest Minority University to spend the night there with a friend.

I taught the kids- this week we are doing a sort of cross between "Hokey-pokey" and Simon Says. The kids loved it, and it was great for body parts, left/right and in/out. After class Michael told me I could get my airplane money, so I ran off to try and hit the office before five. But it was terrible! First of all, they are only giving half of the money now. Secondly I got screwed up (my lousy math) and thought they weren't reimbursing me right. So, add that to being stressed and overworked and under slept and well... I got a bit dramatic about nothing. So then I had to apologize... ugh. That sucks, cause here I was as the most reasonable hard-working person and I sort of blew some of my credit, even if I blew it in front of two minor players who have no real power.

I was so stressed out and wound up it was a good thing it was a night for the Wushuguan. I exercised really hard, and then we started learning staff! I mean, from first twirling it. We practiced three motions. The first one I had a hard time with, but the second something snapped and all of a sudden I was whistling the staff through the air so hard and fast everyone stopped to stare at me. The third one I totally flubbed through the first two times my third of the group was standing up, but then I got it. The instructor let me take home my own staff, even if I have to cut it down to the size that is correct for me. So I looked a bit dorky on the bus, and of course then I met my student... but oh well! Also, I managed to get her to agree to some figure for money to give... twice what the students are giving, 300 for three and a half months. I feel more comfortable paying for class, and I go more often, and need a bit more intensive teaching than the small students. So, it seems fair to me. She is doing more and more physical these days, I think she's getting over her injury.

When I walked into the building here everyone (including Karjam) was in the central area eating food and drinking beer. It was even good food! Amina, Amira and Paulina prepared it, which meant it was pretty veggie friendly. Karjam taught some Tibetan dancing after I finally got him to demonstrate a bit of it. Now he's complaining his legs will hurt tomorrow... poor baby.

I love my one class Friday's. Yongtao was NOT in class, which is good, cause I don't want to get more of a crush on him than I already have (which isn't much of one, but a life without a crush is a sad life indeed). I still haven't explained this weeks lesson. First, after calling attendance (which fortunately is getting much better, I am not even embarassed anymore when I do it- even though I still probably make mistakes in some student's names) I made a very impassioned speech about never ever wanting to capitalize China or Chinese in any of their papers again. I had also made this point in the second lesson after I saw their first written work. You'd be surprised, I'd say as much as 80% of the students NEVER capitalize either, and only 10% never forget. I even drew three lines on the board and demonstrated that the C in China was as tall as the 'h' was. After that I introduced the idea of brainstorming, and told them we were going to brainstorm about "fears". I introduced the subject with housefires, which was my most serious fear as a child. Our house was wood, and I have a hazy memory of our next door neighbors house burning to the ground. Then I asked the students to tell me their fears, as a child or at present. Earthquakes, especially since there was an earthquake near here recently that made thousands homeless and injured over sixty people killing a dozen, were always mentioned very soon as were sandstorms and floods. Fear of the dark and being alone and losing one's job, death and growing old, illness, SARS... some of the more special answers included village leaders, my wife, and wells. After we'd brainstormed a long list of words and phrases I relayed two of my childhood fears (as I remember it, I had a lot... I've always been good at worrying). My first story was of being afraid of electricity. I grew up without electricity, and I wanted to mention that because of course everyone thinks that Americans all live in some sort of middle class TV house. Most of my students also grew up without out electricity. My classmate Jessica's dad worked for the electric company, touched a live wire and died when she and I were in about second grade. I was also very afraid of flush toilets, because Mia F. told me that sometimes the water comes out, and even a friend of hers (or someone she knew?) had been trapped in an overflowing bathroom. So, after that, I never closed the bathroom door if I was someplace with a flush toilet, like the corner bathroom in the classroom I had for my first three years of elementary school. I also flushed and bolted out. This was a funny story to relate to the students, and I asked them to write something equally short about a childhood fear of their own. Then when we had about 12 minutes left before the end of the first half of class I called names randomly of the roll book, and they came up and told their stories. In some cases it was almost impossible to understand what they were saying, and in some cases the stories were very funny. The second half of class we reviewed some passages in the book and then I had them work on the essay they outlined last week.

After class I got things done. Odds and ends. I finished the extra page of tax return they'd sent back to me (with mom's help) cause one page somehow went missing (I think it's in Korea in the file with the photocopies of the pages that didn't go missing) and voted in the local election. I scanned the photos Gompa had given me for use in a webpage for him, and cleaned up a few things around the house.

When scanning I had to meet the younger of the two guys from yesterday, I apologized again for being a little dramatic and he said he totally understood and not to think about it again. I believe him, too. He's really a mellow guy (part of the reason why I felt so guilty for being less than calm, cool and collected).

Gompa called at eleven and we arranged to meet at the same time as I was going to meet Tserang Dunma. So, Gompa, Karjam, Gompa's wife, daughter and I all went out to lunch. It was not so great, cause they ran out of rice, and so we had to sit around staring at the platters of food cooling as we waited for our rice for far too long. Gompa's daughter was super sweet with me, and let me carry her and sat on my lap and had her new stuffed toys kiss me. I felt bad for Tserang Dunma though, because I hadn't had time to call her and tell her about the change in plans, I just figured it would be okay because I knew she didn't have any more classes on Friday.

After the family went to the bus station to go back to Xiahe we did get to study, first we sat inside my building, but it was cold, so we went out and laid on the grass in the yard. It's the only piece of grass you're allowed to go on on campus aside from the soccer field. Most of the grassy areas are off limits to any sort of foot traffic, and guards patrol around and signs warn you off, plus small fences or hedges in the way of an easy step onto the green manicured lawns. It's so annoying. That kind of stuff is allover in China. Today we studied miscellaneous stuff, "It is..." with some adjectives, and also learned some new nouns.

The monk from Labrangsi showed up right as we were ending our lesson, he'd come to pick up his bags with a friend of his. When I came inside Yeung-moke was on the computer and Karjam was getting ready to go meet a friend, so I served some coffee and felt a bit relieved when they didn't stay long. After Yeung-moke cleared out, too, I headed to buy my bike. Except it didn't happen.

You see, the bike I want has these crappy shocks on it. So I had already told the guy I wanted them changed, and he had let me know they had some 2003 Marzochi (sp) Bomber shocks. But all they had was 2001 shocks, and since I'd seen the 2003 ones at Global (the other bike store) and seen how good they were I didn't want the crappy 2001 set they showed me that didn't even have any smooth damping action going on. The hold up was that the existing shocks are 300 yuan, and if the Giant store changes them, I get 300 Yuan credit for the shocks I am taking off. But since they don't have the shocks, what can I do? I asked if they'd just sell me the bike for 300 cheaper, keep the shocks, and I'd carry it on my back to Global, but that was a no. I finally asked them to go buy Global's shocks and replace them, and then let me go, and they even agreed, but Global had unfortunately sold those shocks to someone else. And the Giant place refused to call around or order a set from the manufacturer. So, we were deadlocked. I could buy the bike, take an immediate loss of 300 (maybe Global would give me a bit of credit for those shocks, but NOT 300 of credit, I'd be lucky to get 100) but be out of there, or try to get them to get their head out of their ass. Heads, though, were firmly rooted. If Global had still had those shocks, I would have just finally bought the bike and ridden it right over there, but since they don't, I have to wait at least a week (that's how long Global told me it'd take them to get another set of the same shocks) anyway, so no reason not to wait and see if the Giant shop finally decides they do want to make some money after all.

I took the bus to the Wushuguan area, and went to the department store there to buy some more coffee mix for Karjam and some Shin Ramyun and I got some toothbrushes while I was at it. Wushu was good, the Friday class is a hundred light years ahead of me, but that makes them fun to watch. The one kid that sticks out as being amazing, I asked him today, he's been at it for six years. He's so good. My third form I've learned (which is not a repetitive one like the first two) is getting good for approximately the first half, then the next quarter I know vaguely, and after that I've not really learned at all yet. I got clapped today when I did the first quarter... something is going right!

Back home Karjam was teaching Paulina dance again, and I was hungry so I came upstairs and cooked up some kimchi fried rice. When Karjam came back at first it was good. He was all like "I think we are done with our problems now." and we talked nicely, he even listened to the whole bike thing, which I'd been prepared not to even tell him about. I told him a few of the things that my mom had said in her email, and we were talking about that (when I answer the email, I'll tell you more about what he said) and then all of a sudden he starts bitching at me that the reason he can't speak English is because I always speak Chinese to him. What? This guy has been studying intensely for more than a year in class, and two and a half or so including the breaks, and still can't manage crap- and he's decided to blame me (who has only been teaching him the last two months, and he's seen great increase in that time) for his inability to speak?? He can't remember tomorrow what I spend forty minutes drilling today. I can speak one sentence per minute, and repeat it for the next two and it doesn't make a difference. I am so pissed off he called me a bad teacher. He is ALWAYS telling me I'm such a good teacher, and all of a sudden this change. Fine, he wants to speak English I will speak nothing but. I won't speak a single word of Chinese to him. Not a one. What a dickhead. Does he really think I want to spend all my time asking him "How are you?" I mean, why the fuck can't he just memorize "I'm fine thank you and you?" and parrot it like every other freaking student in Asia? Tserang Dunma barely studies an hour and a half a week with me, and yet she's a better conversationalist than he is.

Anyway, when I went to bed he was asleep, but I woke him up and refused to speak anything but English until he begged for Chinese about the third time. However, he did do a halfway passable job using English. "I want sleep now. Say tomorrow. I'm tired." and when I said "You have to say 'I'm sorry'". He said "I'm sorry." but after we started talking in Chinese, he just said he only said that cause he was angry, and he thinks I'm a great teacher, and he said "You are my hope." and a lot of stuff like that which wasn't so bad to listen to.